I own a small FLGS, i mean small. 1 employee, me. Sometimes my wife or son watch the places for me for a few hours. Small town too, <9,000 population.
I have had a player coming into the shop for about a year now, he was new to magic. He is one of those WAAC (Win At All Costs) players. He has recently decided he is no longer going to buy magic cards, only print them. A while back he asked me about doing this. I explained the difference between a proxy (when you own a card, but play with a fake because the card is valuable, or possibly damaged) and a counterfeit (you do not own the card, and play with a fake). It is against Wizards’ rules for WPN/Play stores for us to allow counterfeit cards for any sanctioned event.
Tonight was my shop’s first night hosting the new Two-Headed Giant Commander format. I was playing with a friend vs this guy and another customer. This guy was sitting diagonally from me (and my eyesight is not great) so i could not really see his cards. I cast something that allowed me to destroy up to two artifacts, so i was looking at his cards to decide what to destroy, when i realized every single card he had out was a fake.
When I kicked him out, he did the typical “but i buy a soda every week from you!” BFD, I make 50¢ off those, 75¢ if i get them on sale,
In almost 7 years of being open i have kicked out 3 players, and banned 2. This guy being the second ban, the first one shit himself and ruined a chair.
I think it’s kind of rediculous that WOTC charges so much for basically what amounts to some laminated paper. The game is cool and well developed, but I stopped playing because the people who win are largely the ones who have the money to buy the cards they want in their deck. I can’t afford to do that. As a small shop owner, that’s not anything you decided to do, but it’s just a dynamic that I consider kind of classist. I don’t personally have any ethical problems with people printing out cards. I do think it’s shady to bring them to a shop that exists to sell those cards though. So there is a lot to consider here. You have to stay in business too and there is a defined economy around how this game works. Anybody is free to develop their own open source version of the game where the cards are encouraged to be printed out. Maybe try explaining some of these things to him. If he is somebody that can’t be reasoned with the ban is warranted. If you can reason with them, then maybe the ban could be lifted.