Hi!

A fellow judge has detected a way to mark the cards taking advantage of the sleeves that are a bit transparent. Thanks that he has shared it with us, we can be aware of a mark that is quite imperceptible if it is not deliberately sought.

It is important to keep in mind that these types of marks are legal as long as the card can not be identified with sleeves. There is no problem if someone bought a card with a mark but it can not be spotted.

Few examples:



This kind of marking is very subtle:



When it is in a bit transparent sleeves, we can identify the white mana symbol in the unmarked card, which is not seen in the marked card.



So, just like when you saw this type of sleeves you check carefully for double face cards, keep an eye on this kind of markings from time to time to avoid bad temptations.

Best regards ^^

Yeah, a good old trick.

Thanks for trying to make it more known! It should be part of every deckchecking judge's repertoire.

Actually, I believe that the judge community is missing a source - a knowledge base? - where such tips and tricks would be stored and where a “Welcome to L1” letter would point to. Something similar to what has been pointed out by Bryan Prillaman in his PC application:

“we need to increase the importance on event skills, and change requirements and the tone of the program to reflect this importance. We need to establish and document a curated set of ‘best practices’ for running events, at the store and even larger levels.”

I believe Lars Harald Nordli is working on a set of guides like that. Here's the project: https://apps.magicjudges.org/projects/755/

That's correct Isaac, even though we haven't thought about marked cards and cheating yet. The “How To?” guides are primarily focused to new and existing Level 1, but marked cards is certainly an interesting topic for a guide.

Edited Lars Harald Nordli (Aug. 10, 2018 03:58:12 PM)

Great! I am looking forward to the outcome of your initiative.

This is one of my favorite tricks in my deck checks workshop. No one notices it until I pull out all the basics sorted by type.