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On Friday, October 20th 2017 Wizards fo the Coast released a statement letter customers know that quote unquote “A number of non-foil, double-sided Ixalan cards in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), and Korean were mistakenly printed on the incorrect card stock.”
Communication and transparency between company and customer in a situation like this is key, but unfortunately, this is not the statement on card stock we are looking for.
Much of what I am going to present in here can be called anecdotal evidence, However, I am also going to try and demonstrate that these issues with card stock, NOT the ones Wizards released a statement on, but the real issues with cardstock that result in the curling and warping of non-foil cards from new sets, that these issues are consistent enough that I can reliably recreate them just by opening brand new booster packs.
But the point of this video isn’t prove the card stock problem is real. The point is to say that in the interest of consumer confidence, wizards of the coast needs to acknowledge the problem and tell their customers what they know. We, as those customers need to change from trying to demonstrate this issue is real, to asking for an official statement on it.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the card stock quality began to decline, however, we do know when it was at its worst: Amonkhet Block.
These are cards from my personal collection. They are unplayed. They were opened by me a few months ago and placed in storage. There are indeed multiple issues with card stock in our newer magic sets, the worst of which is the curling of cards. That you see here.
This is probably due to the card thickness appearing to be different than in the past. Cards feel less thick, more malleable. Many report the bend test is not as reliable as it once was.
Inking issues seem highly prevalent as well. Many cards having poor or faded inking, grey borders and other coloring problems.
Now, I feel very confident that the vast majority of you already knew about this issue. If you have been on reddit, if you have been on MTG Salvation, if you have been on Twitter, if you have been on Facebook or, if nothing else, if you have just BOUGHT Magic cards in this last year then you likely know that something has gone wrong.
These issues are rampant, not just a few poor souls who have gotten a bad batch or problematic printing, but rather, a widespread reporting of accounts that it is not only numerous but, I feel is both repeatable and demonstrable.
I do not know what the problem is. I can make educated guesses, but in the end that’s all they are guesses. A lower quality of card stock being used, perhaps, or complications and quality control issues with the printers themselves, maybe. Testing seems to indicate that cards printed outside the usa in belgian factories, these are cards meant for japan and germany, that these have the original or near to it quality of card stock. But who can say for certainty in this situation. As I said at the start of this video, so much of this comes down to anecdotal evidence pieced together by customer.
But. I do not need to fully understand the cause of this problem to know it exists. It exists and Wizards of the coast has not comments on it, and they must. They must. Why? Consumer confidence is being hit hard by this, and in many way, that is almost as bad as the bad cardboard quality itself.
I cannot stress the direness of a trading card game maker making poor quality trading cards. A statement acknowledging this should have happened awhile ago, and I like many others naively assumed that the only reason it had not was that the issues would be 100% resolved with Ixalan. They have not been. It is time to comment on this.