Possible Invasion problem

[Apollo]

I went out and bought 4 packs of Invasion yesterday. After looking at my cards (2 Alabaster Leeches... ugh), I put the packs together into one big pile. I happened to glance at the side of the stack. I noticed that some of the cards had light edges, but most of them had darker edges. Upon examining the white-edged cards, I found that all the uncommons and rares have lighter edges, and the commons are darker.

At this point, all the cards were clumped by commonality. I shuffled them up to see if I could still differentiate between them, and found that I could tell an individual card's commonality just by looking at the edge. Of interest is that it's only one edge that is obvious, the edge on the opposite side of the mana symbol. The other side is near-uniform.

Also, (and this may have always been a problem) the foils are obviously thicker and simple to identify. I put the stack together, shuffled it up, and showed it to my brother and asked him if he could identify the foils. Without any prior knowledge of what I was doing, he looked at the edges and found the two foils I got (including Atalya, Samite Master, a rare!) within seconds.

Now, I figure I could take advantage of this. I'm gonna make a deck that contains a fairly even percentage between commons and uncommons/rares. Then, I'll put all foil lands in. I'll always have a pretty good idea of what's coming. Wondering whether or not to mulligan that one-land hand? Glance at the edges of the next couple cards and see if you've got lands coming. Wondering whether the Consult is safe? Look at the top 6, and see how many are of the same rarity as the card you want. Wondering whether to take the card you get with Opt or put it on the bottom? Check the rarity of the next card. And the best part is, the DCI can't do anything to you, because Wizards marked the cards themselves!

Of course, I would never do any of that, nor do I endorse it. But for a tournament or pro player, who is playing with $30,000 on the line, it might sound like a great strategy.

Think Wizards is stupid? Think I'm stupid? Think this whole thread is stupid? Please comment.

Apollo

 

[Volradon]

IMO i think all constructed tourneys should be played with sleeves because of all the ways u can mark the cards but hey that is cool i didnt even notice it <runs to look at his invasion cards>

 

[Darsh]

I didn't notice that either probably because I always put the deck in playing with in sleeves (Mmmm..Black, shiny sleeves!)

Runs to look at cards, comes back.

I didn't notice any color difference between to rarity, but the foils are thicker than normal cards.

 

[Apollo]

Hmmm, is it just the cards I got? On mine, you can differentiate pretty easily, but only on one edge of the cards.

 

[Darsh]

Mabye it only applies to one color, I looked at a blue and artifact and didn't see a difference.

 

[nodnarb24]

The foils are going to be thicker because a layer a transparent gold foil is layed on top of the card. If you look close enough you can see where the foil joins the card. I just looked at my invasion cards and i don't see a difference.

 

[Ura]

I've noticed the increased thinkness of foils since around masques, some of them were. I think its cause they're adding an extra lay to the card to protect against scratches better.

As for the white sided stuff. I can confirm it, I looked at my own Invasion cards and about 70% of the rares and uncommons had a slightly more white edge to them.

I think they probably had some problems in the flow wrap machines cause there are alot of little errors showing up. My lack of uncommons, the more obvious thickness to foils and the white edge to the rares and uncommons. The whitening can be explained though if the rare and uncommon sheets are cut first, the cut will be cleaner cause the blade is sharper, where as a slightly duller blade for the commons could be giving a bit more squish to narrow the white part.
Just an odd theory.

 

[Spiderman]

And a good point. Those cards are clearly marked and you shouldn't have to put sleeves on them (so far) if you don't want just to cover them up. I wonder if this has arison on other boards and if WOTC is getting notified.

 

[Mundungu]

I very much noted that the cutting of the cards was of poor quality, especially while opening the "tournmaent pack" or whatever they call them (75 cards pack w. lands).

I also found that ALL these packs sold at my local shop did not have the inside packaging, only the outside.

Also all of them had AT LEAST one foil in them, always located after the lands and before the rares.

Also all of them had 10 uncommons instead of the expected 9.

Seems Wizard has changed their packaging.

In the meanwhile, I guess I will keep on buying thos "starter" (or whichever they call it), 'cause for just a couple of cents more I get : 1 more uncommon and 1 foil for sure.

BTW, I also opened a booster that had 2 rares in it.
And they were consecutive green rares (molino and the guys before or after him).

 

[Riva Iron-Grip]

yeah, the invasion cards have the white crap on them. it pisses me off, cuz then my friend can tell whats coming next. he likes to look at my deck while we're playing. not looking through it, but at it.

 

[galtwish]

Quick explination of discoloraton (with respect to anyone else who already posted this)

Every print run for every set of cards has minute problems in certain parts of the batch. Sometimes the ink doesn't transfer as well as it should, but often time the sheet of uncut cards doesn't line up perfectly. WotC typesetting has gotten better over the years (I don't know how many off-center Lightning Bolts I've seen...), but problems still arise from time to time. Your light cards were probably cut incorrectly, exposing the card core in a non-standard way. Or the ink process might have gone askew, much like Ice Age cards are more faded than Mirage cards.
In re: foils; why do you think so many people play all foil lands, or all foil decks except land? even through sleeves, you cna tell the difference.
Finally, if you cards are marked in any way, even if they come out of the pack that way, they are considered illegaly marked.

Erik

 

[Apollo]

I was looking at another player's Invasion cards, and noticed they are marked as well. I don't know if he got them from the same place (maybe same box) that I did, because I didn't think to ask him at the time.

 

[Ura]

Ok, I've now gotten packs from 6 different boxes of Invasion from 2 different distributors and the same problems are recurring with the white edge and lack of uncommons. I'm going to be calling into the retailor's WotC line on monday to maybe get some answers about this and maybe an official ruling on it cause of the marked status.
I'll post if I find out anything.

 

[theorgg]

Are you sure that the foil "commons" arn't actually Uncommon?

All of the foil Uncommons look like there common for some reason. just take a look at a foil split-card.

 

[Thallid Ice Cream Man]

I haven't had any of these problems..

I have a question that might be a big deal...

For those of you with the marking problems, where do you live? I live near DC and I haven't had this problem...

 

[Apollo]

I live in Ohio, near Cleveland. I'm gonna email Wizards now and see what they have to say for themselves. Maybe I'll get some free packs out of the deal

 

[Duel]

I hope my box isn't like that.
You know my luck, though.

 

[Purple_jester]

You could be accused of deck stacking. Or "lousy shuffling."

On the other hand, your opponent is within is rights to cut your deck any way he wants to, meaning he could also "restack" your deck. That would ofset the advantage, wouldn't it?

 

[theorgg]

There's no problem with my Invaision stuff at all.

I'm in Georgia.

It's very possible that the plant that worked on ya'lls boxes were a bit skewed and discolored your cards. there was some Ice Age that was like that, as well as some Mercadian that were inked twice as thick, making the lettering look smaller.

 

[Ristik]

The reason Ice Age and Mirage cards look so different is because Wizards changed how they print the ink entirely between Alliances and Mirage. Therefore, it is not a printing error that they seem so different; it's supposed to be that way.