Legality of foils

[jazzykat]

All,

While I have a strong dislike of foils in general there are some cards which I really do like in foil, especially the older ones with the "shooting star" and old school borders and layout.

I seriously am considering playing in the Legacy Grand Prix and was wondering if having only a few foils would somehow make my deck illegal? I heard that someone got penalized for having just a foil X in their deck because somehow the judge was able to cut to it every time. How is this even possible?

So my question to serious tournament players is what is the deal on foils? How can I play a few but not get penalized?

[Swing4Five]

The problem arises from foils tendency to sometimes become curved, usually brought on by whatever material it is they use to create the foil effect shrinking from temperature changes or when it's damp out.

If you have managed to avoid this phenomenon then just keep storing your cards as you currently are and you shouldn't have an issue.

[Anusien]

Just don't play a marked deck. The "issue" with foils is that they tend to bend more than normal cards; keep an eye on your deck and make sure that the foils aren't bent. Keep them flat under books or back to back in notebooks if you need to straighten them out.

Also, make sure to play a mix of nonfoils and foils at all permanents types if possible. If only your lands are foil, for example, and they end up marked, it's Marked Cards: Major and a Game Loss. If you can't tell what the foil is just because it's a foil, it's only Marked Cards: Minor.

[Forbiddian]

Apart from the telltale bend (which is very easy to see), even unbent foils weigh more than other cards.

I don't know what the exact values are, but I can feel foil vs. non-foil correctly most of the time. With practice, I'm sure I could be near 100% accurate.

The cheat is that you make most/all of your lands foil and all your business spells nonfoil. This used to be fairly common (even among non-cheaters) because, well, foils were all the rage, but foil business spells were expensive and foil basics were quite cheap. People "pimped" their decks with a dollar or two worth of foil cards.

Of course, you have to feel the top card of your library, which is bound to arouse suspicions. There are ways to do this that are pretty innocuous that I won't get into, but just be suspicious of anybody running foil lands.


Back in the day, it was quite hard to catch the cheaters. Now mono colored decks are unpopular, and even among the mono decks, foil basic lands are pretty unpopular (people pimp their decks with Beta lands or Unglued or just lands from their favorite set), so it's harder to cheat this way, but it's worth bringing up that even pristine foils can be "marked."

[Bryant Cook]

Foil cards are also thicker. Put a foil in a sleeve, then a regular card. You can feel the difference in thickness.

[Obfuscate Freely]

With practice, anyone can learn to cut a deck to a foil or non-foil card. Therefore, you could be suspected of marking your deck if there is any discernable pattern to which cards in your deck are foil versions and which are not.

The safest bet is definitely to play either with all foils (which is generally impossible for Legacy decks), or to play with none at all.

[andrew77]

Problems usually arise when people are using only a few foils. For example I remember seeing a guy dq'd from a ptq for playing a scepter chant deck with 4 foil chants. Because those were his only foils and because they were quite warped he could cut to them with ease and it obviously created a huge advantage for him.

[Forbiddian]

Foil cards are also thicker. Put a foil in a sleeve, then a regular card. You can feel the difference in thickness.

Oh, maybe it's the thickness that I'm feeling. I thought they were heavier, but even if they have the same mass, something thicker would no doubt feel heavier.

Either way, you can tell pretty easily, even without the curve.

[yggdrasil]

Problems usually arise when people are using only a few foils. For example I remember seeing a guy dq'd from a ptq for playing a scepter chant deck with 4 foil chants. Because those were his only foils and because they were quite warped he could cut to them with ease and it obviously created a huge advantage for him.

If he got DQed (and not only a Game Loss) then he must have cheated (that means: done it on purpose!). Please DO NOT confuse that with "oh, I just got a GL because the judge thinks the Chants bend to much and I could use that for my advantage"!

With practice, anyone can learn to cut a deck to a foil or non-foil card.

Only if the foil card bends in a different fashion than the rest of the deck. To do that, it doesn't have to be foil, it just helps.

And to be very clear here: just being foil doens't mean you're automatically doing something wrong. If the judge thinks the cards are marked, it isn't automaically cheating because for that, you need to do it knowingly.

[Radley]

if your foils started to bend, just bend the rest of the deck lol. would u rather take out all your expensive foil that you are trying to hard to show-off to other players? if it was me then i'd say no so i'll just bend the rest of the deck

[Obfuscate Freely]

Here's a short article on the subject, written by Peter Jahn. It offers a judge's point of view, and is pretty clear about how to avoid problems caused by your foils.