The Trade Up Challenge: Can a Birds of Paradise Become a Black Lotus?

What if you could start with a single Birds of Paradise… and trade your way up to a Black Lotus?

That’s exactly the challenge I’ve set myself.

The rules are simple: I begin with a 4th Edition Birds of Paradise and keep trading for more valuable old school cards until (hopefully) I hold CE/IE Black Lotus in my hands. To prevent the project from dragging on endlessly, I’ve set a one-year deadline. If I don’t manage to get the Lotus within 12 months, I’ll sell the card or cards I’ve obtained during the project and donate the full proceeds to Mieli ry, a Finnish mental health organization supporting children and young people. If, however, I do succeed in trading my way to a Black Lotus, I’ll personally donate 500 euros to the same charity.

Why Birds of Paradise?

I picked Birds of Paradise as my starting card for three reasons:

• It’s one of my personal favorites because of its versatility.

• It’s an iconic card, part of the game since Alpha.

• It shares something important with Black Lotus—both can produce any color of mana.

• So, the Bird will hopefully carry me on its wings toward the Lotus.

My first-ever Old School tournament game, with the Birds making an appearance here too.

Who am I?

I’m Tuomas, a 40-something player from Espoo, Finland (next to Helsinki). On Discord, I go by Warru.

I first got into Magic in the late ’90s as a teenager, playing casual kitchen-table games with friends. With no game stores in my hometown, our choices were limited, so we relied on Portal cards and our own clumsy rule interpretations. Later we managed to get our hands on other sets, from Revised up to Apocalypse, but like many teenage hobbies, Magic slowly faded into the background once studies and other responsibilities took over.

During the COVID years, I stumbled across my old cards in storage at my mom’s place. I gave the game another shot, and it hooked me just as strongly as it had more than 20 years earlier. By chance, I found my way into the Finnish Suomi Old School MTG Discord community—at first hoping to play premodern, since those cards were familiar from my earlier years. Soon, though, I realized that while the Old School community in Finland might be smallish, it’s very active and vibrant.

My first step was an online tournament through Tolaria, followed by my first live event in October 2024 with a budget Erhnamgeddon deck. My matches weren’t stellar, but the community was unbelievably kind and welcoming to a newcomer. After a year of active play, I’ve gotten to know both Finnish and international Old School players, and realized something important: it’s the people that make this great game truly special. That’s also why I’m confident this project might actually work—the OS community has never been afraid of a fun (and stupid) challenges.

Why am I doing this?

Owning a Black Lotus has been a dream of mine ever since I first learned what Magic was all about. That alone is motivation enough.

But just as important is giving something back to the community. I want to offer a project that’s fun to follow, fun to participate in, and that also contributes to a meaningful cause through charity. And if I succeed, the Lotus won’t sit in a binder or display case—it will be played in the community that helped make it possible.

Follow the journey

I’ll be documenting the entire adventure here on the Old School MTG Finland blog. Since this project is about old school cards and players, a blog feels like the perfect “old school” channel compared to Instagram, TikTok, or other modern platforms. It’s also my small way of giving something back to the Finnish Old School scene, which has already given me so much in just a year.

To start, I’ll focus on trading with Finnish players to get things moving quickly. If it works, I’ll expand to international trades later. In the beginning, I’ll group several trades into one post rather than write about each separately. The only hard rule: every card must be playable in the Old School format.

If you’d like to join the conversation, you can reach me through Old School Discord communities (for example, Suomi Old School MTG / Merchant Ship / OldSchoolMTG, username Warru).