I posted a question a week or so ago regarding deck checks at high level tournaments (inquiry what judges check on when doing a deck check) a week or two ago. I posted that question after encountering some incredibly high quality "proxies" from China. I have now encountered even more of these "proxies" over the past week. The quality of the "proxies" is incredibly high and the only distinguishing feature between them and real cards is that the cards have a glossier finish to them and some (not all, SOME) of the cards show variations in color. In sleeves, however, the cards are indistinguishable from the real thing. They are so nice that some "proxies" were sleeved and mixed in with a deck, the deck was given to me to peruse (in the sleeves), and I was unable to distinguish the real cards from the "proxies". This coupled with watching some videos on YouTube of people making actual proxies (nothing that would ever pass for the real thing, not because the quality is bad, but because the art is different) got me to thinking the following....
There are people at home all across the world that can make their own Magic "proxies". You can easily buy "proxies" from China. These "proxies", especially when sleeved, are nearly identical to the real thing. At some point someone is going to perfect the art and real cards will be absolutely indistinguishable from "proxies". However, in the meantime, I have come to believe 100% that there are fakes, "proxies", and forgeries of one stripe or another being played with at FNMs, at local Legacy and Modern tournies, at SCG and other higher level events, and likely even on the Pro Tour.
How often have you shown up to an FNM on the day of a release only to find that one of your opponents already has every single copy in their deck of some highly sought after Mythic Rare from the new set? There is a finite number of real, old school dual lands, but how is it that more and more people are showing up to play Legacy with all the required duals and everything else necessary to play?
I have come to believe that fake cards are everywhere. They might not be traded and sold en masse yet, because the technology isn't quite there (at least of the ones that I've known have been proxies), but in sleeves where they are virtually indecipherable from the real thing?
So what do you think? Have you ever encountered someone in a tournament that you believe or suspect was playing with fakes? Has anyone ever been busted? How often have you had a deck check performed against you? Anyone care to admit ever having played with known fakes? Have you ever played or owned a card that you believed to be real and only later realized (perhaps when trading it or selling it to someone) that it was a fake?
In all my years of playing Magic I have only been deck checked one time. In the past I have played with (in black backed sleeves) Collector's and International Edition cards whose corners had been rounded- they weren't rebacked, they still had the gold CE/IE borders, but with the black sleeves no one had a clue. This was in a low level local tournament.
Every Vintage Magic tournament that I am aware of currently allows proxy cards. Proxies are used regularly and knowingly in EDH/Commander, 5-Color, and some of the other "casual", alternate formats. I know of local Legacy scenes that have now jumped on board and allow unlimited proxies.
In my view, WOTC has specifically facilitated this problem with the Reserved List, but we are now seeing cards that are not on the reserved list "proxied". Everything from Tarmogoyf and Jace the Mind Sculptor to Splinter Twin and Ugin the Spirit Dragon and all Mythics and Rares and a lot of uncommons and commons in between.
If a card reaches a high price, why wouldn't one look for a cheaper option?
What is more important? The game or one's collection value?
And I will leave you with one more thought....
If the "fake" is as good as the real thing... Is it really a "fake"?
So what do you think? Have you ever encountered someone in a tournament that you believe or suspect was playing with fakes? Has anyone ever been busted? How often have you had a deck check performed against you? Anyone care to admit ever having played with known fakes? Have you ever played or owned a card that you believed to be real and only later realized (perhaps when trading it or selling it to someone) that it was a fake?
I've been deck-checked a couple times, but I suspect the judge is just verifying my list. Most of my high end cards are bought online, and I suspect Card Kingdom is not selling me fake duals! But I've bought a few high end cards locally, so you never know I guess.
As for your first question, I don't care in the slightest! Using quality fakes does not give my opponent any advantage above and beyond playing with the actual cards. Why should I care? As long as my LGS is making enough money to stay open, I am happy. In fact, the player with fakes might be indirectly helping the LGS by bolstering the Legacy scene!
Like you say, you can tell up close, so I'm not going to be sucked into trading real cards for these. It blows my mind that nobody has successfully reverse engineered magic cards. The "state of the art" printing technology is over twenty years old! Why nobody can yet replicate these with precision boggles my mind.
The sky is hardly falling. I've seen several of the "china proxies" and no one is getting it right enough that certain aspects of these cards can easily be identified as fakes. However, in a sleeve, they look pretty convincing and I'd wager that most of them would fly under the radar. But no one's got anything close enough to pass scrutiny from someone who know what to look for.
We can argue about the rhetoric of the reserve list all day long, but the fact of the matter is that it exists. I'm not so freaked out about people playing a good proxy against me, what I'm more concerned about is people reselling proxies to unsuspecting buyers as the real thing. This is the biggest problem with "proxies" and the most damning example of why the people making them should be held accountable for their actions.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the existence of the "proxy" market, there are a few facts that cannot be disputed.
1) Proxies being sold are a direct infringement of copyright laws.
2) Even if copyright wasn't being violated, proxies create a dangerous market for those of us who love the game enough and are willing to invest and work for the money to buy what we assume are the real deal. Do you feel that because the reserve list exists, it's now ok for proxies to be purported as the real thing because it's "close enough" for people buying $300 cards?
3) The fact that more people keep showing up to legacy packing these cards isn't a sign of an increase of supply from counterfeits. For every person getting in, there's several more people rediscovering their old Magic cards and selling them, or people exiting the game because real life shows up and makes them choose between their dual lands and their mortgage. Duals openly circulate at major events-real duals- and they're hardly unobtainable, even if you don't have cash on hand, I can walk up to any vendor and pawn off standard stock till I have enough to grab a played bayou or Volcanic or whatever any day of the week. Legacy continues to have players because plenty of players continue to have and to purchase duals and staples and because the format is awesome enough that people want to play it.
Whether you like it or not, "the game" and "collection value" are intertwined.
Let's make the case that "fakes" ARE as good as the real thing and counterfeits are as plentiful as you claim. Let's make it so that counterfeits openly circulate and wizards make no attempts to control that. Here's a couple ramifications:
1) Why would I buy the real thing at $300 anymore? Card prices will drop because it's the only way to sell any kind of singles. Legacy stuff plummets like a rock and every single cardboard retailer loses massively as they can no longer sell the cards for more than a fraction of what they paid for them.
2) For that matter, why would I even buy sealed product? I'll get a playset of Stormbreaths for $4 on ebay.
3) If stores aren't making any money (why buy form them when I can buy Chinese counterfeits all day that are just as good), and wizards isn't selling product (stores don't have the motivation to buy product from WoTC and even if they did, they probably don't have the capital anymore), who pays R&D and the artists and the Duels of the Planeswalkers dev team and the marketing department and the judges and everyone else?
4) If stores aren't making money from Magic, why carry it or devote shelf space to it at all? Everyone's getting their stuff from China.
5) If no one's buying the Magic brand, why should WoTC continue sinking money into it? Hasbro probably won't like a whole ton of cash getting sunk into a game that everyone plays for free on the black market.
So yes, cards having actual value are critical for the game stores you play at to exist and to justify them carrying Magic on their shelves.
Do you think the Chinese counterfeiters care about the health of the game? The health of your LGS? No matter how you feel about MaRo, I'd put even less trust in "proxy manufacturers".
Chronicles almost killed the game by tanking card values, and that was actual authorized real product that they eventually stopped printing. It did so much damage that we all have to live with its consequences to this day, but even Wizards knew Chronicles was a mistake. Your chinese counterfeiters don't care, and even if they saw it doing untold damage, they will print until no one wants to buy Magic cards from them anymore and then they'll go back to making knockoff sunglasses.
Sanctioned events should never allow proxies, it would immediately crush the secondary market value of cards from a direct and indirect perspective. Directly, because you automatically reduce demand, since the real thing isn't needed to play actual events anymore, and indirectly because after you watch card values tank across the board, you're not going to put any kind of faith that any card worth more than a few bucks would stay that way, so you wind right back up in the example I posted above.
Now if your LGS wants to run unsanctioned events, or you wanna play with 'em at your kitchen table? Fine. Who cares? It's not sanctioned so it's got nothing to do with WoTC. But as soon as it's a sanctioned event, real cards need to be used.
While it's difficult to catch these proxies through a sleeve and across the table, I think that if push came to shove, severe penalties for playing with counterfeit cards should be enacted, and all decks in the top 8 would require a judge to perform approved authentication checks during their routine deckchecks. No one will want to use proxies if they know that if they perform well, they will be caught if they head to finals.
There's a reason you use quotes around "proxies". It's so everyone else knows to read it as "counterfeits" because that's what they are, so let's stop screwing around with semantics and just call them what they are.
Counterfeits.
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EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Like you say, you can tell up close, so I'm not going to be sucked into trading real cards for these. It blows my mind that nobody has successfully reverse engineered magic cards. The "state of the art" printing technology is over twenty years old! Why nobody can yet replicate these with precision boggles my mind.
Well, think about it. In order to replicate cards 20 years ago perfectly, you'll need 20 year old printers, a very, very specific kind of cardstock that my understanding is is only sold by the pallet, lots of super res card images, the ability to precision cut corners at a very specific angle, the exact same inks, or at least the ability to recreate the exact same color and finish of those inks and the print pattern that's telltale visible under a loupe, in addition to god knows what other factors. Without every single one of these elements, the card will either look different, fail a light test or bend test, or fail under a loupe.
Now in order to actually make money, you have to have all of these things inexpensively. Granted, once you've got it, you're literally printing money, but there are so many components not just specific to magic cards, but to 20 year old magic cards, that it's still a daunting endeavor. This is why so few people (if any) can get it exactly right. The best examples are Dark Beta, which, my understanding is that these cards are unauthorized product printed with actual WoTC equipment by an employee many years ago after hours. And guess what? Dark Beta is STILL identifiable!
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Yeah, I have nothing against someone playing with "proxies/counterfeits" (did that for you Ebon =P), and I don't think I'd ever call a deck check on someone just because I thought one of their cards might be fake, but the fact is if fake cards get really good, there starts being a really high chance of getting ripped off as the temptation to turn your $2 or whatever fake into a $150 trade is going to be way too high for people to pass up.
So, as much as I hate the reserve list and think that convincing fakes flooding the market would be good to kick wizards into revisiting their idiotic reprint policies, a lot of players would get really screwed if that happened so I can't in good faith condone super high quality fakes coming to market, as much as I might personally want them (for cube, casual, and unsanctioned events.)
I don't think that the "proxy" issue is as widespread as you're saying, but there's a very high chance that:
1: There are people deliberately playing in tournaments with these.
2: There are people who don't know what to look for, have traded for these, and are playing them unaware.
I happen to agree that Wizards and their reprint policies create an environment where large-scale counterfeiting is profitable, even with the risks involved. The existence of the Reserve List means that anyone with the proper knowledge and equipment can effectively print money. As others have said, nobody has got it exactly right, and there are some obviously bad ones out there. Of course, if someone had a way of making perfect fakes, indistinguishable from the real thing, then how exactly could you prove they're fake?
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
If you can make fakes on that level, why would you be inclined to sell them for pennies on the dollar though? And if they're still expensive, then what's the benefit to making fakes?
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I recently encountered a player at a local FNM who had a counterfeit playset of Tarmogoyfs in his deck. He had received these from an online retailer (I don't know which one, nor do I know if it was from ebay). When he received them, he knew they were fakes and was refunded his money for his purchase. He is a long time member of our local community and has played in many events here. On this particular day, he had the fakes in place of his real ones (his real ones were in another deck) and forgot to take them out and replace them with the real cards. He called the judge on himself when he discovered this. Unfortunately, because the FNM had already fired, he was DQ'd from the event, and was reported to the DCI. He was given an opportunity to write a letter to the DCI explaining the situation, but I have not seen him at the shop since.
"Proxy" refers to a stand-in for a real Magic card, but one that is not represented as the real deal. Popular for cubes -- downright necessary for powered cubes -- and in playtesting. These go from sharpied basic lands to really pretty custom art jobs you can order on Etsy. These kind of unofficial cards have a legitimate role to play in Magic. Frankly, I prefer the art on some proxies to the real thing, particularly when you can get full-art or foil versions of things that never existed that way.
What you are describing in your opening post, Force, is NOT a proxy. You are describing "counterfeits." You cross the line between the two when the goal is to make the card as indistinguishable from the real deal as possible. There is only one reason to do this: someone in the chain of creating, buying, or using the card intends to lie to someone else. If you run them in a tournament, you are lying to all of your opponents. If you sell it or trade it without revealing what it is, you are lying. No amount of argument about how "wah wah it doesnt matter reserve list blah blah" changes this fundamental fact -- counterfeit cards are DISHONEST.
So, please, reserve the term "proxy" for cards that are OPENLY unofficial. What you are discussing are counterfeits.
He called the judge on himself when he discovered this. Unfortunately, because the FNM had already fired, he was DQ'd from the event, and was reported to the DCI. He was given an opportunity to write a letter to the DCI explaining the situation, but I have not seen him at the shop since.
I am skeptical of this story. Why would someone who owns Tarmagoyfs for use in his tournament deck ever swap them out for fakes? Assuming its, true, however, this is just another example of why you DO. NOT. MESS. WITH. COUNTERFEITS.
What really burns me up are how dealers and financeers will order a set of fakes each time they improve "just to see" what they look like. This feeds demand and encourages fakes by funding the criminal operations producing them. This fellow in your story, again assuming it's true at all, was doing exactly the same thing. Even if he had some bizarre non-dishonest goal in mind, he funded an operation that makes its money by helping people defraud their local game store.
I assume his thought process was, well now I have 8 goyfs I can test two decks, And then muffed which had the really and the fake. As you say the temptation once the fakes are there is just to high when your talking $100s.
Every Vintage Magic tournament that I am aware of currently allows proxy cards. Proxies are used regularly and knowingly in EDH/Commander, 5-Color, and some of the other "casual", alternate formats. I know of local Legacy scenes that have now jumped on board and allow unlimited proxies.
I think you misunderstand vintage.
Vintage allows proxies. THEY DO NOT allow counterfeits.
There's a biiiiig difference. Proxies are basically a card (preferably a revised plains, an erased cards, or a card with similar artwork) with the word "Black Lotus" written on it with a pen.
edit: basically, what the guy two posts above me said. You're conflating terms.
If a card reaches a high price, why wouldn't one look for a cheaper option?
Because it is dishonest? "cheaper" is absolutely fine if they're allowed within the rules, which is why proxies are fine in vintage (because nearly every vintage tournament is held by someone other than Wizards and they decided to allow it; also note that not all vintage tournaments allow proxies). However, if they're not allowed within the rules, proxies and counterfeits are plain cheating.
What is more important? The game or one's collection value?
The game, which is why people should be honest and not cheat.
If you're trying to argue that wizards should allow proxies and counterfeits in their tournaments, that's not going to happen.
"Proxy" refers to a stand-in for a real Magic card, but one that is not represented as the real deal. Popular for cubes -- downright necessary for powered cubes -- and in playtesting. These go from sharpied basic lands to really pretty custom art jobs you can order on Etsy. These kind of unofficial cards have a legitimate role to play in Magic. Frankly, I prefer the art on some proxies to the real thing, particularly when you can get full-art or foil versions of things that never existed that way.
What you are describing in your opening post, Force, is NOT a proxy. You are describing "counterfeits." You cross the line between the two when the goal is to make the card as indistinguishable from the real deal as possible. There is only one reason to do this: someone in the chain of creating, buying, or using the card intends to lie to someone else. If you run them in a tournament, you are lying to all of your opponents. If you sell it or trade it without revealing what it is, you are lying. No amount of argument about how "wah wah it doesnt matter reserve list blah blah" changes this fundamental fact -- counterfeit cards are DISHONEST.
So, please, reserve the term "proxy" for cards that are OPENLY unofficial. What you are discussing are counterfeits.
He called the judge on himself when he discovered this. Unfortunately, because the FNM had already fired, he was DQ'd from the event, and was reported to the DCI. He was given an opportunity to write a letter to the DCI explaining the situation, but I have not seen him at the shop since.
I am skeptical of this story. Why would someone who owns Tarmagoyfs for use in his tournament deck ever swap them out for fakes? Assuming its, true, however, this is just another example of why you DO. NOT. MESS. WITH. COUNTERFEITS.
What really burns me up are how dealers and financeers will order a set of fakes each time they improve "just to see" what they look like. This feeds demand and encourages fakes by funding the criminal operations producing them. This fellow in your story, again assuming it's true at all, was doing exactly the same thing. Even if he had some bizarre non-dishonest goal in mind, he funded an operation that makes its money by helping people defraud their local game store.
I assume his thought process was, well now I have 8 goyfs I can test two decks, And then muffed which had the really and the fake. As you say the temptation once the fakes are there is just to high when your talking $100s.
He is a good guy and it's not unknown that he does, in fact, own Goyfs. It was a mistake to take them out for his Legacy deck or to test or whatever. Slipped his mind to put the real ones back. I believe him. I've known him for a while and nothing would lead me to believe that what he did was intentional. Like I said, he called the judge on himself, afterall.
Sucks to be him, then, but one has to wonder WHY he purchased counterfeits in the first place. As we've said, if you want copies for playtesting purposes, sharpie a land. If you can't play with those because of artistic sensibilities, that's fine too, you can order custom proxies that are gorgeous for probably the same price he ordered straight-up counterfeits.
What's he gonna tell the DCI? "Yeah, I paid money to a criminal who is ripping off your game, but in my defense I never actually meant to take them to a tournament?"
Sucks to be him, then, but one has to wonder WHY he purchased counterfeits in the first place. As we've said, if you want copies for playtesting purposes, sharpie a land. If you can't play with those because of artistic sensibilities, that's fine too, you can order custom proxies that are gorgeous for probably the same price he ordered straight-up counterfeits.
What's he gonna tell the DCI? "Yeah, I paid money to a criminal who is ripping off your game, but in my defense I never actually meant to take them to a tournament?"
He purchased them because they were listed as real cards. He was given a refund once he received them and complained that they were fakes.
The game, which is why people should be honest and not cheat.
If the most important thing is the game, ie a match between two people, then you shouldn't care about fakes/proxies. Using them isn't cheating within the game rules, only within the tournament rules and only because Wizards is trying to protect the value of people's collections. Using fake cards doesn't improve a person's chances of winning over someone using the real cards, if anything it merely levels the playing field.
As I mentioned above, there are outside the game reasons (people getting ripped off) that I think convincing fakes are problematic, but they have no impact on an actual game of magic* and don't give anyone an advantage.
*Obviously it's possible that convincing fakes could tank everyone's collection and make a bunch of people quit, but again, that's not a rules violation or cheating issue, it's an outside the game collection value issue.
What's he gonna tell the DCI? "Yeah, I paid money to a criminal who is ripping off your game, but in my defense I never actually meant to take them to a tournament?"
"I ordered cards from <shop>, they sent fakes, I called them out on it & got a refund. Do you want me to send you the fakes?" works & guarantees an investigation into the seller. He didn't intentionally buy fakes, cooperated with the judges at the FNM & likely would cooperate with WotC as well, I don't see the player having actually done anything wrong, other than not notifying WotC immediately upon receiving the fakes.
I recently encountered a player at a local FNM who had a counterfeit playset of Tarmogoyfs in his deck. He had received these from an online retailer (I don't know which one, nor do I know if it was from ebay). When he received them, he knew they were fakes and was refunded his money for his purchase. He is a long time member of our local community and has played in many events here. On this particular day, he had the fakes in place of his real ones (his real ones were in another deck) and forgot to take them out and replace them with the real cards. He called the judge on himself when he discovered this. Unfortunately, because the FNM had already fired, he was DQ'd from the event, and was reported to the DCI. He was given an opportunity to write a letter to the DCI explaining the situation, but I have not seen him at the shop since.
This should actually not be a DQ. At Competitive, it should be handled the same way as a deck/decklist problem (game loss & replace the fakes with real ones or basic lands). At FNM, if I were judging, I'd probably lean more in the direction of the game loss as well, but he's still getting to replace the fakes with real cards/basic lands. The DQ is a very significant deviation from policy.
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Hey all... I'm retired, not dead. Check out what I'm doing these days (and beg me to come back if you want):
Every Vintage Magic tournament that I am aware of currently allows proxy cards. Proxies are used regularly and knowingly in EDH/Commander, 5-Color, and some of the other "casual", alternate formats. I know of local Legacy scenes that have now jumped on board and allow unlimited proxies.
I think you misunderstand vintage.
Vintage allows proxies. THEY DO NOT allow counterfeits.
There's a biiiiig difference. Proxies are basically a card (preferably a revised plains, an erased cards, or a card with similar artwork) with the word "Black Lotus" written on it with a pen.
Perhaps the Legacy and Vintage tournaments that you are aware of that allow "proxies" have different rules than the ones that I am aware of. The ones that I am aware of actually frown upon just writing Black Lotus (for example) across a plains. They prefer and want you to have the best quality image of the real card. It doesn't matter if it is from a Chinese "proxy" or printed off your computer. Same for the Legacy tourneys that I am aware of. WOTC might make the rules that only real cards are allowed in officially sanctioned tourneys, but if the tournament organizer, place of business, and other players are all cool with high quality "proxies" (counterfeits or fakes, if you prefer) being allowed and that having that allowance boosts the number of people playing in a tournament and the payouts that the players get as a result of playing, WOTC will never be any wiser. They don't, afterall, have any hard way to confirm that all the cards in sanctioned tourneys are real.
Otherwise, interesting replies.
One thing I will ad regarding the Chinese "proxies" that I have been shown. I placed a dozen or so of them in with a handful of other Magic cards and shuffled them (unsleeved) together. I closed my eyes and proceeded to determine whether the cards were real or fake just based on feel as quickly as I could- literally just gripping the card between my fingers for a moment and tossing them into either a real or fake pile. With my eyes closed, I was able to correctly pick out every real card and every fake card. Again, the technology isn't perfect (at least from the cards I've seen) and I don't see any danger currently in a serious Magic player, dealer, or collector trading for or buying fakes, but in sleeves these are good and (except for the ones that are off color) could easily pass as legit.
Back to the other thread that I referenced, I had always assumed that when deck checks were done by a judge that they would take all the cards out of the sleeves and make sure they were legit. I suppose there are two problems with attempting to do that- 1. It would take a lot more time to do a deck check that way. 2. The risk of damaging real cards (especially valuable cards) would be increased- even the oils and dirt particles from ones fingers could pose a threat to the integrity and quality of old, valuable cards. For players that double sleeve their cards, the headache and time necessary to do a deck check in that manner would be even more demanding.
Perhaps the Legacy and Vintage tournaments that you are aware of that allow "proxies" have different rules than the ones that I am aware of. The ones that I am aware of actually frown upon just writing Black Lotus (for example) across a plains. They prefer and want you to have the best quality image of the real card. It doesn't matter if it is from a Chinese "proxy" or printed off your computer. Same for the Legacy tourneys that I am aware of.
Unless you're playing in a community that encourages counterfeits, it's probably misleading to suggest that "they prefer and want you to have the best quality image of the real card".
The purpose of having a proxy with text is to make sure the person on the other side of the table knows what your card does. Of course that's preferable to writing Black Lotus across a Plains. Unless you're a Vintage regular, you won't automatically know what a Black Lotus does.
There is a functional difference between wanting a proxy with card text and wanting a proxy with the card name only. There is no functional difference between wanting a proxy with card text and wanting a proxy that can pass for the real thing.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
Perhaps the Legacy and Vintage tournaments that you are aware of that allow "proxies" have different rules than the ones that I am aware of. The ones that I am aware of actually frown upon just writing Black Lotus (for example) across a plains. They prefer and want you to have the best quality image of the real card. It doesn't matter if it is from a Chinese "proxy" or printed off your computer. Same for the Legacy tourneys that I am aware of.
Unless you're playing in a community that encourages counterfeits, it's probably misleading to suggest that "they prefer and want you to have the best quality image of the real card".
The purpose of having a proxy with text is to make sure the person on the other side of the table knows what your card does. Of course that's preferable to writing Black Lotus across a Plains. Unless you're a Vintage regular, you won't automatically know what a Black Lotus does.
There is a functional difference between wanting a proxy with card text and wanting a proxy with the card name only. There is no functional difference between wanting a proxy with card text and wanting a proxy that can pass for the real thing.
The best proxy is a medium quality printing of the card - one that's *obviously* not real, but that has the card's artwork on it so you can identify it from art as well as text. Best ones I've ever seen were printed with a process not too different from real cards but were about 5% smaller (so the black border looked huge).
The best proxy is a medium quality printing of the card - one that's *obviously* not real, but that has the card's artwork on it so you can identify it from art as well as text. Best ones I've ever seen were printed with a process not too different from real cards but were about 5% smaller (so the black border looked huge).
This makes sense to me. But there definitely comes a point after which the print quality no longer adds to the function of the proxy, and that bar is pretty low.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
For the record, deck checks are not executed for authenticity's sake in mind, though I feel that if it becomes a problem, deckchecking a few cards in top 8 competitors for authenticity is not a bad proposal. Deck checks are implemented to ensure that the decklist a player registered is what the player is playing within an event.
I have no issues at all if someone wants to use a "medium grade" proxy. When I made a proxy for my Tabernacle, I intentionally avoided making it as accurate as possible because if there's one thing I don't want it's people thinking is that I would ever have the intention or capability of passing it off as the real thing that stays safely in my binder. Trying to make proxies as identical as possible is a dangerous road to be walking down, even if you have nothing but honest intentions. If I ever meet a new player at the shop, and they had some high quality proxies, I would make a mental note to probably just no do business with them unless I have my loupe on hand.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I'm not sure a DQ is a deviation. Intentionally breaking tournament rules, like using genuine cards, should be awarded a DQ even at Regular REL. There might be some leeway but I think that a DQ is a possible outcome of knowingly using fake cards. He might have forget they were fake but he knew they were fake and he puts them in his deck.
If he has been suspended it can easily verified on the online of suspended people as long as his name or DCI number is known.
The correct call for suspected proxies is a Deck/Decklist error - if it was a genuine mistake, replace with basic lands, assess a game loss if you're not at Regular REL, and move on. If he knew they were fake then it's cheating - fraud and a snap-DQ at all RELs. Given scrublord's story, the correct call was made.
However, the entire deal with the Chinese counterfeits is a much bigger issue than people here seem to think - I've seen them in action (I feel making a cube where I retain possession of all the cards and won't resell is an acceptable reason to have the fakes) and while yes they can feel a bit different, so do the cards from clash packs, or any foreign language card. If they're roughed up enough you probably won't even have that to go by, which leaves needing a jeweler's loupe and/or a blacklight (the counterfeits glow under UV light, regular cards won't) to identify a fake when you come across it in someone's binder.
Across the table, upside down and double-sleeved? There's almost no way to know if your opponent has chinese knock-offs or not, and badgering a judge about it is a really easy way to get a few USC penalties.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Using fake cards doesn't improve a person's chances of winning over someone using the real cards, if anything it merely levels the playing field.
plain wrong. A lot of players really dont own every availible card, so - if they only play real cards - they are restricted to the cards they own or can purchase. A player using fake cards does not have that limitation, thus getting an advantage. While i have dual lands, i dont have a Tabernacle, or a grim tutor, so i have to play without them. How does it level the playing field?
Because as it stands now, the more money someone is willing to spend, as you say, the more successful they will be. If all magic cards were less than $1 (which would be bad for the game, but let's put that aside,) or if you could get perfect fakes for $1, it would absolutely level the playing field because then everyone would have access to the same pool of cards.
Also, took a tiny chunk of my quote out of context. What I was clearly saying was that, within a game of magic, someone using counterfeit cards is not somehow advantaged over someone using the real versions of the cards, that is all.
There are people at home all across the world that can make their own Magic "proxies". You can easily buy "proxies" from China. These "proxies", especially when sleeved, are nearly identical to the real thing. At some point someone is going to perfect the art and real cards will be absolutely indistinguishable from "proxies". However, in the meantime, I have come to believe 100% that there are fakes, "proxies", and forgeries of one stripe or another being played with at FNMs, at local Legacy and Modern tournies, at SCG and other higher level events, and likely even on the Pro Tour.
How often have you shown up to an FNM on the day of a release only to find that one of your opponents already has every single copy in their deck of some highly sought after Mythic Rare from the new set? There is a finite number of real, old school dual lands, but how is it that more and more people are showing up to play Legacy with all the required duals and everything else necessary to play?
I have come to believe that fake cards are everywhere. They might not be traded and sold en masse yet, because the technology isn't quite there (at least of the ones that I've known have been proxies), but in sleeves where they are virtually indecipherable from the real thing?
So what do you think? Have you ever encountered someone in a tournament that you believe or suspect was playing with fakes? Has anyone ever been busted? How often have you had a deck check performed against you? Anyone care to admit ever having played with known fakes? Have you ever played or owned a card that you believed to be real and only later realized (perhaps when trading it or selling it to someone) that it was a fake?
In all my years of playing Magic I have only been deck checked one time. In the past I have played with (in black backed sleeves) Collector's and International Edition cards whose corners had been rounded- they weren't rebacked, they still had the gold CE/IE borders, but with the black sleeves no one had a clue. This was in a low level local tournament.
Every Vintage Magic tournament that I am aware of currently allows proxy cards. Proxies are used regularly and knowingly in EDH/Commander, 5-Color, and some of the other "casual", alternate formats. I know of local Legacy scenes that have now jumped on board and allow unlimited proxies.
In my view, WOTC has specifically facilitated this problem with the Reserved List, but we are now seeing cards that are not on the reserved list "proxied". Everything from Tarmogoyf and Jace the Mind Sculptor to Splinter Twin and Ugin the Spirit Dragon and all Mythics and Rares and a lot of uncommons and commons in between.
If a card reaches a high price, why wouldn't one look for a cheaper option?
What is more important? The game or one's collection value?
And I will leave you with one more thought....
If the "fake" is as good as the real thing... Is it really a "fake"?
Current decks:
Legacy: Zoo, Aggro Elves, The Gate, White Weenie, Red Deck Wins, and Merfolk. Currently building Solidarity.
Casual: Warp World Revolution and Old School Red-Green.
Standard: Ob-Nixilis Wave and Elves.
I've been deck-checked a couple times, but I suspect the judge is just verifying my list. Most of my high end cards are bought online, and I suspect Card Kingdom is not selling me fake duals! But I've bought a few high end cards locally, so you never know I guess.
As for your first question, I don't care in the slightest! Using quality fakes does not give my opponent any advantage above and beyond playing with the actual cards. Why should I care? As long as my LGS is making enough money to stay open, I am happy. In fact, the player with fakes might be indirectly helping the LGS by bolstering the Legacy scene!
Like you say, you can tell up close, so I'm not going to be sucked into trading real cards for these. It blows my mind that nobody has successfully reverse engineered magic cards. The "state of the art" printing technology is over twenty years old! Why nobody can yet replicate these with precision boggles my mind.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
We can argue about the rhetoric of the reserve list all day long, but the fact of the matter is that it exists. I'm not so freaked out about people playing a good proxy against me, what I'm more concerned about is people reselling proxies to unsuspecting buyers as the real thing. This is the biggest problem with "proxies" and the most damning example of why the people making them should be held accountable for their actions.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the existence of the "proxy" market, there are a few facts that cannot be disputed.
1) Proxies being sold are a direct infringement of copyright laws.
2) Even if copyright wasn't being violated, proxies create a dangerous market for those of us who love the game enough and are willing to invest and work for the money to buy what we assume are the real deal. Do you feel that because the reserve list exists, it's now ok for proxies to be purported as the real thing because it's "close enough" for people buying $300 cards?
3) The fact that more people keep showing up to legacy packing these cards isn't a sign of an increase of supply from counterfeits. For every person getting in, there's several more people rediscovering their old Magic cards and selling them, or people exiting the game because real life shows up and makes them choose between their dual lands and their mortgage. Duals openly circulate at major events-real duals- and they're hardly unobtainable, even if you don't have cash on hand, I can walk up to any vendor and pawn off standard stock till I have enough to grab a played bayou or Volcanic or whatever any day of the week. Legacy continues to have players because plenty of players continue to have and to purchase duals and staples and because the format is awesome enough that people want to play it.
Whether you like it or not, "the game" and "collection value" are intertwined.
Let's make the case that "fakes" ARE as good as the real thing and counterfeits are as plentiful as you claim. Let's make it so that counterfeits openly circulate and wizards make no attempts to control that. Here's a couple ramifications:
1) Why would I buy the real thing at $300 anymore? Card prices will drop because it's the only way to sell any kind of singles. Legacy stuff plummets like a rock and every single cardboard retailer loses massively as they can no longer sell the cards for more than a fraction of what they paid for them.
2) For that matter, why would I even buy sealed product? I'll get a playset of Stormbreaths for $4 on ebay.
3) If stores aren't making any money (why buy form them when I can buy Chinese counterfeits all day that are just as good), and wizards isn't selling product (stores don't have the motivation to buy product from WoTC and even if they did, they probably don't have the capital anymore), who pays R&D and the artists and the Duels of the Planeswalkers dev team and the marketing department and the judges and everyone else?
4) If stores aren't making money from Magic, why carry it or devote shelf space to it at all? Everyone's getting their stuff from China.
5) If no one's buying the Magic brand, why should WoTC continue sinking money into it? Hasbro probably won't like a whole ton of cash getting sunk into a game that everyone plays for free on the black market.
So yes, cards having actual value are critical for the game stores you play at to exist and to justify them carrying Magic on their shelves.
Do you think the Chinese counterfeiters care about the health of the game? The health of your LGS? No matter how you feel about MaRo, I'd put even less trust in "proxy manufacturers".
Chronicles almost killed the game by tanking card values, and that was actual authorized real product that they eventually stopped printing. It did so much damage that we all have to live with its consequences to this day, but even Wizards knew Chronicles was a mistake. Your chinese counterfeiters don't care, and even if they saw it doing untold damage, they will print until no one wants to buy Magic cards from them anymore and then they'll go back to making knockoff sunglasses.
Sanctioned events should never allow proxies, it would immediately crush the secondary market value of cards from a direct and indirect perspective. Directly, because you automatically reduce demand, since the real thing isn't needed to play actual events anymore, and indirectly because after you watch card values tank across the board, you're not going to put any kind of faith that any card worth more than a few bucks would stay that way, so you wind right back up in the example I posted above.
Now if your LGS wants to run unsanctioned events, or you wanna play with 'em at your kitchen table? Fine. Who cares? It's not sanctioned so it's got nothing to do with WoTC. But as soon as it's a sanctioned event, real cards need to be used.
While it's difficult to catch these proxies through a sleeve and across the table, I think that if push came to shove, severe penalties for playing with counterfeit cards should be enacted, and all decks in the top 8 would require a judge to perform approved authentication checks during their routine deckchecks. No one will want to use proxies if they know that if they perform well, they will be caught if they head to finals.
There's a reason you use quotes around "proxies". It's so everyone else knows to read it as "counterfeits" because that's what they are, so let's stop screwing around with semantics and just call them what they are.
Counterfeits.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Well, think about it. In order to replicate cards 20 years ago perfectly, you'll need 20 year old printers, a very, very specific kind of cardstock that my understanding is is only sold by the pallet, lots of super res card images, the ability to precision cut corners at a very specific angle, the exact same inks, or at least the ability to recreate the exact same color and finish of those inks and the print pattern that's telltale visible under a loupe, in addition to god knows what other factors. Without every single one of these elements, the card will either look different, fail a light test or bend test, or fail under a loupe.
Now in order to actually make money, you have to have all of these things inexpensively. Granted, once you've got it, you're literally printing money, but there are so many components not just specific to magic cards, but to 20 year old magic cards, that it's still a daunting endeavor. This is why so few people (if any) can get it exactly right. The best examples are Dark Beta, which, my understanding is that these cards are unauthorized product printed with actual WoTC equipment by an employee many years ago after hours. And guess what? Dark Beta is STILL identifiable!
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
So, as much as I hate the reserve list and think that convincing fakes flooding the market would be good to kick wizards into revisiting their idiotic reprint policies, a lot of players would get really screwed if that happened so I can't in good faith condone super high quality fakes coming to market, as much as I might personally want them (for cube, casual, and unsanctioned events.)
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
1: There are people deliberately playing in tournaments with these.
2: There are people who don't know what to look for, have traded for these, and are playing them unaware.
I happen to agree that Wizards and their reprint policies create an environment where large-scale counterfeiting is profitable, even with the risks involved. The existence of the Reserve List means that anyone with the proper knowledge and equipment can effectively print money. As others have said, nobody has got it exactly right, and there are some obviously bad ones out there. Of course, if someone had a way of making perfect fakes, indistinguishable from the real thing, then how exactly could you prove they're fake?
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Legacy: Infect, Lands, Eldrazi, Storm
Modern: Infect, UW Eldrazi
"Proxy" refers to a stand-in for a real Magic card, but one that is not represented as the real deal. Popular for cubes -- downright necessary for powered cubes -- and in playtesting. These go from sharpied basic lands to really pretty custom art jobs you can order on Etsy. These kind of unofficial cards have a legitimate role to play in Magic. Frankly, I prefer the art on some proxies to the real thing, particularly when you can get full-art or foil versions of things that never existed that way.
What you are describing in your opening post, Force, is NOT a proxy. You are describing "counterfeits." You cross the line between the two when the goal is to make the card as indistinguishable from the real deal as possible. There is only one reason to do this: someone in the chain of creating, buying, or using the card intends to lie to someone else. If you run them in a tournament, you are lying to all of your opponents. If you sell it or trade it without revealing what it is, you are lying. No amount of argument about how "wah wah it doesnt matter reserve list blah blah" changes this fundamental fact -- counterfeit cards are DISHONEST.
So, please, reserve the term "proxy" for cards that are OPENLY unofficial. What you are discussing are counterfeits.
I am skeptical of this story. Why would someone who owns Tarmagoyfs for use in his tournament deck ever swap them out for fakes? Assuming its, true, however, this is just another example of why you DO. NOT. MESS. WITH. COUNTERFEITS.
What really burns me up are how dealers and financeers will order a set of fakes each time they improve "just to see" what they look like. This feeds demand and encourages fakes by funding the criminal operations producing them. This fellow in your story, again assuming it's true at all, was doing exactly the same thing. Even if he had some bizarre non-dishonest goal in mind, he funded an operation that makes its money by helping people defraud their local game store.
I think you misunderstand vintage.
Vintage allows proxies. THEY DO NOT allow counterfeits.
There's a biiiiig difference. Proxies are basically a card (preferably a revised plains, an erased cards, or a card with similar artwork) with the word "Black Lotus" written on it with a pen.
edit: basically, what the guy two posts above me said. You're conflating terms.
Because it is dishonest? "cheaper" is absolutely fine if they're allowed within the rules, which is why proxies are fine in vintage (because nearly every vintage tournament is held by someone other than Wizards and they decided to allow it; also note that not all vintage tournaments allow proxies). However, if they're not allowed within the rules, proxies and counterfeits are plain cheating.
The game, which is why people should be honest and not cheat.
If you're trying to argue that wizards should allow proxies and counterfeits in their tournaments, that's not going to happen.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
He is a good guy and it's not unknown that he does, in fact, own Goyfs. It was a mistake to take them out for his Legacy deck or to test or whatever. Slipped his mind to put the real ones back. I believe him. I've known him for a while and nothing would lead me to believe that what he did was intentional. Like I said, he called the judge on himself, afterall.
Legacy: Infect, Lands, Eldrazi, Storm
Modern: Infect, UW Eldrazi
What's he gonna tell the DCI? "Yeah, I paid money to a criminal who is ripping off your game, but in my defense I never actually meant to take them to a tournament?"
He purchased them because they were listed as real cards. He was given a refund once he received them and complained that they were fakes.
Legacy: Infect, Lands, Eldrazi, Storm
Modern: Infect, UW Eldrazi
If the most important thing is the game, ie a match between two people, then you shouldn't care about fakes/proxies. Using them isn't cheating within the game rules, only within the tournament rules and only because Wizards is trying to protect the value of people's collections. Using fake cards doesn't improve a person's chances of winning over someone using the real cards, if anything it merely levels the playing field.
As I mentioned above, there are outside the game reasons (people getting ripped off) that I think convincing fakes are problematic, but they have no impact on an actual game of magic* and don't give anyone an advantage.
*Obviously it's possible that convincing fakes could tank everyone's collection and make a bunch of people quit, but again, that's not a rules violation or cheating issue, it's an outside the game collection value issue.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
"I ordered cards from <shop>, they sent fakes, I called them out on it & got a refund. Do you want me to send you the fakes?" works & guarantees an investigation into the seller. He didn't intentionally buy fakes, cooperated with the judges at the FNM & likely would cooperate with WotC as well, I don't see the player having actually done anything wrong, other than not notifying WotC immediately upon receiving the fakes.
This should actually not be a DQ. At Competitive, it should be handled the same way as a deck/decklist problem (game loss & replace the fakes with real ones or basic lands). At FNM, if I were judging, I'd probably lean more in the direction of the game loss as well, but he's still getting to replace the fakes with real cards/basic lands. The DQ is a very significant deviation from policy.
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
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Perhaps the Legacy and Vintage tournaments that you are aware of that allow "proxies" have different rules than the ones that I am aware of. The ones that I am aware of actually frown upon just writing Black Lotus (for example) across a plains. They prefer and want you to have the best quality image of the real card. It doesn't matter if it is from a Chinese "proxy" or printed off your computer. Same for the Legacy tourneys that I am aware of. WOTC might make the rules that only real cards are allowed in officially sanctioned tourneys, but if the tournament organizer, place of business, and other players are all cool with high quality "proxies" (counterfeits or fakes, if you prefer) being allowed and that having that allowance boosts the number of people playing in a tournament and the payouts that the players get as a result of playing, WOTC will never be any wiser. They don't, afterall, have any hard way to confirm that all the cards in sanctioned tourneys are real.
Otherwise, interesting replies.
One thing I will ad regarding the Chinese "proxies" that I have been shown. I placed a dozen or so of them in with a handful of other Magic cards and shuffled them (unsleeved) together. I closed my eyes and proceeded to determine whether the cards were real or fake just based on feel as quickly as I could- literally just gripping the card between my fingers for a moment and tossing them into either a real or fake pile. With my eyes closed, I was able to correctly pick out every real card and every fake card. Again, the technology isn't perfect (at least from the cards I've seen) and I don't see any danger currently in a serious Magic player, dealer, or collector trading for or buying fakes, but in sleeves these are good and (except for the ones that are off color) could easily pass as legit.
Back to the other thread that I referenced, I had always assumed that when deck checks were done by a judge that they would take all the cards out of the sleeves and make sure they were legit. I suppose there are two problems with attempting to do that- 1. It would take a lot more time to do a deck check that way. 2. The risk of damaging real cards (especially valuable cards) would be increased- even the oils and dirt particles from ones fingers could pose a threat to the integrity and quality of old, valuable cards. For players that double sleeve their cards, the headache and time necessary to do a deck check in that manner would be even more demanding.
Current decks:
Legacy: Zoo, Aggro Elves, The Gate, White Weenie, Red Deck Wins, and Merfolk. Currently building Solidarity.
Casual: Warp World Revolution and Old School Red-Green.
Standard: Ob-Nixilis Wave and Elves.
The purpose of having a proxy with text is to make sure the person on the other side of the table knows what your card does. Of course that's preferable to writing Black Lotus across a Plains. Unless you're a Vintage regular, you won't automatically know what a Black Lotus does.
There is a functional difference between wanting a proxy with card text and wanting a proxy with the card name only. There is no functional difference between wanting a proxy with card text and wanting a proxy that can pass for the real thing.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
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URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
The best proxy is a medium quality printing of the card - one that's *obviously* not real, but that has the card's artwork on it so you can identify it from art as well as text. Best ones I've ever seen were printed with a process not too different from real cards but were about 5% smaller (so the black border looked huge).
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
I have no issues at all if someone wants to use a "medium grade" proxy. When I made a proxy for my Tabernacle, I intentionally avoided making it as accurate as possible because if there's one thing I don't want it's people thinking is that I would ever have the intention or capability of passing it off as the real thing that stays safely in my binder. Trying to make proxies as identical as possible is a dangerous road to be walking down, even if you have nothing but honest intentions. If I ever meet a new player at the shop, and they had some high quality proxies, I would make a mental note to probably just no do business with them unless I have my loupe on hand.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I also, by no means, agree with him using the fakes as proxies. Situations like this are why people should get rid of fakes when they get them.
Legacy: Infect, Lands, Eldrazi, Storm
Modern: Infect, UW Eldrazi
If he has been suspended it can easily verified on the online of suspended people as long as his name or DCI number is known.
However, the entire deal with the Chinese counterfeits is a much bigger issue than people here seem to think - I've seen them in action (I feel making a cube where I retain possession of all the cards and won't resell is an acceptable reason to have the fakes) and while yes they can feel a bit different, so do the cards from clash packs, or any foreign language card. If they're roughed up enough you probably won't even have that to go by, which leaves needing a jeweler's loupe and/or a blacklight (the counterfeits glow under UV light, regular cards won't) to identify a fake when you come across it in someone's binder.
Across the table, upside down and double-sleeved? There's almost no way to know if your opponent has chinese knock-offs or not, and badgering a judge about it is a really easy way to get a few USC penalties.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Because as it stands now, the more money someone is willing to spend, as you say, the more successful they will be. If all magic cards were less than $1 (which would be bad for the game, but let's put that aside,) or if you could get perfect fakes for $1, it would absolutely level the playing field because then everyone would have access to the same pool of cards.
Also, took a tiny chunk of my quote out of context. What I was clearly saying was that, within a game of magic, someone using counterfeit cards is not somehow advantaged over someone using the real versions of the cards, that is all.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588