What are /tg/'s thoughts on counterfeits? They could be for anything like MTG cards or 40k figures. Do you think fakes are ultimately good or bad for the game in the long run, and what would happen if they were to become indistinguishable from the real thing sometime in the future?
I suppose it depends on the game.
In MTG I'm all for it.
Counterfeits only harm the secondary market (i.e. KikeCityGames) not Wizards themselves. If anything, counterfeits are good for the game since they lower the entry barrier.
My Legacy deck uses counterfeit duals and nobody has ever noticed.
Well-made counterfeits benefit the players at the expense of the secondary market and the credibility of the manufacturer.
I'm willing to embrace it if the company has no regards for the players ability to play the game.
>>48189969
Two things:
1) The only thing more pathetic than collecting cardboard and paying money for it, is to pay money for fake cardboard in order to pretend it's real cardboard to fool people who spent real money on their real cardboard.
2) In 40k I'm all for recasts. Seriously, fuck games workshop. If I want a Craterhoof Behemoth, I can politely ask my flgs to order me one from wherever, or trade another player for it. If I want a named unique unit, I have to slurp games workshop's dick and order it through them. Fuck that jazz.
>>48189969
I don't mind playing with counterfeits in a casual game as long as they can show me that the card is actually a real card and not some shitty homebrew disguised as one.
I understand WOTC and the Gaming stores have to make money so I don't mind if they enforce no counterfeits there but if they then exclusively play expensive formats they shouldn't whine when no one comes to play.
The same applies to wargaming but given that each model is largely decoupled from the rules you should be able to use models from any source. Fuck GW and their false economy.
>>48189996
I really don't get why this board hates SCG so much. They produce a lot of high quality MTG content and organize awesome tournaments. This is why they charge a small premium on their store
>>48189969
I stopped caring since I started receiving fakes from top rated sellers on eBay and TCGplayer. It's not worth the time to check if every card I get in the mail is a fake or not and if it's enough to fool some of the bigger stores then it's pretty much over as far as I'm concerned.
>>48191417
That's why I only buy foils now. No foil, I don't get it. Not gonna waste money for shit stuff from china
$280 for one volcanic island? Nah. I'll get a extremely well made play set for $20. Same goes with all the other hundred dollar staples
>>48191207
>Why tg hates SCG
because they sell cardboard at 20$+
>>48189969
i counterfeit everything i can, even my audi and my clock
>>48190884
I'm all for counterfeit cards. I find it pathetic that people shell out real money for cards that cost less than 2 cents to manufacture. Whats the difference between a black lotus and a basic land? They are both printed on the same paper. ANd now with shkreli planning on buying out cards in the reserve list I'll be laughing even more.
>>48190857
AMEN to that!
>>48191516
>because they sell cardboard at 20$+
So? Are you fourteen?
>>48191560
You're talking about authenticity in the age of mechanical reproduction. Why would anyone want the Mona Lisa? You can just google it and see a far better view than you ever could in person.
The reason I'm okay with magic pricing is because it's strategic and the commoditity is fluid. I can trade cards together to get more expensive things that I want. Sure, I'll never have any of the power 9, and shkreli is a mega jew, but over all, I have no problem spending $50 on a piece of cardboard that does something significant when combined with my other cardboard. It's no different than any other hobby.
Also, the cards may cost less than 2 cents to manufacture on a per unit basis, but the equipment to manufacture them is expensive, as is research, development, marketing, officiating, licensing, etc. It's not really a fair analogy.
>>48191617
If you think i should pay more than 3 per any card, you are retarded, WoTC actually spends less a dollar printing each. you can masturbate to your Lotv and tarmogoyfs all you want, i got the same for just 3 bucks each
>>48191672
This.
Just because I can afford to pay $3000 for a Legacy deck doesn't make it acceptable.
If i can get the same deck for $20 you bet I'll do it.
>>48189996
>Counterfeits only harm the secondary market (i.e. KikeCityGames) not Wizards themselves
And also the players that get tricked into trading/buying fake cards.
just in theory, someone could grab an ordinary piece of paper, cut it in pieces of the same size and create his own magic playset he can use when playing with his friends.
yes, the card quality would be extremely shitty but it is enough to play the game.
tl,dr: there is nothing wrong with counterfeits when playing casual. WotC-made cards give you the additional privilege to play in tournaments.
>>48192393
>WotC-made cards give you the additional privilege to play in tournaments.
>>48192288
If counterfeits were legal play or WotC reprinted rare cards a lot more frequently this wouldn't be a problem anyway, the only reason certain cards are so expensive is because WotC endorses the state the second hand market is in and that's the only reason scams happen at all.
>>48192500
I agree with everything you said but the fact remains that chinaman fakes are being used to swindle and scam people out of cards/money. You can't endorse fakes while denying this fact, that's delusional.
On the note of 40k/30k counterfeits/recasts, I feel that nobody should be paying 30 dollars for about 2 dollars worth of resin, just because it was put into a reusable mold that was casted from a detailed sculpture. If I can pay 6 dollars for the same high-detail model that normally costs 70, you bet your damn ass I will do it.
>>48192545
If fakes were made tournament legal, the swindling would probably decline, seeing as the real ones will plummet in price.
>>48191672
Yep.
I don't spend more than 10 bucks on a single card copy.
I won't ever buy a tarmogoyf because I can't justify 150 dollars of cardboard for a simple game.
10 bucks a pop? Sure. It's still pricey, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over that. A playset of Path to Exile is fine with me because it's a staple to modern and its relatively cheap per-card. 1 Snapcaster mage for 60? I'll pass until a reprint occurs.
In a game that's meant to be played, I'm not going to shell out hundreds for singles that I MIGHT win with in a game.
>>48192585
And if my grandma had wheels she would be a skateboard.
Meaning that WotC will never ever ever do that. I mean we are talking about the same people too scared to reprint some old cards because a tiny minority of people might not like it, which is ironic since most of their recent decisions upset older players (a minority in their eyes).
any info where to get the good ones?
>>48192464
hey, as long as there are people enforcing those rules playing fakes in tournaments is a slippery slope.
>>48192645
According to people at r/bootlegmtg villa zheng and black lotus sell the same ones on aliexpress (villa zheng has videos of the sets on youtube) which are generally considered the best ones.
>>48189969
The counterfeit issue can be solved if WotC abolishes the reserve list and/or starts reprinting cards. The ball is in their court. Otherwise the demand for counterfeits will drive up higher and people will abuse the secondary market for pump and dump schemes on cards.
>>48192711
thanks, already heard about Villa, but I was wondering if there are any others.
>>48192713
They had a good idea with masters reprints but its just not enough. Limited reprints and rarity shifting for "muh draft environment" is ruining the purlose of reprints. There needs to be a massive focus on reprints which I believe is their best bet at sating the crowd. No card should be over 10 dollars, that's ridiculousm
>>48192751
Draft > Every other formats
>>48192751
They could just reprint in big boxes of like 500 cards and charge a huge premium for it.
Then the cards would still be accessible because the only players who would want those big boxes are seasoned mtg players and they could put whatever they wanted in their draft sets without upsetting them, but of course WotC would rather all its formats gradually become unplayable than make some money and fix the problem.
Counterfeits damage a game, because it destroys the trust between players and in the symbol. Owning something gives us pleasure, we are wired that way. But if we cannot be sure that everyone is playing true and if we cannot be sure that we don't the fucked over while buying or trading, the game loses its luster and fun. It chokes off one of the most important and fun aspects: Trading, exchanging cards to build a deck. This is a lot more important to casual players, but those guys do make a lot more cash than the ultra hardcores that use platforms like mkm anyway.
However Wizards only have themselves to blame here. By marrying themselves with the secondary market and pursuing the strategy of preserving secondary vendor investments, the created the very room for counterfeiters to flourish. Forgers just sell the perfect cards as real and dump the lesser ones as fakes. Wizards is now locked into an arms race with forgers that won't end pretty. It's why Legacy has been choked to death, the cards are easy to fake. And it's also why there WILL be a Only New New Borders format sooner than later.
And I'm also willing to bet that SCG will put their own spin on this, with "Guaranteed 100% Real Cards", justifying significant price markup in the process.
>>48192713
The best they could do:
>Abolish RL
>Make legacy/modern LCG
With each passing year, Magic gets more expensive and I find myself more inclined to pick up some counterfeits. I also find it funny that people, who with my anecdotal evidence tend to be Modern fanatics, actually defend this.
>>48191207
The fact that they keep Legacy going is applaudable, but charging an additional percentage on all their products compared to other stores and the accusations of them being the biggest force in fixing the market kind of drowns that out.
>>48189969
If the company isn't willing or able to print more copies of a card/figure and it impedes your fun as a player, just print that shit yourself.
I played with copy paper Lilianas while I gathered my playset and nobody even noticed.
>>48192713
All Shekelli has to do to completely ruin Legacy is to buy all avaliable copies of a single blue ABUR dual land.
When a single person can fuck with your company in that way, your politics are shit and you have one foot in the grave.
>>48192966
They could sell a 20 card pack of all duals and all fetchlands for $100 and people would trip over themselves to get it.
$100 for 20 pieces of paper with no fiat or material backing.
>>48193336
Wizards doesn't see Legacy as their problem anymore and they've done their best over the last few months to make it easy to wash their hands off Modern.
>>48192711
>>48192741
Don't buy Villa stuff from Aliexpress, e-mail him. There are several fake Villas with really shitty quality.
>>48189969
Does anyone make high quality fakes like these but withe the Magic Online P9 and resserved list stuff?
Most of that shit is gorgeous and I resent them never printing it because some autist faggot missed his way to wall street in the early 90's.
>>48193926
In his email ([email protected]) he gives links to his aliexpress postings (sets are sold under the pretense of a board game and singles as some generic anime cards).
>>48189969
>>48189996
>>48191417
>>48191431
Probably 90% of my deck is fake card. Start using them like 3 years ago. Nobody can tell the difference, and there is no "feel" of the card when it's double sleeved.
And no one will EVER remove the sleeved on an ancestral recall.
Even the TO, official stores and most players use Fake cards where i am.
>>48189996
I can tell modern fakes.
Vintage fakes are scary good nowadays. Especially sleeved from a distance.
>>48192288
>>48192545
That's an unfortunate consequence of the actions of greedy kikes like SCG.
The solution is simple: just buy counterfeits rather than real cards. That way you know exactly what you're paying for.
I hope the counterfeits flood the market to the point where the original cards are worthless and all the investors and speculators cry.
Any good site to get solid counterfeits?
>>48195674
Buy from Spain/Italy sellers
>>48190884
What does it for me is when GW prices their shit based on the rules or stats for the unit. Hence why sternguard vets are a more expensive box than scions, even though they probably cost exactly the same to manufacture.
They overcharge for all their shit anyways. Price increases every damn 6 months, new books and shit coming out constantly that if you want to stay up to date in the game, you need to be constantly spending tons of money.
That's why I'm getting back into Epic Armageddon. I bought a bunch of shit from eBay at good prices. I bought some warhounds Titans that were recasts. Gonna reuse some of my Tyranid gaunts to become epic biotitans like hierodules and shit.
At least lately GW has been releasing all those getting started or start collecting boxes that are actually a good value.
>>48191007
It also pisses me off that I can't currently purchase bretonnians from GW, but they wouldn't let me use proxies from Perry miniatures or whoever in their store
I love counterfeits, but only on the actually expensive stuff. My play group knows a guy who makes excellent proxies and we get fetchlands, dual lands, and newer standard stuff (avacyn, sylvan advocate, and Gideon to name a few).
>>48196201
How do they fake the little foil circle?
>>48196313
I don't know. He said something about layering different plastics or something.
>>48194170
I ordered through e-mail only about a month ago.
>>48191560
"that cost less than 2 cents to manufacture"
What a complete bullshit. You forget there is a whole company build around producing those "2cent cards" that require artist, designers, printing companies and whole another set of other people to get them out.
....so basically they cost maybe something like 3cents a piece?
>>48192633
Entirely to do with not being sued not bad press nowadays, kind of shitty situation for Wizards. They are at fault for all the stuff they could reprint but don't however.
>>48197529
This is an entirely theoretical question, since I'm more curious about how the law helps the collector dregs than anything else, but if Wizards sold the IP of Magic the Gathering to another company (and let's just say this company happened to employ every single staff member currently employed at WotC), would they be at risk to be sued if the first thing they did was reprint the power 9?
>>48189969
Wish WotC would allow it if they aren't willing to reprint cards.
Having them be indistinguishable from the real cards could be a problem though for traders and collectors.
Something tells me I should be more against it but after high school I couldn't really justify ever spending money on the game. Modern is an absolute money drain if you want a deck that wins. Standard is better but you have to spend money on it more often ( you pretty much are forced to). A pretty shitty use for money when you can get all the same enjoyment from a free computer app ( i like lackey).
Something else that got to me was that I played accross the country and people were playing the same fucking decks. When you win a tourney with splinter twin send the fucking pack you won to the person who actually made the deck you fucking boring prick.
>>48202515
>When you win a tourney with splinter twin send the fucking pack you won to the person who actually made the deck you fucking boring prick.
So, nobody?
The best decks aren't created by any one individual. They're the result of countless hours of thousands of players refining a concept to maximum efficiency. Don't be salty because your homebrew that you've put a handful of hours of refinement into isn't up par.
>>48203865
>Thousands
Yeah right. I get the whole statistics sell that goes with fine tuning but the people who play at local FNM tourneys having nothing to do with that shit. They see one of the meta decks that appeal to them, they look up the exact deck, they buy the cards. People say " well you still have to know what to do" but i dont really buy that either. Its not a hard game, it doesnt take a whole lot to know the statistically right move given your hand and what you think your opponent has in his hand. sure thats not always right but you will still do better blindly following stats in the long run.
>>48204994
Spoken like a true scrub.
>>48196507
>>48194170
>>48193926
So I just write an email in english to that address and some kind chinese man will answer?
>>48189969
But copies are ILLEGAL? Surely you wouldn't hurt honest, official business. Anon?
>>48205061
Yep, he'll give you links to his aliexpress sales (singles, legacy/modern sets, power and duals).
>>48205274
How long does it usually take for him to react? I wrote him yesterday evening.
>>48205274
Also did you brought stuff from him? is it quality? Sorry to be such a bother, I'm kinda excited at the thought of getting my duals without having to pay my yearly income for them =)
>>48205061
>>48205274
>>48205359
Like I said, he didn't link me anything, he sent me a spreadsheet of his sets and gave me his prices. Told him what I wanted, paid through PayPal.
>>48189969
I make my own counterfeits. They're one-sided, black text-only on white construction-quality paper, using a generic Arial font face.
>>48192604
>Snapcaster mage for 60? I'll pass until a reprint occurs.
Sure, that will be in the new set with the Tarmogoyf and the fetchlands. Oh wait, Wizards doesn't print money cards. Not at anything less than super mega mythic rare.
>>48205465
It occurs to me that a better word would be proxies, not counterfeits. Though I don't exactly have the original cards, so they're not really proxies, either.
>>48205381
When did you email and was it the same email address? Also, do you live the US? It might be a discretion thing to not sell to Freedomland via any web site.
>>48205979
Ordered from France. He replied within 24 hours. This was about a month ago.
>>48205369
I'm ordering some next month and will post thoughts then if there's a proxy thread up. Bootlegmtg on plebbit has active discussions.
