Counterfeit Magic Cards

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

I am surprised that counterfeit cards are not talked about very much. I feel like counterfeits are a big threat to many people's investments in the game and a threat to the future of the eternal formats. I think that the counterfeit issue might mean that eternal formats become online only in the future. If this is the case, hopefully Magic Digital Next provides a good playing experience and client. Anyways, do you think counteefeits will rise in popularity and end up killing paper eternal formats and people's investments in the old and expensive cards of this game? I think WotC can fix this issue by reprinting the reserved list and other highly expensive cards so their price plummets down and makes counterfeiting less desirable. Otherwise, the eternal formats will soon become almost exclusive to online play but not completely abandoned in paper. They will become like what pauper is now.

[Mr.C]

The consensus among the community is that it's not a big deal, they'll never be good enough, etc.

In my case, I've sold off pretty much everything of value. The thing with counterfeits is that don't have to be perfect. They have to be good enough to pass close inspection of more experienced players. Experts will likely never be fooled, but most people who deal with Magic cards are far from experts.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

The consensus among the community is that it's not a big deal, they'll never be good enough, etc.

In my case, I've sold off pretty much everything of value. The thing with counterfeits is that don't have to be perfect. They have to be good enough to pass close inspection of more experienced players. Experts will likely never be fooled, but most people who deal with Magic cards are far from experts.

I've heard of counterfeits that are pretty much indistinguishable from the real card without ripping them and looking at the middle so I wouldn't be so optimistic. I think its just a matter of time...

[Dice_Box]

The issue I have seen is every time this topic comes up it inevitably gets taken off the rails. If I recall, we have a thread that got up to 40 something pages in response to the frame change with the holo sticker that ended in flames.

The topic is unpleasant because in the end, anything that can be made can be replicated. If there is a demand for something that is unfilled people will try and fill that hole. The issue is that as technology advances and the demand goes unfilled... Well, you can finish that sentence yourself.

There is money to be made and indistinguishable cards are worth money.

[MorphBerlin]

I am surprised that counterfeit cards are not talked about very much. I feel like counterfeits are a big threat to many people's investments in the game and a threat to the future of the eternal formats. I think that the counterfeit issue might mean that eternal formats become online only in the future. If this is the case, hopefully Magic Digital Next provides a good playing experience and client. Anyways, do you think counteefeits will rise in popularity and end up killing paper eternal formats and people's investments in the old and expensive cards of this game? I think WotC can fix this issue by reprinting the reserved list and other highly expensive cards so their price plummets down and makes counterfeiting less desirable. Otherwise, the eternal formats will soon become almost exclusive to online play but not completely abandoned in paper. They will become like what pauper is now.

I don't really get your point, why counterfaits should kill eternal formats? I would see a slow stream of good counterfeits getting into the market as an illegal reprint would keep prices from exploding? The money just lands in China and people how get those cards into the market instead of Wizards.

[jawa]

How about revamping the reserved lists so that they can reprint some of the older cards? Wizards make money from reprints.

Or just abolish the reserved list all together. That will bring the prices down considerably to make it less profitable for the counterfeiters.

Personally, I own powers and have playsets of legacy staples. Yet I would like to see the eternal cards reprinted so that players can get hold of the cards. Cards are meant to be played, not speculated on.

[MasterBlaster]

I would like to see all cards taken off the reserve list except those that are on the Vintage restricted list. My collection's value would drop but I would like to see newer players be able to enter eternal formats 1st and foremost.

[Lormador]

I think a lot of the reason experienced players don't seem to care that much is that we already own most of the cards we need, and if the time does come to buy a meaningful card, we're pretty careful. If a fake is indistinguishable to me, even after I've spent a few hours Googling different tests I can perform on a card without damaging it, it'll pass similar tests performed by anyone else, and that makes it good enough to be real.

As a consumer, I benefit from the cards I want to buy being offered at a price I'm willing to pay. I also benefit from the ability to turn my collection into a pile of cash money, and there was indeed one difficult period when this later advantage had to be availed of. Still, that was a weird situation, and I value card availability at this point over the chance to make money off of my cards. They'd need to get a whole lot more valuable for me to consider selling them just for the money. I'd need to be able to buy a house with them, straight up with no debt.

I think I can count on Wizards and their Hasbro overlords to make rational economic decisions if counterfeiters start taking too much of their money. I'd prefer that the guys who designed the game I love received the largess I spend on the hobby, but unfortunately their policy at this time probably prevents a portion of my expenditures from reaching their pockets. Apparently WotC's MBAs fear card investor backlash lawsuits more than they hate watching counterfeiters take their money, giving us a status quo with which I am actually satisfied.

I'd be a little more satisfied if I had a Tabernacle though.

[apple713]

The thing about counterfitting cards is that the more you sell, the less valuable they become. So a person counterfitting singles probably wont have any effect on the market value. If he produces enough to affect the market value he would be better off mass producing sealed product.

[Ricardio]

How about revamping the reserved lists so that they can reprint some of the older cards? Wizards make money from reprints.

Or just abolish the reserved list all together. That will bring the prices down considerably to make it less profitable for the counterfeiters.

Personally, I own powers and have playsets of legacy staples. Yet I would like to see the eternal cards reprinted so that players can get hold of the cards. Cards are meant to be played, not speculated on.


I would like to see all cards taken off the reserve list except those that are on the Vintage restricted list. My collection's value would drop but I would like to see newer players be able to enter eternal formats 1st and foremost.

I don't have power but I have a sizable collection without many legacy players in my area. I was super excited when they spoiled EMA but sad because I knew the greedy minority would take the chance and drive up duals to make the format once again hard to break into. I want everyone to have access to legacy and enjoy what a wonderful format it is but I don't want it to become modern where the prices are always dictated by a handful of greedy bastards willing to destroy the game they are making money off of. I hate speculators and hoarders. People can't complain about modern because its gotten so bad recently that the prices are beginning to rival legacy staples.

[Watersaw]

Honestly, what is there to talk about? There's not much new to say. Cardboard is expensive, WotC won't reprint certain cards (I'm actually surprised at Force of Will making it into Eternal Masters after all those times MaRo said how reprinting it is a minefield and refusing to comment further), hobbies are not an investment, Chinaman won't actually hurt the market but his products will occasionally ruin someone's day, more fakes means more people play paper.

[Crimhead]

In theory fakes are no more dangerous to the market than genuine reprints. The danger is that fakes will be printed in such large numbers that prices will crash and LGSs will close their doors or just stop supporting Legacy.

[jrsthethird]

I hope that the increasing quality and availability of counterfeit cards causes Wizards to back down on the RL to preserve the integrity of competitive events. If counterfeiters become too much of a problem, they can reprint fresh cards with ugly holograms (maybe even foil-only) to ensure authenticity.

[Watersaw]

I hope that the increasing quality and availability of counterfeit cards causes Wizards to back down on the RL to preserve the integrity of competitive events. If counterfeiters become too much of a problem, they can reprint fresh cards with ugly holograms (maybe even foil-only) to ensure authenticity.

Foil only cards seem like a great way to annoy judges

[thecrav]

The thing about counterfitting cards is that the more you sell, the less valuable they become. So a person counterfitting singles probably wont have any effect on the market value. If he produces enough to affect the market value he would be better off mass producing sealed product.

Just going by bulk entry on TCGP, a set of blue duals will run you in the $3400 area. The counterfeiters will need to drive prices way, way down for it to stop being worth it.

[Dice_Box]

Cardboard is cheap. These people print DECKS of playing cards for pennies. Something dumb like 17 cents a deck. It would take a lot for them printing MTG cards not to be worth it with those overheads.

[tescrin]

I was super excited when they spoiled EMA but sad because I knew the greedy minority would take the chance and drive up duals to make the format once again hard to break into.

Is it "greedy" that the free market is ruled by supply and demand? Is it greedy for me to sell Kitchen Finks for $13 when I bought them for $2.50? I bought them to use them; and it's only now that the price is high enough that I want to. Supply and demand. I don't need to go through the trouble of getting stamps and letters and putting it on ebay and mailing it etc.. and I don't value my time more than the 1.50 or so of supply and fuel to get it to the person who wants it to even have myself break even.

Please do not drag your morality in on a high horse and tell everyone that what is essentially emergent behavior is actually a bunch of terrible greedy lords punishing the poor plebs.

Why is it immoral to want my time to give you something you're asking for to be worth something?

[MaximumC]

Any thread about counterfiets explodes into whining about the Reserve List (it's not going away, stop it) and people fighting over prices. We saw that happen in the first five posts here.

And who am I to stand in the way?



Why is it immoral to want my time to give you something you're asking for to be worth something?

You're confusing someone's opinion about what they want with "high moral" statements.

It is certainly true that Magic cards reach the maximum price the market will bear faster than they used to. Information is perfect with the internet, cards can be purchased from anywhere, anytime, and there's a thriving community dedicated to figuring out which cards could go up and buying them out to force the market to make a decision about the card's maximum price.

Whether you think it's GOOD that Magic cards very quickly find the maximum price the market will bear is a personal decision. Pro-speculators talk about how it's a price the market WILL bear, after all, and anti-speculators talk about how it's the MAXIMUM such price.



MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE PLOT


Counterfeits are bad for the game, and there's no reason to support them.

While the community usually uses the word "proxy" to mean any non-official card being used as a real one, that's not really the right term of art and it can be confusing in conversation. Wizards has defined three kinds of non-official cards: (1) Proxies, which are authorized replacements by a judge if your real card was damaged during a tournament; (2) Counterfeits, which are non-authentic cards that try to pass as real cards; and (3) Play-Test Cards, which are non-authentic cards that would not pass as real even under even the most casual inspection.

Sharpied basic lands, and the cards Gumgod linked, fall into the "Play-Test" category. Chinese fakes fall into the "Counterfeit" category.

Paper Vintage (at least) cannot survive without some form of unofficial cards due to the cost and card availability of the format, so I totally get that people need access to some kind of unofficial card. What I take issue with, however, are people using Counterfeits and calling them "proxies." That's wrong. Even if you're upfront with people about the fact that the cards are not genuine, you have contributed to the production of more counterfeits and increased the risk that your counterfeits will someday get into circulation and someone will be defrauded.

Luckily, you don't have to go get a counterfeit card if you want to play with something snazzy looking. You can find dozens of artists on Etsy who do exactly this, printing or painting custom Play Test cards. They don't fool anyone, and in many cases they look better than the original card did anyway. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Now, Wizards probably is not OK with even Playtest cards, at least if they use the mana symbols or other copyrighted materials. But, if you are going to have unofficial cards in your deck, the whole community is better off if you choose these Play-Test cards and STAY AWAY FROM COUNTERFEITS.

[TsumiBand]

I don't think people look at it in terms of "good" or "bad" so much as on a sanity spectrum. Sometimes, one looks back from the eBay searches for reasonably priced Beta duals, JTMS, LED and other vaunted trinkets and realizes that they're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time on a cardboard product for people aged 13 and up.

[Zombie]

I don't think people look at it in terms of "good" or "bad" so much as on a sanity spectrum. Sometimes, one looks back from the eBay searches for reasonably priced Beta duals, JTMS, LED and other vaunted trinkets and realizes that they're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time on a cardboard product for people aged 13 and up.

Cardboard product that used to, and could, cost a few dollars a piece.

[Dice_Box]

Any thread about counterfiets explodes into whining about the Reserve List (it's not going away, stop it) and people fighting over prices. If you want to have a conversation over an issue you have to at some point discuss it's causes.

[Finn]

I don't think people look at it in terms of "good" or "bad" so much as on a sanity spectrum. Sometimes, one looks back from the eBay searches for reasonably priced Beta duals, JTMS, LED and other vaunted trinkets and realizes that they're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time on a cardboard product for people aged 13 and up.
Like so many things, market value is a matter of perception. Sold my entire collection (well, I kept my D+T deck) just a few hours ago...$43,000. We think of the cash as having stable value, but even that is simply based upon a market. So honestly we traded cardboard for paper greenbacks.

[Jay_Gatz]

Like so many things, market value is a matter of perception. Sold my entire collection (well, I kept my D+T deck) just a few hours ago...$43,000. We think of the cash as having stable value, but even that is simply based upon a market. So honestly we traded cardboard for paper greenbacks.

We never should have ditched the gold standard.

[Chatto]

We never should have ditched the gold standard.

Actually we never did, it just that that gold isn't the obvious choice these days: real estate, dollars, yen, and MtG-cards (so it seems) are the new golden standard

But, good God! $ 43,000... That's a lot...

[TsumiBand]

Like so many things, market value is a matter of perception. Sold my entire collection (well, I kept my D+T deck) just a few hours ago...$43,000. We think of the cash as having stable value, but even that is simply based upon a market. So honestly we traded cardboard for paper greenbacks.

Well as long as we're going totally abstract and reducing it down to "traded item for item", if what you're saying is true then you just sold a mess of toys aimed at teenagers for more money than I make in a year and a half. Good on ya, but it still begs the question for a lot of people as to whether or not the initial investment makes sense at *this point* in the game. Some people having been buying in since Alpha, but someone just learning the game today is going to listen to a podcast like Tolarian Community College's talk about the harm that the lack meaningful reprints are doing to the game and ask themselves if it's worth their preferred "unit of perceived value". Increasingly, that answer will demand a higher and higher price point.

On a half-related note -- do you think these counterfeiters would accept custom orders for cards that were clearly never printed, but still passable? I don't mean like shitty card creation thread cards, I mean like... Future Sight bordered Progenitus or new-border reprints of ante cards, dumb stuff like that. You know, for lulz.

[Dice_Box]

Actually we never did, it just that that gold isn't the obvious choice these days: real estate, dollars, yen, and MtG-cards (so it seems) are the new golden standard

But, good God! $ 43,000... That's a lot...
Yea, but that is also the point. Someone who bought into type 1.5 in the tail end of 03 will have seen their collection do better than the stock market. Think about that.

Where the hell do you find someone with 4K to spend on cards though?

[Ace/Homebrew]

Actually we never did, it just that that gold isn't the obvious choice these days: real estate, dollars, yen, and MtG-cards (so it seems) are the new golden standard.

The gold standard is a monetary system where a country's currency or paper money has a value directly linked to gold. With the gold standard, countries agreed to convert paper money into a fixed amount of gold. A country that uses the gold standard sets a fixed price for gold and buys and sells gold at that price.
Source (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=the+gold+standard)

The interwebz says Switzerland was the last country to abandon the gold standard (which it did in 1999).

[MaximumC]

I don't think people look at it in terms of "good" or "bad" so much as on a sanity spectrum. Sometimes, one looks back from the eBay searches for reasonably priced Beta duals, JTMS, LED and other vaunted trinkets and realizes that they're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time on a cardboard product for people aged 13 and up.

Except it can't just be that. If someone decided that it was just "insane" to pay $150.00 for a Tarmagoyf, they'd chuckle and move on with life. Instead, people are motivated to complain about the fact that this is the price. That is, they make a value judgment that something is "wrong" with a system where people are willing to pay that much for a Magic card. So, yeah, there is some "good" and "bad" judgments going on.

My point was just that the mechanism causing the current prices is well-understood: high demand due to a larger player base and a supply side economy that is ruthlessly efficient and smoking out the highest possible price point the market will bear. Whether you think this is a good thing ("The free market is always right. Someone will pay this price, so the price is right!") or a bad thing ("If I want to play Modern, I have to pay as much as I would for a used car. That's not fair!") depends entirely on your personal preferences.


If you want to have a conversation over an issue you have to at some point discuss it's causes.

That would be true if it was only the Reserve List that was causing cards to grow in value beyond what you might expect for a Card Game For Babies. But, it's not. Standard regularly sees $20.00 - $50.00 staples. Modern sees staples from $100 - $200. The Reserve List has nothing to do with those prices. I get that the Reserve List is a contributor to a lot of recent spikes in light of Eternal Masters, but it's hardly the ROOT OF ALL PRICE EVILS.


Yea, but that is also the point. Someone who bought into type 1.5 in the tail end of 03 will have seen their collection do better than the stock market. Think about that.

Where the hell do you find someone with 4K to spend on cards though?

Comparing Magic to the stock market is misleading.

I mean, if you were investing in the collectibles market in the 90s, most of what you might choose to invest in would have tanked and tanked hard. Sports cards, Beanie Babies... they just flopped. Heck, even other card games -- good ones, like Five Rings or Vampire -- evaporated. Somehow, Magic hung on and grew. That was something that I don't think you could have predicted legitimately at the time. Paying 4k for Magic Cards would have been an extremely high-risk proposition.

And that's the better point here. While it's true that the "stock market" in general did not gain as much as Magic Cards did in the same time period, that's because you're comparing apples to oranges. Don't look at large, safe portfolios that rise and fall with the market at large. That's not what Magic was. Look at small, new companies with high-risk, high-reward propositions. Stocks that no one would realistically invest their retirement in. Like, the flood of tech company startups around the same time. Some flopped, some hit HARD. THAT'S the comparison.

Magic was not the stock market. It was a high-risk, high-reward investment in a specific start up company. Most of the time, that kind of investment falls on its face. However, every now and then, you strike gold.

[Dice_Box]

I was not talking about playing the game like a stock market, I was talking about just buying into the game. If you just bought into the game and played it and at the same time made other investments, your random cardstock that you bought to play a game have done better than any stock you bought that was not Apple. That's mindblowing.

Also, sure, you can play magic as a stock market, but in 03 no one I know was doing that unlike today....

[MaximumC]

Also, sure, you can play magic as a stock market, but in 03 no one I know was doing that unlike today....

True dat. The finance community is absolutely mind-blowing in its scope nowadays. And the change has been FAST. Not even a year ago you could buy cards that saw play in the top 8 of a Grand Prix that weekend if you wanted, and the price would creep up over the next week. Now, suddenly, if you try to buy cards WHILE THEY ARE ON CAMERA the price is spiking and your order is being cancelled.

Inevitable? Maybe. But, it's certainly different.

[Lormador]

I, for one, welcome our counterfeiting overlords at this time. They are not unequivocally bad for the game. They are potentially bad for the game from certain perspectives and under certain conditions. I will elaborate.

We're talking about flows of cardboard, flows of currency, and libidinal investment in a card-playing experience. As a player, my interest is in maximizing the pleasure of playing the game, which requires me to achieve a certain flow of cardboard into my collection. The flow of currency out of my bank account is to be minimized.

The game's producers have different goals. Their interest is rather in maximizing the flow of currency out of my bank account, and all other factors for them are trade-offs. They don't have to care about the volume of cardboard going in except insofar as this influences future purchases. They don't have any direct access to my experience of playing the game, but they do make considerable effort to keep the metagame healthy (both by bannings and new printings).

What a counterfeiter does is increase the volume of cardboard available to me without influencing game play in most circumstances. Only when they challenge the stability of Wizards as a whole could this become an issue for me, but by then I'll probably have all the cards anyway, and the local Legacy community will probably keep on playing just as they've always done.

Compare counterfeiters to speculators. Which one does me, the playing consumer, a service and which a disservice? The speculator does everything he can to lower the supply of cards, buying them out, selling to me at a higher price. The counterfeiter does everything he can to increase the supply of cards, sneaking them into the market, and probably not giving me any trouble about the price. I get the same thing for less money.

If Wizards doesn't like it, there's plenty they can do to stop it.

[Mr Miagi]

Amen! :cool:

[MaximumC]

I, for one, welcome our counterfeiting overlords at this time. They are not unequivocally bad for the game. They are potentially bad for the game from certain perspectives and under certain conditions. I will elaborate.


For all the elaboration, your post boils down to: "Meh, counterfeiting won't be big enough to impact the game, so who cares."

Allow me to present the contrary view. For full disclosure, this is coming from someone who is firmly a player, not a speculator in the slightest, but someone who does own most (not quite all) of the playable cards in Legacy and Vintage, but who also likes to have a cube, a bunch of EDH and casual decks, and other stuff on tap.

Counterfeits are bad and you should feel bad.

There's only two places where you would play counterfeits - in sanctioned events, and not in sanctioned events. With me so far? If you're bringing counterfeits to sanctioned events, you're lying to people. You are representing to your opponents, the TO, and Wizards that you have legitimate copies of the cards you are playing when in fact you do not own them. Oh, I know, people quibble with this, saying that "I'm not actually hurting anyone" and so on. That dodges the issue: you're lying to people. I think a person's honesty and integrity counts for something.

Okay, so what about non-sanctioned events or casual play? This is where people use counterfeits but disclose them as such, so there's no dishonesty involved. That's fine. But, once you remove the veil of dishonesty, there is no more need for you to use counterfeit cards at all. You can sharpie a basic land, but if that's not your style -- and I can't blame you -- then just make, print, or order a cheap play test card from Etsy or something that LOOKS good but doesn't look exactly like the genuine article. If you're not trying to pass it off as real, who cares? Frankly, I think it's way cooler if someone has a well-done playtest card in a cube than the original.

Which all brings us back to your point, Lormador. Assuming we're not sneaking counterfeits into tournaments, why should one prefer a good play test card to a good counterfeit? What's the harm?

The harm is that you're contributing to a long-term problem. A time bomb. When you buy a counterfeit, you're fueling demand for people to make them. And, demand matters. Look at what has happened to Magic prices recently. The speculator community has certainly contributed to the pace of increases, but the prices are only sticky because people (somewhere) are willing to pay. Demand matters, and demand fuels the decisions of counterfeiters. The larger and better the counterfeit industry gets, the more and more erosion you will see in buyer confidence. At some critical threshold -- I can't tell you when -- I think you'll see price skyrocket as stores charge a premium for "certified" genuine cards.

Apart from that, when you take counterfeits into your collection, you are setting someone up in the future for bad times. Someday your collection will be sold or traded, and those cards may drift around into someone else's hands. That person, in turn, may either get disqualified or worse if they pass it off as real.

Your point was that you think your individual contribution to both problems are small, so who cares. Well, that's true with any large-scale problem. It's like voting for Donald Trump. Your vote might not individually count for much, but a reality TV star can't actually be President unless people individually make the choice to propel him to that office.

And, besides that, since the only non-dishonest demand for counterfeits (casual play) can be satisfied with play-test cards that do not even begin to create these kind of problems -- why on Earth would you opt for the counterfeit?



If Wizards doesn't like it, there's plenty they can do to stop it.

Like what? Reprint cards into the dirt? Allow people to order singles for a set price maximum to prevent cards from inflating? Sell Collector's Editions containing all the copies of every card anyone ever needs?

Look, I completely agree that card prices are out of control, but the mentality of "RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE" represented by these concepts is just juvenile. Having SOME cards at a high price has benefits for the game. Black Lotus has a mystique that it would not have if you could order one for $20.00 from Wizards whenever you want. Enforcing set card prices would dramatically change the secondary market's desire to crack packs to pre-sell or otherwise re-sell cards, which would in turn cut Wizard's sales to some degree. Lower card prices means stores make less money selling singles, and this means less money available to fund events. Enforcing a cap on prices would probably bankrupt stores with large stocks of expensive cards by crushing the value of their inventory over night.

Wizards knows card prices are problematic. They're doing what they feel like they can to help. People complaint about the print run of Modern Masters and such, but for Pete's sake, they're practically FARTING quality reprints nowadays. Between Commander, MM, MM2, Conspiracy, Conspiracy 2, and EM, they've been throwing reprints of high-quality older cards out the door at an insane clip. They're being careful not to reprint them into the dirt, but they're still reprinting them and the pace seems to be increasing. Remember, this season we get a Commander set, EM, and Conspiracy 2 all in the same summer!

So... let's just settle down and get off the whole "Hah, I'm totally justified in lying to people and funding criminals in China because Wizards won't do what I want!" high horse.

[warfordium]

I, for one, welcome our counterfeiting overlords at this time.

What a counterfeiter does is increase the volume of cardboard available to me without influencing game play in most circumstances. Only when they challenge the stability of Wizards as a whole could this become an issue for me, but by then I'll probably have all the cards anyway, and the local Legacy community will probably keep on playing just as they've always done.

Compare counterfeiters to speculators. Which one does me, the playing consumer, a service and which a disservice? The speculator does everything he can to lower the supply of cards, buying them out, selling to me at a higher price. The counterfeiter does everything he can to increase the supply of cards, sneaking them into the market, and probably not giving me any trouble about the price. I get the same thing for less money.



good. very good.


For all the elaboration, your post boils down to: "Meh, counterfeiting won't be big enough to impact the game, so who cares."

Okay, so what about non-sanctioned events or casual play? This is where people use counterfeits but disclose them as such, so there's no dishonesty involved. That's fine. But, once you remove the veil of dishonesty, there is no more need for you to use counterfeit cards at all.

You can sharpie a basic land, but if that's not your style -- and I can't blame you -- then just make, print, or order a cheap play test card from Etsy or something that LOOKS good but doesn't look exactly like the genuine article. If you're not trying to pass it off as real, who cares? Frankly, I think it's way cooler if someone has a well-done playtest card in a cube than the original.



not quite true. frankly, the game functions equally on card artwork as on card text. especially given the diversity of legacy strategies and available sets, having the correct artwork is key to quick grokking of the game state. related to this and your later points, can you point the forum to examples of nice Etsy playtest cards?




The harm is that you're contributing to a long-term problem. A time bomb. When you buy a counterfeit, you're fueling demand for people to make them. And, demand matters. Look at what has happened to Magic prices recently. The speculator community has certainly contributed to the pace of increases, but the prices are only sticky because people (somewhere) are willing to pay. Demand matters, and demand fuels the decisions of counterfeiters. The larger and better the counterfeit industry gets, the more and more erosion you will see in buyer confidence. At some critical threshold -- I can't tell you when -- I think you'll see price skyrocket as stores charge a premium for "certified" genuine cards.



this last part is essentially already true—a store pays buylist prices for cards, assumes the risk, and you (consumers) pay retail.




Apart from that, when you take counterfeits into your collection, you are setting someone up in the future for bad times. Someday your collection will be sold or traded, and those cards may drift around into someone else's hands. That person, in turn, may either get disqualified or worse if they pass it off as real.



This assumes you don't mark them. I've got a whole bunch of these things and the backs are sharpied to indicate. They're also not double-sleeved. I also use them only in our weekly proxy legacy nights and boozed-up commander get-togethers.




Your point was that you think your individual contribution to both problems are small, so who cares. Well, that's true with any large-scale problem. It's like voting for Donald Trump. Your vote might not individually count for much, but a reality TV star can't actually be President unless people individually make the choice to propel him to that office.



don't forget the 'Murica part.




Wizards knows card prices are problematic. They're doing what they feel like they can to help. People complaint about the print run of Modern Masters and such, but for Pete's sake, they're practically FARTING quality reprints nowadays. Between Commander, MM, MM2, Conspiracy, Conspiracy 2, and EM, they've been throwing reprints of high-quality older cards out the door at an insane clip. They're being careful not to reprint them into the dirt, but they're still reprinting them and the pace seems to be increasing. Remember, this season we get a Commander set, EM, and Conspiracy 2 all in the same summer!

There are a few weasel words here. "Farting" is a particularly egregious one as there is mathematically sound reasoning (the case of Bob, Goyf) that the reprints Wizards are making are of insufficient quantity to change the price (ergo, supply is insufficient). Reprints as part of boosters with this ludicrous "Mythic" rarity also contribute to the EV/MSRP dance. Wizards are essentially just-barely-not-reprinting cards, and major retailers "preselling" aren't helping. At SCG, the mythics in EMA have seen only modest reductions in their sell price (Karakas excepted and lets not talk about Mana Vault in the legacy context) and only a couple of the rares have seen proper reductions in their price relative to availability (Gamble, Sinkhole, Entomb).

I think the larger point that we all need to keep in mind here is about exactly what we're paying for when we buy Magic cards.

We're paying for information. A set of rules and a set of valid pieces. You're taking a shortcut from seeing the information on mythic spoiler and writing out the card values on index cards, with some nice art and some development time to make sure the cards play nice together. In a world where there are no constructed formats, this is a perfect way to design the distribution and packaging of the game.

Then the cash grab of constructed comes in. Bomb mythics sold at 1/8 packs replacing rares in packs with randomized content? This is the part contributing to elevated prices, prerelease speculation, and buyouts.

I mean, I like being able to pay drafters to open packs for me at a lowered rate to acquire the constructed-level cards i want. And I like stores doing the legwork to find cards and hold stock for me. I like that Wizards makes nice artwork and good tempting and decent story/lore to make it more than mathematics. I'm willing to pay a premium for that. But what i care about more than anything is having Legacy opponents—opponents who aren't on burn or maneless dredge half the time. (with apologies to Patrick Sullivan and burn players on his level). And unless the supply of powerful cards from the past increases at a rate sufficient enough to drastically reduce prices, we're in a river heading only one direction—too expensive to justify playing.

So, I agree that the economics of the game is a supply-side problem (and not just in eternal formats). Its why I've picked up a whole load of obvious and subsequently-marked-as-such Chinese versions of cards so as not to contribute to demand in the "real" marketplace and as not to reduce the supply. Its because I play the game to play, and not to collect or make money from cardboard. And if Wizards would print a new CE for eternal formats only, I'd buy it so fast it'd make your head spin.

one final thought: the friend of mine who has been handling placing orders for these chinese versions has been doing so in order to leave entire Legacy decks in his safe rather than take them out weekly…because the value of the decks is too high to risk. When you think about it that way—something has to give.

coda: anyone taking bets on how long its gonna take MTGO to become subscription-based with full card availability?

[MaximumC]

not quite true. frankly, the game functions equally on card artwork as on card text. especially given the diversity of legacy strategies and available sets, having the correct artwork is key to quick grokking of the game state. related to this and your later points, can you point the forum to examples of nice Etsy playtest cards?


Sure. Here's a few stores expressly selling Playtest cards. (They call them "proxy," but that's not the right terminology anymore.)

https://www.etsy.com/shop/AllNightThriftShop?ref=l2-shopheader-name
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MTGKUN?ref=l2-shopheader-name

In addition, there's a surfeit of people on Etsy peddling counterfeits (I'm not sure why they have not been shut down, and they're spreading over time!) but even these folks are willing to print whatever you want on the card. You can get some good images of clearly-not-legit MTG cards out there and ask them to create them for you, and they're usually cooperative. Anything to increase the market for playtest cards and reduce the market for counterfeits, in my book.

I don't buy the "grokkin" argument because typically someone is not going to playtest out the entire deck, just the expensive part. It's easy to see that card such-and-such is a full art Plateau, for example, particularly if it's sitting in a pile of lands. I suppose you could run into trouble if you have an EDH table where everyone has full grips of playtest cards but, come on, everyone starts with SOME amount of legit cards.



This assumes you don't mark them. I've got a whole bunch of these things and the backs are sharpied to indicate. They're also not double-sleeved. I also use them only in our weekly proxy legacy nights and boozed-up commander get-togethers.


Well... maybe. I'm not sure a simple sharpie mark is enough to move something from the counterfeit category into the playtest category. I've got one Bayou, for example, that has a pen mark on the back. Gotta play it in a sleeve. But, it's legitimate. Plus, if you got a sharpie and wrote "IMA FAKE" on the back, no one is going to see it during regular play, and you've already helped fund the Chinese Mafia or whatever. I mean, I appreciate that it's a good way to avoid being dishonest, so that's good, but if you're going to mark it anyway, why not just use a grokkable custom image on the front?



don't forget the 'Murica part.


Right, sorry.

http://www.crossfitcentermass.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/murica__by_mkgraphics-d5ifhdj-1024x576.jpg



There are a few weasel words here. "Farting" is a particularly egregious one as there is mathematically sound reasoning (the case of Bob, Goyf) that the reprints Wizards are making are of insufficient quantity to change the price (ergo, supply is insufficient).


Yeah, well, I don't know the units of conversion between one Fart (frt) and a playset of Tarmagoyfs, that is true.

But, I do know that reprint sets are coming out more frequently than before. They dumped the core set, so we no longer get our yearly reprint of Giant Spider and instead we get frequent reprints of powerhouse cards. They started slow. That seems fair. But, now, the pace is increasing. Maybe the set print run isn't up, but the number of sets is, so... it seems like they deserve a little credit.



I think the larger point that we all need to keep in mind here is about exactly what we're paying for when we buy Magic cards.


Eh... you're paying for a few things.

1. The Intrinsic Value of Cardboard and Fresh Ink Smell (TM)
2. The capitalistic dopamine release of buying something / collecting something you want.
3. The right to participate in sanctioned events using this card.
4. The ability to use the card to play casually at home and avoid the cost of making a card yourself.
5. The belief that you can re-sell the card later on to recoup some or all of your cost, or to make a profit.
6. The desire to support Wizards or your local store.

Now, I think the only things on this list that have a major impact on the price are 2, 3, 4, and 5; I think the others are vanishingly small.



coda: anyone taking bets on how long its gonna take MTGO to become subscription-based with full card availability?

I don't think there is a realistic way for them to do this given Magic's model. Perhaps a subscription based service allowing you to play the current Top 8 decks in a format, or something like that. Kind of like they used to sell the World Champion decks with different backs. Otherwise, I don't think this idea is compatible with MTG.

[Sidneyious]

I have no problem with exceptional quality fakes, at least someone is helping eternal stay alive.

Unless you know for a fact 100% its fake without tearing it apart(because you can be destroying real stuff and now you feel stupid).

Then that's on you and you alone to keep your mouth shut about it.

If you don't know and can't tell the difference then just say it's real and move on with life.

[Lormador]

There's a lot of moralizing going on here, particularly regarding the choice to purchase counterfeits, or the conditions under which counterfeits may be acceptably used. I'd like to take a look at this from a purely economic perspective for a moment instead. After all, if moral judgments are consequences of the same material foundation that produces the economic relations under discussion, they won't necessarily have the kind of transcendent basis for judgment that they really need to function "according to their label."

Economic theory begins with identifying the actors involved, and the empirical branch of the science is then used to see how well models predict their behavior. We've got players, Wizards, the LGS, speculators, and counterfeiters. Each has their own interest and strategies for achieving their goals. We ask ourselves under what conditions these actors are going to exist.

Players: want a fun game, cheap cardboard, a strong LGS, many other players, and big tournaments (especially Legacy tournaments)
Wizards: wants people to buy packs
The LGS: wants people to buy whatever's on their shelves, has an investment in the cardboard they've already acquired
Speculator: wants big tournaments, metagame fluctuations, controlled supply, high and sticky card prices
Counterfeiter: same as speculator without control of the supply

It's clear that both speculator and counterfeiter depend directly on high secondary market card prices to exist: that is the single most important condition that will give rise to both.

There are two claims offered in this thread, one that counterfeiters are good for the players and one that they are bad. It's easy to see now that both of these are true to some extent. While counterfeiters depend on a high price for the cardboard, their own activity erodes that value, resulting in cheap cardboard for the players. There's also no damage to the game play itself because counterfeiters are only copying existing cards: and most desirable ones at that. The first two interests I've listed for the players are well served by counterfeiters.

However, it's also clear that there's a relation here between high card prices and the LGS. Most local game stores that provide singles, if they provide Legacy singles, have a significant investment in those cards. I've never operated a store, but I think it's safe to say that some of them might even have to close their doors if that investment suddenly vanished. I doubt that many of them have hedged against this risk, and although a credit swap is theoretically possible, I know of no financial instruments offering this service for Magic cards. A strong LGS is a very high priority for players, adding a lot of charm to the game and enabling the baseline experience of a majority of competitive players.

Yet I think the interactions here are very complicated and unclear, with the LGS also selling numerous other products, serving to inspect cardboard coming in with a fair amount of rigor, potentially profiting hugely by distributing counterfeits, etc. Still, the claim that Wizards does what it does, which seems to us players as so annoying, in order to protect the LGSs on which the game depends appears to have force.

As for Wizards, they could undercut every counterfeiter and speculator with ease if they chose to. There are numerous enforcement options they could attempt, if they thought these were worthwhile. They don't need to care about the secondary market except insofar as it impacts the LGSs.

[MaximumC]

There's a lot of moralizing going on here.

Your points on the economic issues at play are well-taken, and I don't disagree. Isn't there something missing if one tries to drain all the morality out of the equation, though?

I don't think it's unfair to suggest that dishonesty, certainly when coupled with dishonesty leading to economic advantage is considered "bad" and "immoral." I'm hard pressed to think of a moral or ethical system that endorses lying or misrepresentation. And, as I mentioned in my last few posts, representing counterfeit cards as the real deal (by selling them, trading them, or playing with counterfeits in sanctioned tournaments) is a misrepresentation.

Of course, players have contrary desires. Legacy players want large tournaments and so some might be willing to turn a blind eye to counterfeits to get attendance up. Players have a desire to play with the most powerful decks but don't want to spend thousands of dollars. These, and other desires, certainly may lead some to feel like the dishonesty is "worth it." I understand that perspective.

But, that does not suggest we should stop calling a duck a duck. If you are sneaking counterfeits into a Legacy Open, you're lying to your opponents and the tournament organizer. If you think that's a fine thing to do due to other desires, then that's a decision for you to make. Hand-waving away this moral decision is just a way to feel more comfortable about what you're doing without really facing reality.

[CutthroatCasual]

Every couple of days I'm reminded why Reddit is cancer. (https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4mwc8b/fake_volcanic_island_discovered_at_scg_atlanta/) The amount of misinformation in that sub/thread is staggering, as if people are actively letting themselves get duped by fakes so that they can claim that they are indistinguishable from the real thing. There are currently at least 3 "tests" that fakes will never pass, 2 of which don't even require the card be present. And they don't require a loupe.

[MaximumC]

Every couple of days I'm reminded why Reddit is cancer. (https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4mwc8b/fake_volcanic_island_discovered_at_scg_atlanta/) The amount of misinformation in that sub/thread is staggering, as if people are actively letting themselves get duped by fakes so that they can claim that they are indistinguishable from the real thing. There are currently at least 3 "tests" that fakes will never pass, 2 of which don't even require the card be present. And they don't require a loupe.

I don't think the thread is going overboard about the quality of the fakes; just pointing out that they are indeed being used in tournaments AND being shipped to dealers on the secondary market. They're being caught, but they're good enough to get past some players and cause trouble.

This is my favorite quote from that Reddit thread:

"But this sub told me that fakes were so people could play Legacy on a budget, not so people can try and pass them off as real on the secondary market!"

[Octopusman]

Sure, counterfeits haven't always been somewhat convincing, but I've definitely noticed that over the course of years, more and more people are "fine" with it. The change in opinion is noticeable.

I expect this trend to continue as prices go up on real staples, the quality of fakes improve, and as younger players age and want to play formats they weren't able to buy into before costs exploded.

Plain and simple, there is money to be made and if WotC won't do it, someone else will. WotC should probably pull the trigger and make more aggressive attempts to lower costs before the tipping point where players just say "screw it" and get the cheaper fakes instead of real cards... even after WotC does start to lower costs.

[MaximumC]

Sure, counterfeits haven't always been somewhat convincing, but I've definitely noticed that over the course of years, more and more people are "fine" with it. The change in opinion is noticeable.


Moral decay, I say. People are increasingly vocal about the idea that rising card prices somehow make the dishonesty inherent in portraying fake cards as real cards "okay" or "acceptable."

I know I'm repeating myself a bit, but this is a new page, so... if you want to use play test cards (non-real looking cards) and increase the player group for your format, by all means. Vintage does this all the damn time. I'll never squeak if someone has a play test card in EDH, whether it's a sharpied basic land or a full art version of Mana Drain. Game on!

But shrugging off the use of counterfeits at sanctioned events because "Meh I wanna play" is self-destructive, involves dishonesty, and should be frowned on by the community.

[phonics]

Moral decay, I say. People are increasingly vocal about the idea that rising card prices somehow make the dishonesty inherent in portraying fake cards as real cards "okay" or "acceptable."

I know I'm repeating myself a bit, but this is a new page, so... if you want to use play test cards (non-real looking cards) and increase the player group for your format, by all means. Vintage does this all the damn time. I'll never squeak if someone has a play test card in EDH, whether it's a sharpied basic land or a full art version of Mana Drain. Game on!

But shrugging off the use of counterfeits at sanctioned events because "Meh I wanna play" is self-destructive, involves dishonesty, and should be frowned on by the community.

It is just market forces in action. Saying it is morally right or wrong is meaningless.

[Lord Seth]

Personally, what I've always felt was awfully dodgy was for Wizards of the Coast to require you to play with the "official" versions of cards in tournaments and yet refuse to actually sell them to you.


My point was just that the mechanism causing the current prices is well-understood: high demand due to a larger player base and a supply side economy that is ruthlessly efficient and smoking out the highest possible price point the market will bear. Whether you think this is a good thing ("The free market is always right. Someone will pay this price, so the price is right!") or a bad thing ("If I want to play Modern, I have to pay as much as I would for a used car. That's not fair!") depends entirely on your personal preferences.Actually, the interesting thing is, the Magic secondary market is the exact opposite of a free market. It's a government-sponsored monopoly! After all, the government says that only Wizards of the Coast can legally make Magic: the Gathering cards.

In an actual free market, the prices would not be what they are because other companies would step in and fill the demand at a lower price by printing their own reproductions. While one can say that's what counterfeiters are already doing, if it were legal you would see companies with much deeper pockets getting into it and thus being able to make significantly more convincing reproductions.

[(nameless one)]

I don't get why WotC cares so much about counterfeit cards that they promised not to reprint again. It's not like they're losing money because there are more Tabernacles than they originally printed.

[iatee]

They don't care that much, actually, and it shows.

[jrsthethird]

They don't care that much, actually, and it shows.

I think the secondary market, players, judges, and TOs care more about counterfeits than WOTC does:


Stores and dealers risk losing money buying/selling counterfeit cards
Collectors do not want counterfeits reducing the value of their collections
Players risk DQs by inadvertantly (or intentionally) playing with counterfeit cards
Judges need to spend more time educating themselves and the community on how to discern counterfeits
TOs need to maintain the integrity of their events; both for the players and to maintain their WPN status


I don't get why WotC cares so much about counterfeit cards that they promised not to reprint again. It's not like they're losing money because there are more Tabernacles than they originally printed.

They aren't losing money, but they are protecting themselves from the risk of lawsuits from collectors whose cards they vowed to protect. If counterfeits become out of hand and the market on Reserved List staples crashes, I could see a suit against WOTC for negligence.

Counterfeits being legal for tournament usage subverts the whole point of the Reserved List's existence. When WOTC wants to reduce the barrier to entry of paper Eternal formats, they will inevitably have to remove the Reserved List, or at least make some revisions to include tournament staples (perhaps another version of their beloved "prisoner exchange", adding some shitty cards from pre-Modern to throw a bone to pissed-off collectors).

[Ace/Homebrew]

If it were legal you would see companies with much deeper pockets getting into it and thus being able to make significantly more convincing reproductions.
I don't think this is true though. If counterfeiting were legal, the card prices would drop as the supply grew. So only the first company to make convincing reproductions would see any kind of significant profit, and only for the first few months until the community caught on and the value of the cards bottomed out.

[MaximumC]

It is just market forces in action. Saying it is morally right or wrong is meaningless.

How do you figure?

Just because we can understand the market forces behind people making a decision doesn't automatically make the decision immune from moral judgment. For example, all laws in the United States that infringe on the freedom of individuals to contract (labor laws, for example) arise out of a judgment that certain kinds of products of economic forces are bad and should be curtailed.

There's nothing inconsistent in saying that high card prices are making people more and more willing to counterfeit while also contending that counterfeiting is a bad thing.

[Lord Seth]

I don't think this is true though. If counterfeiting were legal, the card prices would drop as the supply grew. So only the first company to make convincing reproductions would see any kind of significant profit, and only for the first few months until the community caught on and the value of the cards bottomed out.
I'm confused as to how you say "I don't think this is true" and then say something that doesn't contradict my statement at all.

[phonics]

How do you figure?

Just because we can understand the market forces behind people making a decision doesn't automatically make the decision immune from moral judgment. For example, all laws in the United States that infringe on the freedom of individuals to contract (labor laws, for example) arise out of a judgment that certain kinds of products of economic forces are bad and should be curtailed.

There's nothing inconsistent in saying that high card prices are making people more and more willing to counterfeit while also contending that counterfeiting is a bad thing.

You can say that it is bad, but what does that ultimately accomplish? People that play these counterfeits in sanctioned tournaments are already aware of the moral implications, it isn't something that can be regulated outside of regular deck checks so there is nothing stopping people from doing it but themselves. It's like saying cheating is bad, but people still cheat. That is what I mean by meaningless. You can even take buyers out of the equation, since it is the counterfeiters who make the profit, they could even just distribute it themselves to ignorant buyers if they needed to.


I don't think this is true though. If counterfeiting were legal, the card prices would drop as the supply grew. So only the first company to make convincing reproductions would see any kind of significant profit, and only for the first few months until the community caught on and the value of the cards bottomed out.

The thing with MTG is that it is almost like printing money. I would assume all counterfeiting operations already have the technology to do so printing other things/ cards, and it was just a matter of discovering the process WOTC uses, so there isn't really much of a startup cost, which leaves the major costs being the paper, ink and labor in making card templates and whatnot. So the cost per card is probably very low, making it profitable unless the most catastrophic of crashes happens. If WOTC sells boxes to distributors at ~66usd, that is about 12c a card.

tl;dr: cards don't cost a lot to print compared to how much they are 'worth' even if the most expensive cards drop to like 20$

[dragonwisdom]

1) Counterfeit magic cards are bad for the game. Counterfeit magic cards will eventually destroy magic the gathering, if it gets out of hand. Why even buy booster packs if all the cards will be eventually worthless. The secondary market is what keeps this game thriving.

2) In my opinion the best thing to do is to report any copyright infringement directly to Wizards of the Coast through phone or email. If enough players complain, they will take counterfeiting or chinese fakes more seriously.

3) and yes they should modify the reserved list and print dual lands like the printing of zendikar expeditions every few sets to get more cards in circulation without crashing the secondary market.

I am really glad someone opened this thread.

[Havrekjex]

I get nauseous by the thought of a scenario where counterfeits are so widespread that players at events are either get suspicious of other people playing counterfeits, or paranoid that other people will discover their own ones. It could split the player base in a format that`s already struggling. I hope they get their heads out of their asses and find some workaround to the RL before it`s too late. People want to play with real cards.

I still say there`s no excuse for playing with counterfeit cards. You can`t afford Underground Seas, or don`t want to bind that kind of money up in the game? Ok, you are free to play a deck that doesn`t require them, or maybe even play a more affordable format. You are not entitled to a competitive Legacy deck. You don`t have to have one, it`s not food or water. Same reason I`m not playing 93/94 - I`d be interested, the format looks fun, but not at that price point. You don`t see me complaining about it or playing counterfeits either. But that doesn`t change the fact that Seas should not cost $340. Prices like that for cardboard in a format as attractive as Legacy will cause an influx of counterfeits if left unchecked.

[Echelon]

But that doesn`t change the fact that Seas should not cost $340. Prices like that for cardboard in a format as attractive as Legacy will cause an influx of counterfeits if left unchecked.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. WotC should do on-demand printing. Send them a list of cards you want, they print them for 10 cents a piece (or a dollar/euro if that's what it takes to cover production costs and a bit of profit, I don't care), send them to your house and that's it. Give these reprints some distinct feature (like a special border) so people don't confuse them with the original product. WotC can have a policy where they don't reprint product less than 5 years old (to keep sales of new product up and keep people investing in Standard). People can pick up whatever card/deck they want for a decent price, everybody gets to play the cool formats. Original alpha/beta/etcetera cards'll keep their value for collectors (who, I suppose, would just be interested in the real deal), everybody wins. Speculators might take a serious loss, but that's the risk a speculator takes anyway.

This even opens up a new market for WotC and creates some jobs in the process.

WotC makes more money, more people get to play now expensive formats, tournament attendance increases, in turn WotC makes even more money. Players are happy b/c they get to play with all the cool stuff, WotC is happy b/c their profits go up, counterfeiters lose their business b/c their services aren't needed anymore. Sounds like a good plan, right?

[Havrekjex]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. WotC should do on-demand printing. Send them a list of cards you want, they print them for 10 cents a piece (or a dollar/euro if that's what it takes to cover production costs and a bit of profit, I don't care), send them to your house and that's it. Give these reprints some distinct feature (like a special border) so people don't confuse them with the original. They can have a policy where they don't reprint product less than 5 years old (to keep sales of new product up and keep people investing in Standard). People can pick up whatever card/deck they want for a decent price, everybody gets to play the cool formats. Original alpha/beta/etcetera cards'll keep their value for collectors (who, I suppose, would just be interested in the real deal), everybody wins. Speculators might take a serious loss, but that's the risk a speculator takes anyway.

This even opens up a new market for WotC and creates some jobs in the process.

WotC makes more money, more people get to play now expensive formats, tournament attendance increases, in turn WotC makes even more money. Players are happy b/c they get to play with all the cool stuff, WotC is happy b/c their profits go up, counterfeiters lose their business b/c their services aren't needed anymore. Sounds like a good plan, right?To be blunt, I don`t even know where to start with this. First of all, this would bypass the game stores, and that wouldn`t be good for the game. They need to let the stores get a piece of the cake, because the stores arrange events, which attract players, which then spend money on the product. Your proposed strategy would also tank every reprintable card in existence over night, which would cause a massive uproar.

You`re saying that speculators might take a serious loss? Every player with a binder would take a more or less serious loss. Not everyone who own $1000+ in cards are evil speculator shadow creatures that deserve to be punished. They have to bring prices down gently to not leave players (players!) feeling profoundly betrayed.

I think their current model with the Masters sets works perfectly well, except that a) the RL and b) they are too stingy with reprints (EMA shows a step in the right direction imho) and too greedy with booster prices and print runs.

[Echelon]

@Havrekjex: I know, I'm one of those people :wink:. I'd be perfectly fine with taking that hit if that means my hobby just got a lot more affordable to me. I just care about the cards, not about the value they may or may not represent. But that's me.

Heck, what would I really lose in that scenario? It's not as if the cards in my binder suddenly disappear. All that changes is that new cards won't cost me as much as those ones did. And how is that a bad thing?

Think of it this way - if every car in the world would cost a single dollar/euro, would that upset you? I'd be thrilled! I wouldn't care that I spent a lot more on the car I'm driving now! I'd just be happy my next one's going to be a lot cheaper! Collectors'd still pay premium for an original vintage Ferrari, but the average person now doesn't have to worry about having to replace their car at some point in time anymore. It's a future that can't be realised b/c of the production cost of cars in general, but our beloved pieces of cardboard should be cheap enough to produce in this manner. Why shouldn't we be happy if our hobby became a lot more affordable to us? B/c that's basically what you're saying.

Retaining the value of existing (original) cards is one of the reasons why I suggested they'd make sure you'd be able to easily see the difference between ordered reprints and original cards. Regular cars & original Vintage Ferraris. I mean, could you picture sdematt driving around in my 2008 Citroen C1..? That's just not going to happen.

[Havrekjex]

@Havrekjex: I know, I'm one of those people :wink:. I'd be perfectly fine with taking that hit if that means my hobby just got a lot more affordable to me. I just care about the cards, not about the value they may or may not represent. But that's me.

Heck, what would I really lose in that scenario? It's not as if the cards in my binder suddenly disappear. All that changes is that new cards won't cost me as much as those ones did. And how is that a bad thing?

Think of it this way - if every car in the world would cost a single dollar/euro, would that upset you? I'd be thrilled! I wouldn't care that I spent a lot more on the car I'm driving now! I'd just be happy my next one's going to be a lot cheaper! Collectors'd still pay premium for an original vintage Ferrari, but the average person now doesn't have to worry about having to replace their car at some point in time anymore. It's a future that can't be realised b/c of the production cost of cars in general, but our beloved pieces of cardboard should be cheap enough to produce in this manner. Why shouldn't we be happy if our hobby became a lot more affordable to us? B/c that's basically what you're saying.

Retaining value is one of the reasons why I suggested they'd make sure you'd be able to easily see the difference between ordered reprints and original cards. Regular cars & original Vintage Ferraris. I mean, could you picture sdematt driving around in my 2008 Citroen C1..? That's just not going to happen.I guess it depends on what kind of situation you are in. I expect to get more for the cards I currently own when I sell them, than I`m going to ever spend on cards from now on going forward. My expenses right now are mostly entry fees. What you`re describing would easily be a net loss for me. Though I guess that means that I`m not the type of player who needs this program the most.

Also, what about the part where packs help game stores make money? And what about Wizards` reputation after they pull a move that make each and every one of their customers lose some more or less significant amount of money? We`re talking $1000+ for most users on here, but your 12 year old nephew who saved up enough money for a set of MM15 Dark Confidants for his casual deck is going to be every bit as mad about it.

[Echelon]

I guess it depends on what kind of situation you are in. I expect to get more for the cards I currently own when I sell them, than I`m going to ever spend on cards from now on going forward. My expenses right now are mostly entry fees. What you`re describing would easily be a net loss for me. Though I guess that means that I`m not the type of player who needs this program the most.

Also, what about the part where packs help game stores make money? And what about Wizards` reputation after they pull a move that make each and every one of their customers lose some more or less significant amount of money? We`re talking $1000+ for most users on here, but your 12 year old nephew who saved up enough money for a set of MM15 Dark Confidants for his casual deck is going to be every bit as mad about it.

I did write that WotC could have a policy to not reprint stuff less than 5 years old. That'd mean that those who want to play with cards from new sets still have to buy packs or buy those cards via the secondary market also offered by stores. It works both ways though. More people playing Magic also means more people actually coming to the store to either buy packs or compete in events.

People might take a financial hit, but people might also be motivated to spend more money than ever on MtG. I can't even remember when I last bought a booster pack, but I sure as hell know that I'd spend a lot of money in a heartbeat if WotC ever started a reprint program. When I do spend money on MtG, I buy singles off the secondary market (which makes WotC no money at all). Players like you and me are good for local game stores (and webshops), but rather bad for WotC.

Point in case for the 12 year old nephew in question - he might lose his shit about his Dark Confidants, but he might also be very happy he can get 4 Underground Seas and 4 Polluted Deltas for a single weeks allowance (b/c obviously I'd be the cool uncle to point out those cards are pretty good). And in time he might forget about what ever happened to his Dark Confidants (since that little bastard now switched to ANT/TES as his deck of choice. I never should have pointed out Underground Sea and Polluted Sea to the bugger. Silly uncle Echelon).

I'd happily "lose" (again, it's not as if my cards suddenly disappear) my $1000+ if that means my (non-existent, by the way) nephew (and others' nephews and nieces around the world) can now enjoy MtG the same way I do. It was $1000+ I didn't need anyway (why else would I spend it on pieces of cardboard for a game I get to play like once a month?) so why should I be upset about it, especially when it doesn't visibly affect my bank account? I mean, it's not as if my collection losing value means I suddenly can't pay my rent anymore. It just means that if I ever am to sell my collection, it'd (possibly) fetch me a smaller price then than it would right now. Big whoop. That possibility exists just the same without a reprint program.

[CutthroatCasual]

I'd happily "lose" (again, it's not as if my cards suddenly disappear) my $1000+ if that means my (non-existent, by the way) nephew (and others' nephews and nieces around the world) can now enjoy MtG the same way I do. It was $1000+ I didn't need anyway (why else would I spend it on pieces of cardboard for a game I get to play like once a month?) so why should I be upset about it, especially when it doesn't visibly affect my bank account? I mean, it's not as if my collection losing value means I suddenly can't pay my rent anymore. It just means that if I ever am to sell my collection, it'd (possibly) fetch me a smaller price then than it would right now. Big whoop. That possibility exists just the same without a reprint program.

Quite a few people see, as one of the perks of owning a Legacy deck, the ability to sell it off as a rainy day fund in times of emergency. I don't ever plan on selling either of my Legacy decks but it's nice to know that if for some reason I find myself in a pinch and desperately need the cash, I can list most of the RL cards for slightly less than market value and have them sell. Yea, I'll lose maybe a couple hundred that way, but it's better than losing a couple thousand due to reprints.

Not saying you should look at a Legacy deck as that sort of investment, but many who entered the format recently/paid a higher price for their duals definitely kept that in mind when deciding to take the plunge.

[jrsthethird]

People might take a financial hit, but people might also be motivated to spend more money than ever on MtG. I can't even remember when I last bought a booster pack, but I sure as hell know that I'd spend a lot of money in a heartbeat if WotC ever started a reprint program. When I do spend money on MtG, I buy singles off the secondary market (which makes WotC no money at all). Players like you and me are good for local game stores (and webshops), but rather bad for WotC.

You really underestimate WOTC's dependence on the secondary market.

If people don't crack packs, the secondary market blows up. If people stopped opening SOI for a month, Nahiri would be the most expensive planeswalker in Legacy. Everyone who buys a box, plays in a draft, or picks up a couple packs at Walmart increases the supply, which keeps the secondary market prices down. Simple EV calculations tell you this. Whenever the EV of a pack jumps up over $4 (or even $3 or so), people crack more packs to suppress the market price of singles.

That's clearly only relevant for Standard cards, but the secondary market is a crucial part of Wizards' business model for Eternal formats as well. First off, they make several products per year catered at the Eternal crowd, whether it be the Legacy/Vintage/Modern tournament spikes, or the casual/cube/kitchen table crowd. This year there will be a new Duel Deck, a new Commander set, and a Planechase box set released (not to mention EMA and Conspiracy 2). WOTC makes money off of those box sets based on the secondary market too; namely, if the value sucks, the product won't sell. If they're stacked, nobody can keep them in stock.

How about the secondary market in regards to out of print Eternal staples? Sure, WOTC might not get a dime from the dual lands you just bought on ebay, but those duals keep you invested and interested in the product. You want to play Shardless? Yes, you need to find duals from secondary retailers, but those Shardless Agents and Baleful Strixes you need are coming from EMA packs and Planechase Anthologies, so WOTC still has a stake in your deck anyway. If you're building it next year, you'll be getting fresh Goyfs and Lilis from MM3, and so on. As long as they continue a strong reprint policy, they will have a stake, albeit indirectly, in the sales that contribute to players building new decks.

This is completely ignoring the fact that buying decks to enter tournaments supports WPN stores, who need to run a certain number of events to keep their participation in the network, which has a bearing on their promotional support, tournament quality, and product allocation. Also, don't forget that Limited is the most popular way to play Magic and that money goes directly into WOTC's bank too.

[dragonwisdom]

You really underestimate WOTC's dependence on the secondary market.

If people don't crack packs, the secondary market blows up. If people stopped opening SOI for a month, Nahiri would be the most expensive planeswalker in Legacy. Everyone who buys a box, plays in a draft, or picks up a couple packs at Walmart increases the supply, which keeps the secondary market prices down. Simple EV calculations tell you this. Whenever the EV of a pack jumps up over $4 (or even $3 or so), people crack more packs to suppress the market price of singles.

That's clearly only relevant for Standard cards, but the secondary market is a crucial part of Wizards' business model for Eternal formats as well. First off, they make several products per year catered at the Eternal crowd, whether it be the Legacy/Vintage/Modern tournament spikes, or the casual/cube/kitchen table crowd. This year there will be a new Duel Deck, a new Commander set, and a Planechase box set released (not to mention EMA and Conspiracy 2). WOTC makes money off of those box sets based on the secondary market too; namely, if the value sucks, the product won't sell. If they're stacked, nobody can keep them in stock.

How about the secondary market in regards to out of print Eternal staples? Sure, WOTC might not get a dime from the dual lands you just bought on ebay, but those duals keep you invested and interested in the product. You want to play Shardless? Yes, you need to find duals from secondary retailers, but those Shardless Agents and Baleful Strixes you need are coming from EMA packs and Planechase Anthologies, so WOTC still has a stake in your deck anyway. If you're building it next year, you'll be getting fresh Goyfs and Lilis from MM3, and so on. As long as they continue a strong reprint policy, they will have a stake, albeit indirectly, in the sales that contribute to players building new decks.

This is completely ignoring the fact that buying decks to enter tournaments supports WPN stores, who need to run a certain number of events to keep their participation in the network, which has a bearing on their promotional support, tournament quality, and product allocation. Also, don't forget that Limited is the most popular way to play Magic and that money goes directly into WOTC's bank too.

I have to applaud this response. Well written and well thought out.

[Dice_Box]

I have to applaud this response. Well written and well thought out.
I applaud this whole thread. You guys have not imploded like I expected. This has been a very interesting read.

[Echelon]

You really underestimate WOTC's dependence on the secondary market.

If people don't crack packs, the secondary market blows up. If people stopped opening SOI for a month, Nahiri would be the most expensive planeswalker in Legacy. Everyone who buys a box, plays in a draft, or picks up a couple packs at Walmart increases the supply, which keeps the secondary market prices down. Simple EV calculations tell you this. Whenever the EV of a pack jumps up over $4 (or even $3 or so), people crack more packs to suppress the market price of singles.

That's clearly only relevant for Standard cards, but the secondary market is a crucial part of Wizards' business model for Eternal formats as well. First off, they make several products per year catered at the Eternal crowd, whether it be the Legacy/Vintage/Modern tournament spikes, or the casual/cube/kitchen table crowd. This year there will be a new Duel Deck, a new Commander set, and a Planechase box set released (not to mention EMA and Conspiracy 2). WOTC makes money off of those box sets based on the secondary market too; namely, if the value sucks, the product won't sell. If they're stacked, nobody can keep them in stock.

How about the secondary market in regards to out of print Eternal staples? Sure, WOTC might not get a dime from the dual lands you just bought on ebay, but those duals keep you invested and interested in the product. You want to play Shardless? Yes, you need to find duals from secondary retailers, but those Shardless Agents and Baleful Strixes you need are coming from EMA packs and Planechase Anthologies, so WOTC still has a stake in your deck anyway. If you're building it next year, you'll be getting fresh Goyfs and Lilis from MM3, and so on. As long as they continue a strong reprint policy, they will have a stake, albeit indirectly, in the sales that contribute to players building new decks.

This is completely ignoring the fact that buying decks to enter tournaments supports WPN stores, who need to run a certain number of events to keep their participation in the network, which has a bearing on their promotional support, tournament quality, and product allocation. Also, don't forget that Limited is the most popular way to play Magic and that money goes directly into WOTC's bank too.

If WotC only reprints cards that are at least 5 years old, would it really have such an impact on the sales of new product? New packs still have to be sold and the incentive to keep playing Limited remains. It's just that after enough time passes you can indeed expect prices for cards to drop (if we value them the same way as we do cards with some sort of custom order-border). The first 5 years of a cards life, they'll be part of the secondary market. I mean, you're not going to tell me that us legacy players are going to wait 5 years to get a certain card, right? That's just not happening. We want our new toys and we want them as soon as we can pre-order them, hence they retain their value. The secondary market just shrinks to whatever is less than 5 years old & collector stuff. Yes, WotC makes products for the Eternal crowd too, but with some form of print-on-demand this product just changes form. Besides, all we'd really lose is the reprint sets. There'd still be the same incentive to keep producing Commander stuff (and again - are we eternal players really going to wait 5 years before we buy our Strixes, Toxic Deluges and TNNs? Very unlikely).

As for stores - sure, I get your point. On the other hand, if MtG becomes more affordable it might draw more people to tournaments and get them more invested in the game, causing them to spend more time at said store. It's a lot more attractive to start playing a game where your deck costs you under 100 bucks rather than 2k+, right? And b/c you start playing the game you might get the urge to upgrade all your on-demand cards for stuff pulled from boosters (after which you start foiling your deck and so on and so on). Having the real deal instead of the on-demand stuff might become some form of pauper pimping.

In the end it doesn't really matter what I think. I don't see WotC even remotely considering this any time soon. Oh well, a guy can dream, right?

[Barook]

@Echelon: Aside from the points jrsthethird named, it's far from being practical. Wizards has specific print sheets and they would have to make special ones for each order or have massive excess chaff. The cost of this would be insane.

[Echelon]

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. It's not as if they just hit Ctrl+P and send stuff to the laser printer. Maybe they should look into that :laugh:.

[jrsthethird]

@Echelon: Aside from the points jrsthethird named, it's far from being practical. Wizards has specific print sheets and they would have to make special ones for each order or have massive excess chaff. The cost of this would be insane.

Also, considering shipping costs, US players would be at an unfair advantage unless WOTC outsourced their printing to several facilities on other continents.

[Barook]

Also, considering shipping costs, US players would be at an unfair advantage unless WOTC outsourced their printing to several facilities on other continents.
You mean like the MTGO redemption program? :rolleyes:

They give two shits about non-US parts and it's showing time and time again that their main focus is the US market (MTGO event times, store policies not fitting outside of the US, etc.). E.g. I sure love to play a Legacy Challenge final at fucking 4 am. :rolleyes:

[dragonwisdom]

very interesting article

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2016/06/buyers-beware-altered-fakes/


Indeed I have noticed that altered cards are cheaper on Ebay.

Do you think that altered cards will get banned in legacy or modern tournaments?

[Barook]

This doesn't come as a suprise.

I've already said a while ago that full alters or foreign cards (due to language and different print quality) are essentially easy ways to mask fakes. Combine both and you have the perfect crime - and it even looks pretty!

[CutthroatCasual]

At that point you have to rely on the alter artist having a policy to not alter fakes for this very reason. None of the respectable alterers would ever go near a fake (and will probably dole out some sort of "punishment" if a customer tries to pass off a fake card as a real one), but you'll always have a few seedy individuals that will alter them anyway.

[Sloshthedark]

very interesting article

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2016/06/buyers-beware-altered-fakes/


Indeed I have noticed that altered cards are cheaper on Ebay.

Do you think that altered cards will get banned in legacy or modern tournaments?

the first sentence of the article is comical... isnt it an obvious application once you learn alters legaly exist? at least in EU there used to be suspicious number of beta power on the tables back in the day of large tournaments

no, in sleeve quality of fakes is good enough already

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Now we are worried about people taking fakes and then gussying them up enough to sell to a subset of people that enjoy altered cards (that you may not be able to play depending on the judge).

Of all the ways to rip off nerds, that has to be the most tedious.

[Lemnear]

Of all the ways to rip off nerds, that has to be the most tedious.

Really? For me its the unethnical connection between WotC and big vendors.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

that's less tedious and more diabolical and effective

[jrsthethird]

I don't think I agree that foreign cards are more prone to fakes. Yes, you can mask them better due to more rampant differences in card stock/quality (I sold 2x Japanese FBB Fog on TCG and the buyer said one seemed fake. I told him it's impossible since I pulled both from sealed product, but would be happy to refund anyway), but they're also much lower demand than English cards. You might be able to pull off a more convincing fake in a foreign language, but if you don't find a buyer it's not worth anything.

[CutthroatCasual]

I don't think I agree that foreign cards are more prone to fakes. Yes, you can mask them better due to more rampant differences in card stock/quality (I sold 2x Japanese FBB Fog on TCG and the buyer said one seemed fake. I told him it's impossible since I pulled both from sealed product, but would be happy to refund anyway), but they're also much lower demand than English cards. You might be able to pull off a more convincing fake in a foreign language, but if you don't find a buyer it's not worth anything.

In all likelihood, there's a 99% chance that Asian-languaged fakes don't exist (and even in the 1% chance that they do, they're likely very bad), and here's why:

1) The market is smaller meaning that there's less quick bucks to be made so there's less incentive to produce them, but more importantly
2) If counterfeiters can barely get alphanumeric text right, there's no way they're getting the Asian text right

[Lemnear]

In all likelihood, there's a 99% chance that Asian-languaged fakes don't exist (and even in the 1% chance that they do, they're likely very bad), and here's why:

1) The market is smaller meaning that there's less quick bucks to be made so there's less incentive to produce them, but more importantly
2) If counterfeiters can barely get alphanumeric text right, there's no way they're getting the Asian text right

Except if the counterfeits are produced in asia. Lets not forget the absurd prices payed for asian cards because they are considered pimp

[CutthroatCasual]

Except if the counterfeits are produced in asia. Lets not forget the absurd prices payed for asian cards because they are considered pimp

Even if they're produced in Asia that doesn't mean that they can match the font used by WotC. It's not like a Samsung laser printer can print Asian characters better than an HP one. And it's not like a Chinese would be able to tell what font a Japanese kana is more accurately than an American would be able to tell what font English cards are in (unless WotC gives out the name, which still doesn't help unless WotC gives out the exact font file, which they don't AFAIK.)

[ParkerLewis]

I have a simple, practical question.

Are they, and if yes, what are the best ways to spot / identify a very HQ counterfeit as such ?

I am specifically asking because :

- I am back from a 6-7 year long hiatus from the game
- Counterfeit cards seem to have made immense progress since then, up to the point some youtube vids are indeed real scary, while this wasn't really any issue last time I played (so I was unaware of this until a few days ago)
- I have noticed how over the years, real cards themselves have changed on some points, like flexibility (when I compare any card from 2000 or before, to any card from more recent years (2007+, maybe earlier than that), the newer cards are much more softer/flexible).
- Due to picking up the game again, I have gone on quite a shopping spree in the past weeks (spending like >1500€ on cards...), 99% of which from MCM. I am not extremely worried because I didn't buy any super-expensive card (nothing worth more than 50€, even though I know fetches, wasteland, etc. are cards being counterfeited), but in any case this is enough of an issue that I feel I should be more careful from now on.

I have seen and used to know of different ways to spot counterfeit cards, but with the way things have evolved, I'm not sure they're still currently valid. For example, either the basic "feel" of the card, or the bend test, don't seem to be enough anymore. These two (http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.fr/2014/01/spotting-fakes-part-ii-dont-panic.html) links (http://www.quietspeculation.com/2014/01/insider-spotting-fakes/) also mention the UV-lamp test, but is that still valid ? Does a magnifying glass really help anymore ?

Of course non-acceptable tests would be ripping tests or any test that would actually damage the card (if it's real).

Thanks for your help

[Dice_Box]

Use a Lope on the back of the card. That's my trick. Look around the coloured dots on the back and compare them to a real card. There is not a lot of effort put into making the back of the card perfect. The other big two are glow and light tests. Test under a blacklight for a glow and test the card against a harsh light and see if any filters though.

[Sidneyious]

Anymore I'd rather buy hq fakes for them expensive RL cards I'll never afford.

[Moonraker]

This is a serious problem for people who have high value cards and are trying to get back into the game like myself. From what I have read and learned some counterfeit cards are nearly indiscernible from genuine cards. I know mine are genuine because I purchased them when counterfeit cards weren't nearly as sophisticated. I need certain cards for my deck to play well in this format, and want to trade, but don't want to trade my real cards for fakes. Have you guys actually seen fakes that are so sophisticated that you need a loupe to discern the difference? Am I really going to have pull that thing out like a diamond merchant for some playing cards?

[Ace/Homebrew]

You could always limit your trades/purchases to cards that show some amount of character after 20+ years of use. Hard to fake that...

[ParkerLewis]

Have you guys actually seen fakes that are so sophisticated that you need a loupe to discern the difference? Am I really going to have pull that thing out like a diamond merchant for some playing cards?

I have ever been in contact with 3 cards that, if I didn't know such counterfeits could exist, I would not have questioned. Even more, I questioned them not because something felt wrong, but because I now question ALL valuable cards.

Now and to be fair, these were three cards I didn't have a real copy at hand to compare (but one of them was a revised dual and I have seen and do own my fair share of those).

Using a loupe (30x) allowed discrimination, at least by looking for differences with other real cards. Typically, with the loupe, I was able to tell them apart from the precision / quality of the borders / edges printing (real precise and perfect on actual cards, slightly fuzzy on the counterfeits).

For perfect honesty, looking at the back also gave them away this time without any need for a loupe.

But the point is : yes, the ability to make counterfeits that would fool you on a naked eye is out there. Most of the time the guys doing these must be idiot / suckers at what they do and fuck up on the back, or maybe on another aspect of the card, but they could actually do it right.

So yes, buy a loupe. I got back into the game a few months ago, and buying one is among the first things I did. That and looking out for such counterfeits to gain some experience on what to look for on today's market. And if you trade for costly items, do try to have an actual copy at hand you can compare to (or at least a card from the same set). Use your loupe. Try to look for the sharp edges and borders on the card (of course, also look for text, expansion symbol, everything actually, but don't be reassured if only text and expansion symbol are ok). You can also try to compare the printing rosettes (front and back).

Don't relax / be reassured if you come across horrible fakes. A lot of them are complete trash and yes, you will spot them from a mile away. But some just aren't, and they totally have what it takes to catch you offguard if you let them.

i also definitely wouldn't be reassured by "wear". Exposing a card to intense sunburn, or wear them a bit on the edges, all of this seems quite feasible. I definitely wouldn't want to have to judge a card based on whether its wear is "normal" or "faked". I'd much, much rather judge based on the actual printing quality. With a loupe at hand.

[ed06288]

I have no problem with people buying these cards (okay maybe some problem) but people really shouldn't be trading them away or even using them in tournaments. Of course, that's probably wishful thinking. My advice would be to not buy expensive cards from rogue ebay sellers, and do not trade for expensive cards. If you have to buy something like a gaeas cradle, get it from a channel fireball or some other big name store.

I do get a kick out of the finance community freaking out over counterfeits though.

[Moonraker]

Richard Garfield and the folks at WOTC did not dedicate time and effort into bringing this grand game to us for people to defraud it. A little off topic, but have you ever heard of Baulder's Gate? It was also brought to you by WOTC and it was one of the best RPGs ever made. Too many people pirated it and now it's all but gone. :frown:

[jdmdave]

You could always limit your trades/purchases to cards that show some amount of character after 20+ years of use. Hard to fake that...

HP? Hah! All of my duals are beat-to-shit condition asphalt veterans from 1995 playground magic.

[Mr.C]

Richard Garfield and the folks at WOTC did not dedicate time and effort into bringing this grand game to us for people to defraud it. A little off topic, but have you ever heard of Baulder's Gate? It was also brought to you by WOTC and it was one of the best RPGs ever made. Too many people pirated it and now it's all but gone. :frown:

When they brought us this great game, decks didn't cost as much as a car.

[Moonraker]

When they brought us this great game, decks didn't cost as much as a car.

People should stick with modern then, but don't steal. Free riders stifle creativity and productiveness. The folks at WOTC don't have to waste their efforts to bring us such great games, they could just as easily go fishing instead.

[Namida]

People should stick with modern then, but don't steal. Free riders stifle creativity and productiveness. The folks at WOTC don't have to waste their efforts to bring us such great games, they could just as easily go fishing instead.

"Go play a different game you don't want to play" is a strange argument. So is "You harm the content producers" when they have publicly promised to never make any effort to profit from their content because they refuse to produce game pieces that are rather important for Eternal play.

What effort is WOTC putting into Legacy and Vintage? It feels like they aren't even trying to make money from Eternal players. The last bone they threw to Eternal players was to make a set designed mainly for Limited and then deign to call it "Eternal Masters" even though most of the creativity and productiveness spent on the set was to fill it with cards that are effectively useless in Eternal. They then followed that up with cutting down on Legacy GP support in Europe and Asia just to make extra sure they have little chance of seeing profit from anyone playing these formats. I don't counterfeit, but I would be reluctant to use your logic in an attempt to dissuade counterfeiters.

[CutthroatCasual]

I have no problem with people buying these cards (okay maybe some problem) but people really shouldn't be trading them away or even using them in tournaments. Of course, that's probably wishful thinking. My advice would be to not buy expensive cards from rogue ebay sellers, and do not trade for expensive cards. If you have to buy something like a gaeas cradle, get it from a channel fireball or some other big name store.

I do get a kick out of the finance community freaking out over counterfeits though.

If you're not either trying to swindle someone in a trade or passing the cards off as real in a sanctioned event, then there's zero point to owning fakes. "But EDH players!" is a stupid argument because EDH is a joke of a format where you don't need duals to be competitive. "But playtesting!" is another stupid argument; make your own proxies. You can make your own proxies for EDH, too.

[Lord Seth]

Richard Garfield and the folks at WOTC did not dedicate time and effort into bringing this grand game to us for people to defraud it.
Right! All the time and effort they put into reprinting those cards so we could buy them. Oh wait, they really haven't, and in some cases have stated they refuse to make and sell them.

And if you're going to appeal to Richard Garfield, I should point out that he's said that, not counting foils and other special variants, he doesn't think any card should cost more than $20.


Free riders stifle creativity and productiveness. The folks at WOTC don't have to waste their efforts to bring us such great games, they could just as easily go fishing instead.
Ignoring just how downright goofy that claim about "fishing" is, how about Wizards of the Coast... I don't know... actually sell these cards? Indeed, if they had been doing that instead of refusing to fulfill demand, they'd have much less of a potential problem with counterfeiting.

It's one thing to get on your high horse in regards to counterfeiting or piracy when it's doing so instead of buying something. But Wizards of the Coast isn't selling most of these cards, and in fact has stated that for many, they refuse to do so. Which would already be bad enough, but they also insist you use the official cards in tournaments despite refusing to sell them to you. There's really no moral high ground for Wizards of the Coast to take here.

[ed06288]

I think people will always want what they can't have. Even if modern cards got super cheap, then people will want legacy stuff, and then power nine, ect. And then there's always counterfeit rolex watches and fancy purses/shoes.

[big_ticket]

quality of the counterfeit cards are getting better every year,
when i buy something like duals are preferred it to be a sp or hp sometimes

[Moonraker]

I don't counterfeit, but I would be reluctant to use your logic in an attempt to dissuade counterfeiters.

I think you're missing my point. I'm not as much interested in dissuading anyone as I am in pointing out what is happening. You can equivocate about WOTC's business practices all day, but it doesn't change that fact that counterfeiting something to pass it off as genuine is deceptive. When someone trades or sells anything ostensibly genuine, and the person receiving said item(s) does not receive a genuine product it has a cascading effect on the entire industry. Not only does it devalue the product, it also reduces the motivation to create those same type of products. That is the real tragedy I'm getting at. If someone wants to be a swindler that is their agenda.

[MaximumC]

You can equivocate about WOTC's business practices all day, but it doesn't change that fact that counterfeiting something to pass it off as genuine is deceptive. When someone trades or sells anything ostensibly genuine, and the person receiving said item(s) does not receive a genuine product it has a cascading effect on the entire industry.

I agree. I think the moral point here gets overlooked by most people. If you use a counterfeit card in a situation where the opponent is led to believe it is real -- whether that be in a tournament, a trade, or purchase -- then you are lying to them.

With respect to tournament use, the pro-counterfeit crowd will argue variously that: (1) we're not hurting anyone; (2) WOTC is to blame because the cards are too expensive; or (3) we're actually helping boost eternal format attendance. These arguments are what they are, but all of them take the form of: "Yes, I am lying to my opponent, but it's OK because..."

If one does not want to be forced to use real cards, then the real solution is to use playtest cards,* not counterfeits, and then just have unsanctioned events.

* = As defined by WotC, these are cards that would not pass as genuine under even the most casual inspection in a relevant context. Sharpied basic lands, custom art created cards, hand-drawn World Championship blanks, etc.

[Moonraker]

how about Wizards of the Coast... I don't know... actually sell these cards?

Pretty weak attempt at justifying a disturbing trend. Can I trade you my piece of paper for your nostalgic memorabilia?

[MaximumC]

It's one thing to get on your high horse in regards to counterfeiting or piracy when it's doing so instead of buying something. But Wizards of the Coast isn't selling most of these cards, and in fact has stated that for many, they refuse to do so. Which would already be bad enough, but they also insist you use the official cards in tournaments despite refusing to sell them to you. There's really no moral high ground for Wizards of the Coast to take here.

Calling a duck a duck is not getting on a high horse. If you put a card in front of them and claiming it is genuine, when you know it is not, you're lying. I realize it is uncomfortable to admit that if you engage in this conduct or if you think that others doing it will serve a greater good, but call a duck a duck. It quacks.

Additionally, of course, your argument does not get off the ground because everyone CAN buy these cards. Unless we're talking about Fraternal Exultation or something, the cards are available for purchase on the secondary market. The barrier is simply that the prices are too high. There are some who would argue that annoyance that a luxury item is priced too high is insufficient justification for lying.

EDIT: The academics here may enjoy discussing the difference between Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism as it relates to this issue. For my part, I've always thought both schools of thought were valid, but concerned with different questions. Virtue Ethics asks if something is morally good or bad, based largely on how it exhibits an accepted virtue, whereas utilitarianism asks whether a course of conduct is justified. Something can be good and unjustified (giving food to someone who is about to die regardless) as well as bad and justified (withholding food from that person because someone else could make better use of it).

[Moonraker]

There is no utility in losing the creative genius behind these games. Not to say these creative minds aren't acting from purely altruistic motives, only that people who trade in counterfeits potentially risk more than they realize.

[Lord Seth]

Pretty weak attempt at justifying a disturbing trend. Can I trade you my piece of paper for your nostalgic memorabilia?
For a "weak attempt," your counterargument is surprisingly... not good. Or even sensical.


Calling a duck a duck is not getting on a high horse. If you put a card in front of them and claiming it is genuine, when you know it is not, you're lying. I realize it is uncomfortable to admit that if you engage in this conduct or if you think that others doing it will serve a greater good, but call a duck a duck. It quacks.
I am unsure how this relates at all to what I said that you quoted. I pointed out that the ordinary argument as to why piracy and copying is wrong or whatever is because the original creator put work into it, so you should be buying it and supporting them. So, for example, if you just download a copy of Adobe Photoshop instead of buying it, you aren't giving Adobe support for the work they put into the product.

The problem is that in this case, you are not supporting the creator of the work by buying Reserved List cards. Wizards of the Coast gets no money from that. For an in-print card one can claim they at least make the money "indirectly" by booster pack sales (that people then open up and sell as singles) but again, not for cards that aren't in print.

I don't see how this duck and quacking has anything to do with what I said. My point was it's awfully hard to talk about how much it "hurts" Wizards of the Coast to be getting copies of something they are not actually selling and in some cases have said they will never sell again. It's like downloading abandonware, which costs the owning companies (if they're even still in business) a grand total of 0¢.


Additionally, of course, your argument does not get off the ground because everyone CAN buy these cards. Unless we're talking about Fraternal Exultation or something, the cards are available for purchase on the secondary market. The barrier is simply that the prices are too high. There are some who would argue that annoyance that a luxury item is priced too high is insufficient justification for lying.
What does this have to do with my statement at all? You again seem to be attacking an argument I did not make. Are you living in some alternate reality where I said something I didn't in this reality?

[Moonraker]

My point was it's awfully hard to talk about how much it "hurts" Wizards of the Coast to be getting copies of something they are not actually selling and in some cases have said they will never sell again. It's like downloading abandonware, which costs the owning companies (if they're even still in business) a grand total of 0¢.

So your saying that its hard for you to see how counterfeiting a product despite it being out of production hurts the industry that produced it. So you don't think that product integrity affects consumer confidence? You don't think that people who get swindled would prefer to abstain from the product altogether? Somehow this doesn't hurt WOTC? You think the producers of the game won't become disillusioned because the profitability of what they produce doesn't provide a substantial return on investment? You sir, are living in the alternate reality... I'm not going to explain how the world works to you anymore kid. You're just going to have to get ripped off a few times before you understand.

[Lord Seth]

So your saying that its hard for you to see how counterfeiting a product despite it being out of production hurts the industry that produced it? So you don't think that product integrity affects consumer confidence? You don't think that people who get swindled would prefer to abstain from the product altogether? Somehow this doesn't hurt WOTC? You think the producers of the game won't become disillusioned because the profitability of what they produce doesn't provide a substantial return on investment? You sir, are living in the alternate reality... I'm not going to explain how the world works to you anymore kid. You're just going to have to get ripped off a few times before you understand.
Too bad you're not going to explain, because I'm still waiting on an explanation as to how what I was saying was wrong. You seem determined to attack arguments I wasn't making.

[bruizar]

So your saying that its hard for you to see how counterfeiting a product despite it being out of production hurts the industry that produced it. So you don't think that product integrity affects consumer confidence? You don't think that people who get swindled would prefer to abstain from the product altogether? Somehow this doesn't hurt WOTC? You think the producers of the game won't become disillusioned because the profitability of what they produce doesn't provide a substantial return on investment? You sir, are living in the alternate reality... I'm not going to explain how the world works to you anymore kid. You're just going to have to get ripped off a few times before you understand.

+1

[ed06288]

This moonraker guy isn't making any sense

[bruizar]

This moonraker guy isn't making any sense

to people with no world/business experience..

Mtg's value is entirely extrinsic. wizards makes money from the arbitrage of a raw material with low intrinsic value (paper) by adding extrinsic value to it (you know, like a Rembrandt thats worth more than the ink and canvas it's painted on). Take away the extrinsic value and wizards goes out of business

[kirkusjones]

to people with no world/business experience..

Mtg's value is entirely extrinsic. wizards makes money from the arbitrage of a raw material with low intrinsic value (paper) by adding extrinsic value to it (you know, like a Rembrandt thats worth more than the ink and canvas it's painted on). Take away the extrinsic value and wizards goes out of business

I would like to point out that the high-end fashion industry seems to get by just fine with a veritable sea of knock-offs floating around, and has been doing so for years. The major difference is that as magic players, Wizards made the mistake of letting the players think they owe us something. This is not to say that this isn't admirable, but it's a lot like LL Bean's no-questions asked return policy, people will take advantage of altruism if they see a way to make a profit, and will find ways to justify it no matter what. As I've stated before, there is definitely a happy middle ground between the reserved-list and Chronicles style reprints, and such a solution would go a long way to combatting the counterfeit community. It would also go a long way to inspire confidence and attract more people into eternal formats.

[bruizar]

I would like to point out that the high-end fashion industry seems to get by just fine with a veritable sea of knock-offs floating around, and has been doing so for years. The major difference is that as magic players, Wizards made the mistake of letting the players think they owe us something. This is not to say that this isn't admirable, but it's a lot like LL Bean's no-questions asked return policy, people will take advantage of altruism if they see a way to make a profit, and will find ways to justify it no matter what. As I've stated before, there is definitely a happy middle ground between the reserved-list and Chronicles style reprints, and such a solution would go a long way to combatting the counterfeit community. It would also go a long way to inspire confidence and attract more people into eternal formats.

It's good that you mention this. The Burberry-check pattern is the most faked pattern in high end fashion and it has most definitely hurt brand equity. There are papers and university cases about this very topic.

[kirkusjones]

I have a really hard time feeling any sympathy for a company (Burberry) who cleared over 500 milion USD in profits last year. Your point is valid though, they are often the victim of counterfeit.

[Moonraker]

I would like to point out that the high-end fashion industry seems to get by just fine with a veritable sea of knock-offs floating around, and has been doing so for years. The major difference is that as magic players, Wizards made the mistake of letting the players think they owe us something. This is not to say that this isn't admirable, but it's a lot like LL Bean's no-questions asked return policy, people will take advantage of altruism if they see a way to make a profit, and will find ways to justify it no matter what. As I've stated before, there is definitely a happy middle ground between the reserved-list and Chronicles style reprints, and such a solution would go a long way to combatting the counterfeit community. It would also go a long way to inspire confidence and attract more people into eternal formats.

You can always get your cards graded as well. If only that system was more cost effective and allowed the cards to still be played.

[kirkusjones]

Getting cards graded does nothing to increase the supply of reserved list cards. What's driving the counterfeit market is people wanting to play eternal formats but not pay the ludicrous cost of entry based on an altruistic and in my opinion, misguided, policy enacted by Wizards.

[Moonraker]

Getting cards graded does nothing to increase the supply of reserved list cards.

This is true, but the issue isn't supply and demand it is counterfeiting. I'll admit that getting cards graded isn't very practical/cost effective for playing purposes, but it obstructs counterfeiting considerably. Regarding your point about the reserved list, there are many cards that are not on the reserved list that are still counterfeited.

[kirkusjones]

There would be no reason to counterfeit without a limited supply and a vastly disproportinate demand. Believe what you want, but that is the heart of the issue.

[dragonwisdom]

Calling a duck a duck is not getting on a high horse. If you put a card in front of them and claiming it is genuine, when you know it is not, you're lying. I realize it is uncomfortable to admit that if you engage in this conduct or if you think that others doing it will serve a greater good, but call a duck a duck. It quacks.

Additionally, of course, your argument does not get off the ground because everyone CAN buy these cards. Unless we're talking about Fraternal Exultation or something, the cards are available for purchase on the secondary market. The barrier is simply that the prices are too high. There are some who would argue that annoyance that a luxury item is priced too high is insufficient justification for lying.

EDIT: The academics here may enjoy discussing the difference between Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism as it relates to this issue. For my part, I've always thought both schools of thought were valid, but concerned with different questions. Virtue Ethics asks if something is morally good or bad, based largely on how it exhibits an accepted virtue, whereas utilitarianism asks whether a course of conduct is justified. Something can be good and unjustified (giving food to someone who is about to die regardless) as well as bad and justified (withholding food from that person because someone else could make better use of it).


MaximumC - Your logic is sound, well thought out and correct.

[MaximumC]

I am unsure how this relates at all to what I said that you quoted. I pointed out that the ordinary argument as to why piracy and copying is wrong or whatever is because the original creator put work into it, so you should be buying it and supporting them. So, for example, if you just download a copy of Adobe Photoshop instead of buying it, you aren't giving Adobe support for the work they put into the product.

The problem is that in this case, you are not supporting the creator of the work by buying Reserved List cards. Wizards of the Coast gets no money from that. For an in-print card one can claim they at least make the money "indirectly" by booster pack sales (that people then open up and sell as singles) but again, not for cards that aren't in print.

I don't see how this duck and quacking has anything to do with what I said. My point was it's awfully hard to talk about how much it "hurts" Wizards of the Coast to be getting copies of something they are not actually selling and in some cases have said they will never sell again. It's like downloading abandonware, which costs the owning companies (if they're even still in business) a grand total of 0¢.


The connection is in your use of the term "wrong or whatever." You are suggesting that counterfeiting should not be considered "wrong" because, you argue, it is different from pirating Adobe Photoshop. Your definition "wrong" is myopic. Lying is also wrong, and presenting a counterfeit as if it were real in a tournament, trade, or sale involves lying to someone.

I recognize you are using the old "But No One Gets Hurt" argument. Specifically, you are saying that since buying a Reserve List card will never involve giving cash to WotC in exchange for a card, you are saying Wizards will not be injured by counterfeits. Others have pointed out why this might not be correct, and your analogy to abandonware has problems as well, but I wasn't critiquing that. I was just pointing out that what you are doing is utilitarianism. That is, you're judging something as "right" or "wrong" on the basis of the resulting effect. In general, that's a fine thing to do, but it is not really asking if something is good or bad -- just if it can be justified.

Other examples:

1. Stealing food from the supermarket that was about to be put into the dumpster. (Stealing = Wrong, Utility = Justified)
2. Telling the truth to criminals as an undercover cop (Truth = Right, Utility = Unjustified)
3. Working hard to make a present for someone you care about, knowing they are doing the same for you (Generosity = Right, Utility = Justified)
4. Passing counterfeits to a 11 year old child in exchange for his valuable cards (Lying = Wrong, Utility = Unjustified)

And so on.


MaximumC - Your logic is sound, well thought out and correct.

Well hey, thanks.

[Spam]

The connection is in your use of the term "wrong or whatever." You are suggesting that counterfeiting should not be considered "wrong" because, you argue, it is different from pirating Adobe Photoshop. Your definition "wrong" is myopic. Lying is also wrong, and presenting a counterfeit as if it were real in a tournament, trade, or sale involves lying to someone.

I recognize you are using the old "But No One Gets Hurt" argument. Specifically, you are saying that since buying a Reserve List card will never involve giving cash to WotC in exchange for a card, you are saying Wizards will not be injured by counterfeits. Others have pointed out why this might not be correct, and your analogy to abandonware has problems as well, but I wasn't critiquing that. I was just pointing out that what you are doing is utilitarianism. That is, you're judging something as "right" or "wrong" on the basis of the resulting effect. In general, that's a fine thing to do, but it is not really asking if something is good or bad -- just if it can be justified.

Other examples:

1. Stealing food from the supermarket that was about to be put into the dumpster. (Stealing = Wrong, Utility = Justified)
2. Telling the truth to criminals as an undercover cop (Truth = Right, Utility = Unjustified)
3. Working hard to make a present for someone you care about, knowing they are doing the same for you (Generosity = Right, Utility = Justified)
4. Passing counterfeits to a 11 year old child in exchange for his valuable cards (Lying = Wrong, Utility = Unjustified)

And so on.



Well hey, thanks.
Man, on a pure language and logical level, this piece of text is soo well crafted. I could read it again and again. [emoji16]

[non-inflammable]

I've probably posted this somewhere on the source before, but I'll post it again...

For years, I have nurtured a sanctioned Legacy event at my LGS. I offer to ANYONE that walks through the door a tier 1 Legacy deck of their choice.
I will even take requests if people want to play jank; I built Spanish Inquisition for someone and within a few weeks, the guy just stopped coming to Legacy.
I built BUG control for a guy after he asked me to make it; he never even came back to play it... Now, BUG control is the deck I loan out mostly.

One night a guy from out of state walks in, I loan him a deck. He won the event. I never even knew his name and he never came back to the shop.

If there is anyone in the shop when we are getting ready to start Legacy, I will go to every table and introduce myself and explain I will loan or make ANY deck if they want to play.
I offer some suggestions about how easy linear decks are to play and I again offer to make or loan ANY deck for anyone that wants to play.
No matter what I say or who I talk to, I very rarely get someone to take me up on the offer to make them a Legacy deck.

If someone does take me up on the offer to make a deck, they usually only play once or twice and DON'T come back.
You would think having access (for free) to EVERY card in Legacy would increase attendance. It does not!
My efforts to make Legacy decks for anyone has NOT increased the regular Legacy player base by even one person.


Last month, my LGS started to allow 10 card proxy for Legacy events in hopes of increasing attendance.
Not one single new player has come into the shop for Legacy. It's the same 8 or so guys that have been coming for years.

However, something did happen when we allowed proxies, something I did not expect:
Some of the SAME guys that come every week to play Legacy DID use the 10 card proxy allowance to try a new deck.
NOT a single new player came in for Legacy but now the regulars get to try a new deck by using proxies. CURIOUS?

TL/DR: Removing the reserve list will NOT increase the regular Legacy player base in any appreciable way.

[kirkusjones]

Your generosity and hard work for essentially zero reward is admirable. It is unfortunate it has not had an effect at your LGS, but your experience at your LGS is just one tiny part of the community at large. Making such a sweeping generalization based on data from one location in no way reflects the reality of peoples' interest in Legacy as a whole. If every shop, or hell, even 25% of shops had someone as dedicated as you, we would be better off in terms of both attracting new people to the format and keeping them around. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Keep fighting the good fight, though. Someone fleeing Standard or Modern could still surprise you.

[ed06288]

kinda aimed @ non-inflammable; I sold most of my legacy stuff when shops in my area moved to proxy tournaments. I didn't care for my dual lands getting destroyed by print outs of wasteland. Too many kids playing the format too. I don't mind borrowing decks, but I don't see myself borrowing a deck more than 1 or 2 outings, for any format. I don't even play my own decks more than 2 or 3 times in a row anyways. It's also not uncommon for me to not play standard or modern for even 2 or 3 months at a time. But again, I really don't like the proxy tournaments. I feel the whole discussion over counterfeits is moot because the format is "free" anyways. Soooo nowadays I just post in forums like these to complain. i mean, obviously larger events are cool, and are non-proxy, but i kinda like just grinding out small shops on a weekly basis.

[Lord Seth]

The connection is in your use of the term "wrong or whatever." You are suggesting that counterfeiting should not be considered "wrong" because, you argue, it is different from pirating Adobe Photoshop. Your definition "wrong" is myopic. Lying is also wrong, and presenting a counterfeit as if it were real in a tournament, trade, or sale involves lying to someone.
You say "lying is also wrong." Okay, why? Based on what? You start with this claim and then never back it up. Certainly, in many cases the morality of an action is simply assumed by most people (i.e. one is not expected to have to support the idea that "the Holocaust was wrong" when they assert it), but that is not the case here. Very, very few people will agree that lying is, in all cases, wrong, which is what you appear to be advocating (and if you aren't advocating that, your message doesn't make much sense).

Your definition of wrong seems far more myopic than what you accuse of being myopic.


I recognize you are using the old "But No One Gets Hurt" argument. Specifically, you are saying that since buying a Reserve List card will never involve giving cash to WotC in exchange for a card, you are saying Wizards will not be injured by counterfeits. Others have pointed out why this might not be correct, and your analogy to abandonware has problems as well, but I wasn't critiquing that.
What people have "pointed out" are things that aren't actually attacking the argument I was making. Someone made an assertion, I made a specific response to that specific assertion, and then you and others started making attacks on arguments I didn't make. Which admit to doing by your own admission, stating "I wasn't critiquing that." And you are still keeping this up, not actually addressing my point and instead constructing some argument I didn't make to tear down... and you're not even doing that great a job tearing down that imaginary argument in this post. Some of your ideas seem downright bizarre:

2. Telling the truth to criminals as an undercover cop (Truth = Right, Utility = Unjustified)
I would expect the vast majority of people would say that truth=wrong in this case. It certainly is on you, the minority, to explain why it is morally wrong in such a situation to tell the truth and allow the criminals to go free. Perhaps this was a case where the criminals were breaking a law that was unjust to begin with, but you fail to specify this, simply decrying "Truth = Right" which would be an extremely fringe position in this case. Certainly, "most people believe this" or even "almost all people believe this" doesn't make a moral position instantly right, but I believe that if you are going to advocate fringe morality positions, you should at least bother to explain why you think people should agree with you.


Man, on a pure language and logical level, this piece of text is soo well crafted. I could read it again and again. [emoji16]
Ignoring the fact it was attacking imaginary arguments, I do hope you understand that the "well crafted" text is (intentionally or not) taking the position that the people who hid Jews and other "undesirables" to stop them from being killed by the Nazis were doing something morally wrong because it involved lying.

[Lord Seth]

Last month, my LGS started to allow 10 card proxy for Legacy events in hopes of increasing attendance.
Not one single new player has come into the shop for Legacy. It's the same 8 or so guys that have been coming for years.

However, something did happen when we allowed proxies, something I did not expect:
Some of the SAME guys that come every week to play Legacy DID use the 10 card proxy allowance to try a new deck.
NOT a single new player came in for Legacy but now the regulars get to try a new deck by using proxies. CURIOUS?

TL/DR: Removing the reserve list will NOT increase the regular Legacy player base in any appreciable way.
kirkusjones pointed out how this is just the case of one store, but what your example seems to ignore is something important: People, psychologically, seem to really want to actually own their decks if they plan to play much with them. People don't like playing decks that are on loan, at least on a regular basis. They might be willing to do it to try the format out or if they just need to borrow a few cards for a big event, but it seems for most people to stick around they need to actually have their own cards. And that's what the high prices are preventing a lot of people from doing.

[ed06288]

this is why i said moonraker (and others) weren't making sense, i thought they were looking too far into seths arguments. forgive me if it was a little candid, i had been up since 6 that day.

and yes, wouldn't mind just owning the actual deck. its nice getting it in the mail, double sleeving it, feeling the fresh sleeves go through your fingers. idk.

[MaximumC]

You say "lying is also wrong." Okay, why? Based on what? You start with this claim and then never back it up. Certainly, in many cases the morality of an action is simply assumed by most people (i.e. one is not expected to have to support the idea that "the Holocaust was wrong" when they assert it), but that is not the case here. Very, very few people will agree that lying is, in all cases, wrong, which is what you appear to be advocating (and if you aren't advocating that, your message doesn't make much sense).

Yes, I do assume that lying is bad. I think that Virtue Ethics describes what most people mean by right and wrong, most of the time. This essentially asks, "What would Jesus do?" Or, in other words, what character traits would a perfectly virtuous person possess? Usually people do not argue with the big ones, like honesty, generosity, kindness, etc. You may, and that is fine.


Ignoring the fact it was attacking imaginary arguments, I do hope you understand that the "well crafted" text is (intentionally or not) taking the position that the people who hid Jews and other "undesirables" to stop them from being killed by the Nazis were doing something morally wrong because it involved lying.

No, but I would agree that one aspect of this behavior involved doing something bad. Saving human lives from the Holocaust is a much more complicated moral question than those I tried to present. It sets at least one virtue (honesty) against another (kindness) in an extreme way that the examples I tried to use in my last post do not. Also, just because something involves doing something bad does not mean it cannot be justified. We do bad things with justification all the time. Lying to a child about the quality of artwork, for example.

I do not agree, however, that you should use ethical problems created by the Holocaust to justify the forging of Magical Card Games For Babies.

[phonics]

Morality has nothing to do with the issue at all. Whether or not people are getting counterfeits to play, or to swindle others is irrelevant. These are the only things that matter:

1)People want a card
2)Card is expensive
3)It is economical for a third part to develop counterfeits

These three things are facts, and what matters is what WOTC (the only legitimate party with power to dictate anything) does in light of these facts.

[Spam]

I've probably posted this somewhere on the source before, but I'll post it again...

For years, I have nurtured a sanctioned Legacy event at my LGS. I offer to ANYONE that walks through the door a tier 1 Legacy deck of their choice.
I will even take requests if people want to play jank; I built Spanish Inquisition for someone and within a few weeks, the guy just stopped coming to Legacy.
I built BUG control for a guy after he asked me to make it; he never even came back to play it... Now, BUG control is the deck I loan out mostly.

One night a guy from out of state walks in, I loan him a deck. He won the event. I never even knew his name and he never came back to the shop.

If there is anyone in the shop when we are getting ready to start Legacy, I will go to every table and introduce myself and explain I will loan or make ANY deck if they want to play.
I offer some suggestions about how easy linear decks are to play and I again offer to make or loan ANY deck for anyone that wants to play.
No matter what I say or who I talk to, I very rarely get someone to take me up on the offer to make them a Legacy deck.

If someone does take me up on the offer to make a deck, they usually only play once or twice and DON'T come back.
You would think having access (for free) to EVERY card in Legacy would increase attendance. It does not!
My efforts to make Legacy decks for anyone has NOT increased the regular Legacy player base by even one person.


Last month, my LGS started to allow 10 card proxy for Legacy events in hopes of increasing attendance.
Not one single new player has come into the shop for Legacy. It's the same 8 or so guys that have been coming for years.

However, something did happen when we allowed proxies, something I did not expect:
Some of the SAME guys that come every week to play Legacy DID use the 10 card proxy allowance to try a new deck.
NOT a single new player came in for Legacy but now the regulars get to try a new deck by using proxies. CURIOUS?

TL/DR: Removing the reserve list will NOT increase the regular Legacy player base in any appreciable way.
I've had the same exact experience.
I've discussed with a lot of players which don't play legacy. When I asked them why, they replied that the cost was their main issue, this despite having multiple modern decks, foiled decks, etc..
Money is just an excuse for pure disinterest in the format. I don't any issue with that, but I can't quite grasp why people lie.

[Spam]

Ignoring the fact it was attacking imaginary arguments, I do hope you understand that the "well crafted" text is (intentionally or not) taking the position that the people who hid Jews and other "undesirables" to stop them from being killed by the Nazis were doing something morally wrong because it involved lying.

Never said I've liked the content.
Just the exposition.

[Cartesian]

If someone does take me up on the offer to make a deck, they usually only play once or twice and DON'T come back.
You would think having access (for free) to EVERY card in Legacy would increase attendance. It does not!
My efforts to make Legacy decks for anyone has NOT increased the regular Legacy player base by even one person.


Last month, my LGS started to allow 10 card proxy for Legacy events in hopes of increasing attendance.
Not one single new player has come into the shop for Legacy. It's the same 8 or so guys that have been coming for years.

However, something did happen when we allowed proxies, something I did not expect:
Some of the SAME guys that come every week to play Legacy DID use the 10 card proxy allowance to try a new deck.
NOT a single new player came in for Legacy but now the regulars get to try a new deck by using proxies. CURIOUS?

TL/DR: Removing the reserve list will NOT increase the regular Legacy player base in any appreciable way

It is admirable that you do this.

I think you might be drawing the wrong conclusion. I think most people don't want to just play, they want to own the cards they play with. It's part of the full experience. At least in paper. Otherwise we would all be playing with 100% proxies by now. There is a small collector gene is everyone. Have you tried putting one of your decks up for sale instead?

The impression I get, and I might be wrong, is that many people would like to play Legacy if they could somehow afford it or justify the cost. They are not asking for proxies, nor for decks to borrow. They want to own the cards. Because of the Reserved List it feels beyond their reach, and they just give up on it.

[Sloshthedark]

I've probably posted this somewhere on the source before, but I'll post it again...

For years, I have nurtured a sanctioned Legacy event at my LGS. I offer to ANYONE that walks through the door a tier 1 Legacy deck of their choice.
I will even take requests if people want to play jank; I built Spanish Inquisition for someone and within a few weeks, the guy just stopped coming to Legacy.
I built BUG control for a guy after he asked me to make it; he never even came back to play it... Now, BUG control is the deck I loan out mostly.

One night a guy from out of state walks in, I loan him a deck. He won the event. I never even knew his name and he never came back to the shop.

If there is anyone in the shop when we are getting ready to start Legacy, I will go to every table and introduce myself and explain I will loan or make ANY deck if they want to play.
I offer some suggestions about how easy linear decks are to play and I again offer to make or loan ANY deck for anyone that wants to play.
No matter what I say or who I talk to, I very rarely get someone to take me up on the offer to make them a Legacy deck.

If someone does take me up on the offer to make a deck, they usually only play once or twice and DON'T come back.
You would think having access (for free) to EVERY card in Legacy would increase attendance. It does not!
My efforts to make Legacy decks for anyone has NOT increased the regular Legacy player base by even one person.


Last month, my LGS started to allow 10 card proxy for Legacy events in hopes of increasing attendance.
Not one single new player has come into the shop for Legacy. It's the same 8 or so guys that have been coming for years.

However, something did happen when we allowed proxies, something I did not expect:
Some of the SAME guys that come every week to play Legacy DID use the 10 card proxy allowance to try a new deck.
NOT a single new player came in for Legacy but now the regulars get to try a new deck by using proxies. CURIOUS?

TL/DR: Removing the reserve list will NOT increase the regular Legacy player base in any appreciable way.


btw. there is a guy lending out decks usually for price split in our LGS and actually generates 1-4 more players (who are not dedicated legacy players) 2x a week and for a while he was the only reason legacy was alive here... short before a legacy GP we had here the attendance bumped up from 8-12 to 12-20 and hasn't dropped since which brings me to I think there are several other factors to this:

- there is a critical mass of players when the tournaments becomes fun/enjoyable from a normal player's perspective (bare minimum 12+ ppl in a tournament, partially different face every time imo - I almost ceased to play because of the same 8-10ppl attending)
- owning the deck, making changes, investments, being attached to it was already mentioned
- "new" players are taught to play a quite different game then us, they might not understand or enjoy "our" game as they identify themselves with something else

combine it with that new players get usually beaten badly and it doesn't matter that it's free... once you have a decent attendence and break the skepticism, legacy becomes attractive

[Krieg]

I've probably posted this somewhere on the source before, but I'll post it again...

For years, I have nurtured a sanctioned Legacy event at my LGS. I offer to ANYONE that walks through the door a tier 1 Legacy deck of their choice.
I will even take requests if people want to play jank; I built Spanish Inquisition for someone and within a few weeks, the guy just stopped coming to Legacy.
I built BUG control for a guy after he asked me to make it; he never even came back to play it... Now, BUG control is the deck I loan out mostly.

One night a guy from out of state walks in, I loan him a deck. He won the event. I never even knew his name and he never came back to the shop.

If there is anyone in the shop when we are getting ready to start Legacy, I will go to every table and introduce myself and explain I will loan or make ANY deck if they want to play.
I offer some suggestions about how easy linear decks are to play and I again offer to make or loan ANY deck for anyone that wants to play.
No matter what I say or who I talk to, I very rarely get someone to take me up on the offer to make them a Legacy deck.

If someone does take me up on the offer to make a deck, they usually only play once or twice and DON'T come back.
You would think having access (for free) to EVERY card in Legacy would increase attendance. It does not!
My efforts to make Legacy decks for anyone has NOT increased the regular Legacy player base by even one person.


Last month, my LGS started to allow 10 card proxy for Legacy events in hopes of increasing attendance.
Not one single new player has come into the shop for Legacy. It's the same 8 or so guys that have been coming for years.

However, something did happen when we allowed proxies, something I did not expect:
Some of the SAME guys that come every week to play Legacy DID use the 10 card proxy allowance to try a new deck.
NOT a single new player came in for Legacy but now the regulars get to try a new deck by using proxies. CURIOUS?

TL/DR: Removing the reserve list will NOT increase the regular Legacy player base in any appreciable way.

It has been the complete opposite here.
The store has put together 18 completely independent legacy decks available for people to borrow and monthly attendance
has increased as regulars have started bringing their friends that don't have/can't afford decks.

Even the monthly unsanctioned vintage attendance has increased with the availability of decks to borrow.

[Moonraker]

Yes, I do assume that lying is bad. I think that Virtue Ethics describes what most people mean by right and wrong, most of the time. This essentially asks, "What would Jesus do?" Or, in other words, what character traits would a perfectly virtuous person possess? Usually people do not argue with the big ones, like honesty, generosity, kindness, etc. You may, and that is fine.

Apparently to some honesty is outweighed by the desire to beat someone is a card game made for ages 13 and up...

[Mr.C]

Edit: Eh, whatever. I've already said it a bunch of times. People were super excited about Legacy leading up to March 2010, and then from that point on, interest slowly waned to what it is now.

[Lord Seth]

Yes, I do assume that lying is bad. I think that Virtue Ethics describes what most people mean by right and wrong, most of the time. This essentially asks, "What would Jesus do?" Or, in other words, what character traits would a perfectly virtuous person possess? Usually people do not argue with the big ones, like honesty, generosity, kindness, etc. You may, and that is fine.
Usually people do not argue against the idea that what you cited are good in general or in almost all cases; I will not argue against it myself. However, few would argue they are always, in every case, good as your claim indicated. One can easily think of examples where displaying generosity would be seen as the wrong thing to do, such as generously giving money or resources to someone who plans to use them for a nefarious purpose. Or to give a more trivial example, leaving on your lights to try to ward off burglars while you're out of the house is hardly honest, but I expect few would consider it to be wrong on that basis (someone may criticize it on another basis, such as it wasting energy, but that is another matter).


No, but I would agree that one aspect of this behavior involved doing something bad. Saving human lives from the Holocaust is a much more complicated moral question than those I tried to present. It sets at least one virtue (honesty) against another (kindness) in an extreme way that the examples I tried to use in my last post do not.
Actually, I would say the police officer example you gave could be about as extreme as saving people from the Holocaust. After all, stopping those criminals could possibly save lives (generally, going undercover does involve dangerous criminals). Yet you held it up as a case of doing the wrong thing.


I do not agree, however, that you should use ethical problems created by the Holocaust to justify the forging of Magical Card Games For Babies.
I agree. However, once again, you were attacking an argument I didn't make. My responses are less about arguing against your claim (which, again, is irrelevant to me as I do see it as relevant to my point) and more about my amusement that even this rebuttal to an imaginary argument had some noticeable issues with it.

[Moonraker]

Having an ethics discussion with someone who believes that morality is subjective is like arguing your interpretation of an abstract painting. It amounts to an exercise in futility.

[bruizar]

Having an ethics discussion with someone who believes that morality is subjective is like arguing your interpretation of an abstract painting. It amounts to an exercise in futility.

Morality is a human construct and therefore it is by definition subjective. Aside of ethics, (Some people really don't care as long as there is a buck to be made and the chance of getting caught / consequence of getting caught is low, and the actions of a few can impact many), people are fooling themselves if they do not think counterfeits hurt the market. There are quiet a few people who have either liquidated their eternal collections or stopped the singles business.

I am not going to go too deep into the subject, but the fact is you can get thousands of dollars worth of cards for under $20,-. I'm talking Jaces, Snapcasters, The Abyss, Tabernacle, Workshops, etc, etc, etc. And it's not just expensive chase rares, it's even $10 standard or edh cards.

These counterfeits pass all conventional tests and have a blue core. The best counterfeits do not come from China (Although they are very good at it), the best come from Canada. Should you be worried? Yes, you should be fucking worried.

The singles buyouts are driving the players to counterfeits. All Hallow's Eve at €100-€180?? The card is a bust even in oldschool! It was a €30 card before it got bought out a few months ago.

[Sidneyious]

Morality is a human construct and therefore it is by definition subjective. Aside of ethics, (Some people really don't care as long as there is a buck to be made and the chance of getting caught / consequence of getting caught is low, and the actions of a few can impact many), people are fooling themselves if they do not think counterfeits hurt the market. There are quiet a few people who have either liquidated their eternal collections or stopped the singles business.

I am not going to go too deep into the subject, but the fact is you can get thousands of dollars worth of cards for under $20,-. I'm talking Jaces, Snapcasters, The Abyss, Tabernacle, Workshops, etc, etc, etc. And it's not just expensive chase rares, it's even $10 standard or edh cards.

These counterfeits pass all conventional tests and have a blue core. The best counterfeits do not come from China (Although they are very good at it), the best come from Canada. Should you be worried? Yes, you should be fucking worried.

The singles buyouts are driving the players to counterfeits. All Hallow's Eve at €100-€180?? The card is a bust even in oldschool! It was a €30 card before it got bought out a few months ago.
I found a source for counterfeits and they looked good, newer cards look really good but many of the older ones look off to me.

https://postimg.org/image/e3tagnd7b/
https://postimg.org/image/57x0stj8h/
https://postimg.org/image/5hmhjpdt9/
https://postimg.org/image/c2qujhvef/
https://postimg.org/image/rcjvbie77/
https://postimg.org/image/976qbfipt/
https://postimg.org/image/52m908izh/
https://postimg.org/image/458dhlt59/
https://postimg.org/image/5i2xlwrmv/
https://postimg.org/image/mxi1e1w2n/
https://postimg.org/image/4xgs71vn3/
https://postimg.org/image/g5qtuarhl/

No I didn't buy them to scam people or try to pass them off as real.
I bought them for personal use and as a better proxy.
My only complaint is the mana symbol on the duals.

[MaximumC]

Having an ethics discussion with someone who believes that morality is subjective is like arguing your interpretation of an abstract painting. It amounts to an exercise in futility.

Nah, it is subjective, for sure. But, sometimes people equal "subjective" to "totally meaningless," and that's not fair. You may not be able to tell where you draw the line between things you should not do and things you should, but there are extremes where we can agree, presumably; murdering your doting mother because she did not let you go smoke with your friends is clearly on the side of things you should not do, and reading a book to your toddler is something you should do. The point is that we should not be scared of subjectivity.

Indeed, the whole question about counterfeits comes down to where you draw that subjective line between the Shoulds and the Shouldnts. The morality of actions involved and the practical consequences all play into this. Just so my play test cards are on the table, I put counterfeiting cards firmly in the "shouldnt" camp because:

1. Actually using the counterfeits in any relevant context involves a dishonest act.
2. It is a free-rider issue. The person who gets to play a Legacy deck for a fraction of the regular price benefits (in the short term) by externalizing the costs to the game at large to everyone else in the long term.
3. If you want to play with good looking cards that are too expensive in a context where authenticity does not matter (Cube, EDH, casual, non-sanctioned tournaments) then you can get precisely the same utility by just using play-test cards. I'm not even talking about sharpied basic lands; they sell really cool playtext remakes of expensive cards online.

There was one other argument I've heard in this thread, which is that economics dictates that as a good becomes more scarce and more expensive, that it is natural for counterfeits to arise. This really isn't a relevant argument if we're talking about shoulds and shouldnts. It is a predictive question. We can expect that a high-value good will engender counterfeits. That does not mean that counterfeits are GOOD.

After all, do you really buy the Speculator's Argument that, "If the free market will bear a price for a card, then the price is correct no one should ever complain about it?" Economic predictions do not equal morality.

[Ace/Homebrew]

You may not be able to tell where you draw the line between things you should not do and things you should, but there are extremes where we can agree, presumably; murdering your doting mother because she did not let you go smoke with your friends is clearly on the side of things you should not do, and reading a book to your toddler is something you should do.
What if the book is about murdering your mom because she wouldn't let you smoke with your friends? :tongue:


Morality is a human construct and therefore it is by definition subjective.
This is debatable.* Mathematics is a human construct, yet even if humans didn't invent (discover?) mathematics, 1+1 would still equal 2. As such, you can argue that morality has certain absolutes that would be true even if humanity didn't invent (discover?) it.



*Like seriously debatable. Volumes and volumes of arguments for both sides debatable...

[kirkusjones]

I most recently brought up the economics issue. It wasn't meant to support or refute any moral arguments, but more to highlight what I believe is the most significant factor leading to the rise of counterfeits: a supply that does not meet demand.

Some people (like myself) see reprints as a way to alleviate this problem. Again, I don't want Chronicles-level reprints of high-end cards. I think Wizards dipping their toe with Eternal Masters and Conspiracy to increase the supply of higher-end stuff is a massive step in the right direction. However, there are always going to be individuals not willing to pay even a more reasonable price dictated by the market. It is those people who will purchase counterfeits with the intent to deceive. I feel like increasing access to highly desirable cards will decrease the amount of people resorting to counterdeits, but I have no illusions about the kind of reprints I am describing totally eliminating counterfeits and the people who purchase them.

[MaximumC]

I bought them for personal use and as a better proxy.


This, in my opinion, was a terrible choice. You can get good quality playtest cards that are awesome for casual use but have no risk of actually passing for real in a tournament, trade, or sale. (Custom art jobs, for example.) Yet, you chose to give money to someone who is making counterfeits and to put more fakes into circulation. Albeit, they may not go into circulation until you sell your collection or pass it on to your children, sure, but eventually it is released into the wild.

May I ask why you found it important to get cards that "passed every test" if your intention is simply to use them casually?



Some people (like myself) see reprints as a way to alleviate this problem. Again, I don't want Chronicles-level reprints of high-end cards. I think Wizards dipping their toe with Eternal Masters and Conspiracy to increase the supply of higher-end stuff is a massive step in the right direction.

Absolutely. Last summer was sick with reprints, and if they keep that up, the problem is "solved" for non-Reserve list cards. Prices will rise and fall but there is always an escape valve so long as Wizards wishes to use it. For Reserve List cards, however, this is not an option. There, the reality is we just have to wait for reprints that replace, compete with, or can stand in for TL cards. This is happening, too.

[Richard Cheese]

Morality has nothing to do with the issue at all. Whether or not people are getting counterfeits to play, or to swindle others is irrelevant. These are the only things that matter:

1)People want a card
2)Card is expensive
3)It is economical for a third part to develop counterfeits

These three things are facts, and what matters is what WOTC (the only legitimate party with power to dictate anything) does in light of these facts.

This is simply incorrect.

The only reason the war on drugs has been such an unmitigated failure is because nobody ever took to an obscure Internet forum to eloquently lay out why the sale and purchase of illegal narcotics was immoral. WotC simply has to let counterfeiters and buyers know that what they're doing is morally wrong and the problem will simply take care of itself.

[kirkusjones]

Absolutely. Last summer was sick with reprints, and if they keep that up, the problem is "solved" for non-Reserve list cards. Prices will rise and fall but there is always an escape valve so long as Wizards wishes to use it. For Reserve List cards, however, this is not an option. There, the reality is we just have to wait for reprints that replace, compete with, or can stand in for TL cards. This is happening, too.

I neglected to mention it in this thread, but I am a generally outspoken proponent of abolishing the Reserved List.
Let my Tundras (and the rest of the list) go!


This is simply incorrect.

The only reason the war on drugs has been such an unmitigated failure is because nobody ever took to an obscure Internet forum to eloquently lay out why the sale and purchase of illegal narcotics was immoral. WotC simply has to let counterfeiters and buyers know that what they're doing is morally wrong and the problem will simply take care of itself.

Nancy Reagan sure could have used you all those years ago.

[MaximumC]

I neglected to mention it in this thread, but I am a generally outspoken proponent of abolishing the Reserved List.
Let my Tundras (and the rest of the list) go!


Yeah but that ain't happening anytime soon, so put your efforts towards advocating for situationally better/worse duals.

[Lord Seth]

Having an ethics discussion with someone who believes that morality is subjective is like arguing your interpretation of an abstract painting. It amounts to an exercise in futility.
If this is meant to apply to me, I am not a moral subjectivist. What I was noting, in this entirely irrelevant tangent that even by MaximumC's admission was not related to my original point, was that the morality presented was overly simplistic.

Having already spent too much time on this off-topic tangent, this will likely be my last note on the subject.

[Lord Seth]

After all, do you really buy the Speculator's Argument that, "If the free market will bear a price for a card, then the price is correct no one should ever complain about it?" Economic predictions do not equal morality.
The actual problem with the "Speculator's Argument" is that the free market is not at work. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Magic: the Gathering is a government-sponsored monopoly. Per the government, Wizards of the Coast and only Wizards of the Coast is allowed to manufacture Magic cards. One can argue whether this is a good thing or not, but the exact opposite of the free market is at play here.

[Moonraker]

Morality has nothing to do with the issue at all. Whether or not people are getting counterfeits to play, or to swindle others is irrelevant. These are the only things that matter:

1)People want a card
2)Card is expensive
3)It is economical for a third part to develop counterfeits

These three things are facts, and what matters is what WOTC (the only legitimate party with power to dictate anything) does in light of these facts.

Looks to me like the illegitimate parties are starting to dictate things and what we do as consumers matters considerably. In this case morality has everything to do with the issue.


The only reason the war on drugs has been such an unmitigated failure is because nobody ever took to an obscure Internet forum to eloquently lay out why the sale and purchase of illegal narcotics was immoral. WotC simply has to let counterfeiters and buyers know that what they're doing is morally wrong and the problem will simply take care of itself.

I did propose some kind of solution....

[Moonraker]

Nah, it is subjective, for sure. But, sometimes people equal "subjective" to "totally meaningless," and that's not fair. You may not be able to tell where you draw the line between things you should not do and things you should, but there are extremes where we can agree, presumably; murdering your doting mother because she did not let you go smoke with your friends is clearly on the side of things you should not do, and reading a book to your toddler is something you should do. The point is that we should not be scared of subjectivity.

There's no arguing that there's a spectrum, but by your own assertion there is an objective bedrock. Unfortunately, a subject (counterfeiting) that is clearly established on that bedrock seems to be contentious to some.

[Sidneyious]

This, in my opinion, was a terrible choice. You can get good quality playtest cards that are awesome for casual use but have no risk of actually passing for real in a tournament, trade, or sale. (Custom art jobs, for example.) Yet, you chose to give money to someone who is making counterfeits and to put more fakes into circulation. Albeit, they may not go into circulation until you sell your collection or pass it on to your children, sure, but eventually it is released into the wild.

May I ask why you found it important to get cards that "passed every test" if your intention is simply to use them casually?



Absolutely. Last summer was sick with reprints, and if they keep that up, the problem is "solved" for non-Reserve list cards. Prices will rise and fall but there is always an escape valve so long as Wizards wishes to use it. For Reserve List cards, however, this is not an option. There, the reality is we just have to wait for reprints that replace, compete with, or can stand in for TL cards. This is happening, too.
My money

[bruizar]

Could we add a pol to this thread just to check the distribution of opinions on this topic from the hardcore legacy community

[MaximumC]

My money

That explains why you would not get a legit card. But, my question was not that. I wonder why you would want a counterfeit specifically, rather than simply getting a nice-looking play test card.

[Sidneyious]

Not sure what a playtest card is and I looked for something that looked and felt real.

How.is a "proxy" any different than a counterfeit?

[bruizar]

Not sure what a playtest card is and I looked for something that looked and felt real.

How.is a "proxy" any different than a counterfeit?

for realz?

[MaximumC]

Not sure what a playtest card is and I looked for something that looked and felt real.

How.is a "proxy" any different than a counterfeit?

Wizards has three specific definitions they use, that was what I was using:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14

1. Proxy = An official stand-in card given to you by a judge in sanctioned play if your actual card gets damaged.
EXAMPLE: I tear a corner off my Tundra in play. The judge will sharpie the word TUNDRA on a plains and give it to me to use for that tournament.

2. Counterfeit = A non-official card being used in place of an official one that would pass as genuine under casual inspection (in some relevant circumstance).
EXAMPLE: The cards you bought.

3. Playtest Card = A non-official card being used in place of an official one that would NOT pass as genuine under casual inspection (in some relevant circumstance).
EXAMPLE:
http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/30/903/635032479991287721.jpg

My point in these discussions is that, if you're not trying to scam someone in a trade or sale, or sneak into sanctioned play, then buy or make good Playtest cards. There's plenty out there, and imho, they look even BETTER than the real ones. More impressive in Cubes, too.

[MaximumC]

for realz?

https://media4.giphy.com/media/Y2nbrJyAR6RiM/200_s.gif

[bruizar]

Wizards has three specific definitions they use, that was what I was using:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14

1. Proxy = An official stand-in card given to you by a judge in sanctioned play if your actual card gets damaged.
EXAMPLE: I tear a corner off my Tundra in play. The judge will sharpie the word TUNDRA on a plains and give it to me to use for that tournament.

2. Counterfeit = A non-official card being used in place of an official one that would pass as genuine under casual inspection (in some relevant circumstance).
EXAMPLE: The cards you bought.

3. Playtest Card = A non-official card being used in place of an official one that would NOT pass as genuine under casual inspection (in some relevant circumstance).
EXAMPLE:
http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/30/903/635032479991287721.jpg

My point in these discussions is that, if you're not trying to scam someone in a trade or sale, or sneak into sanctioned play, then buy or make good Playtest cards. There's plenty out there, and imho, they look even BETTER than the real ones. More impressive in Cubes, too.

I don't support playtest cards either. The money made from them promote the progression of sophisticated printing techniques that will ultimately lead to indistinguishable counterfeits. Once a playtest card is at the same quality of a real card, it becomes child's play to generate thousands of dollars by replacing the art for the original.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I don't think Sid's confusion is all that absurd. Until recently it was pretty ambiguous. It wasn't until rumors of 'WotC punishing shops for allowing proxy tournaments' that the terms were truly clarified...

Either way, I see nothing morally wrong with Sid using what he bought as long as he sticks to what he says. That doesn't mean there isn't anything morally wrong with purchasing them though. Two separate issues.

[MaximumC]

I don't support playtest cards either. The money made from them promote the progression of sophisticated printing techniques that will ultimately lead to indistinguishable counterfeits. Once a playtest card is at the same quality of a real card, it becomes child's play to generate thousands of dollars by replacing the art for the original.

To me, it's kind of the lesser of two evils. We know there is a strong economic incentive for people to forge counterfeit magic cards. To the extent we can popularize custom play-test cards and divert people into THAT market instead, then we at least prevent the nightmare scenario of the market being quietly flooded with fake duals that sneak into everyone's collection before they are caught.

I mean, if you want to be REALLY technical, then custom playtest cards probably still violate copyright if they even so much as use mana symbols.

Given that people are going to want to do this, I'd rather divert them to cards that won't trick anyone down the road.



Either way, I see nothing morally wrong with Sid using what he bought as long as he sticks to what he says. That doesn't mean there isn't anything morally wrong with purchasing them though. Two separate issues.

Sure, but that's the rub, isn't it? He couldn't use them without having first purchased them, and that's already done. And, now that they exist, eventually they will be released into the wild. He'll sell his collection or give it to his grandkids or whatever.

[Stuart]

And, now that they exist, eventually they will be released into the wild. He'll sell his collection or give it to his grandkids or whatever.

I have fake Power and Workshops with "FAKE" sharpied on the back of them, because I wanted playtest versions that look like the originals. Yeah, I did send money to counterfeiters, so I'm doing my part at eroding consumer confidence, etc. However, at least my fakes won't wind up duping someone into buying them.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Sure, but that's the rub, isn't it? He couldn't use them without having first purchased them, and that's already done. And, now that they exist, eventually they will be released into the wild. He'll sell his collection or give it to his grandkids or whatever.
Yes, but one immoral action does not cause a second action to be inherently immoral.
They could also be intentionally or unintentionally destroyed. And giving them to grandkids doesn't ensure they make it to the public at large.

To be clear, I am not advocating for the production or use of counterfeits. But I find the conversation about the morality of their manufacture/use interesting.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Your position appears to be that the use of a counterfeit card is always morally wrong. I would agree that the purchase of counterfeits is always morally wrong, but I believe there are circumstances where there is nothing wrong with using them.

I can also think of circumstances where producing a counterfeit is morally fine. If I want to teach myself the process of making Magic cards, that's completely fine. Or if I wanted to wallpaper my house with Bayous, making my own would be justified.

Sorry for the double post... I hit reply instead of edit.

[Richard Cheese]

Nancy Reagan sure could have used you all those years ago.

And not just for my Magnum(tm) dong!

[kirkusjones]

And not just for my Magnum(tm) dong!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2qo0xeCYAA6HiY.png:large

Couldn't resist.

[miguelmatix]

Hi guys.
Is there any place were we can post data from people selling counterfeits?
Im asking this because yesterday a Ebay user ("gudemoos") was selling a lot of staples including a playset of Shardless Agent with the picture upsidedown.
At the time i had already won 2 auctions from him but i forced him to cancel my order as soon as i spoted those messed up Shardless.


Link for the Shardless Agents:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/232224297118?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT



Thank you all.

[Mr Miagi]

haha, epic :laugh:

[miguelmatix]

haha, epic :laugh:


lol, maybe its just my head but i guess some people will get burned:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/232224277310?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1435.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/232224280182?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1435.l2649

If you check he still has listings online.
With the exception of Shardless Agents, the other listings seem legit.

[hymnyou]

He will be annihilated shortly.

[ed06288]

Something seems off about that guys inquisitions and dark confidants too. The inquisitions are too dark? Idk.
Why doesn't he sell them as proxies? Playsets still go for $20 to $25. I know Ebay hates proxys sales too and "takes down listings" but the sale still goes through and the customer doesn't get ripped off. And if the buyers suspects something, ebay almost always rules in favor of the buyer. Yeah you get more money selling them as real, but thats just getting greedy and I don't think it's gonna work anyways.

[JBlaze]

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2472-i-made-obscene-money-forging-magic-gathering-cards.html

I generally like cracked but this article is a complete piece of shit

[non-inflammable]

this article is a complete piece of shit

i was a commercial production artist in the print industry for almost 20 years; you don't just send a pdf file to someone and get "passable" high quality fakes.
after reading this article and thinking about it, i'd bet "most" of it is fiction.

one of my playgroup did buy about $30 of fake power 9 from a chinese distributor to use for his 93/94 deck.
they looked good from about 4 feet away but once you had them in your hand they were instantly recognized as counterfeit.

[JBlaze]

If when questioned, your fallback plan involves telling a stranger at a Grand Prix that you ripped off a backpack full of power your destiny probably involves being beaten to death by several thousand nerds.

[ParkerLewis]

Just for information, today I just received two Phyrexian Dreadnoughts.

One of them is a fake.

- Color-wise, it's quite good, if very slightly red/oversaturated, but really slightly. Standing next to the other one (and another copy I already had for like 10 years and know it's 100% true), the difference is visible, but slim and not enough to make it a blatant fake., especially given natural print run variations. It was enough to tick me off though.

- The back, as always, is very important. It tended to confirm my suspicion. Impression feels slightly grainier than it should be, and slightly darker than the othr two copies at my disposal. But still I wasn't 100% sure.

- Loupe test (30x) : now that almost got me.
The text is extremely good. It was definitely printed on a separate layer. In any case, I just couldn't see any difference with the real card.
The expansion symbol is not crystal clear but that's also the case for the other two cards (not printed on a different layer at the time ?), so no way to distinguish here.
At that point I was almost sold. I checked rosettes patterns :
- on the front, without additional lightsource : very difficult to reach a conclusion. On some places it felt maybe a little different, on others really not so much (maybe I was starting to strain my eyes too...)
- on the back same, maybe *a bit* more noticeable, but I was almost ready to believe it was just a print run variation.

- Light test : as-is, pass. There just wasn't any difference between the 3 cards.

At this point I really was ready to let it pass. Luckily I was still feeling uneasy and went to grab my UV-light and took the cards in a dark room.

https://preview.ibb.co/dU60qa/DSC03207_v2.jpg (https://ibb.co/gZH6Va)
https://preview.ibb.co/hfSUiv/DSC03211_v2.jpg (https://ibb.co/bGO23v)
https://preview.ibb.co/dz0RVa/DSC03212_v2.jpg (https://ibb.co/nbzybF)

Glad I bought that UV-light. Results are even much more obvious to the naked eye (these are straight jpegs from my APS-C camera, only downsized. Playing with the raw surely would have allowed me to make it look even more obvious, as much as to the eye, but I figured it was enough as-is).

Additional info : being then 100% sure it was a fake, I was a bit unhappy with how inconclusive the loupe test felt on this card. So I re-did it but with an additional light source held extremely close to the cards so that the part I'd be magnifying would be really brightly lit. The test was much more conclusive and the fake one stood out much more easily. So, when doing a loupe test, don't hesitate to have the card(s) sitting on a desk to free up a hand and to hold an additional light source right on where you're inspecting.

Hope this post may be helpful in any way.

[CutthroatCasual]

Hi guys.
Is there any place were we can post data from people selling counterfeits?
Im asking this because yesterday a Ebay user ("gudemoos") was selling a lot of staples including a playset of Shardless Agent with the picture upsidedown.
At the time i had already won 2 auctions from him but i forced him to cancel my order as soon as i spoted those messed up Shardless.


Link for the Shardless Agents:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/232224297118?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT



Thank you all.

What most worrying about this is that counterfeiters are now going after pimping languages. In the past, one of the ways to ensure you were getting a real card was to buy a foreign language one. Now that seems to no longer be the case... :frown:

[Cartesian]

The test was much more conclusive and the fake one stood out much more easily. So, when doing a loupe test, don't hesitate to have the card(s) sitting on a desk to free up a hand and to hold an additional light source right on where you're inspecting.

Hope this post may be helpful in any way.
Thanks for the info, nice detective work. I think we should all keep in mind that sharing quality info like this also helps the counterfeiters improve their cards next time. If you can google something about how to spot fakes on a public site, the counterfeiters can do the same. There might be an argument for some level of secrecy here, that's all I am saying.

[Mr Miagi]

Parker Lewis, great work and great post. I guess good fakes are/were inevitable.

If anything they will make magic cheaper. Wizards will have to rethink some things I guess.. although I'm not sure much thinking is going on in their heads.

[bruizar]

Could you post pictures of the same cards without the UV?

[Stan]

Thanks for the info, nice detective work. I think we should all keep in mind that sharing quality info like this also helps the counterfeiters improve their cards next time. If you can google something about how to spot fakes on a public site, the counterfeiters can do the same. There might be an argument for some level of secrecy here, that's all I am saying.

Those people read these sites too. There is no way you can get the spotting info out to interested buyers, without keeping it out of the hands of counterfeiters.

[mistercakes]

Hey guys,

I got my natural orders about a year ago off of Pucatrade. After the deck was complete, I got an email from an admin saying that it's possible one of the ones I received was a fake. Unfortunately I had shuffled them and wasn't sure which one came from that user. The only noticeable difference between 1 and the other 3 was this weird white dotted border.

I don't feel comfortable playing with possibly fake cards, so I went ahead and ordered a 5th one off of MKM. It came in this week, and it also has a dotted white border. (Any other elves players can probably check their card and not see this, unless if it's more common than I imagine.

Can anyone here help me get to the bottom of this? Is this an indication of a fake card?

Thanks!

http://i68.tinypic.com/vsgbw7.jpg

in case that doesn't work:

https://ibb.co/nn64av

[Noctalor]

I'm reasonably confident the card is not fake, I've never seen such precision in the dot pattern of the card in a counterfeit, I am not even judging the border of the card.

By the way, have you tried light and bending?

[mistercakes]

The card passes every check that I've seen listed on guides. My main concern was that pucatrade.com sent me a message regarding the card. Anyone else ever seen any other cards from visions with that border?

Thanks noct

[ParkerLewis]

The card passes every check that I've seen listed on guides. My main concern was that pucatrade.com sent me a message regarding the card. Anyone else ever seen any other cards from visions with that border?

Thanks noct

If I can think about taking my cards back with me for the week-end, I should be able to check out my NO copies.

Your loupe seems quite good though, could you share the model ?

[mistercakes]

Ade advanced optics

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CUOC8VS/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also pic was taken with galaxy s7, which takes pretty good images.

[non-inflammable]

it also has a dotted white border

i'm a commercial artist with 20 years printing experience; that's a very slight registration issue.

totally legit, NOT fake.

i also own 4 visions natural orders, one is exactly like yours with the white dots.
i really like your loupe, gonna get one soon.

[mistercakes]

Thanks for the confirmation guys :)

[morphilou]

parkerlewis==> for me your card is true
they are 2 printing process ==> usa and belgium for old card (not same paper)
to see the 4th alternat not black light
the imprim are do with 1 printing (very often Not to say all the time)
the true card with 4 printing (cyan magenta yellow) + BLACK for text


the full black of textbox remove 95% OF FAKE

sorry , i'm french and my english is very bad

[non-inflammable]

parkerlewis==> for me your card is true
they are 2 printing process ==> usa and belgium for old card (not same paper)
to see the 4th alternat not black light
the imprim are do with 1 printing (very often Not to say all the time)
the true card with 4 printing (cyan magenta yellow) + BLACK for text


the full black of textbox remove 95% OF FAKE

sorry , i'm french and my english is very bad

mon français est mauvais, d'accord?

#1 Parker, your card is real
#2 Over the years there were several printing locations: US and Belgium
#3 Alternate 4th edition cards do not fluoresce under black light, they are not worth a whole lot but cool
#4 ? The fake cards have 4 color fuzzy text
#5 real cards are printed using 4 color process (CMYK)
cyan = sky blue * magenta = bubble gum pink * yellow = yellow
these three colors can technically be "enough" but the black plate is needed to add punch and contrast to images.
the black textbox is a almost always a seperate process (black plate) and should look very crisp and clean.
#6 if the textbox looks "fuzzy" it's probably fake...

[Claymore]

Followup on #4, he's saying that the counterfeits are printed in a single run, or more that they print the whole image at once. As far as I know, real cards print the CYK in a dot matrix layer, and then the black layer on top of everything else. This is why the black layer is so crisp, it's not printed with dots at all.

[ParkerLewis]

Well... I live in Paris, my name is François, and I spend like almost 100€ monthly on cheese for what is basically only my personal consumption.

If you'd rather send me messages in french chances are it'll be fine.

[morphilou]

Followup on #4, he's saying that the counterfeits are printed in a single run, or more that they print the whole image at once. As far as I know, real cards print the CYK in a dot matrix layer, and then the black layer on top of everything else. This is why the black layer is so crisp, it's not printed with dots at all.

no , 3 layer , 1 by color

a "set" of 4 transparencies (blue / red / yellow / black) superimposed. It was this object which enabled the printer to create the original printing plates.
- a test print, derived from these transparencies, and done on a paper type photo paper.
Basically it is a test print allowing to visualize the final rendering.
the first test (alpha)- This first print test (alpha) was done at the time by Dave Howell (then WotC Production Manager) via a local printer in Seattle.
it is for 1 testprint but it is the same for the card

the black is full black , never pixelated

[dragonwisdom]

Just for information, today I just received two Phyrexian Dreadnoughts.

One of them is a fake.

- Color-wise, it's quite good, if very slightly red/oversaturated, but really slightly. Standing next to the other one (and another copy I already had for like 10 years and know it's 100% true), the difference is visible, but slim and not enough to make it a blatant fake., especially given natural print run variations. It was enough to tick me off though.

- The back, as always, is very important. It tended to confirm my suspicion. Impression feels slightly grainier than it should be, and slightly darker than the othr two copies at my disposal. But still I wasn't 100% sure.

- Loupe test (30x) : now that almost got me.
The text is extremely good. It was definitely printed on a separate layer. In any case, I just couldn't see any difference with the real card.
The expansion symbol is not crystal clear but that's also the case for the other two cards (not printed on a different layer at the time ?), so no way to distinguish here.
At that point I was almost sold. I checked rosettes patterns :
- on the front, without additional lightsource : very difficult to reach a conclusion. On some places it felt maybe a little different, on others really not so much (maybe I was starting to strain my eyes too...)
- on the back same, maybe *a bit* more noticeable, but I was almost ready to believe it was just a print run variation.

- Light test : as-is, pass. There just wasn't any difference between the 3 cards.

At this point I really was ready to let it pass. Luckily I was still feeling uneasy and went to grab my UV-light and took the cards in a dark room.

https://preview.ibb.co/dU60qa/DSC03207_v2.jpg (https://ibb.co/gZH6Va)
https://preview.ibb.co/hfSUiv/DSC03211_v2.jpg (https://ibb.co/bGO23v)
https://preview.ibb.co/dz0RVa/DSC03212_v2.jpg (https://ibb.co/nbzybF)

Glad I bought that UV-light. Results are even much more obvious to the naked eye (these are straight jpegs from my APS-C camera, only downsized. Playing with the raw surely would have allowed me to make it look even more obvious, as much as to the eye, but I figured it was enough as-is).

Additional info : being then 100% sure it was a fake, I was a bit unhappy with how inconclusive the loupe test felt on this card. So I re-did it but with an additional light source held extremely close to the cards so that the part I'd be magnifying would be really brightly lit. The test was much more conclusive and the fake one stood out much more easily. So, when doing a loupe test, don't hesitate to have the card(s) sitting on a desk to free up a hand and to hold an additional light source right on where you're inspecting.

Hope this post may be helpful in any way.

Wow that was nice!. Could you post the make and model of your blacklight.

Thanks

[walked]

I put together a quick video after seeing some misinformation about fakes on Reddit.

https://vimeo.com/223658575

Hopefully it helps someone else!