Card stock (paper textures)

One way to spot a custom FourSouls card is the texture of the paper. As you can see from the following picture, the official cards present a very even linen pattern, where all of the air pockets are roughly the same size and shape. As opposed to the custom card, where you can notice how the pockets differ in shape, size, and depth from one another.

However, it's important to note that there are some exceptions to this, for example the promotional cute bloat card that was given at a pax convention (with the text "thefoursouls.com") was printed on a smooth paper stock, similar to how magic the gathering cards look like.

Top-down	Close-up

Cold foil

For foil cards, the easieast giveaway is the absence of a cold foil finish.

What this means is that on official foil cards, you will notice some parts of the image with the foil finish, and others are opaque. This is known as "cold foil" or "spot foil".

The process of making a card with this type of finish is much more complicated and expensive, so reproductions of official cards will often be completely covered with the foil layer.

In the above picture, notice how the areas marked with the arrow are foil, while the others marked with the red X aren't.

Light penetration

By shining a light behind the card, you will be able to tell if the paper stock has a black core or not. Official cards DO NOT have a black core, and will block less light.

Known exceptions:

• Gish
• Lil'Gish

Card edges

The black core is also visible at the edge of the card. Official Four Souls cards are fully white (when in mint condition), so if you notice the edges being much darker you can be certain to be looking at a custom card.

Final Notes

Keep in mind that just because a card passes all of these tests doesn't mean it's 100% guaranteed to be official, but hopefully these guidelines will help you identify most of them.

Good luck!