I keep saying we're in a Magic Bubble propped up by confidence and not the true benefit to the end user of playing a card in a tournament. What is surprising, though, is that we keep hearing about large counterfeit problems and confidence has NOT dropped. I wonder why the player base is still so confident?
Maybe it's like this: if you manage to make a truly perfect counterfeit, then no one will ever know you did it unless you tell them. So maybe the only time the market tanks is when someone retires and publishes a book, "How I Printed All The Black Lotuses" or something.
I must admit that i almost think they are doing players a favor, by lowering the cost of all three eternal formats.
Short-sighted thinking, and possibly just wrong. At the risk of-rehashing prior threads, the idea that fakes (not open and notorious proxies, mind you, but counterfeits being passed off as legitimate) make eternal cheaper has a few problems:
1) In the short term, legitimate dealer prices probably RISE because people who want to be sure they're getting the real deal will go there instead of taking chances on the person-to-person market.
2) Increased transaction costs in tournaments, where you will see an uptick in accusations of fake cards and the associated delay and bad feelings.
and of course
3) If it gets really widespread, the large casual market goes to cheap counterfeits instead of legitimate cards, causing the large retailers to lose money and causing a similar drop in prize support and T/O outlay.
Just use proxies if you want to use proxies, stop trying to con people. :-/
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Would you buy a car for £1000 after only seeing it briefly?
We shouldn't blame the victim (assuming he really is the victim) but this is a good rule of thumb, yes.
Also, this depends a lot on the car!
