Two independent things get called "variants" and they are worth keeping apart. The first is the finish: whether the card is plain stock or carries a foil layer, and if it does, which foil process was used. The second is the frame treatment: whether the card uses the ordinary layout for its release or an alternate one — showcase, extended art, borderless, a retro frame. A card can have one, both or neither, and the two are chosen separately.
Keeping the axes separate is what stops the vocabulary getting confusing. "Foil" describes a surface. "Borderless" describes a layout. A borderless foil is one card that happens to be both, and it is priced and tracked as its own thing rather than as a version of either.
Know the three finishes a card can be printed in
Card data distinguishes three finishes, and everything else is a variety of one of them.
- Non-foil. Plain card stock with no reflective layer. The default, and for most printings the only finish that exists.
- Traditional foil. A reflective layer under the printing that throws a rainbow sheen across the whole face when you tilt it. This is what people mean by "foil" without qualification.
- Etched foil. A different foil process with a textured, patterned look. It catches the light in a way that reads as less mirror-like than a traditional foil, and it is priced separately from both of the others.
Beyond those three, individual releases have shipped named foil treatments tied to particular products, and the names come and go with the products. They are not a fourth category so much as marketing for a particular look, and they are priced under whichever of the three finishes the data records them as. So the reliable move is not to learn the names: it is to check which finishes a specific printing was actually made in, which a card's catalog page lists alongside its collector number, rarity and language.
One consequence worth internalizing. A printing that exists in more than one finish is effectively more than one object on the market, with a separate price for each. Recording a copy as "foil" or "non-foil" is not decoration on the entry; without it the entry cannot be priced.
Recognize the frame treatments by what each one changes
Frame treatments are alternate layouts a release prints alongside its ordinary cards. The names below are the ones in common use, described by what you can see rather than by which release introduced them.
- Showcase. An alternate frame designed for one particular release, so it looks different from set to set. That is the defining feature: there is no single showcase style, only the style that release chose.
- Extended art. The ordinary frame with the art stretched out toward the left and right edges, so the border along the sides is thin or gone while the text box stays where it was.
- Borderless. The art covers the whole face with no border at all, and the text sits over the art. This is the most obvious of the treatments at a glance.
- Retro frame. An older frame design applied to a newly printed card. It reads as the card being from an earlier era until you check the copyright line or the collector number.
The important structural fact is that a frame treatment is not a property you add to a card. It is normally a distinct printing with its own collector number in the release, which is why identifying the printing and identifying the treatment are the same job. Get the printing right and the treatment comes with it.
Trace where a variant came from
Variants come out of narrower channels than ordinary cards, and where a variant was printed tells you roughly how scarce it is.
Premium products are the main source. Collector boosters and their equivalents in other releases are built around special treatments, so they are where variants are most concentrated; many treatments also turn up at lower rates in ordinary boosters. That is why the same card can be common as a plain printing and hard to find as a variant.
Promotional channels are the other source. Prerelease and launch promos, store and event promos, cards given away with a box purchase and similar giveaways all produce printings that never appear in an ordinary pack, and many of them carry a stamp on the face saying so. Then there are special and supplemental releases that sell alternate versions of cards directly, whose print runs are often set by how many people ordered rather than by a distribution plan.
The practical upshot is that scarcity varies enormously between variants of the same card, and none of it is readable from the card itself. Treat the printing as the thing you record, and let the price tell you how scarce it turned out to be.
Tell them apart with the card in hand
A short physical pass separates almost everything.
- Tilt it under a single light. A traditional foil throws color across the whole face. An etched foil shows a texture and a duller, more patterned reflection. A non-foil does neither.
- Look at the edges of the art. Art running clean off all four sides with text on top of it is borderless. Art pushed out to the left and right with the text box intact is extended art. Art in a window with a border all round is the ordinary layout, whatever else the frame is doing.
- Compare the frame to a normal card from the same release. Showcase frames are only recognizable against their own release, since the design changes each time.
- Read the collector number. Variant printings are usually numbered after the release's main run, so a number above the set's headline card count is a strong hint. Confirm it against the set's card list — the set index will get you to the release and its cards.
- Look along the card, then tilt it. Foils bow slightly more than plain stock, and an etched foil's pattern shows up when you tilt the card into the light. That is a confirmation, not a diagnosis.
If two candidates survive that pass, the difference is on the printed detail rather than the treatment, and the collector number settles it.
Treat the variant as part of the card's identity
Three separate things break if a list records only card names.
Value. A foil, an etched copy and a plain copy of one printing are three prices, and a showcase or borderless version is a fourth object again. Averaging them is not a rounding error; it can be the entire number. This is the main reason working out what a collection is worth starts with the printing rather than the name.
Condition. Foils show wear differently and carry manufacturing marks that look like damage. A bow, a fine print line or clouding inside the foil layer may have come out of the pack that way, and grading a card means separating those from actual wear before you assign a grade.
Storage. Foil stock responds to humidity differently from plain stock, which is why foils curl first in a damp room. If your variants are the valuable part of the collection, they are also the part that most rewards the stable, boring conditions covered in storing cards long term.
Record the finish and the printing at the moment the card is in your hand. Both are read off the card in seconds and neither can be reconstructed later from a name in a list.
Doing this in ManaArchive
ManaArchive records the finish on every copy — non-foil, foil or etched — and prices that copy against its own finish rather than against the plain version, so a foil and a non-foil of the same card never collapse into one line. Frame treatments travel with the printing: pick the right printing when you add the card and the showcase or borderless version is what the entry holds. See how it works if your variants are currently indistinguishable from the ordinary copies in your list.