Fake Lilianas found in a state that is not North Carolina or California
Its ****ing OVER
Not seeing anything conclusive there; the text is in the correct font on the "fake." The difference in intensity could easily be accounted for by updated print processes used for MTGO set reprints; when WotC reprints an out-of-print set for MTGO redemptions, they use the current printing process even if it leads to cards that look or feel slightly different than the ones that came from packs of that set. I had a Worldwake foil set from MTGO received right before Zendikar block redemption ended that was printed using the processes used for Innistrad & had properties that would not make sense on a Zendikar-era set.
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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):
Could someone please scan a Godless Shrine at 300dpi? I think I have a forged one because of type inconsistencies with other cards but I don't own another Godless Shrine to compare it to.
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Yes sir, I take fantasy art and character design commissions, PM me for rates.
NEW INFO ABOUT THE CHINESE FAKES
The smallest order they will fulfill its $500 for 1000 cards
Tropical Island
Temple Garden
Stomping Ground
Overgrown Tomb
Scared Foundry
Breeding Pool
Misty Rainforst
Celestial Colonnade
Flooded Strand
Arid Mesa
Wasteland
Inkmoth Nexus
Elspeth Sun's Champion
Tarmogoyf
Cavern of Souls
Scalding Tarn
Hallowed Fountain
Polluted Delta
Surgical Extraction
Sol Ring
Underground sea
Maesh Flats
Reflecting Pool
Mutavault
Wooded Foothills
Windswept Health
Watery Grave
Godless Shrine
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Savannah
Blood Crypt
Verdant Catacombs
Kalonian Hydra
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Thassa, God of the sea,
Jace, Architect of Thought
Swords to Plowshares
Plains
Chalice of the Void
Goblin guide
it that betrays
sword of war and peace
sword of fire and ice
purphoros god of the forge
sun titan
sensei's divining top
demonic tutor
elspeth knight-errant
thoughtseize
pernicious deed
sword of feast and famine
goblin lackey
goblin pilcdriver
inquistion of kozilek
engineered explosives
kokusho the evening star
bonfire of the damned
ral zarek
lona shild of emeria
stoneforge mystic
lona shield of emeria
spellskite
karn liberated
tundra
path to exile
mountain
swamp
figure of destiny
Ather Vial
Vampiric Tutor
Snapcaster Mage
Academy Ruins
Batterskull
Forcc of Will
Leyline of Sanctity
Island
Intuition
Sphinx's Revelation
Rcanimatc
I spoke with this sales "rep" over skype
They will let some people buy a 200 dollar order that is x4 of every card posted above. Youll notice a lack of JTMS or Jitte on the list. However, I'd just assume anyone who is new to your local playgroup with these cards probably own fakes. I mean we've got people in over a dozen states with fakes right now, someone posted a fake liliana they got from SCG on reddit.
The sales rep said hes had about 450 people message him in the last 24 hours in regards to wanting orders, they already have a backlog now. More fakes inbound.
That is a very interesting question since the card art at a minimum is 300 DPI and the line screen has to be extremely high,
maybe even 170 which could make the DPI even higher up to even 400 DPI.
A pro drum scanner can easily do 10,000+ DPI nowadays. You still might be able to tell if it's a reprint if you know what to look for, but getting something more or less indiscernably close should be pretty easy.
And most players don't own loupes / have years of printing experience anyway.
I work for a pretty big mail order coin dealer, and have to say that fakes are absolutely rampant in our industry. They all come come out of China too. With coins, most of the fakes are of pretty high value items. $2.50 gold Indian heads, Morgans, Peace dollars, St. Gaudens double eagles, and of course all the well known errors/significant die varieties.
This has been becoming a bigger and bigger issue every year for at least a decade now. Unless you're an experienced grader with decades of experience, it's near impossible to tell the fakes from the genuine. I see a lot of parallels between Magic cards and coins, primarily the secondary market collectible aspect.
And what exactly have the big shots in the coin industry done to combat this? No too much honestly. As long as there are people willing to take a risk and sell the fakes, they will keep being made. For coins at least, it's not against any Chinese law to counterfeit foreign products. They definitely have far different philosophical views than us, and absolutely there are many many multitudes of open air markets in Hongzhen, Guangdau, and countless other cities openy selling counterfeit coins to anyone and everyone. But I wouldn't ever expect to ever see any faked Chinese cards. They hold their own intellectual property very close to their chests. Kind of ironic in a way that Chinese cards may be the safest bet authenticity wise. There is a "hobby protection law" on the books here, but so far for coins at there doesn't seem to be much weight behind it.
eBay is typically very diligent with removing auctions of fake coins, and even banning repeat offenders. They have a very deep and robust network of professionals reviewing reported listings every day. They have no problem taking down even genuine listings if there's even a hint of doubt. Certification helps too. So any PSA or equivalently graded card would be safe. But that's not really a realistic option for a market where the product is meant to be shuffled about and played with. I guess it would be possible to bring a box of 75 PSA graded cards with me to a tournament to have verified, then play a deck of proxies? Is that what we want things to turn to down the road as a community? I don't.
I think for coins, these high quality fakes will always be present, and it's unfortunately primarily up to the individual collector to stay vigilant and exercise due diligence. I think a big difference here is the age and maturity of the respective markets. I don't mean that in a condescending way, but a literal one. Most serious coin collectors are all very well past the legal drinking age, and have a more cautious, nuanced, and almost hard-wired paranoid view of any and all sellers...if a coin isn't certified, think twice about buying it. And I think your average high school aged FNM player won't give two thoughts to take up that awesome sounding trade majorly in their favor involving a couple 'goyfs and shocks.
I think this is probably already a bigger problem than anybody realizes yet. And yeah, I think there needs to be a lot of worry and thought put into how we as a community deal with this. But what do we do?
Alright, end rant. Apologies for length and lack of clarity and all that.
I work for a pretty big mail order coin dealer, and have to say that fakes are absolutely rampant in our industry. They all come come out of China too. With coins, most of the fakes are of pretty high value items. $2.50 gold Indian heads, Morgans, Peace dollars, St. Gaudens double eagles, and of course all the well known errors/significant die varieties.
This has been becoming a bigger and bigger issue every year for at least a decade now. Unless you're an experienced grader with decades of experience, it's near impossible to tell the fakes from the genuine. I see a lot of parallels between Magic cards and coins, primarily the secondary market collectible aspect.
And what exactly have the big shots in the coin industry done to combat this? No too much honestly. As long as there are people willing to take a risk and sell the fakes, they will keep being made. For coins at least, it's not against any Chinese law to counterfeit foreign products. They definitely have far different philosophical views than us, and absolutely there are many many multitudes of open air markets in Hongzhen, Guangdau, and countless other cities openy selling counterfeit coins to anyone and everyone. But I wouldn't ever expect to ever see any faked Chinese cards. They hold their own intellectual property very close to their chests. Kind of ironic in a way that Chinese cards may be the safest bet authenticity wise. There is a "hobby protection law" on the books here, but so far for coins at there doesn't seem to be much weight behind it.
eBay is typically very diligent with removing auctions of fake coins, and even banning repeat offenders. They have a very deep and robust network of professionals reviewing reported listings every day. They have no problem taking down even genuine listings if there's even a hint of doubt. Certification helps too. So any PSA or equivalently graded card would be safe. But that's not really a realistic option for a market where the product is meant to be shuffled about and played with. I guess it would be possible to bring a box of 75 PSA graded cards with me to a tournament to have verified, then play a deck of proxies? Is that what we want things to turn to down the road as a community? I don't.
I think for coins, these high quality fakes will always be present, and it's unfortunately primarily up to the individual collector to stay vigilant and exercise due diligence. I think a big difference here is the age and maturity of the respective markets. I don't mean that in a condescending way, but a literal one. Most serious coin collectors are all very well past the legal drinking age, and have a more cautious, nuanced, and almost hard-wired paranoid view of any and all sellers...if a coin isn't certified, think twice about buying it. And I think your average high school aged FNM player won't give two thoughts to take up that awesome sounding trade majorly in their favor involving a couple 'goyfs and shocks.
I think this is probably already a bigger problem than anybody realizes yet. And yeah, I think there needs to be a lot of worry and thought put into how we as a community deal with this. But what do we do?
Alright, end rant. Apologies for length and lack of clarity and all that.
Agree with this, the main problem is that people will be very willing to overlook some minor errors, sleave it up, and take it to FNM not giving a single %@#$ except they got it at 1/20th the normal cost. Also the more known it is, the more people will look into getting them when they decide whether to pay $400 for some goyfs or $2 for some fakes.
All I know is at the next GP im at im calling a judge over for every match im in. ESPECIALLY if its against a young non-adult. Every game every time. Card checks. Fake lilis and goys, probably fake cards "altered" all of it. The game is as good as dead now.
With statements like this, no one will be taking you seriously. You are most likely shooting yourself in the foot.
Again, what we do is reprint all the cards officially and make it unprofitable. It's pretty simple. $$$ goes to WOTC, counterfeiters out of business.
That's a solution that is impossible and nonsensical for rare old coins. But simplicity itself for WOTC.
Again, what we do is reprint all the cards officially and make it unprofitable. It's pretty simple. $$$ goes to WOTC, counterfeiters out of business.
That's a solution that is impossible and nonsensical for rare old coins. But simplicity itself for WOTC.
Pretty much, $100 for a card that costs a cent to make in a format you want to play, it's no surprise people would love fakes.
Insane prices for pieces of cardboard is begging for this to happen.
Either this is another reason for me to switch to MTGO or these are close enough to the real cards that no one will be able to tell the difference and card prices as a whole will drop to the point at which I will be willing to play Paper Magic again.
There is simply no way to prevent people from making high-quality counterfeits of cards. It's too easy and the pay-off is too high. The only way to stop the problem is to reduce the incentive. Create enough official copies of the cards that the prices go down to levels where counterfeiting them is no longer profitable. All other solutions will fail.
Edit:
I would also like to add that counterfeits are a copyright-infringement violation, and thus any argument that they are morally wrong is invalid because copyright is built on utilitarian grounds and not moral ones:
Please frame all arguments against counterfeiting along utilitarian lines, and not moral ones. Furthermore, copyright-infringement is not the same as theft so if you are in the habit of making that false equivalence you really should stop.
Additional Edit:
An very real strike against these counterfeits is the fact that they violate trademarks in addition to copyright. In this case the fault is in misrepresenting the cards as made by WotC when in fact they were not. The problem is in the consumer confusion.
I'm really tempted to sell off my legacy stuff besides a deck or two. Not sure what's going to happen with the market as it seems like there are going to be a lot of orders coming out soon.
Will post-hologram Standard be the only viable constructed tournament format? Or will this make Modern and Legacy more popular than ever?
Holograms are a bandaid posture that will increase consumer confidence right up until the point in time when people start spotting coutnerfeits with holograms in them, and then you're right back in the same boat again.
At which point the only solution will, once again, be printing enough official copies that counterfeits are unprofitable (and might as well drop the hologram, since that has nothing to do with the solution at that point and just wastes money)
The flaw is in the rarity system itself. It is unsustainable. Cards have to all be relatively widely available or else counterfeiting is completely unavoidable.
Holograms are a bandaid posture that will increase consumer confidence right up until the point in time when people start spotting coutnerfeits with holograms in them, and then you're right back in the same boat again.
At which point the only solution will, once again, be printing enough official copies that counterfeits are unprofitable (and might as well drop the hologram, since that has nothing to do with the solution at that point and just wastes money)
The flaw is in the rarity system itself. It is unsustainable. Cards have to all be relatively widely available or else counterfeiting is completely unavoidable.
But avaliability hurts SCG and other second hand retailers who thrive on scarcity.
WotC has to ignore the problem to keep store loyalty, or counter-measure to keep consumer confidence.
I think they'll opt to make SCG happy, as always. After all, wasn't one of the fake Lilianas bought from them? I doubt they couldn't tell.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Yes sir, I take fantasy art and character design commissions, PM me for rates.
But avaliability hurts SCG and other second hand retailers who thrive on scarcity.
1) So? If somehow you could buy cards you wanted directly in packs or boxes and not waste a bunch of money on stuff you didn't want, then most people would simply buy right from WOTC, and they'd still get their money. What do they care?
2) Why does SCG "thrive on scarcity" anyway? They are just re-distributors, facilitating the ability to buy singles. They will always have a market and a business model as long as people want particular cards in ratios other than what you get in a box. Even if all cards are commons, or whatever, an individual player will still want them in unequal ratios to what you'd get in a box, so they still have a place in the market.
In other words, either WOTC sells boxes like this:
AAAABBBBCCCCDDDDEEEEFFFF in one box
or they sell product like this
AAAA or BBBB or CCCC or DDDD or EEEE or FFFF
Let's say 3 people want a playset of A, and two people each wants a playset of B and C and D. One person wants E. Nobody wants F.
If they go with one monolithic box, then few players will bother to buy boxes. Instead, SCG will still be in business, and will simply buy something like two boxes and redistribute the cards to the individual people. Card A will be more expensive, and one of the three people that wants it simply won't be able to afford it, for instance (not economically feasible for SCG to buy a whole new box just for them). But the other people get what they want, and SCG eats the loss on unsold E's and F's (they price the other stuff to absorb this).
If WOTC instead goes with individually available playsets, then they would essentially just do the exact same thing that SCG would have done, except a bit more efficiently. They will print an estimated amount based on how popular they think each card will be, and price the better ones a bit higher, so as to end up with about the same revenue as the first method. People are willing to pay the higher amoutn since they are getting more of what they want, and not useless jank.
At the end of the day, it all evens out and none of us have any reason to care which one they choose, and either would work. Only SCG has a reason to care. And they wouldn't really have much leverage in influencing the decision.
Regardless, the average price of the most expensive cards via either method could be driven below $10, and counterfeiters would leave the game.
This was inevitable. Which is easier to print an Underground Sea or US Currency? Which is more illegal? This was going to happen it was just a matter of when.
Not seeing anything conclusive there; the text is in the correct font on the "fake." The difference in intensity could easily be accounted for by updated print processes used for MTGO set reprints; when WotC reprints an out-of-print set for MTGO redemptions, they use the current printing process even if it leads to cards that look or feel slightly different than the ones that came from packs of that set. I had a Worldwake foil set from MTGO received right before Zendikar block redemption ended that was printed using the processes used for Innistrad & had properties that would not make sense on a Zendikar-era set.
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
The smallest order they will fulfill its $500 for 1000 cards
Tropical Island
Temple Garden
Stomping Ground
Overgrown Tomb
Scared Foundry
Breeding Pool
Misty Rainforst
Celestial Colonnade
Flooded Strand
Arid Mesa
Wasteland
Inkmoth Nexus
Elspeth Sun's Champion
Tarmogoyf
Cavern of Souls
Scalding Tarn
Hallowed Fountain
Polluted Delta
Surgical Extraction
Sol Ring
Underground sea
Maesh Flats
Reflecting Pool
Mutavault
Wooded Foothills
Windswept Health
Watery Grave
Godless Shrine
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Savannah
Blood Crypt
Verdant Catacombs
Kalonian Hydra
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Thassa, God of the sea,
Jace, Architect of Thought
Swords to Plowshares
Plains
Chalice of the Void
Goblin guide
it that betrays
sword of war and peace
sword of fire and ice
purphoros god of the forge
sun titan
sensei's divining top
demonic tutor
elspeth knight-errant
thoughtseize
pernicious deed
sword of feast and famine
goblin lackey
goblin pilcdriver
inquistion of kozilek
engineered explosives
kokusho the evening star
bonfire of the damned
ral zarek
lona shild of emeria
stoneforge mystic
lona shield of emeria
spellskite
karn liberated
tundra
path to exile
mountain
swamp
figure of destiny
Ather Vial
Vampiric Tutor
Snapcaster Mage
Academy Ruins
Batterskull
Forcc of Will
Leyline of Sanctity
Island
Intuition
Sphinx's Revelation
Rcanimatc
I spoke with this sales "rep" over skype
They will let some people buy a 200 dollar order that is x4 of every card posted above. Youll notice a lack of JTMS or Jitte on the list. However, I'd just assume anyone who is new to your local playgroup with these cards probably own fakes. I mean we've got people in over a dozen states with fakes right now, someone posted a fake liliana they got from SCG on reddit.
The sales rep said hes had about 450 people message him in the last 24 hours in regards to wanting orders, they already have a backlog now. More fakes inbound.
A pro drum scanner can easily do 10,000+ DPI nowadays. You still might be able to tell if it's a reprint if you know what to look for, but getting something more or less indiscernably close should be pretty easy.
And most players don't own loupes / have years of printing experience anyway.
1) Someone starts a thread about cheap/fake cards thus causing a rush of people trying to get them.
2) There are going to be a lot of accusations and false positives in the market/trading for a while.
3)Can sanctioned events do anything about forged cards being used......NO!
4) WoTC have made multiple printings and editions of every card and they all have little differences. That will not help the issue at all.
There are already people questioning sales and cards.
This has been becoming a bigger and bigger issue every year for at least a decade now. Unless you're an experienced grader with decades of experience, it's near impossible to tell the fakes from the genuine. I see a lot of parallels between Magic cards and coins, primarily the secondary market collectible aspect.
And what exactly have the big shots in the coin industry done to combat this? No too much honestly. As long as there are people willing to take a risk and sell the fakes, they will keep being made. For coins at least, it's not against any Chinese law to counterfeit foreign products. They definitely have far different philosophical views than us, and absolutely there are many many multitudes of open air markets in Hongzhen, Guangdau, and countless other cities openy selling counterfeit coins to anyone and everyone. But I wouldn't ever expect to ever see any faked Chinese cards. They hold their own intellectual property very close to their chests. Kind of ironic in a way that Chinese cards may be the safest bet authenticity wise. There is a "hobby protection law" on the books here, but so far for coins at there doesn't seem to be much weight behind it.
eBay is typically very diligent with removing auctions of fake coins, and even banning repeat offenders. They have a very deep and robust network of professionals reviewing reported listings every day. They have no problem taking down even genuine listings if there's even a hint of doubt. Certification helps too. So any PSA or equivalently graded card would be safe. But that's not really a realistic option for a market where the product is meant to be shuffled about and played with. I guess it would be possible to bring a box of 75 PSA graded cards with me to a tournament to have verified, then play a deck of proxies? Is that what we want things to turn to down the road as a community? I don't.
I think for coins, these high quality fakes will always be present, and it's unfortunately primarily up to the individual collector to stay vigilant and exercise due diligence. I think a big difference here is the age and maturity of the respective markets. I don't mean that in a condescending way, but a literal one. Most serious coin collectors are all very well past the legal drinking age, and have a more cautious, nuanced, and almost hard-wired paranoid view of any and all sellers...if a coin isn't certified, think twice about buying it. And I think your average high school aged FNM player won't give two thoughts to take up that awesome sounding trade majorly in their favor involving a couple 'goyfs and shocks.
I think this is probably already a bigger problem than anybody realizes yet. And yeah, I think there needs to be a lot of worry and thought put into how we as a community deal with this. But what do we do?
Alright, end rant. Apologies for length and lack of clarity and all that.
Agree with this, the main problem is that people will be very willing to overlook some minor errors, sleave it up, and take it to FNM not giving a single %@#$ except they got it at 1/20th the normal cost. Also the more known it is, the more people will look into getting them when they decide whether to pay $400 for some goyfs or $2 for some fakes.
With statements like this, no one will be taking you seriously. You are most likely shooting yourself in the foot.
Again, what we do is reprint all the cards officially and make it unprofitable. It's pretty simple. $$$ goes to WOTC, counterfeiters out of business.
That's a solution that is impossible and nonsensical for rare old coins. But simplicity itself for WOTC.
Pretty much, $100 for a card that costs a cent to make in a format you want to play, it's no surprise people would love fakes.
Insane prices for pieces of cardboard is begging for this to happen.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Edit:
I would also like to add that counterfeits are a copyright-infringement violation, and thus any argument that they are morally wrong is invalid because copyright is built on utilitarian grounds and not moral ones:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Please frame all arguments against counterfeiting along utilitarian lines, and not moral ones. Furthermore, copyright-infringement is not the same as theft so if you are in the habit of making that false equivalence you really should stop.
Additional Edit:
An very real strike against these counterfeits is the fact that they violate trademarks in addition to copyright. In this case the fault is in misrepresenting the cards as made by WotC when in fact they were not. The problem is in the consumer confusion.
Holograms are a bandaid posture that will increase consumer confidence right up until the point in time when people start spotting coutnerfeits with holograms in them, and then you're right back in the same boat again.
At which point the only solution will, once again, be printing enough official copies that counterfeits are unprofitable (and might as well drop the hologram, since that has nothing to do with the solution at that point and just wastes money)
The flaw is in the rarity system itself. It is unsustainable. Cards have to all be relatively widely available or else counterfeiting is completely unavoidable.
But avaliability hurts SCG and other second hand retailers who thrive on scarcity.
WotC has to ignore the problem to keep store loyalty, or counter-measure to keep consumer confidence.
I think they'll opt to make SCG happy, as always. After all, wasn't one of the fake Lilianas bought from them? I doubt they couldn't tell.
1) So? If somehow you could buy cards you wanted directly in packs or boxes and not waste a bunch of money on stuff you didn't want, then most people would simply buy right from WOTC, and they'd still get their money. What do they care?
2) Why does SCG "thrive on scarcity" anyway? They are just re-distributors, facilitating the ability to buy singles. They will always have a market and a business model as long as people want particular cards in ratios other than what you get in a box. Even if all cards are commons, or whatever, an individual player will still want them in unequal ratios to what you'd get in a box, so they still have a place in the market.
AAAABBBBCCCCDDDDEEEEFFFF in one box
or they sell product like this
AAAA or BBBB or CCCC or DDDD or EEEE or FFFF
Let's say 3 people want a playset of A, and two people each wants a playset of B and C and D. One person wants E. Nobody wants F.
If they go with one monolithic box, then few players will bother to buy boxes. Instead, SCG will still be in business, and will simply buy something like two boxes and redistribute the cards to the individual people. Card A will be more expensive, and one of the three people that wants it simply won't be able to afford it, for instance (not economically feasible for SCG to buy a whole new box just for them). But the other people get what they want, and SCG eats the loss on unsold E's and F's (they price the other stuff to absorb this).
If WOTC instead goes with individually available playsets, then they would essentially just do the exact same thing that SCG would have done, except a bit more efficiently. They will print an estimated amount based on how popular they think each card will be, and price the better ones a bit higher, so as to end up with about the same revenue as the first method. People are willing to pay the higher amoutn since they are getting more of what they want, and not useless jank.
At the end of the day, it all evens out and none of us have any reason to care which one they choose, and either would work. Only SCG has a reason to care. And they wouldn't really have much leverage in influencing the decision.
Regardless, the average price of the most expensive cards via either method could be driven below $10, and counterfeiters would leave the game.
CardboardCreationism
ETSY COUNTERS
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
EDH: Xenagos, God of Revels.
I hope this causes the secondary market to tank so tier 1 decks stop costing hundreds and thousands of dollars.
Safir Alliance | Hoennverse
Custom Sets
“Mind”: Preliminary Design | “Body”: Preliminary Design | “Spirit”: Preliminary Design