Chinese fakes

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Just for stating the obvious: 3000$ decks aren't helping the format grow. Neither does killing the collectible aspect via mass reprints or a fake-flooded market.

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Mass reprints do zilch to kill the collectible aspects because they don't make anything less collectible. I know I keep bringing this up, but I'll do it again: Do you know how much it costs to get a copy of Shakespeare's plays? Nothing. You can look them up on the Internet. But let's suppose you want a physical copy. You know how much that will cost? The Oxford Shakespeare is about $25. Now, do you know how much original copies of The First Folio (the first collection of Shakespeare's plays) cost? Millions of dollars. Because they're genuine collectibles. The fact there's twenty zillion copies of Shakespeare's plays floating around or the fact that you can get them for really cheap isn't hurting them because their value comes from their collectibility, not their usability. No one thinks to themselves that they want to sit down and read some Shakespeare, then go and try to get a copy of The First Folio to do so.

If a mass reprint kills a card's value, it isn't because it hurt the collectible aspect. It's because that card wasn't really a collectible to begin with, and its high price came from its usability.

It doesn't make sense to say that I should have to play a format I enjoy less or I find inferior, like pauper or limited, because I don't have a big check book. That has nothing to do with game play.

Game play should be the factor in any competition, casual or formal. Not arbitrary barriers to entry. You can pretend it matters, but it's just irrelevant. It doesn't matter if I'm playing with a 1000 dollar deck, or a 10 deck, as long as they look and function the same, I still beat you or you still beat me.

You haven't explained how passable proxies affect the game play. You haven't who is being harmed. All I'm hearing is baseless speculation. Your cards aren't going to be worthless overnight, and it's petty to be upset because other players are able to have the same game play experience without spending as much money. It doesn't affect you.

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Originally Posted by HonorBasquiat

If you actually read what I'd wrote, you'd learn about other reasons why people want to play with passable proxies (they want an indistinguishable gameplay experience without spending thousands of dollars, they don't want to slow down the game with crappy proxies, they play in play circles where crappy proxies are frowned upon, etc.)

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As the following four posters have stated...

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee, Lemnear, ESG, from Cairo

I don't understand why you think that printed cut outs that are identical to the cards they are proxies of slid in front of basic lands in a set of 3.00 ultra-pro sleeves are less acceptable than non-destinguishable fakes that quite possibly threaten the entire tournament structure and even the game itself.

The only stupidity is claiming that enjoyable Gaming in your LGS NEEDS high quality fakes.

What I get from your posts is selfishness. You want an expensive Legacy deck but don't want to pay for it. You want it to be tournament-legal.

I don't see how you can put yourself in the shoes of someone who has been supporting the game and buying licensed cards and not see how they would be upset by passable fakes.

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One of the local game stores I go to allows 12 proxies. No one has a problem with that or else they wouldn't play there. The proxies aren't always the greatest, but they are passable for testing and learning purposes. Usually, once the player has determined that they actually like the deck, they work to actually buy the real cards.

Most home printers have enough resolution to produce very good proxies. If your printer isn't very good, you can take a thumb drive with proxy images to FedEx and print a ton of proxies for less than a couple dollars. Their resolution is fine. The only problem would be that you cannot pass them off as real cards.

HonorBasquiat, there is only one reason to buy counterfeits, and that is because they are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Don't come up in here and try to be all poor pitiful me who can't even afford to play Legacy ever in a million years. You want something, but you don't want to pay for it. Again, by buying counterfeits you personally are donating money to people who are contributing to the failure of Magic. It's that simple. Tell it like it is, "I want Magic cards today but I want them cheap and I don't really care what happens to your cards and I don't care what happens to the game a year from now or in ten years. I just want my cheap cards now."

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

Now, do you know how much original copies of The First Folio (the first collection of Shakespeare's plays) cost? Millions of dollars. Because they're genuine collectibles.

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I don't understand your point. While I'm not familiar with The First Folio, I would imagine that indistinguishable forgeries are impossible to make. Anyone who seriously considers spending millions of dollars will have the tools and resources to verify that they are not purchasing a fake. The average Magic player, and especially new players, do not have the resources or experience to distinguish between very good counterfeits.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Dood, peeps tried to cheat on me with proxies in the past within tournament play AND trade ... for me that IS an issue I take dead serious

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I also have some experience with this, having accidentally traded for fake cards. Looking back on it now, it's laughable that I would have ever believed them to be real cards, but let's not forget that these counterfeits hurt new and inexperienced players the most.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

WotC should move their asses and reprint Legacy staples in Standard legal Sets to finally make the Legacy community buy boosters or create more prepacked products for that crowd. WotC can do a shitload of stuff to make counterfeinting unattractive

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I agree. The ball is very much in Wizard's hands. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they should really be working hard to find a good way to reprint old expensive cards. Counterfeits threaten to undermine collectibility like reprints never could.

It effects me because I did scrimp and save to make the purchases. I don't have a big check book but I've done what I had to do to play a deck I like in a format that I enjoy. There have been many good arguments made in this thread against your foolish lines of thought. Just because you call them baseless doesn't actually mean that they are. You won't admit to being incorrect in any capacity even though it's clear to most that you are at best uneducated on matters such as these. Ignorance isn't becoming of anyone, and that includes you. These pieces of cardstock are around 20 years old. That's pretty damn old for paper. Lots have been destroyed, and others are in the process of being just that. I have in the past paid as little as 17 dollars per trop. Tarmogoyf was under 4 dollars for over a week upon release. I paid less than 9 each for all 8 of my SFM's. I bought the pre con from kamigawa that had jitte. Its my assertion that it's your fault for not recognizing the playability of these cards when they were affordable and buying them before they spiked due to proven playability and/or time lapse. It's pay to play. Stop whining like my 7 yr old daughter (you are actually worse); pay up or get out.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

Mass reprints do zilch to kill the collectible aspects because they don't make anything less collectible. I know I keep bringing this up, but I'll do it again: Do you know how much it costs to get a copy of Shakespeare's plays? Nothing. You can look them up on the Internet. But let's suppose you want a physical copy. You know how much that will cost? The Oxford Shakespeare is about $25. Now, do you know how much original copies of The First Folio (the first collection of Shakespeare's plays) cost? Millions of dollars. Because they're genuine collectibles. The fact there's twenty zillion copies of Shakespeare's plays floating around or the fact that you can get them for really cheap isn't hurting them because their value comes from their collectibility, not their usability. No one thinks to themselves that they want to sit down and read some Shakespeare, then go and try to get a copy of The First Folio to do so.

If a mass reprint kills a card's value, it isn't because it hurt the collectible aspect. It's because that card wasn't really a collectible to begin with, and its high price came from its usability.

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I feel the topic/idea here is that there are a million poststamps but every player should own a Blue Mauritius because they prefer collecting old poststamps.

We are talking about formats and not revised, FBB and Beta Duals.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

I also have some experience with this, having accidentally traded for fake cards. Looking back on it now, it's laughable that I would have ever believed them to be real cards, but let's not forget that these counterfeits hurt new and inexperienced players the most.

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Pretty much what I wrote:

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I just don't want to get those fakes into circulation and end up in innocent teenagers hands which would get in Troubles at some point if they play it in tournaments or caught trading fakes, therefore I want to prevent those manufacturers from getting any Financial Motivation to create better fakes

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

It effects me because I did scrimp and save to make the purchases. I don't have a big check book but I've done what I had to do to play a deck I like in a format that I enjoy. There have been many good arguments made in this thread against your foolish lines of thought. Just because you call them baseless doesn't actually mean that they are. You won't admit to being incorrect in any capacity even though it's clear to most that you are at best uneducated on matters such as these. Ignorance isn't becoming of anyone, and that includes you. These pieces of cardstock are around 20 years old. That's pretty damn old for paper. Lots have been destroyed, and others are in the process of being just that. I have in the past paid as little as 17 dollars per trop. Tarmogoyf was under 4 dollars for over a week upon release. I paid less than 9 each for all 8 of my SFM's. I bought the pre con from kamigawa that had jitte. Its my assertion that it's your fault for not recognizing the playability of these cards when they were affordable and buying them before they spiked due to proven playability and/or time lapse. It's pay to play. Stop whining like my 7 yr old daughter (you are actually worse); pay up or get out.

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None of what you just said has anything to do with game play. Good for you, you got your cards for a reasonable price. Do you want a cookie? Why shouldn't I be able to play with you? Because I'm too poor to? Or I don't want save for years to buy a deck I'm only going to play a couple times a week?

Explain the harms of using the cards provided they aren't being sold or traded as real cards.

The harms? That's already been done, you just refuse to acknowledge them as reasonable and accurate. Also, I don't need a cookie; I have a fully completed, half-pimped esperblade list. This is a trading card game, so trade. You don't need a banker's budget to accumulate playable staples that way.

How often you play is your decision.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

The harms? That's already been done, you just refuse to acknowledge them as reasonable and accurate. Also, I don't need a cookie; I have a fully completed, half-pimped esperblade list. This is a trading card game, so trade. You don't need a banker's budget to accumulate playable staples that way.

How often you play is your decision.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

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How do passable proxies hinder or affect game play? You don't want certain players to be able to play because of a technicality that has nothing to do with game play or skill, but instead an arbitrary barrier to entry that has nothing to do with competition.

Maybe it takes not failing at life to break into the format, I don't know. All I know is somehow I've been managing fine to play legacy through high school, college, marriage, fatherhood, divorce and other costly life issues without being half as whiny as you over just the past 48 hours.

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Originally Posted by HonorBasquiat

How do passable proxies hinder or affect game play?

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It's very simple, so maybe if you'd stop picking and choosing what information you'd like to acknowledge we could get somewhere. "Passable proxies" or counterfeits or indistinguishable fakes or whatever you'd like to call them hinder game play by eliminating game play. Tournaments need backers like WotC, SCG, TCG, and local gaming stores; without these institutions, tournament play would not exist. Counterfeiting undeniably hurts businesses that revolve around gaming and collectibles. Local gaming stores in particular are the bread and butter of the Magic community, and having the thinnest profit margins, stand to suffer the most. Does this help you or would you prefer to ignore this so that you can attempt to rationalize obtaining your cheap cards today?

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Originally Posted by Dzra

It's very simple, so maybe if you'd stop picking and choosing what information you'd like to acknowledge we could get somewhere. "Passable proxies" or counterfeits or indistinguishable fakes or whatever you'd like to call them hinder game play by eliminating game play. Tournaments need backers like WotC, SCG, TCG, and local gaming stores; without these institutions, tournament play would not exist. Counterfeiting undeniably hurts businesses that revolve around gaming and collectibles. Local gaming stores in particular are the bread and butter of the Magic community, and having the thinnest profit margins, stand to suffer the most. Does this help you or would you prefer to ignore this so that you can attempt to rationalize obtaining your cheap cards today?

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Proxies don't hurt LGS's. It's just a baseless assumption. People buy proxies because they can't afford to spend thousands on cards, they wouldn't have bought them anyway. People with fake cards have to pay tournament fees also. And people who have had the same legacy deck for years aren't buying singles from stores to support their deck anymore anyway. There are also stores that host tournaments that don't even sell singles.

Honestly I'm not a very competitive player, so I wouldn't use the cards for competitive play but I will built more competitive decks to play with casually, and I won't tell people my cards are fake because it doesn't affect game play.

This thread needs a lock ...


@HonorBasquiat:
What about a post without the use of the words "baseless assumption"? Every argument was commented that way, so I woild be interested in an argument how supporting counterfeit producers by buying card from them and creating a demand is any healty for the game?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

This thread needs a lock.

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Qft. QAPC.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

This thread needs a lock.

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Originally Posted by HonorBasquiat

Proxies don't hurt LGS's.

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We aren't talking about proxies. Like someone stated earlier, proxies stop being proxies when they can be mistaken for the real thing. Proxies do not hurt stores. Counterfeits do.

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Originally Posted by HonorBasquiat

Honestly I'm not a very competitive player, so I wouldn't use the cards for competitive play but I will built more competitive decks to play with casually, and I won't tell people my cards are fake because it doesn't affect game play.

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Are you embarrassed to play with proxies? Is that what this is about? For whatever reason you cannot or will not buy the real cards; however, you don't want to get sneered at for printing cards off your home printer. Maybe you can win some cool points by fooling people into thinking that you can afford a fancy Legacy deck?

No one is stopping you from playing the game. No one is stopping you from making your own proxies. If you don't want to get made fun of for playing with proxies then find some better friends or save up for the real thing, but don't ruin the game for everyone else.

This thread no longer serves any purpose, why is it open?

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Originally Posted by Dzra

I don't understand your point. While I'm not familiar with The First Folio, I would imagine that indistinguishable forgeries are impossible to make. Anyone who seriously considers spending millions of dollars will have the tools and resources to verify that they are not purchasing a fake. The average Magic player, and especially new players, do not have the resources or experience to distinguish between very good counterfeits.

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Two things.
I was under the impression we were talking about Wizards of the Coast mass reprinting cards. In that case, the whole counterfeiting is irrelevant because they're official.

Though new players are not the ones who are most into collecting anyway, so them falling for counterfeits does not, as far as I can see, damage collectibility. The people who care about the collectibles are the ones most devoted to making sure what they have aren't counterfeits.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

I was under the impression we were talking about Wizards of the Coast mass reprinting cards. In that case, the whole counterfeiting is irrelevant because they're official.

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Ah. I thought we were talking about counterfeiting. I think almost everyone on this forum agrees that Legacy staples should be officially reprinted in some capacity by WotC.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

Though new players are not the ones who are most into collecting anyway, so them falling for counterfeits does not, as far as I can see, damage collectibility. The people who care about the collectibles are the ones most devoted to making sure what they have aren't counterfeits.

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It hurts new players in a few ways:
1. When they trade real cards or money for counterfeits.
2. When they either knowingly or unknowingly trade away their counterfeits.
3. When they go to play in a tournament and are disqualified for (unknowingly) playing with counterfeits.
4. And finally, because even if they might not care about collectibility as much as veteran players, they still are acquiring their cards with the assumption that they do have some collectible value.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

We aren't talking about proxies. Like someone stated earlier, proxies stop being proxies when they can be mistaken for the real thing. Proxies do not hurt stores. Counterfeits do.

Are you embarrassed to play with proxies? Is that what this is about? For whatever reason you cannot or will not buy the real cards; however, you don't want to get sneered at for printing cards off your home printer. Maybe you can win some cool points by fooling people into thinking that you can afford a fancy Legacy deck?

No one is stopping you from playing the game. No one is stopping you from making your own proxies. If you don't want to get made fun of for playing with proxies then find some better friends or save up for the real thing, but don't ruin the game for everyone else.

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I still don't understand what difference it makes for you if my proxies are passable or crappy looking. I want a realistic experience, but I don't want to spend thousands of dollars. But I don't know why you care about what my proxies look like, or how I obtained them, or made them, etc. As long as I'm not trading or selling them as real cards what difference does it make?