5d ago

I just banned my second player in almost 7 years as a shop owner

I own a small FLGS, i mean small. 1 employee, me. Sometimes my wife or son watch the places for me for a few hours. Small town too, <9,000 population.

I have had a player coming into the shop for about a year now, he was new to magic. He is one of those WAAC (Win At All Costs) players. He has recently decided he is no longer going to buy magic cards, only print them. A while back he asked me about doing this. I explained the difference between a proxy (when you own a card, but play with a fake because the card is valuable, or possibly damaged) and a counterfeit (you do not own the card, and play with a fake). It is against Wizards' rules for WPN/Play stores for us to allow counterfeit cards for any sanctioned event.

Tonight was my shop's first night hosting the new Two-Headed Giant Commander format. I was playing with a friend vs this guy and another customer. This guy was sitting diagonally from me (and my eyesight is not great) so i could not really see his cards. I cast something that allowed me to destroy up to two artifacts, so i was looking at his cards to decide what to destroy, when i realized every single card he had out was a fake.

When I kicked him out, he did the typical "but i buy a soda every week from you!" BFD, I make 50¢ off those, 75¢ if i get them on sale,

In almost 7 years of being open i have kicked out 3 players, and banned 2. This guy being the second ban, the first one shit himself and ruined a chair.

22 comments

Your definition counterfeit is incorrect. A counterfeit is something designed to fool an observer into thinking it’s something else. It has nothing to do with ownership of some other card.
If you can clock his cards from across the table as not being made by WotC then they are probably not counterfeits.
It’s your store so do what you wish but don’t lean on WotC’s policy to justify it. Overall this seems quite petty.
- Maybe petty, maybe not. I don’t care about counterfeit or proxy rules, I stopped playing MtG around Kamigawa. The way I understand it is that the now banned player was just printing out whatever cards he wanted just so he could win while everyone else bought them and had the actual physical copies of at least most of their cards.
  So basically that person was a cheapskate who wanted to always win but didn’t want to put in any money or work. It might be petty but if there’s some sort of prize, then to me that person was at worst cheating, and at best being underhanded just to win. Either way, I wouldn’t want them in a tournament that I’m playing in.
  
  Say for arguments sake the player in question went out and bought all the best cards instead. (Let's say they won the lottery or something) What changes? In my view, the problem remains. The problem being is this players attitude is counter productive to the play experience people want out of commander.
  Mr. "I want a deck that always wins" needs to find another format or adjust his attitude, regardless of how he came into possession of his cards.
I think it's kind of rediculous that WOTC charges so much for basically what amounts to some laminated paper. The game is cool and well developed, but I stopped playing because the people who win are largely the ones who have the money to buy the cards they want in their deck. I can't afford to do that. As a small shop owner, that's not anything you decided to do, but it's just a dynamic that I consider kind of classist. I don't personally have any ethical problems with people printing out cards. I do think it's shady to bring them to a shop that exists to sell those cards though. So there is a lot to consider here. You have to stay in business too and there is a defined economy around how this game works. Anybody is free to develop their own open source version of the game where the cards are encouraged to be printed out. Maybe try explaining some of these things to him. If he is somebody that can't be reasoned with the ban is warranted. If you can reason with them, then maybe the ban could be lifted.
I would avoid going to your store if you act like this.
I think you're justified,
For all the nay sayers out here, think of going to your local mechanic and bringing all your own filters tools oils and expecting to use their hoist.
Or wanting to compete in LOL or COD and not buying the game and just using a pirated version.
Do what you want in your home,
@nocturne You'd discussed it earlier, so he knew what he was doing.
Your first ban I'd be more borderline on, shitting yourself in public is usually not intentional.
- The shitting was not a one time thing, it was the source of his smell. He was constantly doing it, just that time it was enough to ruin a chair.
  
  @nocturne yeah, that is reasonable then :)
- @nocturne And sorry for some of the BS replies you are getting. Not everyone understands how tough WotC's position on this can be and staying in the organised player program is pretty important to stores.
  
  If this guy's only infraction was fake cards, I would have just told him to come back when he has a real deck. But it was not, he was a toxic player and a jerk to most people. No one enjoyed playing in his pod and people would leave when he showed up.
I understand not being able to allow proxies at official events, but your attitude towards printing cards seems to go further than that. I refuse to give WotC my money. My pod has printed every card we play with. We aren't "counterfeiting," as none of our cards are even trying to pass as official. We proxy most of our cards with thematic art and designs completely divorced from the official MTG frames and art. Our LGS allows anyone to play with whatever cards they want outside of official events, as long as everyone at the table agrees. Proxies do not only exist as stand-ins for cards you own. The MTG community uses that word to mean any non-official replacement card. Fun should not be gatekept behind artificially inflated prices and draconian business practices.
Was this Two-Headed Giant night a DCI-sanctioned event?
- No, because DCI went away fully in '22. But it was an official WOTC Play event, the system that replaced DCI.
  
  Out of curiosity, I assume official WOTC play events mandate authentic cards the same way?

22 comments