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Counterfeiting is becoming a real problem in Magic The Gathering. Just this past week I received a counterfeit card in an order from a reputable business. Once

Counterfeiting is becoming a real problem in Magic The Gathering. Just this past week I received a counterfeit card in an order from a reputable business. Once you start buying expensive MTG cards you need to know how to spot a counterfeit in order to protect yourself. Luckily with MTG cards the printing process is the same with cheap cards and expensive cards so you can easily compare the cards for differences. I imagine most people buying Yeazys don’t have an authentic pair to compare with. I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming? It seems like counterfeits are only going to become more frequent in the future and payment processors should have some awareness of counterfeits when investigating a chargeback claim.

rasz 5y ago
In what way is it a problem exactly? are counterfeit cards printed with unreadable font? do they fall apart when used? oooh, you mean its a problem for speculat^^^^investors, not for actually playing the game?
- squeaky-clean 5y ago
  If you're trying to imply counterfeiting doesn't actually affect gameplay, counterfeit cards are not tournament legal. If you paid $100 to purchase a playset of 4 cards and you show up to a tournament and get declined entry, you'd rightfully be pissed at the counterfeiter. Maybe the next response to that is "who cares about tournaments. Just play kitchen table magic with your friends." In that case sure, but still don't use counterfeit cards. "Proxy" cards are when a player prints out (or even hand-scribbles on paper) the image of the "real" card they want to use. No one is scammed out of money. It doesn't cost anymore than a sheet of printer paper and some ink. And because the card is obviously not official, there's no confusion as to it's authenticity.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    At high levels, when a Tactic is to hoard certain cards, so that no one can “counter” your deck. Never mind things like a black lotus which is over powered but still legal due to rarity.
    - ravi-delia 5y ago
      Black lotus is illegal in tournament play except for Vintage.
      - ffffwe3rq352y3 5y ago
        Its also restricted there so you can only use 1 per deck!
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - qsort 5y ago
      I play MTG competitively, and if you actually believe this is a thing I'm afraid you have no idea what you are talking about. No competitive game has ever, at any point, worked that way. From a gameplay perspective, the problem is exactly what your parent said: counterfeit product cannot be used in a sanctioned tournament. Which means most MTG organized play, since even very small in-store tournaments are usually sanctioned events.
    - banannaise 5y ago
      This is the plot of the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, not a thing that actually happens in real life.
- dang 5y ago
  "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  My main problem with counterfeit cards is when someone pays for authentic cards but they receive counterfeits instead. If both parties knowingly buy and sell counterfeit cards I don’t have any problem with it. In addition to counterfeits not being tournament playable, they are not collectable either. It feels good to own/play cards which are rare, valuable, and a part of MTGs history.
chdaniel 5y ago
@"I imagine most people buying Yeazys don’t have an authentic pair to compare with." — that's right! It's the position I was in, which is what I come close to mentioning in the article: it's why I made the app in the first place. So even better than that would be a public guide where both the fake and the real are. That, plus somebody who's put in the hours to do a thorough job to explain the differences they've found. @MTG - Somebody was just telling me the other day about these perfect (or 99% perfect) clones of Warhammer figurines. I didn't even know they can reach $1,000+ figures, but hey, with today's asset products, that doesn't surprise me. Magic The Gathering, Pokemon games (not cards — we've covered a free guide on that), Warhammer — it seems like sky is the limit really. Whatever can be replicated and is worth $200+ will be replicated IMO > I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming? A bit more! They trust our Certificate with less pushback these days, more than 2 years ago, when we discovered our Certificate can get people's money back. We guarantee the Certificate nonetheless, so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us. I know you said payment processors, but it's the banks (exception: AMEX) that are responsible for that segment of the transaction, AFAIK — with chargebacks and what have you But if there would be an easily integrable solution for banks/payment processors, I can see them moving vertically into that
- ffffwe3rq352y3 5y ago
  The problem with counterfeit warhammer figures is that 99% of the players don't care much if its fake or not! Its going to be interesting how it pans out when normal 3d printing can become just as good as their sets.
  - jabroni_salad 5y ago
    My experience as a 40k player is that we are there despite GamesWorkshop and not because of them. If you want to play in-person then you will need to accommodate players that want to use customs or stand-ins (I declare this bottlecap to be a tank, sir) because the game is extremely P2W and unfriendly to experimentation otherwise. The Pokemon community is like this as well. Everything happens on a bootleg website, partially because breeding and getting good stats is extremely time consuming, but also because the IRL scene is geared towards kids.
alasdair_ 5y ago
The bigger issue is that the good counterfeits can get PSA or BGS graded (either officially, or a fake slab). PSA guarantees that their graded cards are genuine but Beckett does not. With an Alpha Black Lotus going for over $500K, it's only a matter of time before undetectable counterfeits exist.
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised that within the next 20 years MTG counterfeits will only be detectable by lab tests (testing for ink and paper age, etc). If this happens providence and seller reputation will become a more common factor in MTG — much like in high end art and antiques. At the highest end (Power 9) seller reputation is already a factor.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Maybe they could put an EMV chip on the thing.
    - labster 5y ago
      Nah, each card should come with an NFT.
  - gverrilla 5y ago
    NFT
idoh 5y ago
I bought some proxies to use in different EDH decks. The quality of the fakes was actually better than the real ones (anyone who follows MTG will know what I’m talking about). Using a microscope it was pretty easy to tell them apart, based on the different printing technologies making different and hard to replicate pixel patterns (I don’t know the printing equivelent of a pixel). Each proxy was $2, and you get to pick what you want. At that rate it’s pretty close to the rate you’d get if you bought a standard booster pack.
qsort 5y ago
I wonder if it would be feisable for games like Magic to put technology like passive RFIDs into the cards themselves. Assuming you could make it work, it would also have some logistical advantages (automatically submit decklist, automated deck legality checks, anti-cheat checks for sealed pools...)
- noxvilleza 5y ago
  What's the range on those? Surely someone could scan a booster box in a store before buying then (and know what rares are in the box)?
  - qsort 5y ago
    Well, you wouldn't know what those rares are. If you are Wizards implementing this, you would have the RFID be random digits, and keep a database somewhere to match <string of hexadecimal numbers> with "English STX Professor Onyx". But it's a good point, the access checks on the database would be a nightmare to handle properly.
    - noxvilleza 5y ago
      Yeah I just mean for your automatic sealed pools concept you need a way for {whoever runs the tournament} to be able to scan a pool, or a verify decklist, which means a 3rd party. Local game stores are not necessarily to be trusted this much - simply because they are in the best position to scan boxes (and in the past LGSs have done shady stuff like this when sets were mappable).
  - theamk 5y ago
    That’s why there needs to be a system like in passports - the rfid part is encrypted with the code printed on a card itself. This way there is no way to decrypt RFID info unless one can see the face of the card.
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  (Almost) all of the expensive mtg cards were printed over 20 years ago. Refining counterfeit measures in newly printed cards does nothing to prevent counterfeiting of the old and valuable cards. Newer MTG cards do have holographic stickers which makes counterfeiting new cards more difficult, but almost all $100+ cards are from over 20 years ago.

rasz 5y ago

In what way is it a problem exactly? are counterfeit cards printed with unreadable font? do they fall apart when used? oooh, you mean its a problem for speculat^^^^investors, not for actually playing the game?

squeaky-clean 5y ago
If you're trying to imply counterfeiting doesn't actually affect gameplay, counterfeit cards are not tournament legal. If you paid $100 to purchase a playset of 4 cards and you show up to a tournament and get declined entry, you'd rightfully be pissed at the counterfeiter. Maybe the next response to that is "who cares about tournaments. Just play kitchen table magic with your friends." In that case sure, but still don't use counterfeit cards. "Proxy" cards are when a player prints out (or even hand-scribbles on paper) the image of the "real" card they want to use. No one is scammed out of money. It doesn't cost anymore than a sheet of printer paper and some ink. And because the card is obviously not official, there's no confusion as to it's authenticity.
- treeman79 5y ago
  At high levels, when a Tactic is to hoard certain cards, so that no one can “counter” your deck. Never mind things like a black lotus which is over powered but still legal due to rarity.
  - ravi-delia 5y ago
    Black lotus is illegal in tournament play except for Vintage.
    - ffffwe3rq352y3 5y ago
      Its also restricted there so you can only use 1 per deck!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - qsort 5y ago
    I play MTG competitively, and if you actually believe this is a thing I'm afraid you have no idea what you are talking about. No competitive game has ever, at any point, worked that way. From a gameplay perspective, the problem is exactly what your parent said: counterfeit product cannot be used in a sanctioned tournament. Which means most MTG organized play, since even very small in-store tournaments are usually sanctioned events.
  - banannaise 5y ago
    This is the plot of the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, not a thing that actually happens in real life.
dang 5y ago
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
__turbobrew__ 5y ago
My main problem with counterfeit cards is when someone pays for authentic cards but they receive counterfeits instead. If both parties knowingly buy and sell counterfeit cards I don’t have any problem with it. In addition to counterfeits not being tournament playable, they are not collectable either. It feels good to own/play cards which are rare, valuable, and a part of MTGs history.

chdaniel 5y ago

@"I imagine most people buying Yeazys don’t have an authentic pair to compare with." — that's right! It's the position I was in, which is what I come close to mentioning in the article: it's why I made the app in the first place. So even better than that would be a public guide where both the fake and the real are. That, plus somebody who's put in the hours to do a thorough job to explain the differences they've found. @MTG - Somebody was just telling me the other day about these perfect (or 99% perfect) clones of Warhammer figurines. I didn't even know they can reach $1,000+ figures, but hey, with today's asset products, that doesn't surprise me. Magic The Gathering, Pokemon games (not cards — we've covered a free guide on that), Warhammer — it seems like sky is the limit really. Whatever can be replicated and is worth $200+ will be replicated IMO > I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming? A bit more! They trust our Certificate with less pushback these days, more than 2 years ago, when we discovered our Certificate can get people's money back. We guarantee the Certificate nonetheless, so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us. I know you said payment processors, but it's the banks (exception: AMEX) that are responsible for that segment of the transaction, AFAIK — with chargebacks and what have you But if there would be an easily integrable solution for banks/payment processors, I can see them moving vertically into that

ffffwe3rq352y3 5y ago
The problem with counterfeit warhammer figures is that 99% of the players don't care much if its fake or not! Its going to be interesting how it pans out when normal 3d printing can become just as good as their sets.
- jabroni_salad 5y ago
  My experience as a 40k player is that we are there despite GamesWorkshop and not because of them. If you want to play in-person then you will need to accommodate players that want to use customs or stand-ins (I declare this bottlecap to be a tank, sir) because the game is extremely P2W and unfriendly to experimentation otherwise. The Pokemon community is like this as well. Everything happens on a bootleg website, partially because breeding and getting good stats is extremely time consuming, but also because the IRL scene is geared towards kids.

alasdair_ 5y ago

The bigger issue is that the good counterfeits can get PSA or BGS graded (either officially, or a fake slab). PSA guarantees that their graded cards are genuine but Beckett does not. With an Alpha Black Lotus going for over $500K, it's only a matter of time before undetectable counterfeits exist.

__turbobrew__ 5y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised that within the next 20 years MTG counterfeits will only be detectable by lab tests (testing for ink and paper age, etc). If this happens providence and seller reputation will become a more common factor in MTG — much like in high end art and antiques. At the highest end (Power 9) seller reputation is already a factor.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Maybe they could put an EMV chip on the thing.
  - labster 5y ago
    Nah, each card should come with an NFT.
- gverrilla 5y ago
  NFT

idoh 5y ago

I bought some proxies to use in different EDH decks. The quality of the fakes was actually better than the real ones (anyone who follows MTG will know what I’m talking about). Using a microscope it was pretty easy to tell them apart, based on the different printing technologies making different and hard to replicate pixel patterns (I don’t know the printing equivelent of a pixel). Each proxy was $2, and you get to pick what you want. At that rate it’s pretty close to the rate you’d get if you bought a standard booster pack.

qsort 5y ago

I wonder if it would be feisable for games like Magic to put technology like passive RFIDs into the cards themselves. Assuming you could make it work, it would also have some logistical advantages (automatically submit decklist, automated deck legality checks, anti-cheat checks for sealed pools...)

noxvilleza 5y ago
What's the range on those? Surely someone could scan a booster box in a store before buying then (and know what rares are in the box)?
- qsort 5y ago
  Well, you wouldn't know what those rares are. If you are Wizards implementing this, you would have the RFID be random digits, and keep a database somewhere to match <string of hexadecimal numbers> with "English STX Professor Onyx". But it's a good point, the access checks on the database would be a nightmare to handle properly.
  - noxvilleza 5y ago
    Yeah I just mean for your automatic sealed pools concept you need a way for {whoever runs the tournament} to be able to scan a pool, or a verify decklist, which means a 3rd party. Local game stores are not necessarily to be trusted this much - simply because they are in the best position to scan boxes (and in the past LGSs have done shady stuff like this when sets were mappable).
- theamk 5y ago
  That’s why there needs to be a system like in passports - the rfid part is encrypted with the code printed on a card itself. This way there is no way to decrypt RFID info unless one can see the face of the card.
__turbobrew__ 5y ago
(Almost) all of the expensive mtg cards were printed over 20 years ago. Refining counterfeit measures in newly printed cards does nothing to prevent counterfeiting of the old and valuable cards. Newer MTG cards do have holographic stickers which makes counterfeiting new cards more difficult, but almost all $100+ cards are from over 20 years ago.