Some of you may know MTGLion on Youtube; he normally does speculation videos (and has been an incredible speculator at that,) and he is a moderator on MTGSalvation under the username 'kirin'.
As the video explained, he had a two-and-a-half hour conversation with the distributor of the Chinese Counterfeits, and got information from him. The most prevalent and important information is that he will make and distribute 55,000 Counterfeit cards on January 19, mostly to Brazil and Spain. Other noteworthy information is confirmation that there hasn't been a market flood or massive shipment of these yet, so there's still time; that they have learned from the articles explaining how to spot fakes, and improved them; and that unless stopped, there will be another wave of 200,000 on the 23rd (of JAN) and they won't stop until stopped. This is very serious, much worse than I imagined.
I emplore you, please email (or otherwise contact) Wizards, make this be known publicly. We only have under a week left before this could get out of hand, and the game we love could be ruined or abandoned through a butterfly effect chain of boxes, packs, and singles becoming worthless; store owners and employees who rely on Magic losing their jobs; furthermore not being able to sanction tournaments; and then Hasbro simply giving up on Magic due to the damage already dealt at that point. A bit of background: I'd love ABUR duels to be dirt cheap, but the reality is I would never want a single person to lose their job over it, much less tens of thousands (at least); or for the community to be broken apart and weakened to breaking point over it. So please, don't turn this thread into a flame war. If you support the counterfeits, just go do something else, don't make everyone else suffer due to your opinions. Thank you very much. We can all pull through this together.
PS: Mods, I'm pretty sure this is the right place, but if it isn't, feel free to move it wherever it should be. Thank you.
For what it's worth, the opposite of evergreen is "deciduous" so I suggest we start using that from now on to refer to shroud, banding, islandhome, etc.
I don't understand why people are interested in ordering these for $0.50 a piece instead of just buying the real geniune thing from SCG for $125. The economics of it just don't make sense, who really wants to take the easy way out and pay cheap prices for their cardboard?
Please spread this around so wotc can shut it down.
I don't understand why people are interested in ordering these for $0.50 a piece instead of just buying the real geniune thing from SCG for $125. The economics of it just don't make sense, who really wants to take the easy way out and pay cheap prices for their cardboard?
Please spread this around so wotc can shut it down.
It would be good to at least have a card list of what's going out in the shipments.
I think this would help people know what to look for and keep track of the fakes better
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
-VINTAGE- BUB Reanimator UBU TezzTinkerToys
-LEGACY-- RUR SpellDelver UWU Superfriends with Benefits
-MODERN- GBG B/G GoodGrief GRG R/G Go[o]dstuff
-CHROME- GGG Mean Green WUB Spirit Tribal
-PAUPER-- WBG Enchantments RUG RUG Delver
-1v1 EDH-- UB Lazav's Grindhouse BB Death by Sheoldred
If I had a dollar for every time I missed playing a Counterspell ...
I'd be missing my Mana Drain s instead.
I don't understand why people are interested in ordering these for $0.50 a piece instead of just buying the real geniune thing from SCG for $125. The economics of it just don't make sense, who really wants to take the easy way out and pay cheap prices for their cardboard?
Please spread this around so wotc can shut it down.
I understand exactly WHY people do it, and from a personal perspective it makes sense. But, it's incredibly selfish, and by buying these you are supporting a group of people who will cause many to lose their jobs.
It would be good to at least have a card list of what's going out in the shipments.
I think this would help people know what to look for and keep track of the fakes better
Black Lotus and Time Walk are 2 of the 80 cards in the massive wave. This is VERY serious.
For what it's worth, the opposite of evergreen is "deciduous" so I suggest we start using that from now on to refer to shroud, banding, islandhome, etc.
Wizards probably doesn't want to incite a panic in the players by making an official announcement. At the same time, I doubt the majority of players know this is happening, and I'd hate for someone to get ripped off because they weren't aware.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
I really hope WotC addresses this even more directly, otherwise people might start panicking.
yeah, I can't imagine what we would do if prices for our cards didn't exceed $1000 a deck. The HORROR. Can you imagine playing land that didn't have an average cost above $20 each?
The problem here is that all Hasbro is likely to attempt is legal action. Which will accomplish nothing. Even if we imagine a best case scenario where they are able to get the printing press shut down immediately, that is only a temporary fix.
If the counterfeiters have already managed to adjust and improve their techniques to make better fakes, there is nothing stopping someone from selling that process to another printing company.
And in all likelihood, Hasbro wont even be able to stop these shipments.
Regardless, WOTC has a very short window of time in which they can still destroy this entire operation and protect the value of original printings by readdressing their own reprinting policies.
No black market in history has ever been completely shut down by legal scrutiny. Where there is profitable economic demand, there will be people willing to fill that demand.
yeah, I can't imagine what we would do if prices for our cards didn't exceed $1000 a deck. The HORROR. Can you imagine playing land that didn't have an average cost above $20 each?
You really don't care how many people lose their jobs, do you? Or whether or not there's still FNMs. Or whether or not Hasbro/Wizards continues making new cards?
Sorry to be rude, but opinions like this make me seriously scared for the game's future.
For what it's worth, the opposite of evergreen is "deciduous" so I suggest we start using that from now on to refer to shroud, banding, islandhome, etc.
People are overreacting to this. A lot of the info in the video doesn't add up.
For one people who have actually held these fakes (not just reposted pictures from elsewhere) say they are super easy to tell in person. The only people who are saying they aren't are using photos as their only basis.
But my bigger thing is this. Lets assume the guy can make and improve to undetectable or nearly undetectable counterfeits. In order to do so he is "reading how to tell fake cards" articles. If he knows enough about MTG to know that he knows what his "100 tarmogoyfs" are worth. If he knows that and can make perfect copies why on earth would he ever sell the goyfs for 4.50 per copy when resell is 120+. I totally buy that there might be someone capable of printing off mtg cards. I don't buy that this guy is one of them. If he had quoted 25-50 per card, which leaves tons of profits for the guy moving them, but also has some semblance of reality on the value of the items I would be more inclined to believe it.
TLDR Don't trust people attempting to make money by counterfeiting, taking them at their word is dumb.
You really don't care how many people lose their jobs, do you? Or whether or not there's still FNMs. Or whether or not Hasbro/Wizards continues making new cards?
Sorry to be rude, but opinions like this make me seriously scared for the game's future.
It's like water flowing downwards. These cards are worth so much it's amazing the market hasn't already been flooded. Of anything, anything at all in the world to counterfeit, MTG is the most profitable and easiest.
Also, this site has cockatrice, mws, etc forums. Doesn't that DESTROY mtgo value? nope. Piracy doesn't destroy anything.
Am I in favor or not? I don't care. The point is if your company policy is to not reprint old cards, and demand keeps growing, there will be something that happens. If a good costs pennies to make and is worth a hundred dollars then it's just a matter of time until it happens. In fact I'd wager that there is already counterfeit operations going on. The startup costs are pretty high but it's entirely possible to make these.
Looking at other knockoff goods, you can see how most are all much harder than MTG, with hologram counterfeiting, molding, plastics, fabrics, sewing, etc etc. I think the floodgates might open, but not anytime soon and not from this printing operation as it currently stands. The counterfeits from this printing place are not good enough to fool anyone who even pays attention to them, so no worries currently.
the only interesting part is a possible future of more chinese printing and interested parties beginning to pop up trying to do this. If it just dies with a print run or two cash in, it's nothing. If they continue and move around until they get it right then it's a big deal.
What sucks is that I have a ton of valuable staples that are just sitting in a binder. They're not even in a deck that I'm currently playing. I've just kept them around in case I decide to make the deck. But with this info I don't even know if in just leaving money on the table by not selling every single thing that I'm not currently using.
Perfect counterfeits are just a matter of time and the prospect of my entire collection losing 75% of its value is not something awesome.
To all the people complaining about the price of the game: think about everyone else that had to save up to buy expensive cards. It's not like every person that own a tarmogoyf is a millionaire. They're probably not that different than you and it probably took them forever to get expensive cards.
Maro is the closest thing we have to an official statement from WOTC on this issue, I think
They are aware and "have a lot of tools" at their disposal they are using to "resolve this problem" he says.
To me that pretty much reads as legal action. They think that Hasbro's economic ties in China will be enough to shut this down.
Its just an incredibly naive position for them to take. Other companies fail to prevent the existence of counterfeits. The DEA cant stop people from smuggling drugs, and the Secret Service cant completely stop the proliferation of fake currency.
But I'm sure friggin Hasbro has all the answers.
The only "resource" they need to use to completely tank these counterfeiters' business is Carta Mundi's printers.
It's like water flowing downwards. These cards are worth so much it's amazing the market hasn't already been flooded. Of anything, anything at all in the world to counterfeit, MTG is the most profitable and easiest.
Also, this site has cockatrice, mws, etc forums. Doesn't that DESTROY mtgo value? nope. Piracy doesn't destroy anything.
Am I in favor or not? I don't care. The point is if your company policy is to not reprint old cards, and demand keeps growing, there will be something that happens. If a good costs pennies to make and is worth a hundred dollars then it's just a matter of time until it happens. In fact I'd wager that there is already counterfeit operations going on. The startup costs are pretty high but it's entirely possible to make these.
Looking at other knockoff goods, you can see how most are all much harder than MTG, with hologram counterfeiting, molding, plastics, fabrics, sewing, etc etc. I think the floodgates might open, but not anytime soon and not from this printing operation as it currently stands. The counterfeits from this printing place are not good enough to fool anyone who even pays attention to them, so no worries currently.
the only interesting part is a possible future of more chinese printing and interested parties beginning to pop up trying to do this. If it just dies with a print run or two cash in, it's nothing. If they continue and move around until they get it right then it's a big deal.
You say you're not in favor of them but it really sounds more like envy. It's bad for the game, period.
To me that pretty much reads as legal action. They think that Hasbro's economic ties in China will be enough to shut this down.
Its just an incredibly naive position for them to take. Other companies fail to prevent the existence of counterfeits. The DEA cant stop people from smuggling drugs, and the Secret Service cant completely stop the proliferation of fake currency.
But I'm sure friggin Hasbro has all the answers.
The only "resource" they need to use to completely tank these counterfeiters' business is Carta Mundi's printers.
"They think that Hasbro's economic ties in China will be enough to shut this down."
Leverage, not legal is the only resource in China that works...It is a country built on corruption with back door deals as the basis for doing business- So Hasbro likely could pressure their other business interests in china to slow or perhaps shut down the counterfeiting...imo thats the only realistic way this would cease.
People counterfeit actual money, and I highly doubt that Hasbro can match the security measures taken by the United States federal government. They aren't going to be able to shut down these printers either....China doesn't really care about our IP laws, and companies at least as powerful as Hasbro have tried to get them crackdown on similar practices and failed.
"They think that Hasbro's economic ties in China will be enough to shut this down."
Leverage, not legal is the only resource in China that works...It is a country built on corruption with back door deals as the basis for doing business- So Hasbro likely could pressure their other business interests in china to slow or perhaps shut down the counterfeiting...imo thats the only realistic way this would cease.
Lets face it, if Hasbro wanted to they could pay off some thugs in cash to "pay a visit" to any places doing significant counterfeiting. Prolly be cheaper that way.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
yeah, I can't imagine what we would do if prices for our cards didn't exceed $1000 a deck. The HORROR. Can you imagine playing land that didn't have an average cost above $20 each?
I understand that this is a wet dream for those of you who want to take the "Collectable" out of "Collectible Card Game", but you do have to realize that the collectibility is a draw for most players, and the ability to buy cheap and undetectable counterfeits is going to kill the collectivity dead.
I understand that this is a wet dream for those of you who want to take the "Collectable" out of "Collectible Card Game", but you do have to realize that the collectibility is a draw for most players, and the ability to buy cheap and undetectable counterfeits is going to kill the collectivity dead.
I don't want to get in an argument of right or wrong.
Perspective dictates how you view this and people are different. Some like collections, others playing, or whatever other interest. Arguing about this essentially boils down to arguing over how you enjoy magic which is purely based on personal taste. Some people like to spend a lot of money on cards, pimping out decks, and other acts of consumerism, which is fine. Others play on cockatrice and pay nothing.
Rather, just at the fact that if you take any market like MTG it is rife for counterfeiting. Yes, they are "bad", but there is a lot of cause and effect that led the game to this point. Have any magic players not thought about how counterfeiting would effect the game or if it was a problem?
It's simply an issue of supply demand with a black market twist, and the black market finds these demands such as fake designer things, watches, yugioh, transformers, toys, cars, and virtually anything you can imagine.
Some of you may know MTGLion on Youtube; he normally does speculation videos (and has been an incredible speculator at that,) and he is a moderator on MTGSalvation under the username 'kirin'.
As the video explained, he had a two-and-a-half hour conversation with the distributor of the Chinese Counterfeits, and got information from him. The most prevalent and important information is that he will make and distribute 55,000 Counterfeit cards on January 19, mostly to Brazil and Spain. Other noteworthy information is confirmation that there hasn't been a market flood or massive shipment of these yet, so there's still time; that they have learned from the articles explaining how to spot fakes, and improved them; and that unless stopped, there will be another wave of 200,000 on the 23rd (of JAN) and they won't stop until stopped. This is very serious, much worse than I imagined.
I emplore you, please email (or otherwise contact) Wizards, make this be known publicly. We only have under a week left before this could get out of hand, and the game we love could be ruined or abandoned through a butterfly effect chain of boxes, packs, and singles becoming worthless; store owners and employees who rely on Magic losing their jobs; furthermore not being able to sanction tournaments; and then Hasbro simply giving up on Magic due to the damage already dealt at that point. A bit of background: I'd love ABUR duels to be dirt cheap, but the reality is I would never want a single person to lose their job over it, much less tens of thousands (at least); or for the community to be broken apart and weakened to breaking point over it. So please, don't turn this thread into a flame war. If you support the counterfeits, just go do something else, don't make everyone else suffer due to your opinions. Thank you very much. We can all pull through this together.
PS: Mods, I'm pretty sure this is the right place, but if it isn't, feel free to move it wherever it should be. Thank you.
Quotes:
Please spread this around so wotc can shut it down.
I really hope WotC addresses this even more directly, otherwise people might start panicking.
A comic about the world's most addictive game, Magic: The Gathering.
dammit I can't read sarcasm over the internet.
WOTC doesn't have a handle on this and they likely never will.
I think this would help people know what to look for and keep track of the fakes better
-LEGACY-- RUR SpellDelver UWU Superfriends with Benefits
-MODERN- GBG B/G GoodGrief GRG R/G Go[o]dstuff
-CHROME- GGG Mean Green WUB Spirit Tribal
-PAUPER-- WBG Enchantments RUG RUG Delver
-1v1 EDH-- UB Lazav's Grindhouse BB Death by Sheoldred
If I had a dollar for every time I missed playing a Counterspell ...
I'd be missing my Mana Drain s instead.
I understand exactly WHY people do it, and from a personal perspective it makes sense. But, it's incredibly selfish, and by buying these you are supporting a group of people who will cause many to lose their jobs.
Black Lotus and Time Walk are 2 of the 80 cards in the massive wave. This is VERY serious.
Quotes:
There is a sudden slew of non-collectable card games that are popular, so people are beginning to tire of scarcity based fun.
[Clan Flamingo]
I hear that, and suddenly my wallet appears.
Too bad Wizards doesn't care about Power 9 being counterfeited, because they will never make money off of it.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
yeah, I can't imagine what we would do if prices for our cards didn't exceed $1000 a deck. The HORROR. Can you imagine playing land that didn't have an average cost above $20 each?
Troll warning -Rax
If the counterfeiters have already managed to adjust and improve their techniques to make better fakes, there is nothing stopping someone from selling that process to another printing company.
And in all likelihood, Hasbro wont even be able to stop these shipments.
Regardless, WOTC has a very short window of time in which they can still destroy this entire operation and protect the value of original printings by readdressing their own reprinting policies.
No black market in history has ever been completely shut down by legal scrutiny. Where there is profitable economic demand, there will be people willing to fill that demand.
You really don't care how many people lose their jobs, do you? Or whether or not there's still FNMs. Or whether or not Hasbro/Wizards continues making new cards?
Sorry to be rude, but opinions like this make me seriously scared for the game's future.
Quotes:
For one people who have actually held these fakes (not just reposted pictures from elsewhere) say they are super easy to tell in person. The only people who are saying they aren't are using photos as their only basis.
But my bigger thing is this. Lets assume the guy can make and improve to undetectable or nearly undetectable counterfeits. In order to do so he is "reading how to tell fake cards" articles. If he knows enough about MTG to know that he knows what his "100 tarmogoyfs" are worth. If he knows that and can make perfect copies why on earth would he ever sell the goyfs for 4.50 per copy when resell is 120+. I totally buy that there might be someone capable of printing off mtg cards. I don't buy that this guy is one of them. If he had quoted 25-50 per card, which leaves tons of profits for the guy moving them, but also has some semblance of reality on the value of the items I would be more inclined to believe it.
TLDR Don't trust people attempting to make money by counterfeiting, taking them at their word is dumb.
It's like water flowing downwards. These cards are worth so much it's amazing the market hasn't already been flooded. Of anything, anything at all in the world to counterfeit, MTG is the most profitable and easiest.
Also, this site has cockatrice, mws, etc forums. Doesn't that DESTROY mtgo value? nope. Piracy doesn't destroy anything.
Am I in favor or not? I don't care. The point is if your company policy is to not reprint old cards, and demand keeps growing, there will be something that happens. If a good costs pennies to make and is worth a hundred dollars then it's just a matter of time until it happens. In fact I'd wager that there is already counterfeit operations going on. The startup costs are pretty high but it's entirely possible to make these.
Looking at other knockoff goods, you can see how most are all much harder than MTG, with hologram counterfeiting, molding, plastics, fabrics, sewing, etc etc. I think the floodgates might open, but not anytime soon and not from this printing operation as it currently stands. The counterfeits from this printing place are not good enough to fool anyone who even pays attention to them, so no worries currently.
the only interesting part is a possible future of more chinese printing and interested parties beginning to pop up trying to do this. If it just dies with a print run or two cash in, it's nothing. If they continue and move around until they get it right then it's a big deal.
Perfect counterfeits are just a matter of time and the prospect of my entire collection losing 75% of its value is not something awesome.
To all the people complaining about the price of the game: think about everyone else that had to save up to buy expensive cards. It's not like every person that own a tarmogoyf is a millionaire. They're probably not that different than you and it probably took them forever to get expensive cards.
To me that pretty much reads as legal action. They think that Hasbro's economic ties in China will be enough to shut this down.
Its just an incredibly naive position for them to take. Other companies fail to prevent the existence of counterfeits. The DEA cant stop people from smuggling drugs, and the Secret Service cant completely stop the proliferation of fake currency.
But I'm sure friggin Hasbro has all the answers.
The only "resource" they need to use to completely tank these counterfeiters' business is Carta Mundi's printers.
You say you're not in favor of them but it really sounds more like envy. It's bad for the game, period.
"They think that Hasbro's economic ties in China will be enough to shut this down."
Leverage, not legal is the only resource in China that works...It is a country built on corruption with back door deals as the basis for doing business- So Hasbro likely could pressure their other business interests in china to slow or perhaps shut down the counterfeiting...imo thats the only realistic way this would cease.
Lets face it, if Hasbro wanted to they could pay off some thugs in cash to "pay a visit" to any places doing significant counterfeiting. Prolly be cheaper that way.
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I understand that this is a wet dream for those of you who want to take the "Collectable" out of "Collectible Card Game", but you do have to realize that the collectibility is a draw for most players, and the ability to buy cheap and undetectable counterfeits is going to kill the collectivity dead.
I don't want to get in an argument of right or wrong.
Perspective dictates how you view this and people are different. Some like collections, others playing, or whatever other interest. Arguing about this essentially boils down to arguing over how you enjoy magic which is purely based on personal taste. Some people like to spend a lot of money on cards, pimping out decks, and other acts of consumerism, which is fine. Others play on cockatrice and pay nothing.
Rather, just at the fact that if you take any market like MTG it is rife for counterfeiting. Yes, they are "bad", but there is a lot of cause and effect that led the game to this point. Have any magic players not thought about how counterfeiting would effect the game or if it was a problem?
It's simply an issue of supply demand with a black market twist, and the black market finds these demands such as fake designer things, watches, yugioh, transformers, toys, cars, and virtually anything you can imagine.