u/fromtheroof

I think I’ve figured out a pretty major weakness with Arena Club’s AI grading system, specifically when it comes to low-pop patterned cards like Pulsars, Discos, cracked ice, etc.

My theory is that the AI simply doesn’t have a large enough data set for some of these cards/patterns, especially lower population parallels. Because of that, it seems to struggle distinguishing actual surface damage from the card’s intended design.

I’ve noticed multiple cases where the AI flags “surface scratches” that, to the naked eye, look like they’re just part of the refractor/pattern interacting with the player image or lighting. On cards with non-uniform patterns like Discos or Pulsars, the surface reflections change all over the card, and I think the AI is misidentifying those visual distortions as defects.

What makes me think this is a real issue:

• I’ve seen cards get perfect subs across the board except for surface
• The “surface issue” often can’t even be located clearly in-hand
• The problem seems much more common on certain patterned parallels
• I’ve compared some of these “surface scratches” to the exact same cards graded by PSA and found PSA 10s with the exact same marks/patterns the AI flagged. Since those cards still gemmed, it’s fair to assume those weren’t actually scratches
• Traditional grading companies have years of human familiarity with how these patterns naturally look under light

I’m honestly considering running an experiment:
Crack a batch of AC slabs that got dinged only on surface, then resubmit them to PSA to compare results.

Not saying PSA is perfect either, but I’m curious whether this is an actual blind spot in AI grading or if I’m completely off base.

Also, if anyone else is interested in helping with the experiment or has cards that were graded by both AC and PSA, please let me know. Would be interesting to gather more data and see if there’s actually a pattern here.

Anyone else notice this with certain parallels?