Magic: The Gathering players were thrown into a panic earlier this week after a user on Reddit posted a picture of some etched foil cards that were apparently damaged by the recently released Unfinity stickers. The discussion quickly turned to the use of sleeves, dozens of users on the social media platform noting how they would never play the popular card game without them, regardless of the circumstances. The whole matter was however nothing more than a tempest in a teapot.
The cause of all the confusion seems to have been the fact that Wizards of the Coast made the stickers for use with actual cards instead of the cardboard display inserts featured in the picture, but the cat by this point was already out of the bag and the comunity was in a state of chaos.
“There's a lot of people shouting down the original poster for not using a sleeve, but guys, come on,” the user known as Dante2k4 somewhat sensibly explained. “While I agree, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a person to expect that this card game company that has been making this very popular card game for decades now would do their due diligence and ensure that they aren't releasing a product that will damage itself. I think most people would realize putting stickers on cards is bad, but if the company that is releasing the cards has designed the damn things for that express purpose? I think it's pretty understandable for someone to expect some amount of compatibility.”
The controversy came to a conclusion when a few enterprising players committed themselves to an experiment. “Don’t know if it does or doesn’t work on regular etched foils, but the etched insert for Commander decks aren’t actually cards, just cardboard slabs,” a person going by the name Zephyr noted. “So, which one of us is going to sacrifice a real etched foil to the cause,” the user calling themselves Nvenom8 asked. “Doing it now,” a certain Buh-Buh-Bacon replied. “It came off clean. No damage to the card,” the same user explained shortly afterwards, posting a picture.
“If it makes you feel better, people who have actually put the stickers on the usual cards we play with say that the sticker doesn't seem to be able to do any damage,” a user by the name of Sentrovasi summed up the situation in a reply to the post by Dante2k4, making reference to the experiment by Buh-Buh-Bacon. “This means that unless you're using the thick cardboard display insert which the original poster is photographing here, you should be fine putting stickers on cards you currently own.”