In the same way you can tell someone is from the XVIII century because he is arroused by ankles, you can tell someone is from USA because he feels nipples disturbing.
Because unless its perfect, its possible to spot it. Say you go on ebay and buy that fake goyf because you think its genuine. You put it in your deck and goto a modern PTQ and play it. During the event, someone thinks there's something off about it. They call a judge who compares it to another Goyf and spots it as a fake. Best case you have to play the rest of the event with a basic in place of a game winning card, potentially you get DQ'd (depending on whether the judge thinks you knew or not).
Suddenly people start checking every money card their opponent plays to see if they can get them penalized for false cards. Faking it never good for MtG. Sure, if you're playing kitchen table with a mate who doesn't know or care, its not major, but for the kind of players who would come on MTGS, its huge.
This sounds like a problem with the tournament rules to me.
The collecting part of Magic should be separated from the competitive part, in my opinion. The barrier should be skill, not money. I honestly wouldn't care if my opponent played an Island with "GOYF" written on it at any level of play if it did not break any other game rules.
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#define ALWAYS SOMETIMES
#define NEVER RARELY
#define ALL MANY
-=GIVE US SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN=-
I'm nerd enough to link my WoW Armory Though I'll put it in a small font.
I can't believe the lengths twisting ideas to rationalize that wizards deserves this. Everyone should be opposed to counterfeits both legally and logically. Eternal formats WOULD NOT EXIST if Wizards went out of business.
Thinking that because Wizards doesn't reprint dual lands for you that means it is ok for companies to steal their profits is incredibly immoral and entitled. And thinking that Wizards isn't trying to create a great game every release is a bizarre stance to take. You think they're deliberately trying to create a "substandard experience" with each limited set they release? I'm glad we have high and mighty legacy players to tell us how all other formats are terrible.
I'm hopefully glad you are the minority. You come a hair's breath away from condoning counterfeits. Counterfeits are wrong. Morally and for the health of the game.
The only eternal format that seems to be popular is legacy and SCG does more for that than Wotc does.
Also where did the previous poster ever say "Wizards doesn't reprint dual lands for you that means it is ok for companies to steal their profits" If any one is twisting ideas it is you.
The simple fact is that Wotc created a demand and isn't fullfilling it, if they go long enough with out fullfilling the demand other will try to find a way legal or not.
If a perfectly healhty husband refuses to have sex with his wife for 9 months, I'm not going to be shocked to find out that the wife started having an affair, nor am I going to feel sorry for the husband.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
I went on the tumblr, and then went on the website on the images.
On their actual website, I didn't see the images that the tumblr website attributed to them. I might have looked in the wrong place, but I could only find an image that showed the back of MTG cards.
While I don't doubt for a minute that the company is advertising printing magic cards, I'm not so sure that the tumblr isn't you know, spreading fear mongering.
Also where did the previous poster ever say "Wizards doesn't reprint dual lands for you that means it is ok for companies to steal their profits" If any one is twisting ideas it is you.
It does.
Since WOTC don't print dual lands, there is no profit to be made by them. You cannot steal something that don't exist.
They are stealing profit from companies like SCG, people that deal with secondary markets.
Get the difference.
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They are stealing profit from companies like SCG, people that deal with secondary markets.
.
How do you steal money they don't yet have? This idea always felt weird for me - since you're dealing with not literal profit or lack thereof, but the potential to make a profit or lack thereof, which is different. You can't steal money from someone if they don't have it, you can OTOH affect their chances to make a profit - fairly [competition] or unfairly [counterfeiting, fraud, etc].
Not saying counterfeiting cards is good - in fact, seeing this actually unnerved me seeing the quality of these fakes, but seriously, can we try to limit the hyperbole? My sleep deprived mind is getting a headache. [or better yet, maybe I should stop administrating Garry's Mod Trouble in Terrorist Town servers until 4AM - on nights with a lot of problem players especially. That'd help me big time :tongue:]
The collecting part of Magic should be separated from the competitive part, in my opinion. The barrier should be skill, not money. I honestly wouldn't care if my opponent played an Island with "GOYF" written on it at any level of play if it did not break any other game rules.
Money is how designers can afford to produce 200-300 new game pieces every 3 months and have some semblance of balance among them and interesting mechanics to enjoy in your tournament.
The vagaries of rares on the secondary market might not be the best way to get that money, but they're not going to put time and effort into making Spike happy if they don't get anything in return.
If you think WotC & the game isn't tremendously impacted even if they only produce dual land counterfeits and similar old and valuable cards (& people buy them), you are being incredibly shortsighted. WotC & the secondary market are tied together. What affects one affects the other, with almost equal force. If these counterfeits are widespread and accepted by a non-negligible portion of the playerbase, the secondary market will crash. Completely and utterly. People won't buy expensive cards again because of fear of counterfeits. Boosters will become almost worthless, since all card prices have plummeted. I'm usually no doomsday prophet and scoff at people suggesting that the game is dying because of this rules change or that unfun card, but this, on the other hand, is serious. If we allow counterfeits in our community, regardless of how old the counterfeited cards are, Magic is going to die, because Wizards won't be able to sell product, and game stores that rely on Magic will go bankrupt.
If you want Magic to continue to be a thing, stay away from these, and do not accept them.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that Magic is ruined if one or two players choose to buy some, it's about general attitude in the community, and if people start fearing that counterfeits are everywhere, they'll panic, and bad things will happen.
All of this said, I'm actually not terribly scared of these counterfeits because I assume 99% of players will understand that these are terrible for the game.
If you think WotC & the game isn't tremendously impacted even if they only produce dual land counterfeits and similar old and valuable cards (& people buy them), you are being incredibly shortsighted. WotC & the secondary market are tied together. What affects one affects the other, with almost equal force. If these counterfeits are widespread and accepted by a non-negligible portion of the playerbase, the secondary market will crash. Completely and utterly. People won't buy expensive cards again because of fear of counterfeits. Boosters will become almost worthless, since all card prices have plummeted. I'm usually no doomsday prophet and scoff at people suggesting that the game is dying because of this rules change or that unfun card, but this, on the other hand, is serious. If we allow counterfeits in our community, regardless of how old the counterfeited cards are, Magic is going to die, because Wizards won't be able to sell product, and game stores that rely on Magic will go bankrupt.
If you want Magic to continue to be a thing, stay away from these, and do not accept them.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that Magic is ruined if one or two players choose to buy some, it's about general attitude in the community, and if people start fearing that counterfeits are everywhere, they'll panic, and bad things will happen.
All of this said, I'm actually not terribly scared of these counterfeits because I assume 99% of players will understand that these are terrible for the game.
The official stance of WOTC will always be they don't care about the secondary market. They don't make any money except through boosters sales. They can focus and push for limited play instead of constructed play and business will continue.
You can also argue that the market crash will lure new players to start playing MTG. Right now, the game is VERY cost prohibitive and when new players see the price tag, they will be turned off by it.
I am not condoning counterfeits, rather, I see this as an opportunity for WOTC and SCG to reconsider their business plans and practices. WOTC needs to get rid of the reprint list and SCG needs to re-evaluate their pricing practices in order to combat the counterfeit problem.
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The official stance of WOTC will always be they don't care about the secondary market. They don't make any money except through boosters sales. They can focus and push for limited play instead of constructed play and business will continue.
Do you really think booster sales & secondary market are unrelated? If no cards are worth more than $1, do you think they will be able to sell much product?
Many of us play Limited just because it's fun, but in order to keep business going, there has to be valuable cards people can get excited about also. Most people won't pay $15 to play Limited if all cards are worthless.
I'll be honest: I'm rooting hard for the makers of these cards and hope their products only get widely distributed and more identical to the real thing.
The prices on Magic singles are simply absurd for a cardboard game piece. There are millions of people around the world who would like to play Magic, but are priced out of the game. It's not even the Reserved List- there are dozens of cards Wizards could reprint with the List in place that are over $30, and yet they refuse to do so. If we can lower the price of singles to the point where a Tier 1 Modern or Legacy deck is worth $20 or so, the number of players at events would increase exponentially. I don't believe that tournaments would be adversely affected, either- the game pieces for chess and poker cost $20 or less, and both of those games have much larger competitive scenes than Magic.
Right now, some of these decks cost more than an older used car. That's ridiculous. There are countless speculators out there who contribute nothing and drive up the price of cards to enrich themselves. Why not cut these people out of the market and let the people play the cards of their dreams?
These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
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Why should I care about oil reserves, animals extinction, global warming, slave labor, politics, toxic wastes or piracy? As long as I can live easy and in luxury.
WOTC employees I'm sure also live in relative ease and luxury. They aren't exactly comparable to defenseless baby seals or child slaves...
No of course I don't WANT them to lose money or be out of a job to counterfeiters, but I also don't really have a reason to put their interests above mine (like never buying online again and wasting a lot of gas and time, for instance)
When it comes to child slaves, by contrast, my own inconveniences are much less comparable.
They also aren't helpless. Holo foils and so forth will protect most of their interests, since newer cards are the only place they stand to lose much money.
There's literally no way to tell in advance of receiving a card if it's kosher in advance
1) Buy from somewhere like Amazon
2) If you get a counterfeit, they will generally honor your refund request even if the vendor doesn't want to.
3) They take that out on the vendor in fees, etc. And will probably also threaten to remove that vendor from the service if it happens several times.
4) Over time, vendor will have a strong incentive to not have counterfeits end up in their stock. At least not ones that can possibly be identified.
Do you really think booster sales & secondary market are unrelated? If no cards are worth more than $1, do you think they will be able to sell much product?
Many of us play Limited just because it's fun, but in order to keep business going, there has to be valuable cards people can get excited about also. Most people won't pay $15 to play Limited if all cards are worthless.
And I Keep saying, this only applies to legacy format where there is a reprint list WHICH IS NOT GETTING PRINTED.
There are no packs to be opened
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And I Keep saying, this only applies to legacy format where there is a reprint list WHICH IS NOT GETTING PRINTED.
There are no packs to be opened
Okay, imagine the market is flooded with about 100,000 copies of each Dual land. Prices plummet to $10-20 for Revised duals, $1 for the counterfeits. Do you think Standard players would just ignore this? Do you think they would feel comfortable paying serious money for cards? Do you think they would shrug it off with "Eh, they're only making counterfeits of those old cards, these ones will never be affected"? Do you really think the rest of the secondary market would be unaffected?
I find some attitudes in this thread absolutely frightening.
I'll be honest: I'm rooting hard for the makers of these cards and hope their products only get widely distributed and more identical to the real thing.
The prices on Magic singles are simply absurd for a cardboard game piece. There are millions of people around the world who would like to play Magic, but are priced out of the game. If we can lower the price of singles to the point where a Tier 1 Modern or Legacy deck is worth $20 or so, the number of players at events would increase exponentially. I don't believe that tournaments would be adversely affected, either- the game pieces for chess and poker cost $20 or less, and both of those games have much larger competitive scenes than Magic.
Right now, some of these decks cost more than an older used car. That's ridiculous. There are countless speculators out there who contribute nothing and drive up the price of cards to enrich themselves. Why not cut these people out of the market and let the people play the cards of their dreams?
Play with proxies then. These counterfeits are made to steal money away from the MTG community and enrich the counterfeiters, nothing more.
If you think the prices are too ridiculous and your playgroup does too, then play with proxies which will be assuredly cheaper.
The collectability of MTG is one of the reasons for its popularity and success. It may seem counterintuitive that the fact one of the game pieces is expensive and hard to get, but I assure you if Magic was printed like a LCG it wouldn't be as popular as it is right now.
I hate high card prices too. But I'm not going to participate with scammers and crash a secondary market just so I can play Legacy.
I'll be honest: I'm rooting hard for the makers of these cards and hope their products only get widely distributed and more identical to the real thing.
The prices on Magic singles are simply absurd for a cardboard game piece. There are millions of people around the world who would like to play Magic, but are priced out of the game. It's not even the Reserved List- there are dozens of cards Wizards could reprint with the List in place that are over $30, and yet they refuse to do so. If we can lower the price of singles to the point where a Tier 1 Modern or Legacy deck is worth $20 or so, the number of players at events would increase exponentially. I don't believe that tournaments would be adversely affected, either- the game pieces for chess and poker cost $20 or less, and both of those games have much larger competitive scenes than Magic.
Right now, some of these decks cost more than an older used car. That's ridiculous. There are countless speculators out there who contribute nothing and drive up the price of cards to enrich themselves. Why not cut these people out of the market and let the people play the cards of their dreams?
Magic is a luxury, there will be people that don't have the disposable income to afford even cheap decks. If people know their cards are going to be worthless, why bother buying them? If you can't afford to buy cards right away, save up look for legitimate deals.
The counterfeiting bit is interesting to see how WotC and the big sellers react. We'll soon find out if a lot of people buy counterfeits.
Okay, imagine the market is flooded with about 100,000 copies of each Dual land. Prices plummet to $10-20 for Revised duals, $1 for the counterfeits. Do you think Standard players would just ignore this? Do you think they would feel comfortable paying serious money for cards? Do you think they would shrug it off with "Eh, they're only making counterfeits of those old cards, these ones will never be affected"? Do you really think the rest of the secondary market would be unaffected?
If the new ones are decked out with a bunch of security features? Yes, absolutely. Even if it doesn't actually stop counterfeiters, it creates a psychological gulf between the two things, at the least. And also, it probably does deter counterfeiters, because even if they could pull it off, they don't know which cards are worth a lot yet, so the more annoying it gets the more likely they shrug and go do something else.
Okay, imagine the market is flooded with about 100,000 copies of each Dual land. Prices plummet to $10-20 for Revised duals, $1 for the counterfeits. Do you think Standard players would just ignore this? Do you think they would feel comfortable paying serious money for cards? Do you think they would shrug it off with "Eh, they're only making counterfeits of those old cards, these ones will never be affected"? Do you really think the rest of the secondary market would be unaffected?
This is exactly the point everyone is missing. Crashing the secondary market anywhere in Magic undermines the whole legitimacy of the game. If I see Vintage players slamming 1$ black lotuses, I'm going to wonder what's next. If the most valuable cards in Magic can become worth nothing, then nothing in Magic is worth anything.
Play with proxies then. These counterfeits are made to steal money away from the MTG community and enrich the counterfeiters, nothing more.
If you think the prices are too ridiculous and your playgroup does too, then play with proxies which will be assuredly cheaper.
The collectability of MTG is one of the reasons for its popularity and success. It may seem counterintuitive that the fact one of the game pieces is expensive and hard to get, but I assure you if Magic was printed like a LCG it wouldn't be as popular as it is right now.
I'm a competitive player and proxies can't be used in sanctioned events. An undetectable unofficial reprint can be used in sanctioned events, as there's no way to verify that it's not real.
Flooding the market with unofficial reprints doesn't reduce the collectability of MTG. There are still tens of thousands of different cards to collect, and many different ways to collect them (by set, by artist, foils, etc). It just drives the speculators (who contribute nothing) out of the game. If you're collecting Magic simply because it's exclusive and other people can't do it, then your motives are pretty amoral.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
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Okay, imagine the market is flooded with about 100,000 copies of each Dual land. Prices plummet to $10-20 for Revised duals, $1 for the counterfeits. Do you think Standard players would just ignore this? Do you think they would feel comfortable paying serious money for cards? Do you think they would shrug it off with "Eh, they're only making counterfeits of those old cards, these ones will never be affected"? Do you really think the rest of the secondary market would be unaffected?
I find some attitudes in this thread absolutely frightening.
If the price plummets to $10, there is not enough incentive for the counterfeiters to continue counterfeiting, hence the equilibrium is met. price would stabilize and more people will join playing magic because the price is less prohibitive. WOTC pushes more limited tournament, and to practice people will need to buy more limited packs. WOTC gets more money.
Please stop using the slippery slope argument.
Yes, counterfeiting is morally wrong. Yes, it will impact the game. No, we don't know how it will impact the game.
The fact is, these counterfeits exists.
I am talking about what WOTC needs to do and what SCG needs to do to combat the counterfeit.
I dislike the methods, but this is hardly surprising given WOTC's absurd reprint policies.
Magic cards are just like any other commodity. If demand reaches a high enough point, and you are intentionally refusing to increase supply, then people will find another supplier. Even if they have to do business with the lowest scum of the earth to do so.
If you honestly think intellectual property laws are going to be enough keep the consumer market in check when the company isnt trying to fulfill the demand themselves... good luck with that. I hear that legal restrictions worked great with alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs... or maybe not.
The way to shut down any black market is to provide people with a legitimate and reasonable alternative.
If they would just print the cards, these criminals would be driven back under the rocks they crawled out from.
The whole nonsense about "protecting collectors" has been BS from the start. Its perfectly possible to print cards that are distinct from previous collectable cards and dont hurt collectable value. Thats why you can buy a Shivan Dragon for 30 cents or 800 dollars depending on which printing you want.
Refusing to reprint cards is really going to hurt those collectors once the counterfeiters manage to make perfect replicas and the prices of those original printings themselves take the hit.
I'm a competitive player and proxies can't be used in sanctioned events. An undetectable unofficial reprint can be used in sanctioned events, as there's no way to verify that it's not real.
Flooding the market with unofficial reprints doesn't reduce the collectability of MTG. There are still tens of thousands of different cards to collect, and many different ways to collect them (by set, by artist, foils, etc). It just drives the speculators (who contribute nothing) out of the game. If you're collecting Magic simply because it's exclusive and other people can't do it, then your motives are pretty amoral.
What happens is the people that own expensive old cards see the potential of cards to plummet from $150 to $10 overnight. Prices start to dip a little and then everyone gets scared and floods the market, since selling today for $150 and buying tomorrow for $10 means make $140. For evidence of what the result of this is, see the Great Depression. However, instead of the U.S. economy, it would be the magic economy. Except now people understand this could happen and try to get out before the crash, causing the crash with simply the suggestion that this possibility is on the horizon with sites like this Chinese company and initial small distributions.
Makes me want to sell my legacy stuff, honestly. It absolutely terrifies me and the ability for me to get out before a potential crash is very enticing.
I'm a competitive player and proxies can't be used in sanctioned events. An undetectable unofficial reprint can be used in sanctioned events, as there's no way to verify that it's not real.
Flooding the market with unofficial reprints doesn't reduce the collectability of MTG. There are still tens of thousands of different cards to collect, and many different ways to collect them (by set, by artist, foils, etc). It just drives the speculators (who contribute nothing) out of the game. If you're collecting Magic simply because it's exclusive and other people can't do it, then your motives are pretty amoral.
Unofficial reprint? LOL
You want to play in a sanctioned event that doesn't allow proxies.
So you buy cheap undetectable PROXIES with the intention of deceiving the sanctioned event, and your opponents that had to pay for real cards. You don't find any of this immoral?
Do you think Wizards will sanction events if they know they are flooded with undetectable counterfeits?
Do you think tournaments will continue if Wizards doesn't sanction them?
Do you think Legacy will even be a thing if there are no Legacy tournaments?
As a side note by "collectability" I meant the fact that some cards are rarer and worth more than others. Not the card hoarder boogeyman that never plays with them and are blamed for rising prices.
I dislike the methods, but this is hardly surprising given WOTC's absurd reprint policies.
Magic cards are just like any other commodity. If demand reaches a high enough point, and you are intentionally refusing to increase supply, then people will find another supplier. Even if they have to do business with the lowest scum of the earth to do so.
If you honestly think intellectual property laws are going to be enough keep the consumer market in check when the company isnt trying to fulfill the demand themselves... good luck with that. I hear that legal restrictions worked great with alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs... or maybe not.
The way to shut down any black market is to provide people with a legitimate and reasonable alternative.
If they would just print the cards, these criminals would be driven back under the rocks they crawled out from.
The whole nonsense about "protecting collectors" has been BS from the start. Its perfectly possible to print cards that are distinct from previous collectable cards and dont hurt collectable value. Thats why you can buy a Shivan Dragon for 30 cents or 800 dollars depending on which printing you want.
What motive does Wizards have in maintaining the reserve list? Why do they do it? What the is the real reason?
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The collecting part of Magic should be separated from the competitive part, in my opinion. The barrier should be skill, not money. I honestly wouldn't care if my opponent played an Island with "GOYF" written on it at any level of play if it did not break any other game rules.
Though I'll put it in a small font.
Please stop hijacking my reply box.
The only eternal format that seems to be popular is legacy and SCG does more for that than Wotc does.
Also where did the previous poster ever say "Wizards doesn't reprint dual lands for you that means it is ok for companies to steal their profits" If any one is twisting ideas it is you.
The simple fact is that Wotc created a demand and isn't fullfilling it, if they go long enough with out fullfilling the demand other will try to find a way legal or not.
If a perfectly healhty husband refuses to have sex with his wife for 9 months, I'm not going to be shocked to find out that the wife started having an affair, nor am I going to feel sorry for the husband.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
On their actual website, I didn't see the images that the tumblr website attributed to them. I might have looked in the wrong place, but I could only find an image that showed the back of MTG cards.
While I don't doubt for a minute that the company is advertising printing magic cards, I'm not so sure that the tumblr isn't you know, spreading fear mongering.
It does.
Since WOTC don't print dual lands, there is no profit to be made by them. You cannot steal something that don't exist.
They are stealing profit from companies like SCG, people that deal with secondary markets.
Get the difference.
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How do you steal money they don't yet have? This idea always felt weird for me - since you're dealing with not literal profit or lack thereof, but the potential to make a profit or lack thereof, which is different. You can't steal money from someone if they don't have it, you can OTOH affect their chances to make a profit - fairly [competition] or unfairly [counterfeiting, fraud, etc].
Not saying counterfeiting cards is good - in fact, seeing this actually unnerved me seeing the quality of these fakes, but seriously, can we try to limit the hyperbole? My sleep deprived mind is getting a headache. [or better yet, maybe I should stop administrating Garry's Mod Trouble in Terrorist Town servers until 4AM - on nights with a lot of problem players especially. That'd help me big time :tongue:]
Thaw would be mean. It is not like it was mtg players producing these cards.
Money is how designers can afford to produce 200-300 new game pieces every 3 months and have some semblance of balance among them and interesting mechanics to enjoy in your tournament.
The vagaries of rares on the secondary market might not be the best way to get that money, but they're not going to put time and effort into making Spike happy if they don't get anything in return.
If you want Magic to continue to be a thing, stay away from these, and do not accept them.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that Magic is ruined if one or two players choose to buy some, it's about general attitude in the community, and if people start fearing that counterfeits are everywhere, they'll panic, and bad things will happen.
All of this said, I'm actually not terribly scared of these counterfeits because I assume 99% of players will understand that these are terrible for the game.
The official stance of WOTC will always be they don't care about the secondary market. They don't make any money except through boosters sales. They can focus and push for limited play instead of constructed play and business will continue.
You can also argue that the market crash will lure new players to start playing MTG. Right now, the game is VERY cost prohibitive and when new players see the price tag, they will be turned off by it.
I am not condoning counterfeits, rather, I see this as an opportunity for WOTC and SCG to reconsider their business plans and practices. WOTC needs to get rid of the reprint list and SCG needs to re-evaluate their pricing practices in order to combat the counterfeit problem.
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Do you really think booster sales & secondary market are unrelated? If no cards are worth more than $1, do you think they will be able to sell much product?
Many of us play Limited just because it's fun, but in order to keep business going, there has to be valuable cards people can get excited about also. Most people won't pay $15 to play Limited if all cards are worthless.
The prices on Magic singles are simply absurd for a cardboard game piece. There are millions of people around the world who would like to play Magic, but are priced out of the game. It's not even the Reserved List- there are dozens of cards Wizards could reprint with the List in place that are over $30, and yet they refuse to do so. If we can lower the price of singles to the point where a Tier 1 Modern or Legacy deck is worth $20 or so, the number of players at events would increase exponentially. I don't believe that tournaments would be adversely affected, either- the game pieces for chess and poker cost $20 or less, and both of those games have much larger competitive scenes than Magic.
Right now, some of these decks cost more than an older used car. That's ridiculous. There are countless speculators out there who contribute nothing and drive up the price of cards to enrich themselves. Why not cut these people out of the market and let the people play the cards of their dreams?
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
WOTC employees I'm sure also live in relative ease and luxury. They aren't exactly comparable to defenseless baby seals or child slaves...
No of course I don't WANT them to lose money or be out of a job to counterfeiters, but I also don't really have a reason to put their interests above mine (like never buying online again and wasting a lot of gas and time, for instance)
When it comes to child slaves, by contrast, my own inconveniences are much less comparable.
They also aren't helpless. Holo foils and so forth will protect most of their interests, since newer cards are the only place they stand to lose much money.
1) Buy from somewhere like Amazon
2) If you get a counterfeit, they will generally honor your refund request even if the vendor doesn't want to.
3) They take that out on the vendor in fees, etc. And will probably also threaten to remove that vendor from the service if it happens several times.
4) Over time, vendor will have a strong incentive to not have counterfeits end up in their stock. At least not ones that can possibly be identified.
And I Keep saying, this only applies to legacy format where there is a reprint list WHICH IS NOT GETTING PRINTED.
There are no packs to be opened
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
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Okay, imagine the market is flooded with about 100,000 copies of each Dual land. Prices plummet to $10-20 for Revised duals, $1 for the counterfeits. Do you think Standard players would just ignore this? Do you think they would feel comfortable paying serious money for cards? Do you think they would shrug it off with "Eh, they're only making counterfeits of those old cards, these ones will never be affected"? Do you really think the rest of the secondary market would be unaffected?
I find some attitudes in this thread absolutely frightening.
Play with proxies then. These counterfeits are made to steal money away from the MTG community and enrich the counterfeiters, nothing more.
If you think the prices are too ridiculous and your playgroup does too, then play with proxies which will be assuredly cheaper.
The collectability of MTG is one of the reasons for its popularity and success. It may seem counterintuitive that the fact one of the game pieces is expensive and hard to get, but I assure you if Magic was printed like a LCG it wouldn't be as popular as it is right now.
I hate high card prices too. But I'm not going to participate with scammers and crash a secondary market just so I can play Legacy.
Magic is a luxury, there will be people that don't have the disposable income to afford even cheap decks. If people know their cards are going to be worthless, why bother buying them? If you can't afford to buy cards right away, save up look for legitimate deals.
The counterfeiting bit is interesting to see how WotC and the big sellers react. We'll soon find out if a lot of people buy counterfeits.
If the new ones are decked out with a bunch of security features? Yes, absolutely. Even if it doesn't actually stop counterfeiters, it creates a psychological gulf between the two things, at the least. And also, it probably does deter counterfeiters, because even if they could pull it off, they don't know which cards are worth a lot yet, so the more annoying it gets the more likely they shrug and go do something else.
This is exactly the point everyone is missing. Crashing the secondary market anywhere in Magic undermines the whole legitimacy of the game. If I see Vintage players slamming 1$ black lotuses, I'm going to wonder what's next. If the most valuable cards in Magic can become worth nothing, then nothing in Magic is worth anything.
I'm a competitive player and proxies can't be used in sanctioned events. An undetectable unofficial reprint can be used in sanctioned events, as there's no way to verify that it's not real.
Flooding the market with unofficial reprints doesn't reduce the collectability of MTG. There are still tens of thousands of different cards to collect, and many different ways to collect them (by set, by artist, foils, etc). It just drives the speculators (who contribute nothing) out of the game. If you're collecting Magic simply because it's exclusive and other people can't do it, then your motives are pretty amoral.
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If the price plummets to $10, there is not enough incentive for the counterfeiters to continue counterfeiting, hence the equilibrium is met. price would stabilize and more people will join playing magic because the price is less prohibitive. WOTC pushes more limited tournament, and to practice people will need to buy more limited packs. WOTC gets more money.
Please stop using the slippery slope argument.
Yes, counterfeiting is morally wrong. Yes, it will impact the game. No, we don't know how it will impact the game.
The fact is, these counterfeits exists.
I am talking about what WOTC needs to do and what SCG needs to do to combat the counterfeit.
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Magic cards are just like any other commodity. If demand reaches a high enough point, and you are intentionally refusing to increase supply, then people will find another supplier. Even if they have to do business with the lowest scum of the earth to do so.
If you honestly think intellectual property laws are going to be enough keep the consumer market in check when the company isnt trying to fulfill the demand themselves... good luck with that. I hear that legal restrictions worked great with alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs... or maybe not.
The way to shut down any black market is to provide people with a legitimate and reasonable alternative.
If they would just print the cards, these criminals would be driven back under the rocks they crawled out from.
The whole nonsense about "protecting collectors" has been BS from the start. Its perfectly possible to print cards that are distinct from previous collectable cards and dont hurt collectable value. Thats why you can buy a Shivan Dragon for 30 cents or 800 dollars depending on which printing you want.
Refusing to reprint cards is really going to hurt those collectors once the counterfeiters manage to make perfect replicas and the prices of those original printings themselves take the hit.
What happens is the people that own expensive old cards see the potential of cards to plummet from $150 to $10 overnight. Prices start to dip a little and then everyone gets scared and floods the market, since selling today for $150 and buying tomorrow for $10 means make $140. For evidence of what the result of this is, see the Great Depression. However, instead of the U.S. economy, it would be the magic economy. Except now people understand this could happen and try to get out before the crash, causing the crash with simply the suggestion that this possibility is on the horizon with sites like this Chinese company and initial small distributions.
Makes me want to sell my legacy stuff, honestly. It absolutely terrifies me and the ability for me to get out before a potential crash is very enticing.
Unofficial reprint? LOL
You want to play in a sanctioned event that doesn't allow proxies.
So you buy cheap undetectable PROXIES with the intention of deceiving the sanctioned event, and your opponents that had to pay for real cards. You don't find any of this immoral?
Do you think Wizards will sanction events if they know they are flooded with undetectable counterfeits?
Do you think tournaments will continue if Wizards doesn't sanction them?
Do you think Legacy will even be a thing if there are no Legacy tournaments?
As a side note by "collectability" I meant the fact that some cards are rarer and worth more than others. Not the card hoarder boogeyman that never plays with them and are blamed for rising prices.
What motive does Wizards have in maintaining the reserve list? Why do they do it? What the is the real reason?