Forest

The 1997 World Championship Decks were a commercial release by Wizards of the Coast designed to allow players to experience the strategies utilized by top-tier competitors at the 1997 Magic: The Gathering World Championships in Seattle. Each deck was a precise recreation of the 60-card lists played by the tournament finalists, offering a snapshot of the competitive metagame at the time. To distinguish these cards from standard tournament play, they feature distinct gold-bordered backs and signature facsimiles of the players.

The Forest card from this collection utilizes the classic foundational art style common to early Magic: The Gathering base sets. While the cards in these decks were printed using the same illustration assets as the core sets, their status as commemorative items has made them a unique historical record of professional play. The set is viewed by collectors as a celebration of the game's nascent organized play circuit, capturing the aesthetic and mechanical design language of late 1990s Magic before the introduction of more complex card frames.