1 minute ago, Greenknight08 said:

You can actually register a deck that was already registered, you just don't get the aember.

Does it give you a prompt that the deck was previously registered?

This would be a feature that I would like to see on the site, or even the ability to look at the person who has claimed the deck and see their other decks. That would be a bit too overpowered, but how else can we police our own community? Are we responsible for finding cheaters, or will FFG help with that?

I do not miss Software ect. or any of those other "Game stores". They were awful. But that is bound to happen when you hire people for cut rate wages. You just aren't going to get your best. Sure there are honest people out there but they eventually end up in good jobs outside of retail.

Yeah to expand on what Greenknight08 said, everyone in the world could scan any deck they want and add it to their My Decks section. It does not track ownership at all. You only lose out on the shards. It is still a crappy feeling to scan what is supposed to be a new deck and find out someone already discovered it.

The problem with flipping the archon card made the deck list visible or purpose. They want the list to be available for draft tournaments. At release they also encouraged trading decks. I got one of my favorite decks through a sealed treade. Sure the other guy cold have opened it and shown me the list just as easily, but him deciding he didn't want to play it, it was easier for him to keep it in the plastic. They also have seem no problem with the secondary market. If they wanted to conceal it, it wouldn't even need to be flipped, just make it the top card in the deck instead of the bottom.

I think they should perf the bottom to make it difficult to open it without an obvious tear, and have a black box on the plastic to prevent scanning of sealed decks

1 minute ago, xbeaker said:

I think they should perf the bottom to make it difficult to open it without an obvious tear, and have a black box on the plastic to prevent scanning of sealed decks

This would be prefect, the best of both worlds and has my vote (not that that matters).

5 minutes ago, Krashwire said:

Yeah to expand on what Greenknight08 said, everyone in the world could scan any deck they want and add it to their My Decks section. It does not track ownership at all. You only lose out on the shards. It is still a crappy feeling to scan what is supposed to be a new deck and find out someone already discovered it.

This is also (allegedly) an intentional thing by FFG. The claim is that they left it open so you could track a friend's deck and such

12 minutes ago, xbeaker said:

The problem with flipping the archon card made the deck list visible or purpose. They want the list to be available for draft tournaments. At release they also encouraged trading decks. I got one of my favorite decks through a sealed treade. Sure the other guy cold have opened it and shown me the list just as easily, but him deciding he didn't want to play it, it was easier for him to keep it in the plastic. They also have seem no problem with the secondary market. If they wanted to conceal it, it wouldn't even need to be flipped, just make it the top card in the deck instead of the bottom.

I think they should perf the bottom to make it difficult to open it without an obvious tear, and have a black box on the plastic to prevent scanning of sealed decks

I wouldn't make the logical jump that they have no problem with the secondary market. Sure, their actions make it seem as though it wasn't a priority .... but, they just might have not thought about the problems that it could cause.

I can see that being easier for tournaments, but to me that doesn't trump player safety. The fact is that FFG has created a product where it's easy for some customers to defraud other customers out of money. Regardless how it happened, fixing it should be a priority.

I wouldn't but ease of tournaments over safety of customers. As you stated, it wouldn't be much more difficult to have opened up the decks for the tournament.

Yes, putting another wrapper on the inside deck would suffice, but I feel that's a costly process. Their assembly line probably won't be able to handle additional wrapping, but could it handle putting a tamper proof sticker on top of the code? I think so.

A sticker just doesn't protect fully, because someone can still see the deck list and what it contains. Let's be honest, because scanning isn't the major problem here.... it's culling the quality out of the herd. Customers deserve to get a random choice, not a choice of the lame and weak.

2 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

A sticker just doesn't protect fully, because someone can still see the deck list and what it contains. Let's be honest, because scanning isn't the major problem here.... it's culling the quality out of the herd. Customers deserve to get a random choice, not a choice of the lame and weak.

This is the crux of my complaint with my pre-scanned decks.

Yep, 100% it's a big issue.

I ran into this mindset when offering to purchase decks that people didn't want. People wanted too much money for them. Sorry, no I am not going to offer you 9 bucks on a deck that doesn't appear powerful and that you don't want. For a dollar more, I can get a powerhouse. I'd rather take the random chance at power than to take your leftovers at almost full cost.

I'm thinking of purchasing decks that people don't want for something around 5 or 6 bucks. Hey, if you've bought 40 decks, then a ton of them have zero value for you. I'm not sure if there will really be a market for second hand decks, but there might be. The sucky part is the shipping cost of the decks, probably around 3 or 4 bucks.

20 minutes ago, Greenknight08 said:

A sticker just doesn't protect fully, because someone can still see the deck list and what it contains. Let's be honest, because scanning isn't the major problem here.... it's culling the quality out of the herd. Customers deserve to get a random choice, not a choice of the lame and weak.

It's kinda both. Yes, the primary offense is culling, like you said. But those Aember Shards, that's currency, for certain swag at events. So, not only have they been robbred of getting a good deck, but also robbed.

8 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

I wouldn't make the logical jump that they have no problem with the secondary market. Sure, their actions make it seem as though it wasn't a priority .... but, they just might have not thought about the problems that it could cause.

I can't point you to the specific video, but I remember seeing something where they discussed chains and how if you sold or traded the deck, the chains would stick with it, potentially reducing its value. The also have mentioned the ebay listings and how outrageous they are. As they hold the copyright, I think they could get the Keyforge decks pulled from eBay if they had a problem with it. I could be wrong though. I'm not saying FFG has it in their business plan to feed a secondary market. But they seem pretty OK with it as a fact of life in this market.

12 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

I can see that being easier for tournaments, but to me that doesn't trump player safety. The fact is that FFG has created a product where it's easy for some customers to defraud other customers out of money. Regardless how it happened, fixing it should be a priority. 

I wouldn't but ease of tournaments over safety of customers. As you stated, it wouldn't be much more difficult to have opened up the decks for the tournament.

But opened decks at tourney do have one problem. When passing decks around it is very easy to lose cards. I was in a draft tourney at PAX (A lot of fun btw! ) and one of the players insisted we open the decks, not just read the backs. The Judge was not happy, and sure enough we nearly lost a few cards as people were quickly trying to read deck lists and pass decks around. I agree they should do what they can to limit fraud, but there are other options that are easier.

15 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

Yes, putting another wrapper on the inside deck would suffice, but I feel that's a costly process. Their assembly line probably won't be able to handle additional wrapping, but could it handle putting a tamper proof sticker on top of the code? I think so. 

I think yo misunderstood me here. I don;t think they need a second wrapper. Just put a black box on the plastic that already covers the deck inside the box. No change in manufacturing required. Just a change in the plastic. I'm a programmer in the printing industry. It's actually a pretty easy process.

17 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

A sticker just doesn't protect fully, because someone can still see the deck list and what it contains. Let's be honest, because scanning isn't the major problem here.... it's culling the quality out of the herd. Customers deserve to get a random choice, not a choice of the lame and weak.

Yeah, no question here. Covering the QR code would have protected @Greenknight08 from losing Aember, but not from a deck that was opened, reviewed and replaced (I know this isn't assured what happened, but we are talking theoretical.) But a modification to the die which cuts the boxes would. Were the bottoms perfed in such a way that opening them would require damage to the perf, it would be impossible to reseal the deck in a convincing way. gluing flaps together is easy. gluing a perf back.. god luck! haha And again, this a very minor change to the production process. Dies are easily swapped out. They would just need to do some testing to make sure the perfs don't damage the integrity of the box under normal circumstances.

I think flipping the archon should be a last ditch option. I really liked the draft tourney, and like the security that a plastic wrapped deck is complete.

No, I don't think they can get keyforge items pulled from ebay. They aren't sold to customers with the understanding of zero resale available. Even if they did pull them off, smart sellers could get around it. Hey, I'm selling you this piece of paper with a happy face on it for fifteen bucks. Along with that piece of paper, you get a free keyforge deck. Look at that ..... no keyforge deck was sold.

This way of getting around terminology is important. There was a city that was selling bottled waters at a parade. They didn't want local businesses selling waters, so they outlawed water sales. A smart business started selling a peanut for a dollar and with each peanut purchased you get a free bottled water. No water sold here.

Why should flipping the archon card be the last ditch effort? Assuming that they could fix the second run, this would cost them nothing extra, and wouldn't change the manufacturing process. Having a flipped archon card doesn't even make draft tournaments that difficult. Just tear off the top half of the plastic, leave the bottom half holding the deck, flip the card and everything is the same. Changing the box, or adding plastic just would be much more expensive since they already have their manufacturing process in place. I doubt that FFG would change anything at all. If they never change anything, it will be another strike against them, because I don't appreciate companies that put customers at risk. Sure, you could say that they didn't know ....... but is ignorance an excuse? Did they really not foresee third party sales and fraud being a problem? Did FFG decide to print all of their decks without worrying if they were hurting customers?

Do not be confused. FFG is absolutely hurting customers with this game. People are being taken advantage of, and I believe that FFG is responsible. If they do nothing to stop this, then they show that they will not take responsibility for their mistakes, and that they do not care for their paying customers. Both of those really damage a company in my eyes, but let's hope that they fix it..... I just don't think they will.

If players can't keep a deck together, then that's a problem with the players. You can leave the plastic on the bottom half of the cards. You could also just pass around the deck lists if people can't handle an entire deck of 37 cards (oh geeze).

Oh, you're suggesting to print a black section onto the clear plastic, so that the deck list can not be visible. That would work. I feel that calling it a "box" is what leads to misunderstanding. I agree that this would be an easy solution. Instead of the clear wrapping, it could be half opaque. Actually, there would be no reason for the entire plastic to be opaque, as I'm thinking a plastic with half clear and half opaque would be more expensive or difficult to source.

The only problem with the thought that dies are easily swapped out, is that we don't know where they are in the printing process. Are they still printing? If they are currently printing, then there is absolutely no excuse to put customers in jeopardy. If they printed all of the cards before hand, then they can't really redie at this point... although that raises questions about the company.

It is quite ridiculous for a company to go out and print all of those cards, and for them not to have considered something as important as third party fraud. Was it not considered, was it just ignored, or was it discussed and decided that it wasn't a big enough issue to warrant spending money fixing? You see that last one is the worst. It would upset me if they could have fixed this, but decided not to.

Or hey, instead of plastic wrapping, the decks could be sealed in a foil pouch, inside the box. No way to see what it is (and get the QR) unless you tear the sucker open, at which point resealing is pretty much impossible.

Below is a direct quote from the reply I got from FFG which suggests that they are indeed aware of the fraud issues we are discussing and are going to be implementing a fix, I can't wait to see what it is.

"We are aware of the problem of people scanning and resealing decks and have a few ideas on how to solve the problem. As you said, redesigning the deck boxes is one such idea! I can’t guarantee when you’ll start seeing these changes (given our production schedule) but it’s on our list!" - Andrew Janeba Quality Assurance Coordinator

As an FYI, I went to a local Barnes & Noble last night and picked up three decks. All three were sealed and scanned fine. I don't think Barnes & Noble as a whole is the problem. More than likely either a tech glitch or a dishonest holiday employee.

Dishonest one-off employee seems the most likely. Vendor owned products tend to be not watched as well when not on the floor.

1 hour ago, ornithologist said:

Dishonest one-off employee seems the most likely. Vendor owned products tend to be not watched as well when not on the floor.

In my local B&N, the Keyforge (and Magic the Gathering stuff) is on the second floor, around a corner. I'm surprised they don't lose more to theft.

On 12/18/2018 at 2:51 PM, ornithologist said:

Be aware some big-box retailers do not allow for returns on "collectable" products like Magic in particular. I hope its not the case for you. Though FFG should be able to narrow down the account of who snagged the deck on their end.

If the store actually has that policy than it’s no mystery who committed the fraud, it was an employee or owner, not a customer.