I haven't had too much experience in mtg but one thing I know from all games I've played is that a lot of times I can't get certain cards for a deck and eventually have to bite the dust and buy them from a vendor. I would rather rent if given the choice, would anyone else? What would be some drawbacks?
With a bunch of established friends thats basically the norm.
If everyone has a large card pool, they can easily lend cards to each other for a decks.
If someone attends an event and the other is not, that works too.
To make that work, it requires a lot of trust, that they care for the cards, dont damage them, actually give you your cards back (and not fakes, or "leave" town).
Doing that commercially would be way too much work for basically way less money than selling them.
For very expensive cards (200$+) the cards condition is especially important. So really messed up cards are far cheaper to buy anyway, the difference in card condition can easily be 50% and more.
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What people did with shops and ebay etc. was to buy cards for an event, then send them back with a complaint.
That does work 1 time, the 2nd time you will be put on a black-list and they wont sell you anything anymore.
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Really expensive cards are also counterfeits quite often now.
Just having cards to play really good counterfeits in double sleeves are basically as good as real cards, nobody will notice them as counterfeits and nobody really gives a ***** anyway (outside of sanctioned tournaments, in which a judge could potentially check cards for counterfeits, but that happens rarely if at all), as the entire purpose is to play the game.
For kitchen table play thats also prefered, just printing good colored proxy cards is totally fine just to play a bit.
No matter what, proxy cards should never ever be sold as "real" cards, as that gets you in serious trouble.
Owning the real cards is more like owning a picture / artwork, spending 1000$+ for some cards can be tremendous investment (and its even likely you make a profit with really old cards on the reserved list, as they basically all increase in value if you dont mess them up while playing, so taking care of cards and handling them well is a must).
If everyone has a large card pool, they can easily lend cards to each other for a decks.
If someone attends an event and the other is not, that works too.
To make that work, it requires a lot of trust, that they care for the cards, dont damage them, actually give you your cards back (and not fakes, or "leave" town).
Doing that commercially would be way too much work for basically way less money than selling them.
For very expensive cards (200$+) the cards condition is especially important. So really messed up cards are far cheaper to buy anyway, the difference in card condition can easily be 50% and more.
----
What people did with shops and ebay etc. was to buy cards for an event, then send them back with a complaint.
That does work 1 time, the 2nd time you will be put on a black-list and they wont sell you anything anymore.
----
Really expensive cards are also counterfeits quite often now.
Just having cards to play really good counterfeits in double sleeves are basically as good as real cards, nobody will notice them as counterfeits and nobody really gives a ***** anyway (outside of sanctioned tournaments, in which a judge could potentially check cards for counterfeits, but that happens rarely if at all), as the entire purpose is to play the game.
For kitchen table play thats also prefered, just printing good colored proxy cards is totally fine just to play a bit.
No matter what, proxy cards should never ever be sold as "real" cards, as that gets you in serious trouble.
Owning the real cards is more like owning a picture / artwork, spending 1000$+ for some cards can be tremendous investment (and its even likely you make a profit with really old cards on the reserved list, as they basically all increase in value if you dont mess them up while playing, so taking care of cards and handling them well is a must).
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I guess it comes down to who you trust and who trusts you.
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