Onslaught Alpha Cut Foil Swamp

Information about new Magic items and events.

Moderators: cataclysm80, hammr7, l0qii, Apocalypse2K, berkumps, dragsamou, mystical_tutor, pp

DanBock
Librarities Legend
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 10:07 pm
Location: Madison, Wisconsin. Y'all bitches wished you lived here.
Contact:

Onslaught Alpha Cut Foil Swamp

Post by DanBock » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:36 pm

Has anyone seen these before? Does anyone know of their origin? I picked these up from a very trusted source, who says he opened them. The cut is *perfect*, and does not look like it was faked. I have a couple of these, all the exact same picture. He says they were in a starter deck.

Sorry the picture isn't great, I will scan it when I get home. (instead of using a camera phone)

Image
Image

gzeiger
Librarities Legend
Posts: 283
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:46 pm

Post by gzeiger » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:42 pm

I've seen that effect on 4th Edition and one Revised card (Savannah). Never on anything so recent. I have no particular information about origin. None of the ones I have were offered to me as misprints, I just found them in stores' boxes, so I believe them to be authentic but I don't know how they come about.

User avatar
l0qii
Legendary Unfindable Title Moderator
Posts: 1792
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:56 am
Location: PA
Contact:

Post by l0qii » Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:48 am

I think somebody cut it.

DanBock
Librarities Legend
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 10:07 pm
Location: Madison, Wisconsin. Y'all bitches wished you lived here.
Contact:

Post by DanBock » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:29 am

l0qii wrote:I think somebody cut it.
I think you're a bunny rabbit. What reasoning is your statement based on?

User avatar
l0qii
Legendary Unfindable Title Moderator
Posts: 1792
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:56 am
Location: PA
Contact:

Post by l0qii » Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:03 am

DanBock wrote:
l0qii wrote:I think somebody cut it.
I think you're a bunny rabbit. What reasoning is your statement based on?
I can't think of any reason why a card/sheet printed in 2002 would accidentally get cut using template that hasn't been used since 1993 (or 95 in the case of 4th edition), unless there's something deeper to this story that I don't know about.

If this is your card, I'm sorry to be so skeptical. I would want more background on its origins though if it was offered to me.

DanBock
Librarities Legend
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 10:07 pm
Location: Madison, Wisconsin. Y'all bitches wished you lived here.
Contact:

Post by DanBock » Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:09 am

l0qii wrote:
DanBock wrote:
l0qii wrote:I think somebody cut it.
I think you're a bunny rabbit. What reasoning is your statement based on?
I can't think of any reason why a card/sheet printed in 2002 would accidentally get cut using template that hasn't been used since 1993 (or 95 in the case of 4th edition), unless there's something deeper to this story that I don't know about.

If this is your card, I'm sorry to be so skeptical. I would want more background on its origins though if it was offered to me.
Agreed, that's why I'm coming here for more information. However unqualified statements of "I think they're fake." are the exact opposite of what I was looking for, and the opposite of the view you are espousing.

To continue my previous declarative statement, I think you're a "bunny rabbit," because you seem to hop away from the slightest thing that scares you.

Does anyone have any real information? I have found Alpha cuts in both Revised cards, and in 4th Edition cards. For a while I was told that one of them "had to be fake" because only the other had Alpha cuts. But it seems there are reasonably reliable reports of both.

Dan Bock

Grapes17
Librarities Hero
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:08 am
Location: Il, USA
Contact:

Post by Grapes17 » Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:19 am

If I'm not mistaken, alpha cutting is the same thing as normal standard playing cards... so it isn't entirely out of the question to have the dies for those lying around a card factory and have them get accidentally swapped. Unlikely yes, but that is what misprints are all about.

User avatar
magic-belgium
Librarities Legend
Posts: 1932
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:19 am
Location: Belgium

Post by magic-belgium » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:32 am

If you pile them up, the cut is exactly the same, like it was industrial ?

I tried to get some information about some other prints from some WOTC contacts, none of them care about that really (sadly). I also contacted one of the biggest (and oldest) MTG seller in France, and again, he was not aware of Alpha Cuts (4th).

So, unless an ex Carta Mundi employee who is a collector of MTG joins this forum, I'm afraid, we won't get all the answers we wish to get... :'-(

Tristal
Librarities Member
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu May 26, 2005 10:48 pm
Location: Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Post by Tristal » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:55 pm

A starter deck is only going to have one foil in it at most. I could potentially believe multiples coming from the same display of starters, but then why would they all be the same swamp?

DanBock
Librarities Legend
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 10:07 pm
Location: Madison, Wisconsin. Y'all bitches wished you lived here.
Contact:

Post by DanBock » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:19 pm

magic-belgium wrote:If you pile them up, the cut is exactly the same, like it was industrial ?
Yes, the cut is *exactly* the same. Aside from the higher quality backing, they are exactly the same as most of the Alpha cards I have too. I've seen people trim cards before (CE/IE, etc) to make them look Alpha, and you can usually tell fairly quickly.
Tristal wrote:A starter deck is only going to have one foil in it at most. I could potentially believe multiples coming from the same display of starters, but then why would they all be the same swamp?
Does anyone know if precons with the foil land always have the same foil land?

gzeiger
Librarities Legend
Posts: 283
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:46 pm

Post by gzeiger » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:47 pm

The foil in a precon is random.

I can also confirm that Alpha 4th in the wild has consistent rounding - stacked on top of Alpha cards they are the same shape.

If these were worth a significant amount and routinely offered as misprints, I would think they were fake, as it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to figure out a way to cut a card into this shape. On the other hand, given that they really aren't worth anything and I have encountered a number of them in different cities in boxes of commons and otherwise offered for sale at no premium over the normal version, it doesn't make any sense to me to suggest that someone is faking a misprint and then selling it off as though it were not a misprint.

The wide distribution also suggests strongly to me that these are real. How many cards would I have to cut and release to the public before enough of them ended up overseas that you all would know about them?

User avatar
fvzappa
Legendary Alpha Playtest Decks Owner
Posts: 653
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:48 am
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Post by fvzappa » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:45 pm

In the past (and perhaps still), the best reason to "alpha cut" any card- esp. beta- was to improve those corner dings, to make the card look like it was mint again. I knew a few people who could do this well... I live in a city where normal playing cards are made... but for someone to do this to a foil swamp seems a bit odd.

I wish I had answers, but I don't. This just makes me want to dig through my cards with a closer look.

random
Librarities Legend
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 8:17 pm
Location: Los Angeles

Post by random » Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:30 am

However unqualified statements of "I think they're fake." are the exact opposite of what I was looking for, and the opposite of the view you are espousing.

To continue my previous declarative statement, I think you're a "bunny rabbit," because you seem to hop away from the slightest thing that scares you.

Does anyone have any real information?

"I think they're fake."

DanBock
Librarities Legend
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 10:07 pm
Location: Madison, Wisconsin. Y'all bitches wished you lived here.
Contact:

Post by DanBock » Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:44 pm

random wrote:
However unqualified statements of "I think they're fake." are the exact opposite of what I was looking for, and the opposite of the view you are espousing.

To continue my previous declarative statement, I think you're a "bunny rabbit," because you seem to hop away from the slightest thing that scares you.

Does anyone have any real information?

"I think they're fake."
Clap. Clap. Clap.

Oh yeah, *now* I remember this forum.

User avatar
l0qii
Legendary Unfindable Title Moderator
Posts: 1792
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:56 am
Location: PA
Contact:

Post by l0qii » Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:00 pm

How many of these do you have?

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 20 guests