Chinese fakes

[Barook]

Stores would no longer sell any Magic cards. No boosters (outside of Draft), and certainly no singles. Their sole Magic revenue stream would be from tourney attendance money, and a large portion of that is fed back into the prize pool. I don't understand how the store would make more profit if they no longer are able to sell Magic cards.

Now you're vastly exaggerating. Profit comes mainly from recent packs and it's probably going to take a while until they can perfectly replicate the new stuff coming from M15. There's also the argument that it actually helps stores to sell more singles because you can check them out in person before actually purchasing them.

There's exactly as much evidence for "the sky is falling" as for "it's going to be fine" - zero. The issue isn't as black and white as some people try to paint it (aside from the moral standpoint) - but there's a huge gray area we have absolutely no data about.

@metelhead: According to one of the pictures, the Alibaba fakes are supposed to pass UV test, but we have to see prove of that first.

[twndomn]

Stores would no longer sell any Magic cards. No boosters (outside of Draft), and certainly no singles. Their sole Magic revenue stream would be from tourney attendance money, and a large portion of that is fed back into the prize pool. I don't understand how the store would make more profit if they no longer are able to sell Magic cards.

See, this is where your theory falls apart. I predict store would still sell Singles and they certainly will still sell Magic cards.

If I were the store owners, I would still have a buy list. I would still host Draft and have judges. Judges and I would monitor the players at all times, no swapping and/or any shady behaviors allowed. Only the singles opened from that draft would be allowed to be sold back to the store immediately after the draft has ended.

Therefore, if I as a player want to buy Magic cards from Internet, an online seller that has physical store in United States following above guideline is much more reputable than a seller without.

As simple as that, your doomsday scenario is avoided. I don't understand how you reach your hysterical conclusion.

[Arsenal]

If the fake is indistinguishable from the real thing (I understand it currently is not, but I believe it's only a matter of time until the forgery can't be distinguished from the genuine article), the brick and mortar store will not be able to move any singles as consumers can obtain the same thing for a fraction of the price from alibaba. Outside of Limited, why are consumers going to buy $4 boosters if they can just buy the chase rare for $1 from alibaba?

Lol at stores still being able to sell singles. Sure, if alibaba is offering Tarmogoyf for $5, what's the store going to do? They either offer their Tarmogoyf also for $5 and lose out on a ton of profit (assuming they had to spend more than $5 to acquire said Tarmogoyf) or they simply stop selling singles altogether as alibaba is able to create singles out of thin air whereas the stores need to spend money to acquire their Tarmogoyf's.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I heard there is a 'Light Test', where using a Black light on a authentic MTG card will make it the outer border glow- is that true? I also heard that the counterfeits out of N. Carolina (via China) did not pass this test too...

The whole card glows under black light, fake cards typically do not. From what I understand it's a special coating that protects the ink on the card from fading over time and protects it somewhat from damage. If you put a small drop of water on a real magic card it will typically not damage the card but most fakes will quickly absorb it leaving the card warped in that spot because they do not have this protective coating.

[danyul]

Does this blacklight test work on all printings of MTG cards? I kinda wanna take a blacklight to my entire collection after reading this thread. More specifically, does this work on duals? I don't really care about modern-border stuff.

Amazon UV flashlights aren't even that expensive.

[sdematt]

Does this blacklight test work on all printings of MTG cards? I kinda wanna take a blacklight to my entire collection after reading this thread. More specifically, does this work on duals? I don't really care about modern-border stuff.

Amazon UV flashlights aren't even that expensive.

All real cards, except Alternate 4th, do glow under a black light. The fakes do not glow.

-Matt

[metelhead]

The whole card glows under black light, fake cards typically do not. From what I understand it's a special coating that protects the ink on the card from fading over time and protects it somewhat from damage. If you put a small drop of water on a real magic card it will typically not damage the card but most fakes will quickly absorb it leaving the card warped in that spot because they do not have this protective coating.

Thanks for the confirmation.....Here's some Irony- I just purchased a keychain Blacklight from Amazon....which is coming from China just so I can detect chinese counterfeits...

[danyul]

Thanks Matt. That's good to know. Looks like I'll be bringing a UV light along with my trade binder from now on.

@metelhead - Irony at its finest. Either that or the Chinese have next-next leveled all of us in order to boost their UV light sales.

[Russian Alara]

All real cards, except Alternate 4th, do glow under a black light. The fakes do not glow.

-Matt

Thanks Matt, will update my user-base on this since they are all checking their cards...

@Darnyul if they can copy our Russian fighter jets , they can definitely copy and outsmart the whole world.

[Lord Seth]

Sadly, it happened sooner then expected... I hope WotC will do something about it. I think that the real supporter of RL is Hasbro and WotC just can't do anything, but maybe I'm wrong.

According to Aaron, "Hasbro was not a factor in anything." (this was said in regards to the Reserved List decision) Source here.

It is also noticeable that the time Hasbro brought them out was also the time when they stopped adding cards from new sets to the list...

[JBlaze]

I actually think that, rather than helping, posting and telling everyone how to spot fakes is likely to do nothing more than tell the counterfeiters how to correct their mistakes. All the white knights out there that are buying fakes for the purpose of telling everyone how to identify them will probably only result in better fakes. If you have bought counterfeit cards, whatever your motives, I'd urge you not to reveal too publicly how to identify them. For everyone else, just make sure that you are getting your cards from a credible source until WotC figures out how to fix this.

Sticking out collective heads in the sand is not going to make anything better. Pretty sure the counterfeiters will be able to figure it on their own. We are much better off educating people on how to spot them

[danyul]

Thanks Matt, will update my user-base on this since they are all checking their cards...

@Darnyul if they can copy our Russian fighter jets , they can definitely copy and outsmart the whole world.

True, but I would imagine that making a copy of a Russian fighter jet is pretty damn expensive and difficult. Whereas buying a flashlight on Amazon only costs me 7 bucks and a few clicks. I might as well take whatever precautions my lazy ass can afford to take.

I'm being facetious, but you get what I'm saying.

[sdematt]

I mean, it's only a stop gap measure. Eventually, if not cost prohibitive, they'll pass the UV test.

For now, it's better than nothing. I can afford a flashlight for $7 to help me not get bum-holed for X cards.


-Matt

[Russian Alara]

I mean, it's only a stop gap measure. Eventually, if not cost prohibitive, they'll pass the UV test.

For now, it's better than nothing. I can afford a flashlight for $7 to help me not get bum-holed for X cards.


-Matt

and by then there will be other ways to counter them ( thinking some protection that is similar to new $100 dollar protection) The most important is not to panic but be wary.

-Onar

@Danyul yes I do and actually support you 100%

[Barook]

Does this blacklight test work on all printings of MTG cards? I kinda wanna take a blacklight to my entire collection after reading this thread. More specifically, does this work on duals? I don't really care about modern-border stuff.

Amazon UV flashlights aren't even that expensive.

It should look kinda like this:

[Russian Alara]

It should look kinda like this:

noted with Interest , does this work on Beta as well though?

[HonorBasquiat]

If the fake is indistinguishable from the real thing (I understand it currently is not, but I believe it's only a matter of time until the forgery can't be distinguished from the genuine article), the brick and mortar store will not be able to move any singles as consumers can obtain the same thing for a fraction of the price from alibaba. Outside of Limited, why are consumers going to buy $4 boosters if they can just buy the chase rare for $1 from alibaba?

Lol at stores still being able to sell singles. Sure, if alibaba is offering Tarmogoyf for $5, what's the store going to do? They either offer their Tarmogoyf also for $5 and lose out on a ton of profit (assuming they had to spend more than $5 to acquire said Tarmogoyf) or they simply stop selling singles altogether as alibaba is able to create singles out of thin air whereas the stores need to spend money to acquire their Tarmogoyf's.

I read this thread and joined the forum just to engage in this discussion. I have a lot of thoughts and questions about this issue, so if this is too much, feel free just to respond to one idea.

I think it's a little rash to assume that everyone would buy counterfeit proxies if they were virtually indistinguishable. There are players who will see this as morally wrong and want to continue to support local card shops. There are players that would compete in tourneys that would be paranoid about being reprimanded for playing with fake cards. There are players who simply respect Wizards and want to continue to buy cards from them, etc. This isn't to say that passable proxies wouldn't have any effect on the market, especially if there were tens of thousands of them, but the notion that paper Magic the Gathering is over is a stretch.

I do think it would be a game changer for more casual kitchen players who don't spend a lot of money on cards but sometimes play with more competitive players. I also think it would be really cool for more novelty items like full art unhinged lands. I think these proxies could be used to have second copies of decks which could help ensure conditioning of players legitimate cards. Players wouldn't be as devastated if they lost these cards or if they were stolen. I also don't necessarily believe that buying proxies has to hurt the secondary market. I know we've heard a lot of bad analogies, but please just bare with me and evaluate this scenario:

Joe might by a playset proxy Jace the Mind Sculptor for $25, but he might not even have the $500 dollars in his bank account to buy a real set. So it's not like the shop is losing out, or Wizards for that matter. If the proxies didn't exist, Joe still wouldn't have an authentic playset of Jace. It's like if a 13 year old kid pirates Microsoft Office Executive Suite, Microsoft isn't REALLY losing $500 dollars. If the kid wasn't able to pirate the suite, he would just end up using Google Docs, right?

The stuff I'm worried about is people doing unethical things like deliberately trying to sell or trade passable proxies for real cards, store credit, or even cash. This will make people paranoid, it could have multiple effects on the market. People might rush and sell everything, or people might be afraid to buy from anyone.

I also really don't think there's much Wizards can do. Proxies are only going to get better and better (especially the more people point out the imperfections of said proxies). The holofoil stamp is cute, but it doesn't do anything to prevent proxies being made from 99% of the staples in Modern and Legacy now. Mr. Huang is in the process of making several thousands of proxies for very valuable cards. Most of these cards will be going to America. At this point we play the waiting game. Honestly, these cards are going to be very passable (especially inside of a worn card sleeve) and only improve over time. Sooner or later these cards from China will be available in America through secondary markets. Players that don't want to buy 500 cards at a time could instead buy a few dozen cards from someone who bought thousands of cards from Mr. Huang and other counterfeiters. Imagine purchasing a $2000 legacy deck for $20 that is virtually indistinguishable in card sleeves to a nonskeptical eye.

Sanctioned tournament play is going to get more complicated. Wizards might consider banning altered art cards from being played. This is a lose lose though. If they were to ban altered art cards from being played, players who spent money on value cards like Bob and Goyf and altered them under the impression that they would still be able to play with them would be furious, especially if they've already done it for years. If they don't ban altered art cards, it will become even easier to "fix" imperfections in proxied cards. We might see a similar phenonomon for cards in different languages. You might be able to notice the slight differences in text spacing on an English Tarmogoyf when looking at them side by side but imagine if you are looking at a passable proxied Russian Tarmogoyf. Do you think you would be able to spot a fake then?

Ultimately this is all very interesting. I already have friends that plan on buying these fakes for their EDH decks and cubes. I think this could be a game changer for certain types of players, but I don't think this will kill the market.

[Humphrey]

so in the future we are all playing in dark rooms with blacklight?

This trick might help collectors (at the moment), but on tournaments you will still be able to play with (current) fakes.

And what is with those stupid moral discussion? Capitalism does not know that word, neither do WotC/Hasbro. It has more moral to help poor guys playing a card game.

[danyul]

The blacklights will help when trading or buying in person. During a tournament (or when buying online!), you are leaning on Trust. That's true now and will presumably be true going forward.

@ Barook - Thanks. That is very helpful.

[Barook]

so in the future we are all playing in dark rooms with blacklight?

This would be mood anyway if those fakes are going to pass the blacklight test as they're rumored to.