Editorial policy

How we produce content

Rip.fan’s content is a human and AI collaboration. People set the site’s focus, set the editorial rules every article follows and decide which sites we list. Most of our reviews rest on hands-on tests: the screenshots and notes from our own use of each site come from people, and AI turns them into the review, with each site’s published terms. A few partners are scored from their published pages alone, and their reviews and scores say so. For guides and news, AI tools read the public sources behind each story, draft the article in our house style and run automated checks: facts against those sources, policy compliance and quality. We keep a record of the sources behind every story. Our pages do not list or link them.

Accuracy

We publish facts that trace to a source we keep on record or to data we verified ourselves, with the date the data was checked. Prices and fees are reported as observed on a stated date. Figures from a platform’s own pages carry the date we read them. We do not predict prices and we do not tell you what to buy.

Corrections

When we fix an error we note the correction on the article and update its “Updated” date. We change that date only when the content itself changes. Report an error through the Corrections page.

Partners and sponsors

Partners and advertisers do not review editorial content before it publishes. Sponsored content carries a label at the top of the page. Our Affiliate Disclosure explains how partner links work. Platform scores follow How We Rate.

What we will not publish

Content that frames collecting as a way to make money, that promises any result from opening a pack, or that describes pack openings as anything other than buying a sealed product with disclosed card rates.

Images

Rip.fan uses eight kinds of images, and each says what it is.

• Real cards. Card pages, set pages, guides, the card tools and the card rips pages show real card images from Scrydex, the card data service Rip.fan uses. Each carries a plain-text credit, such as “Card images from Scrydex”. The footer of every page notes that logos and card art belong to their owners and appear only to identify them. An article may lead with a real card, shown alone or in a clear case drawn for Rip.fan, and no card leads two articles.
• Line drawings. Diagrams and how-to drawings inside articles are original line drawings made for Rip.fan, and so are the diagrams on the tool pages, the card rips pages and the pages about how we work, and the picture an article that leads with a real card shares to social sites. Most of the tool diagrams show the tool’s answer for an example, worked out with the tool’s own figures.
• App screenshots. Reviews and the card rips pages show cropped screenshots of partner apps and sites, taken by Rip.fan during its hands-on tests. On a review they sit beside the text they illustrate, with one credit under the text that names the app or site and the day, such as “Screenshots taken by Rip.fan in the Phygitals app”. The small pack pictures beside a site’s name on the rankings, the home page and the card rips pages carry no credit line; each one’s description names the app or site it comes from. A guide or story about rip sites may lead with these screenshots, or show one beside the step it describes, with a credit line that names the app or site and the day.
• Generated photos. The home page’s top story leads with its own real card or image, and a story with neither shows a photo of unbranded sealed packs or graded card cases, generated for Rip.fan with an image model. The rankings, the reviews and each site’s alternatives and how-it-works pages, the card rips pages, and the reviews, tools and guides hubs open with a photo made the same way. These show unbranded sealed packs, empty card cases or card supplies. Each of these pages has its own photo, and the pages about one site share that site’s photo. A compare page shows its two sites’ photos side by side, and a hub’s tiles show the photo of the pages each one leads to. A story or guide with no real card or company image leads with a photo generated for it the same way, of something from its own subject, such as a padded mailer for a shipping guide or a loupe beside an empty case for a guide to spotting fakes. Each of these photos belongs to one article only. Generated images never show a card face, a person’s face, a brand logo or text.
• Company images. A story or guide about a company or one of its products may lead with that company’s own press or product image, such as its logo, a box, its set art or one of its own cards, taken from the company’s own press release, newsroom, product page or media kit. Rip.fan hosts its own copy, resized and cropped only, never altered and never linked, with a plain-text credit that names the company, such as “Image: Upper Deck”. Each one is screened like the words on the page, and an image with a word or a subject Rip.fan never prints is left out. Rip.fan never leads with a grading company’s image, and a rip site’s logo appears only as its logo tile. An article with no such image leads with a real card or a photo generated for it. No two articles lead with the same image: a company logo or product image leads one article at most, and a story or guide whose company image already leads another article leads with a product image or a photo generated for it instead. A partner’s review that has no screenshots of ours may show, below the fold, pack art or a share image the partner publishes on its own website, hosted by Rip.fan, cropped and resized only and credited the same way, such as “Image: Gotya”; art that shows a card maker’s logo or a card face is left out.
• Pack images. The pack explorer and the shop show each pack’s own image from the rip site’s own pack pages, such as the sealed pack or box the site shows for it. Rip.fan hosts its own copy, cropped and resized only, never altered and never linked, with a plain-text credit that names the site, such as “Image: Phygitals”. A pack image keeps the site’s own name or mark as its pack prints it. A pack image that shows a grading company’s logo or label, a card face that is not the pack’s own art, or a word Rip.fan never prints is left out, and that pack shows its name set in Rip.fan’s type instead. The card rips pages show a few of these pack images too, with a credit that names the site.
• Logo tiles. The rankings, the home page, the card rips pages, the compare tool and the alternatives pages show each listed rip site’s logo beside its name: its app icon from its App Store listing, its wordmark cut from a screenshot taken by Rip.fan, the logo file it publishes on its own website, or its name set in Rip.fan’s type. A logo is never a link. Product and company names, and their logos, appear only to identify them.
• Topic logos. The home page’s topic tiles show the official logos of what each topic covers: the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS logos for sports cards, the Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece Card Game and Disney Lorcana logos for those card games, and the Pokémon logo, with one real card from Scrydex beside it. Each logo comes from its owner’s own site or press pages. Rip.fan hosts its own copy, cropped and sized only, never altered and never linked, and the footer of every page notes that logos and card art belong to their owners. No grading company’s logo appears on them.