Card

In Magic: The Gathering, a card is the standard component of the game. The word card usually refers to a Magic card with a Magic card front and a Magic card back, or to double-faced cards.

Description
Tournament-legal cards are 2.5 x 3.5 inches (6.35 x 8.89 cm) and weigh 0.064 ounces (1.814 grams). Non-foil cards are approximately 0.012 inches (0.305 mm) thick. Magic cards, like regular playing cards, are made from two layers of cardboard joined together by an opaque blue adhesive, so that they're opaque even seen in direct sunlight. The card stock allows the cards to be handled and shuffled without losing their "bounce", or bendability. The corners of the card are cut with a radius of 1/8 inch (3 mm). Foil cards have an extra layer on the card that highlights certain parts of the artwork over others, the "white under-print plate", or "WUP." A print coating - a very thin, clear protective finish - is applied over the top of printed materials.

Rules inserts and tokens are made of different cardstock than the rest of the cards. They don't have the opaque layer in the middle.

Magic cards pass global toy safety regulations for heavy metals and other hazardous chemicals. The cards are non-toxic and completely safe for normal use and foreseeable abuse for children 8 years and older.

Rules
A card is only referred to as a "card" by game rules or effects when in a player's hand, library, or graveyard, or in exile. Tokens are never considered cards, even if cards are used to represent them. When a card has been cast and is on the stack waiting to resolve, the game refers to it as a "spell." When a card is on the battlefield, the game refers to it as a "permanent," or simply by its type or subtype.

Parts of a card
On a card face, several elements can be distinguished.

Misprints
A misprint is a mistake in a printed card resulting from editorial or mechanical failures of some kind.

Marked cards
A marked card is a card in a deck that can be identified by some means other than looking at its face. Protective sleeves can also be considered marked in a similar manner. Marked cards are illegal in all tournament play because there may be a chance that the player is cheating by knowing all the marks and may predict his/her draws.

Some examples of features that make a card "marked" include excessive wear, patterned wear, pen markings, card curvature, or card-back color saturation. Card curvature can matter when using foiled premium cards, as early foil cards would warp differently than normal cards. Card-back color saturation can matter when using cards from different sets, especially when combining older and newer cards. Older cards tend to have a more varied and lower saturation to the card back while newer cards have a more homogeneous and higher saturation to them.

Card sleeves could also be marked, e.g. if the part of the sleeve is creased in a deliberate way. A card in a marked sleeve is treated as a marked card.

Altered cards
Some players and collectors have their cards signed by artists, written on by celebrities, drawn on, or otherwise "embellished". In recent years it has become a popular pastime to erase parts of a card, leaving the name bar, P/T, or any other pertinent information intact, before applying layers of colored ink by hand with a wide variety of pencils, pens, or markers and thus creating extended or original art. Sometimes, the foil layer from one card is carefully peeled away, trimmed down, and glued onto another card for visual effect ("foil peel").

In tournaments, it is always the head judge's call as to whether a card is "disruptively" altered. Cards with just a signature on them are almost universally acceptable; the fuzziness starts when the whole text box is covered or if the art is obscured too much. Even if the card name is readable, altered cards can be ruled illegal if they seem deceptive to your opponent from a distance.

Traditional vs nontraditional cards
Nontraditional magic cards (like Schemes and Planes) are typically oversized as opposed to traditional magic cards. undefined undefined

Counterfeits
If a non-foil Magic card is bent corner-to-corner (or top-to-bottom), it will not crease, and will bounce back to its original state instead. This is one way in which people test for counterfeit cards, although it should be carried out with caution, as even a genuine card may fail after repeated bending.

Illegal counterfeit boxes of Magic as well as counterfeit single cards have been produced and distributed. Most counterfeits are easily distinguishable as fakes by a different color, gloss coating, or texture. Wizards of the Coast takes legal action, when appropriate.

In November 1995, the Windsor, Ontario Police in Canada were informed that two men were running a counterfeiting operation in the area. The police seized 40,000 counterfeit Magic cards, as well as film plates for the reproduction of more. Eighteen rare cards (including moxes and dual lands) were printed 2,200 times each. The men were charged with eighteen counts under the Canadian Copyright Act. In 2002, white-bordered versions of regular black-bordered cards were sold as exclusives. It turned out it was possible to "erase" the border off of a card using transparent tape and a good eraser.

Proxies
A proxy is a card that represents another card in casual play. They are forbidden at DCI-sanctioned tournaments.