The misprint market is rapidly expanding, so I'm conducting some research on how different judges decide what misprints to allow in hopes of removing some of the variation across the program. Please fill out the following survey:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nrqKxcEJWP4O7gCVr-6AapzpgN0t9PHvf6w1TL6UzAI

(Note that the criteria for accepting misprints are not the same as alters. If you aren't familiar with them, you should take a look at section 3.3 of the MTR. Also note that this is a survey on what is allowed by section 3.3 of the MTR, not on whether you think it can be distinguished through a sleeve. We all know that Marked Cards aren't acceptable, that's not a consideration here. Pretend the player is playing in completely opaque and rigid sleeves.)

Feel free to share the link in your various judge groups in order to get more responses.

Edited Isaac King (Aug. 26, 2017 05:23:05 AM)

Looks like a lot of judges are missing the instructions at the beginning, so I'm copying them here for clarity:

“Note that this is a survey on what is allowed by section 3.3 of the MTR, not on whether you think it can be distinguished through a sleeve. We all know that Marked Cards aren't acceptable, that's not a consideration here. Pretend the player is playing in completely opaque and rigid sleeves.”

(If this changes any of your answers, you're free to submit a corrected response.)

Would you be willing to post these survey results in a week or two? Probably omitting the names for the sake of privacy if someone doesn't want their answers posted

Yup, I'm planning to do that fairly soon.

Just remembered this project - are the results viewable somewhere?

Sorry, I've just been really lazy busy. I'll try to get them up in the next couple days. :)

I have made the survey results available by clicking the link in the original post. You will need to be logged in to a google account in order to view them. Unfortunately Google does not provide a view-only option, so please do not edit or delete anything. (I have the data backed up of course.)



Results I wasn't expecting:


The Forest/Island miscut: I expected this to be disallowed by almost everyone due to the name not matching the card. However 49% of judges allowed it as one or the other.

The Plains with a large white spot: I expected this to be allowed by nearly everybody- it's completely obvious what it is with absolutely no ambiguity. Instead it was disallowed by 37% of judges.

The Phyrexian Hulk test print: Again, I expected this to be allowed by pretty much everybody- it has the wrong art, but all the relevant characteristics are there and correct. And the art even fits the name flavor-wise. Instead, 85% of judges disallowed it.

The Soul Strings with a messed-up text box: This is a textbook legal alter, so I have trouble understanding why anyone is disallowing it. The oracle text can be requested from a judge, just like if it were a foreign card.

The comments section: Well I would not have expected anyone to think “I use the MTR” would be useful information about their decision-making process, but apparently I was very wrong.



Comments:


There seem to be two main camps of judges- those who go by what the whole card looks most like, and those go by the card name and nothing else. These are both reasonable points of view. However, it leads to a lack of consistency- there are cards that would be allowed as one thing by one judge, and another thing by another judge, .

Many judges decided to take the MTR completely literally and disallow anything with square corners. Many other judges were instead of the opinion that the “no square corners” line in the MTR is simply meant to disallow CE/IE cards, and are therefore acceptable as a misprint. The same was true for the “silver borders” requirement with regard to disallowing un-sets.

One thing I failed to consider is that the exact card in question might be relevant, specifically, whether it's a land. There were several judges who said that they would be more lenient on lands, since they tend to be more recognizable. Other the other hand, there were also judges who were harsher on lands, since they are more easily abused. Both of these viewpoints make sense in retrospect, and I should have done a better job testing for them.

Oh, and about the Ulamog-

The card is in the M15 frame, but has the FTV: Legends set symbol. Additionally, it only had a mana cost of 10- real Ulamog costs 11. It is in fact a real card produced by WotC in 2013, as a test print for the new frame.

Could you make the Doc(or the pictures) available again so its easier to understand your results? Cant remember all the misprints :/