Chinese fakes

[seamonkeyman]

At the same point, they do have an obligation to follow international copy-write laws, especially when doing business internationally. Unknowingly breaking the law is still breaking the law and the printing shop owner should still be held responsible if it continues.

[Lemnear]

This may be the dumbest argument I've ever heard. Having 4x every Legacy staple does not make you part of the problem. It's the people sitting on a bunch of cards they never intend to use again treating them like they are Microsoft stocks or the people who buy 50x of the same card and drive up the price $5 just to make a $3 profit on each card after selling fees and shipping. I don't think I've been to an SCG in the past 3 years where I drove with someone and didn't loan out at least 10 cards and most people are the same. Back in the day that's what people did to get their friends into Legacy (before it was popular). Selling out and buying in is an idiot's game and I seriously doubt you actually do that unless you financially need to sell cards to buy new ones Lemnear.

Problems start at a small scale and climax at professional sellers like SCG. How would you call that friend of mine who sits on his 40 FBB but only playing blue since 2007? He has Plateaus and crap in his binder for 7 years without playing them.

I know that he and thousands of players hold on their cards in fear of price increases (that they partly cause themselves), but at least that specific guy does not complain about the prices.

[Dice_Box]

At the same point, they do have an obligation to follow international copy-write laws, especially when doing business internationally. Unknowingly breaking the law is still breaking the law and the printing shop owner should still be held responsible if it continues.

Would be a fine argument if it was not for China viewing Copyright law though the same lens as the average U torrent user.

[Dzra]

It doesn't require a Genius to figure out that there are many more Legacy players worldwide than full Sets of duals.

I'm not certain how true this is actually. There are a whole lot of dual lands out there, more than people give them credit for. A lot if them are tied up by what I'd consider "hoarders," those who own multitudes of playsets for no other reason than to hoard, meaning they don't ever actually plan on playing them. Another large chunk are tied up in the process of being bought and sold, by local stores, individuals, SCG, etc.

It's impossible that everyone gets their full set without creating a price Helix and increasing prices over time.

This is probably true, but at the same time, I don't feel entitled enough to tell people what they can and can't do with their money and their things.

Blame everybody else is too easy.

I don't blame stores or individuals at all. Although I find it distasteful, people have the right to hoard. Though you may not like it, stores need to make money and they have the right to charge you however much people will pay. The only ones I blame are Wizards because they are the only ones with the power to increase supply and make Legacy one of their flagship formats.

[triplesunflower]

At the same point, they do have an obligation to follow international copy-write laws, especially when doing business internationally. Unknowingly breaking the law is still breaking the law and the printing shop owner should still be held responsible if it continues.

Fair enough. Whatever financial levies are fine. But prison? No. It's obvious they're first timers at forging. One also needs to consider the environment. If there weren't a million nutballs around, I could post links to over a dozen companies that will produce counterfeit currency in whatever form you want and from whatever country you want and ship it straight to your door for pennies on the value. Unfortunately, if I did that, there'd probably be people buying forged M:tG cards and counterfeit currency.

Again, it doesn't make it right and while I am defending them to some extent, I'm not defending their actions. But any sane person could understand why'd they'd be so tempted to produce illegitimate products.

[Lemnear]

I don't blame stores or individuals at all. Although I find it distasteful, people have the right to hoard. Though you may not like it, stores need to make money and they have the right to charge you however much people will pay. The only ones I blame are Wizards because they are the only ones with the power to increase supply and make Legacy one of their flagship formats.

Sure you have the right to hoard as much as you want for whatever reason. You can support several decks at once, flip them for money, etc.

The only thing these people have NO right for, is hoarding cards without using them, but pointing fingers at others to decrease the supply, causing the beforementioned price Helix.

[Tormod]

2 Comments

1). Pretty sure a large volume printing company shipping globally is aware what the little C and R mean for copyright.

2) Get back on topic. Who cares what Lemnear definition of Hoarding is? (nothing personal)

[triplesunflower]

Pretty sure a large volume printing company shipping globally is aware what the little C and R mean for copyright.

No argument. It's illegal, and wrong. But don't be surprised. Large volume doesn't equal large profits. Do roughly $10,000,000 in revenue a year, scrape a 2% margin off of that, and then pay wages to thirty or so people.

Few wouldn't find forging extremely tempting at that point, especially when there's dozens or hundreds of other companies in the area doing the same thing.

All I'm arguing for is a little bit of compassion for people rather than screaming for them to be hung from the tallest tree.

[Stan]

I just called WotC. The customer support office people did not know about this problem, but I am sure someone in WotC does. I encourage people to call 1 (800) 324-6496 (Consumer) Wotc to voice their displeasure. The earlier they are able to handle this, the better.

I told them that they need to take this seriously. They need teams of people policing ebay for example. ie they need to a better job protecting their brand.
It's not just up to the player base. You need lawyers and police enforcement to fix this problem. Also, I encouraged them to put something on their website advertising what they are going to do about this problem. Wotc has NOT POLICED EBAY. For many years now, I constantly see copyright infringement,when buying cards online. Even if the seller advertises it as a proxy, it is still copyright infringement. I report this item immediately to ebay. I encourage others to do the same.

just a prediction, but altered art cards are about to be banned in tournament play.

These Chinese counterfeiters need to be put in prison.

With cheap fakes for sale now, that would be the single dumbest thing for them to do. Guys with heavily altered playsets of FoW's, Liliana's, duals or whatever, who played with their expensive pimped stuff for years, will then be forced by WotC to find replacements for their expensive cards if they want to continue playing. Piss off a bunch of people by making their expensive stuff worthless, forcing them to replace it, when cheap fakes are out there now. You do the math.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Problems start at a small scale and climax at professional sellers like SCG. How would you call that friend of mine who sits on his 40 FBB but only playing blue since 2007? He has Plateaus and crap in his binder for 7 years without playing them.

I know that he and thousands of players hold on their cards in fear of price increases (that they partly cause themselves), but at least that specific guy does not complain about the prices.

Well I'm pretty sure I said people who sit on cards and don't use them are part of the supply problem but I wouldn't be mad at them. The only people who have my distain are the speculators. I wouldn't even be as mad if they were actually making real money, at least I could understand then, but most of them are living pipe dreams and justifying it because Magic is their hobby and selling a card for more then they paid for it gives them a nerd boner. I'm pretty sure if you audited the average MTG speculator they would make significantly less than minimum wage for their efforts all things considered and the net result is everyone pays more. If this wasn't true the "bitching about prices" thread would still be full of genius "magic investors" like it was 2-3 years ago. Obviously though most of them ate shit trying to be too clever for their own good and buying a whole bunch of crap they didn't need.

[Honorik]

Good article about the Chinese Counterfeit Goods - http://www.businessinsider.com/most-...m-china-2013-6

Hasbro should do something and should do it asap.

Anyone who think that this is good for the game has lost his mind. This pretty much could be the end of paper magic.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I wasn't sure that zombies could ride on high horses until now.

No one is glorifying high prices. Go ahead, find one post in here from someone who is making a genuine attempt at discussion that glorifies high prices.

Lol. This forum is plagued by "I love that the high prices kick the scrubs out of my lsd..." and similar stuff.

Permit me to say, that through your eyes, Magic is a collectable card game. This is fine. As is that I can say, through my eyes I see a collectable card game.

This, thousand times.
It's a game. I played it in a pub and lost a Savannah. If I'd lost a rook in chess, I'd either thrown the set away and buy a new one or maybe I'd carve the missing rook of a stick, or whatever. Losing the Sav (yeah, tell me how I'm stupid, I love when ppl act like they ate all the wisdom in world and shit never happened to them, cause they're grandmaster Spot Object on Ground) cost me USD 60 or so, I can't tell the exact price and it doesn't even matter that much. This goes to all those "I got all, don't need to buy anything" and all those "you should have boguht them years ago", etc.; morale of the story is : (a) you may need new stuff even if you "have everything" and then it costs money, and (b) this game is no more meant to be played relaxed and in ease. The day I lost the Sav I thrown the EDH cards to binder, coz what's the point of dicking around the pub with a deck worthy 3000 USD and be constantly afraid that you lose/spill soda on something. Would you play marbles with golden marbles? Bah...
I miss the days when we were playing on the street under the lamp on a desk we've found on school garden and we didn't even counted our sixty when we were leaving, because even though they were the Good_Stuff.dec and the best in it's time (Necroknights, Zoo, Erhnam-and-Burn-'em, Erhnamgeddon, UW Control and such), because the most expensive cards were the Forces for 60 crowns and Erhnam Djinns for 90. And this was when one dollar was for 45 crowns.

I won't be playing children's pictorial game when the pictures cost two thousand crowns.

just a prediction, but altered art cards are about to be banned in tournament play.

Yep. That was the reason why I hesitated to BB-alter my UNL Trops even MONTH AGO. Now I'm a bit sad...

You haven't told us whether your term 'hoarder' is a derogatory term in your eyes. So I'm supposed to sell my beta Savannahs when I'm not using them for your benefit (actually for the local dealers benefit more likely)? Then what? Take it in the ass buying them back at double what I sold them for even if the price doesn't move? GFYS.

Pretty much this.

[sdematt]

A friend got his set in from the manufacturer. Nothing to worry about, ladies and gents. If you touch the cards when you're not wearing heavy winter gloves, you can tell they're not the same.

-Matt

[danyul]

Matt, would it be possible for you to upload pictures of a fake next to a real card? Knowing that they feel different is reassuring, but being able to visually spot the differences will definitely help people who want to detect fakes when buying online.

Edit - even better! Thanks for the info!

[sdematt]

The person is making a youtube video, actually.

-Matt

[Arsenal]

How do the fakes feel when double-sleeved?

[Dice_Box]

What about a sleaved card?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

What about a sleaved card?

Anyone byuinf a sleeved card BEFORE this affiar was a hazarder. Anyone doing it now is... I don't even.
Oh, you meant if they are distinguishible during tournament? Then I'm also interested!

[Barook]

This pretty much could be the end of paper magic.

Unlikely - they make the most money with Standard and M15 already has changes at hand to keep them safe, at least for a while.

If Hasbro had the power to actually stop those knock-offs, then knock-off Transformers wouldn't be such a huge problem.

Yes, those fakes are bad for the game, but so are hoarders (which I consider to be people who own way more than a playset of cards for the sole purpose of reselling them later at a profit) and especially market cornering to increase prices. Whether or not it's just SCG or other big players involved is up to debate, but this practice is not only shady, but downright disgusting. While we're arguing here, there has been a large-scale buyout for Cabal Therapy for not apparent reason.

There's absolutely nothing that supports this sudden increase in demand (unlike Stoneforge, which saw a similiar price spike on MODO).

Remember how we had threads about the format dying due to lack of supply thanks to the Reserve List and everincreasing prices? Those people are out there to choke the format slowly to death with absurd prices. SCG has done great things to promote the format, but I think they should get a free pass for that. Let's not forget that they're not only among the biggest price gougers and they also run Legacy solely for business reasons. They have shown their true colors pretty clearly last year that they would drop Legacy in a heartbeat if it isn't profitable enough anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate SCG and I love their Opens, but I hate their particuluar business strategy of exploiting the secondary market like that. I wouldn't even be suprised if there were price rigging between the biggest sites. When everybody rises the price by 10$, it's easy profit for everyone with no risk involved. There's no antitrust division to stop them and Wizards doesn't bother either.

@sdematt: What about being sleaved? Aside from that, the new batch isn't even out yet since it takes 10 days to make them, according to the info we have.

[sdematt]

Too thin, too smooth. This will be better told once the video is up.

-Matt