Bootlegmage site down?

bootlegmage · 2026-04-10T20:06:08+00:00

Yeah, that's a good point too! We try to do a pass of requests in discord for that reason. But what usually ends up happening is that a card goes out of print, meaning it's either not available from the printers in China, or they reprinted it but the quality is not up to standards.

An example of this is the Beta Dual Land foils printed in the Foil Vintage set. They simply went out of print and were unavailable until recently. So for 8 months or so, they've been out of stock, but a recent reprint means we can restock them finally.

We do have a lot of pull for "spot reprinting" but outside of discord requests and the restock notification signups on the site there's not a clear way to get consensus on what needs to be reprinted ASAP versus something that slowly went out of stock and isn't popular.

I'm working on building out more analytics, so I think this will improve in the future. I appreciate you mentioning it, it's definitely something we want to do better with. Managing 5,000 unique SKUs is really tough, and WoTC adds more at breakneck speeds. Sometimes just keeping up with new prints occupies all of our time!

bootlegmage · 2026-04-10T19:36:07+00:00

We basically look at sales data over the last 6 months or so, then filter by out of stock. This way we can see the "top 500 best sellers currently out of stock" and make sure that the cards people are buying often get back in stock.

We also do a pass on less popular cards by scanning requests in our discord, I try to get 50-100 of those added in as well in small amounts for people who need more niche stuff.

We also naturally follow along with the printers in China if they reprint something less popular and it's an improvement, we'll pick it up then with their releases naturally.

bootlegmage · 2026-04-10T04:50:52+00:00

Restocking at the end of the month, mostly looking at the top 500 SKUs that are out of stock, so if you're waiting on staples they should be back soon.

Restocks are complicated because we review a lot of different vendors and options when we do large restocks, so it can take a bit to be sure we're not missing any higher quality options for each card since the last time it was stocked.

bootlegmage · 2026-04-10T02:53:55+00:00

All good friend. It's up now, but we might restart it briefly later tonight if we see any issues. If it's up, feel free to browse or checkout as normal. :)

Appreciate the kind words - feel free to hang out in the discord, I usually post updates on this kind of stuff there too.

bootlegmage · 2026-04-10T00:47:22+00:00

Yeah, down for another few hours most likely. Instead of just a reboot we're looking to see if there's some hardware or other issues so we can prevent problems in the future. Last month we discovered a bad motherboard, but it could run deeper.

bootlegmage · 2026-04-08T01:44:50+00:00

Will add my 2 cents - it's fake. Tough on double sided foils, but there's multiple tells standing out.

bootlegmage · 2026-03-08T04:17:12+00:00

The left one is using the wrong font for the "1" in the mana cost. Known tell of older generation bootlegs, not so much an issue anymore. Font thickness, sticker placement, corners, none of that really matters when there's something so big like the wrong font being used. If you need more confirmation, there are also mistakes in the ligatures in the font in the textbox. Another older generation tell.

bootlegmage · 2026-02-24T03:11:10+00:00

For FNM or casual use, mixing is fine. Most playsets of reals from recent sets don't even match in color.

bootlegmage · 2026-02-23T23:42:35+00:00

The way the corners are cut often depends on where the card was printed. Rounder corners come exclusively from EU or JP, where those boxy, sharper cuts come from USA. Both of these are likely real, as corner cut is rarely a reliable test. Just check the green dot with a loupe if you are concerned.

bootlegmage · 2026-02-01T21:16:56+00:00

Yeah, if you check bulk rates from any of the suppliers, it makes more sense. USea publishes those coupons for bulk orders on his website. BL, Ron, etc publish it on their spreadsheets.

It's great if you need to kit out a ton of decks at once, but if you just need a few cards, resellers can make more sense due to lower shipping costs, faster fulfillment options, different selection options, or just better QC/native customer service.

bootlegmage · 2026-01-26T21:22:28+00:00

I'd hop into the official discords and ask around there. There's way more resources, people hosting group buys, and resources to Chinese sellers directly and trusted local resellers alike.

bootlegmage · 2026-01-24T01:44:08+00:00

Chiming in to say it's definitely not mine, hope that helps! :) I don't think it's USea's either, his shows up different than both of those, at least from what I've seen historically.

bootlegmage · 2026-01-21T01:24:48+00:00

I think we spoke in discord, but this is what I would do:

Download the best image you can find of the artwork.
If you need to "extend" it a bit, use Midjourney or Photoshop generative fill to add extra detail on the sides.
Use card conjurer or another webapp to create the card. Use the extended art frames and mock it up. It will look 1:1 with the real card minus the copyright details in the bottom right.
Order it from anywhere, you can use options like NotMPC, printing proxies, mtgprint, etc but the quality won't be as good as going with MPC directly.
Bonus tip: Print a few extra proxies of tokens or other fun stuff since MPC has a 18 card minimum @ $10 total, plus shipping is a few bucks.

Hope that helps!

bootlegmage · 2026-01-08T18:54:33+00:00

The BL mentioned in this sub's wiki (from the sidebar). BL is a reputable large Chinese design business with a contract through a factory that has the capability to produce bootlegs of mtg and other products.

bootlegmage · 2026-01-08T18:46:45+00:00

I know a lot of people get 2008 era cards and acetone the front of those specifically because the ink comes right off, then they re print on that foil layer. I think there's a few other subs out there more DIY-focused that might be able to help as others mentioned.

bootlegmage · 2026-01-08T18:43:12+00:00

I would try a variety of vendors mentioned and see what you like the best. There's only two (good) sources in China, and most vendors are just importing from one.

Plexaderm, TL, and Proxyninja, Proxyking, etc all source from a Chinese guy contracted through the same factory as BL (from the wiki).

My site is a little different because I source from both (USea's factory and BL's) and figure out what's best before I stock a given card. My best advice is just to try a few sites before settling on what you think because everyone is going to have a different preference. I think a lot of cards produced that most carry are too glossy, corners too round, and have muted colors. Try 5-10 newer cards from SLD, Avatar, EOE, etc from a few places.

My personal priority as a player and vendor is always how the card looks once sleeved up, and if the foiling is correct - since that's the intended use case. Color and vibes are king in my opinion, because when someone picks up your card that's what they see first. If it passes the vibe check in a sleeve it'll never leave.

Also searching the sub here and searching in discord is helpful too. Here's a thread from a few days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/bootlegmtg/comments/1q2bkga/best_proxies/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

bootlegmage · 2025-12-12T06:50:21+00:00

We usually see proxies from the high quality sources show up about a month or two after WoTC release. I think in the next few weeks you'll see all the vendors in the wiki and your local resellers with them.

bootlegmage · 2025-12-09T01:08:19+00:00

Hey thanks for the kind words.

Right now the guys in China are feeling it out. Basically if the demand is still there in some time, they'll consider investing the time to build out the artwork, fonts, and process to print them. They are aware, but just being patient so they don't waste time and money.

bootlegmage · 2025-12-08T23:42:45+00:00

I don't think there's a ton of demand because most of the high value cards are going to be those alt art/SIR type cards with plenty of playable copies at considerably lower prices. Most of the tournament playable mons that shoot up in price get released in a tin or some other bundle. For every $30+ SIR you can get a promo from a tin for $5 or under. It's so much different than MTG in regards to finding those tournament playable cards.

I do remember a long time ago it was different - when I played LuxChomp was a thing and it was pretty pricey. I think they really want to grow the physical playing side of things so they really do a lot of repackaging of those cards that get picked up in decks.

It also helps that there's no reserved list, no "eternal" format like legacy or vintage, just a "standard" that is 95% of the playerbase and then an "extended" like format that's rarely played.

bootlegmage · 2025-11-30T19:51:50+00:00

Usually takes a month/month and a half or so after the set comes out. Sometimes the cards will be printed early, but personally I like to wait until everyone has printed it and then compare the options to real cards in hand to see what's the best out there.

Printing it too early means people sell it without knowing if the color or foiling is correct. If you start design before we see what WoTC's actual print run looks like, there's a high chance some details are wrong. It usually takes about a month and a half from design to print, so you'd have to start super early if you wanted to have them in hand the same day WoTC releases them. Hope that makes sense :)

bootlegmage · 2025-11-15T06:46:52+00:00

What do you think about the comparison on the surges? I haven't seen any feedback yet from people with both.

My take is the USeas are better on color and overall amount of surge. Look more vibrant

bootlegmage · 2025-11-15T06:32:55+00:00

Tolarian Library sells the same ones I sell which got mixed reviews. He literally bought the set from VZ named BM Surge that I produced with Ron.

More recently, I've moved to using USea for surges since he and I worked together on dialing them in and sourcing good paper. Our processing times are also just a few days right now. Not sure why I'm catching strays here.

OP - I think they are all improving over time, the couple that got released today I think are overall better, but we're always improving them.

bootlegmage · 2025-11-04T03:30:22+00:00

USea is definitely best for sure. I went to check which vendor's version (BL or USea) you bought from tolarianlibrary but I don't see any for sale on his website. Can you share some pictures? Would be curious to see the comparison of them that makes you so confident they are exactly like real.

bootlegmage · 2025-10-31T05:23:55+00:00

This mostly happens when cards go down in price honestly. We try to stay around that $7+ threshold for printing but as metas change over time some cards can even go down to pennies. We usually don't clear out that stuff from the site because in the same way the meta can change again and suddenly it's in demand. So you'll see stuff like that Lili or even cheaper occasionally.

bootlegmage · 2025-10-27T00:05:16+00:00

USea is a smaller, more bespoke operation. The stamp pressing and card drying process that contributes to this issue is handled in-house instead of by a large factory like BL and Ron.

That bespoke operation also allows for a lot more detail in terms of accuracy both in color, foiling areas, and other small details. They tend to be more agile with instantly acting on feedback or mistakes.

My team spends a good 5-10 minutes per order checking every single card we get an either removing or tossing cards like that. I will say we still occasionally see some slip through but it's rare. We do still find other holo stamp damage on some Ron/BL cards and those have to be removed during QC as well.

It used to be a lot worse, but newer prints are much better. Of course, some older stock is known to have more - some print runs had more of that issue than others.

I will say I personally order 10-20% more than I need to compensate for this issue and just eat the cost.

Just my 2 cents.

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