MECCG cards in various languages

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nico21000
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Hey there,

I'm planning to post here some 'rough' hi-res pictures freshly baked out of my scanner from various cards that I own in different languages. The purpose is to put in light the eventual differences about illustrations cropping, colours and printing quality.

These are ROUGH scans, no defects cleaning process applied on them. They are made at 1200 ppp, they are HUGE, you can download them with a right click and inspect them at full size on your computer in order to put your eagle eye at work ! :D Please keep in mind that in real size (63 x 88,5 mm for a single card) differences are hard to spot with a 'naked eye'. Cards languages are named from top-left to bottom-right.

So let's start with 'Wolf Riders' in spanish, english and french. The only printed official card (afaik) which illustration 'pops' out of its frame :

Spanish : Very good illustration, a bit softer than the english one. Grain on the rest of the card is 'uniform'. The best of all 3 imho.

English : Very good illustration, a bit crisper than the spanish one with slightly more grain. Grain on the rest of the card is not 'uniform' and shows a load of clearer spots almost forming diagonal scanlines. The 2nd place on the podium.

French : A lot of grain on both the illustration and the rest of the card. Colours are slightly more pale. The 'worst' of all 3.
Wolf Riders.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:12 pm, edited 13 times in total.
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nico21000
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So let's go on with 'Light Drake' in spanish, english and french :

The spanish card has a very thin white border around the wilderness icon, but regarding all the rest, statements are EXACTLY the sames.
Light Drake.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:14 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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nico21000
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'Vilya' in english (Challenge Deck reprint), dutch and french :

English : Very good illustration. Grain on the rest of the card is 'uniform'. The best of all 3 imho.

Dutch : A lot of grain on both the illustration and the rest of the card. Bad.

French : Same statement as the dutch card. Colours are slightly more pale
Vilya.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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nico21000
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'Fellowship' in dutch, french, spanish, finnish and english. Illustrations got various cropping through the different languages and reprints. I know for sure that the unlimited english one has at least 2 different prints and cropping, and the french/spanish one (which is also featured on the limited english version (unfeatured here)) is considered to be 'cannon'.

Dutch : A lot of grain on both the illustration and the rest of the card. Bad.

French : Even worse than the dutch : colours are more pale, characters and objects seem to have a white halo around them...

Spanish : Illustration slightly blurred/softer. Grain on the rest of the card is acceptable.

Finnish : As bad as the french one, with an illustration incorrect cropping. The worst of all. :?

English : Even better than the spanish one. Would probably be the best if the illustration cropping was correct...

I'd really like to put my hands on the german and english limited editions in order to compare. Maybe in a close future...
Fellowship.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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nico21000
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'Magic Ring of Guile' in english and in french. Here we have different expositions, very visible on the borders. The french version is darker.

English : fairly good

French : a lot of grain, here again
Magic Ring of Guile.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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nico21000
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Here, we have 6 versions of the minion 'Arkenstone'.

1,2,3 : Challenge decks reprints, very good. Best material available.

4,5 : 2 different english prints. The first has a standard amount of grain, as intended. The second has some misaligned colour layers causing a thin white line under the direct influence icon an on top of the frame, also with a lot of grain. VERY bad... :( The worse of all.

6 : french. Lot of grain, as expected.
The Arkenstone.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:22 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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nico21000
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Lidless Eye 'Ringwraiths'.

Reprints from Challenge Decks : few grain, very good.

English originals : strangely, even less grain but a little more pale. Better than the challenge decks imo.

French : A lot of grain. Is it pertinent to say that, here again, french cards are among the worse ? :? Colours are also a bit different : the frames are much more 'red' than 'rusted iron'.
Ringwraiths.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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nico21000
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Lidless Eye 'Nurniag Camp'.

Reprint from Challenge Deck : Good general quality, grain is acceptable and uniform.

English original : Grain is not uniform but softer than in the challenge deck. Better.

German : That's the surprise. As good as the english original, but with slightly warmer colours. The best from this batch.

French : As grainy and bad as we expected... :?
Nurniag Camp.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Another thing to consider is different print runs. It's most obvious in Wizards Unlimited, but I've been pulling out cards from my collection for solo decks, and I've noticed that there are hazards from The Dragons that come in two noticeably different shades - one with darker, richer colors, and one that looks more washed out and faded. I supposed it's possible that some were exposed to sun or something (I've bought from several sellers in the distant past, and don't have any pack-fresh Dragons cards to compare), but the color seems consistent enough that I think it's just two separate print runs.

Example:
Image
Last edited by CCG Collector on Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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nico21000
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'Glamdring'. On the left we have the Challenge Decks version. On the right we have the rough unlimited edition version. Although the left card has been remastered by me, the illustration is untouched and straight 'as in the challenge deck'. So let's focus only on the illustration here.

Challenge Deck : darker and maybe a little bit crisper, very good.

Unlimited : more pale, also very good.

I however decided to feature this card for another reason : the illustration cropping and panning is 'wider' in the unlimited version (and identical to the limited version, which we can consider 'cannon'). BTW, please tell me which illustration you like the most. :D
Glamdring.jpg
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Last edited by nico21000 on Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rezwits
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👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻

Looking forward to this...
As of 4/3/21 4:03:21
my current rulings foundation is based on:
All of the rules and rulings found in these PDFs at:
https://cardnum.net/rules
If you have other collected rulings that are not
listed please feel free to email them or PM me...
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Moriquendi
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Here's some comparisons with Japanese versions that I recently picked up. Some cards were extremely noticeable, to the point where I almost didn't even recognize the card. Others, looked about the same. I have a handful of Dutch packs as well and pulled those copies I had for comparison as well.

Overall
- Japanese prints are more on par with Dutch print quality/colors
- Red and Orange colors are much more prominent
- Generally darker print / less fade
- Cropping slightly different on some cards


I'll start with the 4 cards that looked noticeably better to me without even pulling out my ENG LIM versions.
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Moriquendi
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Some were just slightly different:
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Attachments
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Moriquendi
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Last few that I compared
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CDavis7M
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Thanks for all of the pictures guys! I love the comparisons. I missed the original post somehow.

I don't have different variations to compared, but I did find the original art for Wizard's River Horses by Rob Alexander on his website. The detail is amazing compared to the card (obviously). Take a look.

Image

Image

Rob even sells prints for $15.

https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... er-horses/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... warf-hold/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... /isengard/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... as-morgul/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... y-forward/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... -hall-the/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... arbad-the/
https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/ ... -hand-the/
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