Misprint

During production, cards are sometimes printed with flaws. In most cases, these printing errors add no value to the card. Cards, for example, that are printed when the press runs out of ink are not misprints. Printing presses cannot be easily stopped, so it's very common that cartridges run out of ink before they can be refilled. While quality control usually prevents this situation, it can happen with some regularity since a press needs some time to refill properly. Cards that have chopped edges or non exact-cuts are not misprints either. After card sheets are printed, precisely aligned blades cut the sheet into individual cards. At some point, the cutting blades dull or misalign, and this results in imprecise cuts and irregular edges. Defective cards are not misprints.

A true misprint results from a malformed printing plate. Usually, the printing plate contains a design error made before the plates were manufactured. Plates are inspected and, if necessary, discarded before card production begins. Unfortunately, malformed printing plates pass inspection on occasion, and some cards print with this error. Once the mistake is identified, the defective plate is discarded and replaced by a new one, and misprinted cards are destroyed before they are packaged. True misprints must escape this last quality assurance also, and their rarity gives them their collectible value.

However, if the printing plate is not destroyed and substituted by a new one, the error cannot be considered as a misprint, since production took the conscious decision to continue printing with a malformed plate. Misprints are supposed to happen by a combination of accidental errors before the production starts. If production continues while the problem is acknowledged and no intervention occurs, there is no error.

True misprints
To be considered as a true misprint, card must be printed from a unacknowledged defective plate. Once the error is reported, the defective plate must be discarded and substituted by a new one which does not contains the same error. The defective plate must be destroyed, so the same problem does not persist.

Examples of true misprints:
 * A "Dark Paladin" from the 1st Edition release of Magicians Force which featured an alternate art intended exclusively for the Duel Masters Guide.
 * A "Goblin Attack Force" from Pharaoh's Servant's has the Earth attribute picture replaced by a Level Star.
 * The "Gold Series" edition of "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" had 3000 DEF, where in reality it should have 3800 DEF.
 * The original printing of Nomi monster "Ocean Dragon Lord - Neo-Daedalus" from Fury from the Deep Structure Deck showed it as a monster that could be Normal Summoned.
 * A "Amazoness Fighter" (Magician's Force version) 1300ATK printed on the card instead of the real 1500
 * A "Counter Counter" (first edition) The card was printed with no counter trap symbol on it.
 * A "Kinetic Soldier" (champion pack version) When the card was reprinted, they mistakenly changed the monster's attribute from earth to light.
 * An "Elemental Hero Wildedge" that listed the fusion material monsters as "Elemental Hero Wildheart" + "Elemental Hero Edgeman" instead of "Elemental Hero Wildheart" + "Elemental Hero Bladedge". "Edgeman" is the translation of Bladedge from Japanese.
 * Colossal Fighter had in a starter deck a poker print over the original print
 * A Dark Assailant had it's name misprinted in SDK unlimited edition, known as Dark Assassin.

Spelling mistakes
There's a small group of cards that originally may be considered as misprints, since they contain a true error accidentally generated before the production began, but once the problem was informed, the company which produces the cards decided it was so insignificant that continued the production using the same plate. As a result, the entire run of this printings contains the same error, so does not longer count as misprints. These cards usually only have one or two letters misplaced, which in most cases are not noticeable. Since there are thousands of these cards in circulation, hardly any can be considered to be misprints. Note this same criteria is also used when printing books, newspapers, advertising, etc. If just one letter out of place were enough to be considered a misprint, then the entire production of printed media should be considered universally misprinted.

Examples:
 * The TLM-ENSE2 "Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End" with "yoru" instead of "your" in its effect.
 * "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8" from Soul of the Duelist has 3 m's in the word "Summoned".
 * "Exodia the Forbidden One" secret version form the Beginners' Duelist Gift Pack. Has "you" instead of "your" in its Lore box.
 * The "Twin-Headed Behemoth" in Structure Deck: Rise of the Dragon Lords English has an extra 0 in its card number (SDRL-EN0010).
 * The "Ice Master" in V-Jump Magazine Promotional Cards Japanese has an extra 0 in its card number (VJMP-JP0023)
 * Riryoku Field from Structure Deck: Kaiba Evolution has 3 l's in the word "Spell" in the lore.
 * "Super Vehicroid - Stealth Union" with the effect stating that it can only equip monsters "you control" instead of "on the field".
 * "Koa'ki Meiru Gravirose" has "you" instead of "your" in its effect.

Production defects that do not count as misprints:
Due to the nature of the printing process, the press needs to be constantly supervised and re-calibrated. The printing plates are supposed to be perfectly aligned respect each other position. From time to time, due to the printing press vibrations, one of the plates loses its proper alignment, producing card with their names, artwork or texts out of their original positions. These cards can be considered as a production failure, but not as misprints, since the printing plates are not defective. The plates just need to be re-aligned.

Also note a massive press cannot be easily stopped. Once it starts to run, it moves as fasts as a train. Stopping a press in the middle of production is an unlikely situation. If the press runs out if ink, the production is not stopped. Usually, the press continues its work while being refilled. For this reason, several sheets can be partially printed with parts of their artwork or texts missing. These sheets are usually located and separated from the rest before being cut and packed, but from time to time few of these cards may reach the streets. Refilling the press can cause the exact opposite situation, cards printed with excess of ink. Both of this situations can be considered as bad quality printings, but not misprints.

Similar as the ink filling problem, the press is fed with several different paper rolls of different weight. The paper rolls are also mixed with an Aluminum foil roll to produce the Yu-Gi-Oh! foil cards. Sometimes, one of the rolls runs out, producing as a result cards thinner than usual, cards that have the foil on top or back of the card, or cards that do not have foil at all. When replacing the paper rolls few cards can be produced thicker instead.

All cards with irregular edges or cards the were cut out of center are not misprints.

Examples:


 * The IOC-SE1 "Gemini Elf" has the name not in the normal spot, instead it is where the stars are.
 * A "The End of Anubis" without title ink in its name.
 * A "Dark Magician Girl" without title ink in its name.
 * A "Raigeki" from Legend of Blue Eyes printed black instead of white.
 * A "Jinzo" from Pharaoh's Servant with no ink on its head.
 * A "Mirror Force" from Gold Series (TCG-EN) cut off center.
 * A "Don Zaloog" from Dark Beginning Series with foil all over the card's front.
 * A "Chthonian Emperor Dragon" from Tactical Evolution unlimited version with foil all over the card's front.
 * A Debris Dragon That has nothing where the name is supposed to be
 * A Jinzo - Returner that has nothing where the name was supposed to be
 * A The Legendary Fisherman has the name overtop the stars.
 * A Paladin of White Dragon that has nothing where the name was supposed to be.
 * A Starlight Road that has no title ink in its name.

Mismatches
Several different printing plates are used to produce one sheet of cards. A plate set for a specific run of cards is usually composed of four plates - one for each color, plus one or two extra plates for the special finish of some cards (gold or silver lettering, shining cover for parallel rares, etc). Sometimes, one of the printing plates does not belong to the same set. By mistake, one of the plates is mounted on the press from a different sheet set. As a result, several sheets are printed with their names switched with other cards, sometimes of different rarity. In these cases, once the error is discovered, the wrong plate is switched back with the correct one and the production continues. In fact, in most cases, this type of error is easily detected during the initial test run of a sheet and immediately fixed, but few cards can be missed and accidentally packed, hence the reason why mismatches can be easily found on the streets. These cards do not count as real misprints for two reasons: the plates aren't defective and there's no need to create a new one and the correct plate simply is placed back on its correspondent position, and in most cases the mismatch was supposed to be part of an initial test printing, not part of the real printing run. These cards were supposed to be discarded before the main production begins (see below Production running tests).

Examples:
 * A "Magic Drain" with the name of "Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer"
 * A "Mad Sword Beast" that has the silver lettering of "Blast with Chain"
 * A "The Legendary Fisherman" that has the silver lettering of "Reinforcement of the Army"
 * A "Snake Rain" with the title name printed in Secret Rare foil.
 * A "Flame Swordsman" that has the silver lettering of "Cyber-Stein".
 * A "Giant Trunade", that has the silver lettering of "Fiend Skull Dragon".
 * A "Gaia the Fierce Knight", that has the silver lettering of "Last Turn".
 * A "Gearfried the Iron Knight", that has the silver lettering of "Kuriboh".
 * A "Wall of Illusion" that has "creature" instead of "monster" in its effect.
 * A "Trap Hole", that has the silver lettering of "Fusion Gate".
 * A "The Forceful Sentry", that has the silver lettering of "Ryu Senshi".
 * A "Contract with the Abyss" spelled incorrectly as "Contract with the Aybss.
 * A "Limiter Removal" that has the silver lettering of "Penguin Soldier".
 * An "Elemental Hero Marine Neos" with the title name printed in Secret Rare foil.
 * A Secret Ultra Rare version of "Gaia the Dragon Champion" in the pack of "Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon".
 * A "Elemental Hero Chaos Neos" that has the silver lettering of "Rainbow Dragon".
 * A "Winged Sage Falcos" (from Spanish language Tournament pack) The name on the card is in Portuguese, but the rest of the card is in Spanish.
 * A "Dragon Ice" that has the silver lettering of "Super Vehicroid - Stealth Union".
 * A "Spell Reclamation" with the title name printed in Secret Rare foil.
 * A "Common Charity" with the title name printed in Secret Rare foil.
 * A "Dark Armed Dragon" that has the silver lettering of "Rainbow Dark Dragon".
 * A "Tri-Horned Dragon" from Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon has Ultra Rare name foil when it should be Secret Rare.
 * An "Infernity Dwarf" that is Ultimate Rare instead of being Ultra Rare.
 * An Elemental Hero Wildheart with secret rare name lettering, but ultra rare foil on picture
 * A Gaia the Dragon Champion with ultra rare name lettering, but secret rare foil on picture
 * A The Fiend Megacyber with the name of Thunder Nyan Nyan instead of its actual name
 * A Mispolymerization that was printed as a Normal Spell Card.

Production running tests
Since preparing the press to print a specific set of cards is a labor that takes several hours, prior to the main run, several test sheets are printed to determine if the printing press has been properly calibrated. This production test includes all possible variations a card may have. The most common is a series of CMYK stripes initially printed to corroborate if the press has the appropriate amount of ink all over the printing roll. Once it has been tested, these production tests are discarded and trashed. However, since cut and packing is part of the entire production line, sometimes few of these test cards can be packed by accident, and are included in few boosters. These tests do not have value at all, except for being a curiosity.

Examples:


 * Any card with plain CMYK color stripes, (no matter rarity).
 * Any blank card with no face, (no matter rarity).
 * Any blank card with no back, (no matter rarity).
 * Any card partially blank, may contain just the artwork or text, but in most cases not both, (no matter rarity).