My informant is a Magic the Gathering player, and he tells me that when he really needs a good card, he’ll tap his teck, and talk to his deck and say stuff like “Come on, deck!” And then my informant says that he will pick the card up really slowly, and put it at the back of his hand and not look at it right away. He takes his time before he fully looks at the card. He believes that if he doesn’t look at it right away there is a better chance of being the card he needs.
When this person opens up new packs of Magic cards, he also does something similar. The rare card in the pack is always at the back, and most players will just go right to that, but he prefers to look at every card before it, hoping that if he takes longer to get to the rare then it will be a better rare.
When I play Magic, often times I will be in situations like these, where I desperately need a good card or else I lose. And I will say stuff like “Heart of the Cards” as I pull the card from the deck into my hand. Other times I will pick the card up from the deck and, without looking at it, place it on the table in front of me. After waiting a few seconds, I will pick it up slowly and look at it. I have seen a lot of players who will says “give me something good” or “Give me a good one” before drawing, and then in response to the card they will say stuff like “not a good one” or “close enough” or “I can work with this” as though they are speaking to the deck. While this is definitely featured in the TV show Yugioh, the tradition can been seen elsewhere. When playing poker or blackjack, players will often ask for good cards. While they may be talking to the dealer, said dealer IS the deck in a sense. The practice of asking the deck for a card can also be observed in magic routines (magician magic, not Magic the Gathering) where a participant picks a card and then the magician must either find the card or summon it to the top. In the latter case, the magician often asks the card to come to him or her.