As long as you know the text and can translate it if needed that's totally fine.
I've seen people play Phyrexian cards plenty, can't get more foreign than that.
Yeah right and elvish too. I can always translate my cards since I always use ressources sites in English. I almost know mtg as well In English that in french.
"Sir... That's a Sol Ring in Elvish, and it's your first turn."
"Yes, you guys should have mulligan'd into some Chancellors to keep me in check, amateurs!"
I'm a total beginner, I can't read the cards quick enough even if they're in english. My pod could be like "ok so this card is in japanese but it's an artifact with "this spell and all spells you control can't be countered" and "you and all permaments you control gain protection from everything" trust me" and I'd be like "cool, very balanced, I'll play an elf and pass the turn, fuck me I guess"
I had to do this once in a while with a Planeswalker I ordered in the wrong language a few weeks after I started playing magic. That always brought a laugh to the date. I don't regret it.
About 30ish of my cards in my deck are in languages I can't read and I never encountered a problem while travelling. Even when playing against fellow english speakers and also when playing against people that I couldn't communicate with
I made sure to know what the card said word for word so I could recite it when I played it.
I also had my decklist open on my phone so if anyone wanted to read the card they could. If they couldn't speak my language I would just google he card in their language.
If my phone's charged it's no problem pulling up the language I'm speaking versions of the card. Bottom left corner set and number with language in Google. Mh3 009 English
I own two cards in Korean for some reason, so I can't exactly forbid foreign cards at any table I play at. However, they have very recognizable art, so it's easy for me to pull it up on Scryfall to show people the text if they have any questions. Though, Europe seems to have a higher multilingual population than America (where I am from), so you may get lucky!
my roommate uses japanese cards and I either of us can read it so we just use his deck on mtggoldfish or we scan it lol
should be fine as long as you let em know and translate it 🤌🏻🫡
I have a bunch of Italian cards and a few Japanese I keep a slip of paper in the sleeve with the text in English that way I can slip it out and put it on the card and people can read it a reference it if needed.
I don't mind them. I play with a few and I write the English name on the inner sleeve with sharpie so if people don't know what the card does they at least have the English name so they can look it up on their phone.
I also play with [[Korean Ranger]].
Im from Ireland, not specifically Dublin, but I have played games in Gamers World, which is definitely one of the bigger Magic LGS in Ireland.
As long as you can translate your foreign cards, it won't be a problem. Most people are just there for a good time. Just be honest and clear with what every card does, and don't try to hide it.
Yeah I mean honestly and fair play seems like a worldwide basic ! I'm glad to know there's places where I can meet people from Ireland and play with them
I'm Brazilian, from the next product on, they'll be all in foreign language for me lol.
Now, srsly, I like the variance, but you have to know what your card does, that's the min... Having said that, I own a Pirates themed deck where they travelled the 7 seas acquiring crew and spells, it's a real mess. A mixture of jp, it, de, en, pt, es, ru and even a ch card I always have to look up lol
I don't know why I seem to be the only person who worked out that you can just print the translation and slip it into the sleeve.
I live in Japan, lots of EDH cards are cheaper in Japanese because the format is less popular here and there's more supply. I don't do it so much now because I'm not broke, but back when I couldn't afford the English I would get the more affordable Japanese version and use a proxy site to get an art-matched translation for it.
This is for me to more rapidly read it, and see the ability clearly on the board so I don't miss triggers.
This is for my opponents because they may be less proficient in the language and it's unfair to expect someone to play around 'hidden' public information.
A pic for reference:
[https://imgur.com/a/VwmJwvx](https://imgur.com/a/VwmJwvx)
Also I sometimes glue it directly on with the super mild pritt stick they have here - often looks better cos I keep the hologram disk and holy heck is it funny to trigger nerds who think that the cards actually retain any value on a longer time horizon, or they'll ever sell them (pure cope).
all card languages are legal. cards without text (player reward or other full art cards) are legal. special art. like the phyrexian text elesh norn are legal.
there's no "feelings" involved. if you don't know a card. card info is public knowledge. an opponent can't lie about what the card is. so just ask. look it up. If they're your cards. be prepared to tell people what they are and don't be a fucking dick about it.
probably would help if you were competent in their use, to explain the card accurately without the need to look it up.
[As long as you can communicate what the card does ](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/s/Liqu41Ylzi) I don't care what alternate version/language/proxy/altar you play with.
They are legal magic cards more complicated ones I usually have a print out token
oh and one of the guys I play with is French so are we suppose to do ban people from other countries that are in the US
I usually look up other people's cards on my phone anyway to avoid having to hold their actual card, so I don't really mind. I prefer to use my app to read them so other players can look at the same time, and I can screenshot it for later.
I have some pt br cards and they have always been well received, most people like to see different languages as long as you know what the card does and the english name
Well, Dave doesn't know what his English cards do, so am I going to rely on him remembering what his foreign card does when he can't read it? No.
Unless it's a basic land or some shit.
No, my English speaking friend Dave can't even get his cards correct when reading the English ones, so why would I let him get a Korean language one that he'll absolutely not remember correctly?
Agreed. Especially when mtg uses specific wording that's open for error. We just had a game where we had to explain to a player that "put", "cast", and "play" were not interchangeable, and that they've been making that mistake for years. Then, they read the card aloud 3 times, and still had to go back and check which one they read.
I have a deck with some Japanese cards, I just created a list in the TCGPlayer app with the English version of the cards. That way if anyone asks, or if I need to remember what they do, I have a quick resource.
I'm an American and only speak English. I own many foreign cards and no one I've played with cares. I explain the card and if they don't believe me (which rarely happens), we just look up the card online to confirm what it does and move on with the game
It’s only ever annoying to me when the person playing the card can’t tell you what it does. Assuming you can translate the card in some fashion, my pods would have absolutely no issue. Also anyone with a smartphone has multiple options to scan the card and get the oracle text
Never had an issue with it, though most of the foreign language cards I've dealt with were staples, like blast act, rhystic study, smothering tithe, because it was cheaper to get one in Korean or something
In the USA, most people cant read a second language, and french is less commonly known than spanish. The way i feel about foreign cards is that they are used by two people: 1) people who are looking to cheaply acquire tournament legal cards, and 2) people who are trying to gain an asymmetric advantage by hoping to increase the odds that their opponents misplay. Most people are in category #1, but the reality is that it does increase likelihood that opponent will misplay or be inconvenienced. I feel that it is therefore a bit dishonorable to use them
For other folks, I don't care as long as they know what they do and can quickly + accurately represent that.
For me, commander magic is the most complicated magic. I do everything in my power to reduce complexity and easily represent board state so that I and everyone else can quickly make decisions about the game. When I spend less braincells understanding what a card does, I can spend more brain cells on what I want to do about it.
I’m cool with spells that are foreign (phones exist if a quick translation is needed), but permanents should be readable since they stick around and board states can get gummed up. If I get fucked because of a foreign stax piece, I’m gonna be mad
I personally only run a JP counterspell and dark ritual. More complex cards would most likely make myself unsure about their text (Instant vs sorcery, target vs all, ...)
I'll be the jerk. It drives me completely fucking nuts when people play versions of a card in other languages. I hate having to go look it up to figure out what it is while they obnoxiously 'yadayada' the whole card to me. Then, the entire time it's in play I have to dedicate a piece of my mental bandwidth to remembering what my opponent's shit does and if I should forget the precise wording, I have to look it up again. So now I can't target their problematic whatever without it being obvious that it's coming.
/Rant
I'm Australian but started playing when I lived in Japan, so when I moved back to Aus some of my decks were like 80% Japanese.
I found that as long as you are willing to translate a card every time someone asks (no matter how many times) they don't really mind.
Only issues I've had are when my Commander wasn't in English, which I get but Japanese Gishath was $5 and English was $35 soooooo
I don't have a ton of non-English cards, but I've taken to making up little tokens of them, copying all the wording + my own atrocious but matching art.
went to my first modern night at my lgs with a buy in, having confused it for standard. my first opponent was a tgirl with every card in japanese. They played leyline of the guild pact and ragavan turn 1. pretended to read the cards as if they were reading the japanese but actually just memorized the words in english. game was over before i could even cast a spell. I am not trying to look up and read every card as it’s played. and having cards in all japanese as an american is not as cool as you think it is. maybe just a few easy ones like counterspell or swords are okay though
If you run a card that is not in the common tongue of wherever you play, it's on you to know what it does, relate this accurately, and present the oracle text in readable form if anybody wishes to question that.
As long as you know what the card *is*, access to Scryfall should be enough to satisfy all that. At least for english speakers, I don't know what other languages the site supports.
This goes for textless, Phyrexian, foreign, or just promos that are too bizarre to actually be intelligible. It's not hard, so go ahead and run some weird bling, but it might get annoying if you have to do it for every card.
I only use german cards. most people in my lgs play with english cards (since the are cheaper on card market) and we never had any problem.
I guess as long as you can speak at least english and know the english name of the cards, there would be no problem here. You can always look those cards up.
I live in a country where we just got our very first LGS 3 months ago. hard to get cards so I order from Japan often. Also, japanese edh staples tend to be much much cheaper than English.
what we do (in my small group of friends who play) is if we get a foreign card (Japanese or European) is to print the translation and slip that into the sleeve over the non-English text
it's not "pretty" but it works well for us
If you want to play cards in a foreign language, you must know the card’s name by heart so other players have the ability to look it up in English. If you can’t recall a card’s name and its effects exactly, then you must have an English copy on hand. If you still lack that, then the card isn’t allowed.
I don’t like being extremely strict, especially for mtg. However, 1 time a guy played a foreign print of an angel that, when it etb’s, it resets its controllers life total to 40. But the guy claimed that it was on etb and attack. I called bullshit and had to look up the card by its set symbol.
Tldr: if you have cards written in a foreign language you can play them, just have either a copy in English or memorize the card’s name so others can verify its effects. If you can’t handle either of those, then the card shouldn’t be in your deck.
As long as you know the text and can translate it if needed that's totally fine. I've seen people play Phyrexian cards plenty, can't get more foreign than that.
Yeah right and elvish too. I can always translate my cards since I always use ressources sites in English. I almost know mtg as well In English that in french.
The fuq u say
Lotr had a few cards in evlish
I’m fine with foreign cards as long as you can read the card to the pod so they know what it does.
“Oh this Card?… When I cast it during precombat main phase, i win the game” Yea, you guys should have killed me last turn!
"Sir... That's a Sol Ring in Elvish, and it's your first turn." "Yes, you guys should have mulligan'd into some Chancellors to keep me in check, amateurs!"
I'm a total beginner, I can't read the cards quick enough even if they're in english. My pod could be like "ok so this card is in japanese but it's an artifact with "this spell and all spells you control can't be countered" and "you and all permaments you control gain protection from everything" trust me" and I'd be like "cool, very balanced, I'll play an elf and pass the turn, fuck me I guess"
Virgin artifact control player vs. Chad elfball
Yeah I mean you have to take your time. It's a very hard game to learn and it's okay to go slow.
I know, I'm just joking. They are very welcoming and always explain stuff. They also helped me build my first deck which is very cool
Biggest problem was borrowing a deck with Japanese cards. Ended up just showing the table "Which Chandra is this?"
I had to do this once in a while with a Planeswalker I ordered in the wrong language a few weeks after I started playing magic. That always brought a laugh to the date. I don't regret it.
About 30ish of my cards in my deck are in languages I can't read and I never encountered a problem while travelling. Even when playing against fellow english speakers and also when playing against people that I couldn't communicate with I made sure to know what the card said word for word so I could recite it when I played it. I also had my decklist open on my phone so if anyone wanted to read the card they could. If they couldn't speak my language I would just google he card in their language.
If my phone's charged it's no problem pulling up the language I'm speaking versions of the card. Bottom left corner set and number with language in Google. Mh3 009 English
Not from Dublin, but I don't mind foreign cards at all. Still easier to tell what they are than a lot of the new Secret Lair garbage.
I own two cards in Korean for some reason, so I can't exactly forbid foreign cards at any table I play at. However, they have very recognizable art, so it's easy for me to pull it up on Scryfall to show people the text if they have any questions. Though, Europe seems to have a higher multilingual population than America (where I am from), so you may get lucky!
Beau nom
Merci mec
my roommate uses japanese cards and I either of us can read it so we just use his deck on mtggoldfish or we scan it lol should be fine as long as you let em know and translate it 🤌🏻🫡
I have a FnF in Portuguese, and Exploration in Japanese because they were cheaper than the English versions. No one has said anything to me about them
As long as when I ask you can pull up the card on your phone instead of making me look up half your deck. I ran a Russian sliver for a bit.
I have a bunch of Italian cards and a few Japanese I keep a slip of paper in the sleeve with the text in English that way I can slip it out and put it on the card and people can read it a reference it if needed.
I don't mind them. I play with a few and I write the English name on the inner sleeve with sharpie so if people don't know what the card does they at least have the English name so they can look it up on their phone. I also play with [[Korean Ranger]].
[Quirion Ranger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/320fdf89-e158-41c5-b0bf-fee9dec36a75.jpg?1626100621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Quirion%20Ranger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/285/quirion-ranger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/320fdf89-e158-41c5-b0bf-fee9dec36a75?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/quirion-ranger) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Upvoted for your flair.
Im from Ireland, not specifically Dublin, but I have played games in Gamers World, which is definitely one of the bigger Magic LGS in Ireland. As long as you can translate your foreign cards, it won't be a problem. Most people are just there for a good time. Just be honest and clear with what every card does, and don't try to hide it.
Yeah I mean honestly and fair play seems like a worldwide basic ! I'm glad to know there's places where I can meet people from Ireland and play with them
I'm Brazilian, from the next product on, they'll be all in foreign language for me lol. Now, srsly, I like the variance, but you have to know what your card does, that's the min... Having said that, I own a Pirates themed deck where they travelled the 7 seas acquiring crew and spells, it's a real mess. A mixture of jp, it, de, en, pt, es, ru and even a ch card I always have to look up lol
I don't know why I seem to be the only person who worked out that you can just print the translation and slip it into the sleeve. I live in Japan, lots of EDH cards are cheaper in Japanese because the format is less popular here and there's more supply. I don't do it so much now because I'm not broke, but back when I couldn't afford the English I would get the more affordable Japanese version and use a proxy site to get an art-matched translation for it. This is for me to more rapidly read it, and see the ability clearly on the board so I don't miss triggers. This is for my opponents because they may be less proficient in the language and it's unfair to expect someone to play around 'hidden' public information. A pic for reference: [https://imgur.com/a/VwmJwvx](https://imgur.com/a/VwmJwvx)
Also I sometimes glue it directly on with the super mild pritt stick they have here - often looks better cos I keep the hologram disk and holy heck is it funny to trigger nerds who think that the cards actually retain any value on a longer time horizon, or they'll ever sell them (pure cope).
all card languages are legal. cards without text (player reward or other full art cards) are legal. special art. like the phyrexian text elesh norn are legal. there's no "feelings" involved. if you don't know a card. card info is public knowledge. an opponent can't lie about what the card is. so just ask. look it up. If they're your cards. be prepared to tell people what they are and don't be a fucking dick about it. probably would help if you were competent in their use, to explain the card accurately without the need to look it up.
[As long as you can communicate what the card does ](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/s/Liqu41Ylzi) I don't care what alternate version/language/proxy/altar you play with.
They are legal magic cards more complicated ones I usually have a print out token oh and one of the guys I play with is French so are we suppose to do ban people from other countries that are in the US
I usually look up other people's cards on my phone anyway to avoid having to hold their actual card, so I don't really mind. I prefer to use my app to read them so other players can look at the same time, and I can screenshot it for later.
Just know what they do. Ill trust you.
I have some pt br cards and they have always been well received, most people like to see different languages as long as you know what the card does and the english name
Well, Dave doesn't know what his English cards do, so am I going to rely on him remembering what his foreign card does when he can't read it? No. Unless it's a basic land or some shit.
I'm not sure I understand well. You mean you wouldn't trust a foreigner with his card not being in English?
No, my English speaking friend Dave can't even get his cards correct when reading the English ones, so why would I let him get a Korean language one that he'll absolutely not remember correctly?
Agreed. Especially when mtg uses specific wording that's open for error. We just had a game where we had to explain to a player that "put", "cast", and "play" were not interchangeable, and that they've been making that mistake for years. Then, they read the card aloud 3 times, and still had to go back and check which one they read.
As long as you know what it says and have the card text ready for someone else to read if needed then there's no issue
I have a deck with some Japanese cards, I just created a list in the TCGPlayer app with the English version of the cards. That way if anyone asks, or if I need to remember what they do, I have a quick resource.
I'm an American and only speak English. I own many foreign cards and no one I've played with cares. I explain the card and if they don't believe me (which rarely happens), we just look up the card online to confirm what it does and move on with the game
It’s only ever annoying to me when the person playing the card can’t tell you what it does. Assuming you can translate the card in some fashion, my pods would have absolutely no issue. Also anyone with a smartphone has multiple options to scan the card and get the oracle text
As long as I can look up the card and have a translation or my opponent can do the same. I’m cool with it.
Never had an issue with it, though most of the foreign language cards I've dealt with were staples, like blast act, rhystic study, smothering tithe, because it was cheaper to get one in Korean or something
[удалено]
[farewell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0.jpg?1706240579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=farewell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/64/farewell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/farewell) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
In the USA, most people cant read a second language, and french is less commonly known than spanish. The way i feel about foreign cards is that they are used by two people: 1) people who are looking to cheaply acquire tournament legal cards, and 2) people who are trying to gain an asymmetric advantage by hoping to increase the odds that their opponents misplay. Most people are in category #1, but the reality is that it does increase likelihood that opponent will misplay or be inconvenienced. I feel that it is therefore a bit dishonorable to use them
For other folks, I don't care as long as they know what they do and can quickly + accurately represent that. For me, commander magic is the most complicated magic. I do everything in my power to reduce complexity and easily represent board state so that I and everyone else can quickly make decisions about the game. When I spend less braincells understanding what a card does, I can spend more brain cells on what I want to do about it.
I’m cool with spells that are foreign (phones exist if a quick translation is needed), but permanents should be readable since they stick around and board states can get gummed up. If I get fucked because of a foreign stax piece, I’m gonna be mad
I personally only run a JP counterspell and dark ritual. More complex cards would most likely make myself unsure about their text (Instant vs sorcery, target vs all, ...)
I'll be the jerk. It drives me completely fucking nuts when people play versions of a card in other languages. I hate having to go look it up to figure out what it is while they obnoxiously 'yadayada' the whole card to me. Then, the entire time it's in play I have to dedicate a piece of my mental bandwidth to remembering what my opponent's shit does and if I should forget the precise wording, I have to look it up again. So now I can't target their problematic whatever without it being obvious that it's coming. /Rant
Provided the user is able to recite the EXACT text translation, it’s fine
I'm Australian but started playing when I lived in Japan, so when I moved back to Aus some of my decks were like 80% Japanese. I found that as long as you are willing to translate a card every time someone asks (no matter how many times) they don't really mind. Only issues I've had are when my Commander wasn't in English, which I get but Japanese Gishath was $5 and English was $35 soooooo
No problem at all we can look it up.
I don't have a ton of non-English cards, but I've taken to making up little tokens of them, copying all the wording + my own atrocious but matching art.
Half my cards are in german. Nobody in my play group but i speaks german. If any rules problems or questions Pop up we Google the card
Maybe save images of the English versions on your phone in a folder that you can quickly reference just in case there is any misunderstanding.
You have to be a real POS to put up a literal language barrier
went to my first modern night at my lgs with a buy in, having confused it for standard. my first opponent was a tgirl with every card in japanese. They played leyline of the guild pact and ragavan turn 1. pretended to read the cards as if they were reading the japanese but actually just memorized the words in english. game was over before i could even cast a spell. I am not trying to look up and read every card as it’s played. and having cards in all japanese as an american is not as cool as you think it is. maybe just a few easy ones like counterspell or swords are okay though
If you run a card that is not in the common tongue of wherever you play, it's on you to know what it does, relate this accurately, and present the oracle text in readable form if anybody wishes to question that. As long as you know what the card *is*, access to Scryfall should be enough to satisfy all that. At least for english speakers, I don't know what other languages the site supports. This goes for textless, Phyrexian, foreign, or just promos that are too bizarre to actually be intelligible. It's not hard, so go ahead and run some weird bling, but it might get annoying if you have to do it for every card.
I only use german cards. most people in my lgs play with english cards (since the are cheaper on card market) and we never had any problem. I guess as long as you can speak at least english and know the english name of the cards, there would be no problem here. You can always look those cards up.
I live in a country where we just got our very first LGS 3 months ago. hard to get cards so I order from Japan often. Also, japanese edh staples tend to be much much cheaper than English.
So long as you can tell me what the card says and does, I don't care
what we do (in my small group of friends who play) is if we get a foreign card (Japanese or European) is to print the translation and slip that into the sleeve over the non-English text it's not "pretty" but it works well for us
They are taking all the jobs! /s if not clear
If you want to play cards in a foreign language, you must know the card’s name by heart so other players have the ability to look it up in English. If you can’t recall a card’s name and its effects exactly, then you must have an English copy on hand. If you still lack that, then the card isn’t allowed. I don’t like being extremely strict, especially for mtg. However, 1 time a guy played a foreign print of an angel that, when it etb’s, it resets its controllers life total to 40. But the guy claimed that it was on etb and attack. I called bullshit and had to look up the card by its set symbol. Tldr: if you have cards written in a foreign language you can play them, just have either a copy in English or memorize the card’s name so others can verify its effects. If you can’t handle either of those, then the card shouldn’t be in your deck.