It's important when grading cards to check both the front and the back.

Near Mint

All mint or near mint cards should be virtually indistinguishable from other mint or near mint card, but may have one or more of the following issues on close inspection. The more issues it has the more likely it is to be downgraded.

• Very Minor edgewear or cornerwear
• Minor clouding
• Very Minor scratching
• Minor scuffing of loss of sheen
• Minor printing defects

Played

A played card is one that contains obvious wear, but not more than a few of the following. The more issues it has the more likely it is to be downgraded.

• Any minor amount of whitening
• Any amount of edge or corner wear visible without needing closer inspection
• Minor bends. Foils are allowed slightly more bend that non-foils before it falls into this category.
• Binder Impressions. Any pattern on the card back or front from being in a warm plastic card sleeve/binder page. 

These can also appear on card when too many cards have been placed into the same compartment in a binder for an extended period of time.

Heavily Played

A heavily played card is anything worse than played, but is still playable for tournaments provided they don't contain any of the significant issues covered under Damaged.

• Whitening
• Minor Dirt
• Minor shuffle crease
• Edgewear running full length from one corner to another or multiple long stretches of significant damage on multiple edges
• Significant corner wear
• Any wear or damage that causes indention's on the card
• Minor Binder Dings

Damaged

We do not sell damaged cards on our online store, but will sometimes have it available in person. A damaged card is anything that considers a card marked in an opaque sleeve and they are not playable in tournaments. There are a few other things that make a card fall into this category. These include, but are not limited to:

• Tearing or Holes 
• Water damage
• Bumps, including Major Binder Dings
• Creasing
• Shuffle creases
• Dirt
• Ink
• Any defamation. Damage that causes card layers to separate
• Significant odor including the smell of cigarette smoke
• Other. There are a significant amount of things that can make a card damaged, including folding, foreign substances, indentations felt from both sides, and many others.