Reading Dumb Comments About Proxies
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.พ. 2024
- Remember kids, Proxies are a gateway to older formats. Ask your parents permission first!
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I love the "You wouldn't proxy a car" argument, beucause yes I totally would. If I could just press a few buttons on my laptop and get a car that ran fine and looked however I want but had 0 resale value, all for the price of a sheet of paper? I'd do that in a heartbeat
Right? If I could resell, sheesh, I'd have a factory running and selling at discount 😁
Probably more road-safe than a Tesla, too.
Right? I would, in fact, spend as little as possible on my shelter and accessibility options - yes. Of I could proxy food I would as well. It turns out that money is, in fact, a barrier to necessities
With the fact that 3d printing is becoming more common and the technology for it is just getting better, I wouldn't be surprised to hear in a few years from someone 3d printing all the pieces and constructing their own vehicle so even that argument will soon be pointless
@@Skelegoblin I think finite resources are more of a barrier than a medium of exchange 😂
My room mate got 10000 worth of edh stolen from his car in a smash and grab. He now proxies all the time because why make yourself a target?
Oh damn that means he probably met the perp at some point. Sad
This is a fear of mine, I have tons of decks but I usually only take 3 to commander nights because of this.
Dude who leaves a 10k collection unattended in a car!?
@@BrodyTwiceive had shot stolen while I was moving. People will steal anything too, i had a sketchbook and art supplies that had no resale value stolen at the time and 2 books that you could get for a dollar and a religous statue that probably only had meaning to me during the move. It all happened in less then an hour while I was away from the car and had it locked. I was going to my friend to have him help me move it.
My friend and I were talking about legacy/vintage and I said I would be willing to spend a decent amount on counterfeits to actually take anywhere and leave the real cards at home for this reason. Playing those formats basically makes you a target for theft automatically
"You wouldn't proxy a..."
In *THIS* economy? Yes. Yes I fucking would.
two of the things that pushed me into proxying were
1. being able to "give" decks to friends getting into the game that were of a similar power level to mine without bankrupting myself as a taster of what Magic is (they now spend more than I do on paper).
2: being able to run high value cards in decks that I wasn't certain they would work in before committing to buying them. Do not need to repeat the feel bad of shelling out for a card, playing it once and going "ah, this does not do what I thought it did, into the binder you go then" and then not being able to find a trade or sale for it until the value crashed post rotation
Those are pretty reasonable yea. Especially the first one with people who don't have any collection to work off of.
The line I've always used is "I want to play against you, not your wallet." As long you aren't using them to pub stomp, I have absolutely no issue with proxies. Even in that instance, it's the pubstomping that's the issue, not the proxies.
What you are saying to a player who has been collecting since 1996 and bought a heavily played Beta black lotus for $800 many years ago is that you don’t want to play against my extensive collection of Magic the Gathering cards and ability to trade in 1 beta dual land to finance a $10K cEDH deck unless you can build your deck with any fake cards you want to print out from your computer for free.
@@seanhardner5842 No they said what they meant. You're just whining about being old and heavily invested in the game either financially or emotionally. I don't see what fun you could possibly get out of playing with automatic advantages based on nothing but accessibility of game pieces. Basketball wouldn't be very competitive if the team with the most money got to have their hoop lowered in height by half before each game started. It's childish. Real "you're not letting me win" with tears in your eyes energy.
no one cares what cards you own mate ... no one
also black lotus aint legal @@seanhardner5842
@@seanhardner5842that’s not what they said at all lol
@@seanhardner5842 Would you want to play chess against someone who had queens instead of pawns, while you had to use the standard setup?
Premium-price official proxies threw the concept of no proxies directly into the sea.
I love proxies. It makes all players be able to play any card no matter their income.
I hate having proxies, but they're still so useful for tests before making sure i buy the real cards (my 4th Underground sea is a proxy for the time being :( but it still produces black and blue mana 😅
If you allow proxies of everything then it’s not a CCG anymore.
I hate them, but with the way Hasbro has been doing us, IDGAF if you proxy basic lands.
@@seanhardner5842 Fine by me.
good. i wanna play a fun commander game and not ur strange ccg game anyways @@seanhardner5842
Wasn’t Magic 30 just proxies? Because of the card back and just how they looked. So Wizards seems fine with printing them.
Yes, they were simply "official" proxies. I firmly believe Magic 30 was a tipping point that pierced the veil of the myth that these pieces of cardboard are inherently valuable. To the world of collectors, maybe. For just playing the damn game? Hell no. Proxy everything. Wizards has flat out admitted that it's all a sham by their creation of Magic 30.
I stopped playing many years ago. Most of my EDH decks were what I had. Did I about proxies then nope. I did buy a few cards for Mono red EDH but just to sat on theme. I personally wouldn’t spend more than $50 on card even if it fits better. Just not my thing nor did I have much income for that being a college student.
no, WotC has made official non-tournament legal cards since the start of the game. Go look at prices for the Collectors Edition, Championship Decks, etc...
No no no, you see those were "good" proxies, becuase they make Wizard the Money, not your local Print-Shop.
Indeed
The last argument about proxies diluting the look of mtg is so funny to me. I personally dislike Universes Beyond for exactly that reason and I actually use proxies to make UB cards that I want to play look like actual magic cards.
Do you have some examples?
@@MentalCrusader For example I turned Rick from the Walking Dead SL into Djeru.
@@thesp1r1tdragon55 I really liked the markups people did when it came out, turning it into an Odric
This is why fakes are great. You can just write a P or Proxy on the front so if you die, your family doesn't accidentally sell the fake.
Yeah, at this point some cards are so obnoxious and weird looking I just can't take this argument seriously.
The funniest proxy story amongst my friends is someone cursing that why isn't Deadly Rollick an instant.... Yes they seemed to have printed a nerfed version. A quick sharpie later and we were back on track
This is the only reason why I can understand hating proxies- user error leading to printing an incorrect version of a card.
But even then, there are programs like Card Conjurer that automatically import the data from Scryfall to avoid this exact issue! It's awesome.
On a similar note, if I'm playing a card from like 2005 that has never gotten a reprint, being able to put the modern Oracle text onto a proxy is the best thing ever. No one has to suffer from bad card text!
@@Aigis31 I've proxied some pretty cheap cards for that exact reason! A lot of the people I play with are still relatively new to the game, and having outdated card text just makes games more confusing
@@Aigis31 On the other hand the only problem that I have with proxies is when they are poorly made and not as legible. It's nice to be able to identify a card at a glance by familiar art and have the rules text easily accessible. If I have to keep referring to the oracle because you just wrote down the name of a complicated card on a land, it can slow the gameplay to a crawl.
I did something similar. Was playing a Shadowspear when I noticed that it said it costs 3 mana to cast...
In general people who say "You shouldn't Proxy ever" are usually being classist. There was a commander event held at a bar/restaurant around here some time ago. It was considered an "okay" place to play. People could be kind of salty. Well proxies started making their way into the local scene in a big way. Some people who had wanted to try cedh were finally able to. One of the girls who used a few proxies in her deck beat the owners son. Keep in mind he is a grown ass dude of 20+. When he lost the game, he lost his mind. He starts shouting saying she shouldn't be able to play those cards she can't afford. He wouldn't have lost if she didn't have access to those. In his mind, he worked hard, saved money and bought these things, and she cheated by just having access to them. "Why not just save up and buy them?" His parents are wealthy and pay for his college and cover his cost of living.
The concept that people could just not have had the same opportunities as him just could not compute. "If you have to spend your money on other things, then why play magic?" The thought that poor people might want to play this game was also something that did not compute. All he saw was that he, the rich, lost to them, the poor. He then proceeded to tell his parents, who knew nothing of the game or really did anything with the tournament, that he doesn't want proxies in the restaurant and so they said there was now a no proxy policy. He then went around trying to find other stores where they are used and contacted wizards on them. He was on a crusade, what's worse is he thought this was morally the correct thing to do. When people stopped showing up to the meet ups at the restaurant he then blamed everyone else.
If you really want a test of skill, you should allow people access to the game pieces. I do understand that if we are playing on some professional stage then yeah, you need tools for work. But for some people hanging around a store messing around on a friday night? Who cares really? Don't try to sell me a counterfeit card, that is wrong. You are misrepresenting what you have. But if you sell me a hypnotoad gitrog monster for a few bucks? Cool.
It feels like every time proxies, or the idea of them end up near one of my groups someone will build insanely meta/high tier instead of something they would have actually thought of creatively.
We play with an online game sometimes, and allow our newbies to proxy decks they don't own there. We try to set a price limit to keep it more interesting and fair for everyone.
If it's a physical thing at a lgs that's like a tournament I'd probably see more of a reason to not allow them though.
that's the exact issue my card group runs into. It starts as a class issue but then as soon as you open the floodgates it becomes a sweat fest rather than a fun game. There's also the lack of creativity like you mentioned where it's mostly infinite combos they saw on commander's quarters or a turn 1 urza combo. Like ok you wanted better cards but now you're eclipsing the entire group's combined deck value. It's better to have a proxy binder of sorts (this only works with a close group) where people put in good cards that have been agreed upon to be proxied either because they're staples such as sol ring or because they're expensive. That way the power level never goes higher than a certain point.@@lazarustea
@@eddiemarohl5789 ima be real, at the end of the day magic is a bad medium for the type of board game esque experience edh players are looking for, id genuinely recommend trying a group game of wingspan
Totally true. However this is yet another indicative of the biggest problem the game has. The card rarity, tied to the card power level makes it so whoever has the rarest (and hence, strongest) cards will win most of the time. On one side of the issue, the rarest cards will resell for more or require more purchases to get on a gbooster, making the game what it is, a pay2win scheme.
On the other side, removing the rarity and making every card available to everyone would make it so the design of the card needed to be toned down to balance better the game, the game as it is right now is not made to have every card at everyones's disposal.
WOTC will never tone down the card design, because that won't sell boosters, so the game is stuck at the same place, either you play casual with other people equally inclined to NOT sell their cars just to get a couple printed cardboard pieces, or you spend a lot and play wiith people who also spend that much.
This flaw is one that the industry in general has been correcting for a long time, with various degrees of success.
yup, we solved this issue by starting to cube instead of play commander @@eddiemarohl5789
IDK why MTG can't find the balance like Pokémon has. You can build the best deck in standard for like 70 dollars, or you can go absolutely ham on old and cool secret rare versions and spend thousands on the same exact deck. For example, a 5th place Charizard ex (most popular in standard) deck can be about 66 dollars for cheapest versions and 2300 dollars for someone with nothing better to spend money on, and the decks function IDENTICALLY. Where is this in MTG? Wizards is too busy pandering to 1% of the 1% who have all the old cool products still sealed or graded black lotus. People can get as upset as they want but the game is meant to be played. Proxies FTW, and fuck the reserve list.
Ngl ever since mtg got collector booster prices dropped like a lot, compared to prior, any non alternate or minimum foil card ist worth less than Bucks, a few mythics will be around 30-40.
Would agree that the prices for non amazing artwork cards could still be lower but wotc tried their best to print every card into the below 1 Euro range.
@@anblueboot5364 tried their best lmao. Shelly is 80$
@@kirkprospector4958 Shows no sign of slowing down either as it wedges itself into every legal format.
@@anblueboot5364 Most average cards are less than 1 Euro regardless of age unless they're super hard to find and don't get reprinted. Any card designed to be a staple will still be expensive, it's just not every rare or mythic is actually designed to be a staple.
Because MTG doesn't have a truly global collector's market like Pokemon, people seem to forget that before the covid boom Pokemon was an expensive game too (Not as much as MTG but still, Shaymin EX was a $70 card, Tapu-Lele was like $50?). Prices went down because Pokemon has way more collectors than players now, thus making the special versions the chase cards, unlike MTG where prices are set by gameplay reasons (That's why, even when there are like FIVE versions of Sheoldred, the card is still in the $100 range, different treatments barely making a dent in the price). I'd argue it's impossible for MTG to reach Pokemon levels of price simply because MTG doesn't have the same weight as Pokemon, you don't hear kids talking about how cool Sheoldred or Ragavan is.
My remorse over printing Proxies pretty much died the moment WotC released their own proxies for beyond premium prices.
After they released the 2nd or 3rd Universes Beyond Set I made some bloodborne-themed Proxies (instead of City of Brass, City of Yharnam and instead of Toxrill I made Ebrietas, spawning little Celestial Childs etc.) and at first I thought how very out of place those cards might appear, but in the end they fit more than Walking Dead, Stranger Things or Transformers Creatures, and they look cool.
P.s.: RIP Card Conjurer
Cardconjurer still works, people on the mpcproxies subreddit use it
At least there's always the CC repository in git hub
Hell yeah, bloodborne proxies sound rad as fuck
I'm primarily a casual commander player. For me, whenever I run games at my house or I'm playing with friends, my general rule for proxies is "as long as it's legible or you know what the card does, and as long as we have the rule zero talk regarding power levels and reasonable expectations therein, use whatever you want". I never want my friends to feel like they're not allowed to enjoy a game or experiment with new strategies or broaden their artistic skills with proxy alters just because they don't have the cash to splurge on a luxury cards game. However, whenever I go to an LGS or event, if I'm running proxies, I tend to have a self imposed rule for myself of "Have at least one copy of whatever cards you're proxying", and I always make it clear to the playgroups I'm with that I own the cards I'm proxying, I'm just using proxies as a convenience measure to not have to unsleeve/resleeve the cards over and over again. If they ever want to see the original copy, I'm more than happy to show it to them, but I've been incredibly fortunate that the groups I've played with have always been very kind and trusting, so I haven't had to do that yet. I'm privileged to be in the position where I can afford to buy the cards I use and I want to be respectful of the people who value this game from the collectability standpoint, but at the end of the day, I just want to play games, and I respect anyone just looking to do the same however they can.
Ya we play at the bar because the core group who started there all played for years and we're just burnt out by the people at LGSs. We all run whatever we want and are stoked everyone else does the same. All proxy, no proxy, some proxy... Doesn't matter. We all have fun. Biggest problem player is the one dude who plays no proxies but always fields one of the best decks. Everyone m kws to kill him first. He would never bitch about it either. I remember the first day this one dude saw us playing. Came up and said "hey are you guys playing commander? I have tired to get into it but I'm new and dont know what cards to buy." Then told us about how he had a small collection but never played because the people at his store tried to gate keep him into not playing any proxies. Long story short, he comes every week, plays mostly proxies... Which are mostly TIMMY JANK and he's a great kid.
I guarantee if someone could effectively proxy a house that functioned in the same way to a regular house, and they'd almost certainly face no actual consquences from using them (as is usually the case with proxied cards) - sooo many people would proxy a house/mansion, or a Lambo, or a yacht.
Like, when it comes to cars (without the D), a lot of people do actually care about the performance - but a lot of people mainly care about the look. I bet you could actually make quite a killing if you ran a car company that sold supercar-looking cars (ie. PROXY SUPERCARS) that had the performance - and, notably, the price tag - of a regular coupe on the market.
Just proxied six whole commander decks through MPC for £150 - really weird how jeweled lotus, fierce guardianship etc. cost the exact same as commons
"I BUILT THIS DECK IN A CAVE.. WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS"
Hah! That comment about the turn 2 win proxy deck brings back memories. I used to have a legacy Manaless Dredge deck in my bag at standard nights. Sometimes at rotation people would complain that all cards should be "legal" and it was BS that some of theirs don't count in Standard. To illustrate why, I'd challenge them to an everything is legal match. They'd play one land and pass, I'd goldfish for ten minutes before killing them.
That's why. 😂
hey, manaless dredge gives your opponent the ability to get *two* lands into play :p
... unless they got a combo that's usable at instant when I wasn't looking. Dread Return is a sorcery, right? isn't their fastest win combo bottlenecked by it?
edit: bottlenecked by discard to hand size (which you can't do turn 1 on the play), then dread return next turn
the overall statement is still meant to be facetious
Used to run a meme turn 0 deck back in college in between FNMs and EDH nights using leylines, petals, dark rits and gemstone caverns to ad naus during the first upkeep if I was on the draw or using a different black source turn 1 if I was on the play.
I have historically been against proxies because my brother would proxy a dozen $500 cards and stomp me with an OP deck I couldn't beat, but that's more of a gripe with power level balancing. Proxies are fine as long as you don't use them to stomp someone's budget deck into the dirt
This is actually what it's almost ALWAYS about. If I proxy snow basics no one would give a damn.
The answer to that problem is to proxy your own $500 cards. Then you only have to worry about the wizard's terrible power balance.
@antoniomromo see that's the same facetious argument made by one of the comments the video was making fun of. Answering a busted proxy deck with a busted proxy deck is still a breach of the social contract. That's like saying 'If you're so upset you can't use your boat because he hit it with a cannon, why don't you shoot holes in his boat too?'. I just want a heads up before someone brings military hardware to a fishing day on the lake. Powerful cards are great and I love playing eternal formats and CEDH, but bringing that to play against budget crabs tribal is still a dick move
I mean if he owned the strong cards the outcome would still be the same.
There are also expensive cards that just aren't great lol
@@DaveyDAKFAE Yep, the answer to this is to just actually play to your group's power level, proxying or not. The effect is no different than running a real cEDH deck in a low power game. The people who make that argument are themselves the ones who will just run their maximum power decks every time in the hopes of stomping their opponents, so they expect everyone else is just going to do the same thing.
Personally, I have several proxied low power decks alongside my cEDH ones - which I'm never going to pull out unless it's at a table that specifically decided on playing cEDH. No need to spend hundreds on some silly deck that I will only pull out when I sit down at a table of precons or something, nor on my 17th no-tutors, no-combo, no-fast mana average power level deck that needs a 6th copy whatever $20 card.
I wouldn’t proxy while the game was affordable. That means something different to everybody, but I for one will never pay more than 20 dollars for a single cardboard piece in my 100 card commander deck.
I didn't proxy when it seemed like it made a difference. When it felt like I was putting money towards the long-term sustainability of Magic. Nowadays it's patently obvious that the long-term plan is to keep increasing the speed of the money train until it derails and all the C-levels get to ride their golden parachutes out of the flaming wreckage. There is nothing I can do (or even that the entire playerbase can do) that will ever be so harmful to Magic as a brand as Hasbro's business plan, so I really do not care to participate in their delusion that infinite money is a thing that is possible to get.
@@Kleion_RFBBrother, PLEASE PREACH LOUDER
That plus its just going to Hasbro so they can fire more of the people at wizards.@@Kleion_RFB
Yeah I agree, if I get a $20 or more dollar card from drafts or what not, great. But otherwise I proxy. I enjoy having the real card, but generally I don't feel like I should need multiple for decks. Like if I have a triome ~$20 and need another for another deck I prefer proxying instead of switching it each time I play the different deck. And no way am I buying a $20 land or a $20 second of any card.
@@Kleion_RFB Hell yes. Well said!
As I get older and adult responsibilities catch up to me I just don't have the disposable income I used to. I proxy and have no shame or moral obligation. But I also only play with friends at my
LGS
I like owning cards. It makes me feel committed to my decks. Otherwise I would probably throw most of them away after the first game and never bother learning what makes a deck tick. I can build 20 decks a week, I need some restrains. But that's a personal thing. I also like owning and gushing over my shiny stuff. So I don't proxy at all.
I don't care much what my opponents use though as long as I can identify (and preferably read) the card. Some minimum effort.
same tbh. ive proxied 4 decks now without flinching, at both casual and cedh levels, but my jhoira weatherlight captain deck will always remain 100 percent real cards. it's a point of pride and happiness for me
MTG 30 was the tipping point for my regular play group. We adopted a rule of 10 proxies per deck, but any proxies that are copies of cards we own 1 "real" version of don't count against that limit. Some folks in the group initially worried about "what if you proxied this card, or that card" and if it would have game warping outcomes. Honestly, I don't think we've had more fun than when we enabled ourselves to try out new stuff without having to invest tons of money upfront for luxury cardboard. In many cases, we've ended up chasing down the "real" versions when we have money to throw at cards and our LGS's have them in stock
My friend just recently started proxying cards. Totally fine with me. I just want to play
The player who has only spent $100 since Judgment and their best card is a Coat Of Arms...I've talked to very similar minded people who in entirely different context are belligerently angry at players with expensive cards. They held an equally high moral ground on not spending lots of money on cards. One that stands out was when Jitte was in Standard and I suggested a guy I was playing against in a tournament get Jittes for his white weanie equipment deck. He went off.
The thing I was trying to explain and he could not grasp was that I never bought my Jitte, I traded for them. I rarely had money to spend on cards, and acquired everything either by trading or using tournament winnings (mostly trade.)
The power level argument is always amusing. We had a guy that would complain about proxies at an LGS's commander nights and would make that argument... he would actually say that power level wasn't real, only budget, etc. Saw no problem with tutoring up a devoted druid combo against precons, because it was unique and low budget since he was winning with some random pump card instead of walking ballista. He once told my brother he couldn't use his heavily proxied casual deck. His attempt to pretend he was totally happy with losing on turn 2-3 and it was perfect fair magic as intended when my brother pulled out his all real card cEDH deck instead was quite amusing.
The perfect punishment for an asshole who complains about proxies
With my salary what it is, proxi is the only way I can get new cards without the copium of “it’s just one card” that would result of me not saving up any
Great job diving in to this topic! Your breakdown on proxies is both interesting and hilarious. Thank you!
As much as I love Magic as a game, I've been always sad that it is the precursor for both lootboxes and pay2win schemes. It's undeniably true that if you spend a lot more of money you'll win a lot more times, even if it's not 100% sure, it's closer than people who spend less.
For me, I love to make custom basic lands and I do make some proxies from time to time, but I always aks for permission from the other players before using them. Most people I play with have no problem with that.
Proxies, particularly when they're tastefully creative and respectful of other player's experience (so, no, your hentai doubling season does not count) are magnificent. If you don't let friends play with proxies, you are a selfish friend.
I'll swap it out for my overly not hentai doubling season in that case.
I used to play with a group that had an entire cube of proxied cards, the high quality Chinese ones. I did not care at all, because it meant I could riffle shuffle a deck with multiple moxen, library of alexandria, etc, without fear I was damaging someone's thousand dollar cards. All of his proxies had PROXY **NOT FOR SALE** prominently displayed, and he made sure to take inventory after every game to make sure everything made it back into the Cube box, but really everyone at the table just wanted to play with the good stuff without tapping into the kids college funds. Personally, I just don't worry about whether or not other people agree with or disagree with proxies. They can spend their money how they choose to. I don't play in tournaments, I don't play competitive, I just want to get to the table and play with my friend group.
If I'm being 100% honest, some of the Chinese cards actually felt higher quality than actual real Magic cards. The foils especially.
Inregards to cars: people DO proxy them. There are literally video games where you can drive these high end cars and simulator chairs you can buy to simulate actually driving the car
You can't drive a proxied car in real life, you tried though
@@omeganova4332and you can’t play a proxy card in a tournament.
@@omeganova4332 you should probably learn about kit cars. Particularly the ones where you turn your old Fiero into a Ferrari Testarossa. You can absolutely drive proxy cars in real life.
@@robmitchell3039That actually sounds really cool! Instead of just buying your Ferrari you make it yourself. I bet a lot of the people who do that probably have more pride in ownership than those who just buy it straight from the factory. Probably still expensive, but hopefully less so than a factory-made one
Nowadays in my playgroup we mostly play a full proxie'd vintage cube with all the good stuff. It costed us a few hundred sleeves and some bulk (we put a sheet print on top of a bulk card in a sleeve, with a good printing quality the result is bluffing ) and basics, and we are set.
The gameplay is the best i have ever had with MTG. We all fell in love with cube, especially the vintage style one's. We could have never afforded a cube like that, ever. So, outside of tournament play, proxies are great, and let everyone enjoy playing the format they want with their friends, without having to make a 10 years loan to afford, in exemple, a vintage cube.
Do you have a list or know any kind of resources to building a vintage cube? It's been something I've always wanted to give a shot but I'm not sure how to even begin.
I was thinking about starting with a pure alpha one in digital and just kind of eyeballing it but any help would be appreciated.
i did the same thing. it was work, that's for sure, but it was a labor of love. and there's no way we could ever experience it without proxies
I used to be anti-proxy when I first started playing commander, I think it was misdirected at the fact that the proxies used in my group were usually insanely powerful cards that the rest of our group didn't play or entire decks proxied up that the player didn't take the time to figure out, which made our games a lot longer. But now that I moved back to playing pokemon, especially GLC (pokemon commander) I think proxies are absolutely fantastic for the game to keep everyone on an even playing field and that my initial gripes with proxies weren't the fault of the proxies themselves, but their perhaps improper utilization.
My mtg group at college only used proxies. We would print out the decks and slide the printed card over a bulk card in a sleeve. Worked well for trying all kinds of decks without spending hundreds of dollars.
I still do that. I get 500 free pages of printing each quarter and not much else to use them on since all the assignments are online now.
I proxy cards when I already have 1 or more copies of them already. Why spend $40, $50, $60 on a card when I already have some? 🤷♂️
same, That or if I have the card and a proxy site has a hilarious version of it. Like my vannifar having Fred from skooby doo pull off the mask to reveal that vanni is just birthing pod on a stick.
I have 1 real copy of Ragavan and 3 proxies of it because of that
The next step is realizing that you don't have to waste the original $50 either.
Just came across a commenter on a cedh reddit post. everyone in the subreddit agreed that disallowing proxies is essentially gatekeeping people out of high end cedh. Clown response: "you can simply optimize your deck using cheaper cards" stating there after any optimized deck is competitive.
Then this video came out. Great timing
As I understand it, Kenobi gets his ideas from online discourse so it’s very likely he’s seen something online that spurred thisbon
As long as the card is legible and (preferably) recognizable, proxy away.
I've been going through almost all my edh decks and proxying anything $10 or up and have yet to meet anyone that has had an issue with it.
I think the underlying reason is that people hate in proxies when the people they play with have free spells, edh staples, and/or fast mana in every deck. At that point I'd say it's just a rule 0 issue
I would argue that this is a power balance issue, not a proxy issue.
I completely agree with legibility being important. Commander boardstates can get pretty wacky, and I'd honestly rather play against someone with a full deck of clear, legible proxies than someone with lots of old cards with outdated oracle text or the less legible secret lair cards.
@@antoniomromo I think an argument can actually be made about proxies opening the floodgates to power balance issues. If proxies become normalised, it's very natural for players to optimize up their decks to very high power, since there's literally no incentive not to
It feels like every time proxies, or the idea of them end up near one of my groups someone will build insanely meta/high tier instead of something they would have actually thought of creatively.
We play with an online game sometimes, and allow our newbies to proxy decks they don't own there. We try to set a price limit to keep it more interesting and fair for everyone.
If it's a physical thing at a lgs that's like a tournament I'd probably see more of a reason to not allow them though.
For my group it's a power balance issue. The people who tend to advocate heavily for proxies a lot tend to not have much creativity at all with deck building and just build whatever meta cedh deck they find first and they beg to play saying it's a 7. On the other side there's those who own the cards and proxy to put it in multiple decks which is fine or people proxying decks for new players or those who are play testing a card before buying it from the shop which are usually more reasonable.
Didn’t know Seth could wrestle a bear when he puts on yellow shirt! guess you learn something new every day 😂
My favorite commander deck that I own is a mono white angel tribal deck (easy 7 to mid 8 on the power scale). I do love it. As such, I created (and had printed) an entire proxy version of custom full-art cards. That's right... 100% proxy deck. Mind you, I have the original cards in another deck box in my bag when I play). But this custom deck, besides having all original artwork, updated every card to it's Gatherer rules text so the wording is all current. It unifies the artwork across the entire set. I even went so far as to create my own flavor text and my deck tells it's own story of the world THESE angels inhabit and the conflicts they have. It is its own little mini MtG plane with it's own story. Many of the are cards have been renamed (with original card name still printed on the card: À la Universes Beyond). Note: the backs are NOT MtG backs, but custom as well. They are professionally printed and cut, double-sleeved, and look so good that I've had people ask me where I got it, thinking they missed some Secret Lair drop. Nobody has ever told me I couldn't use them in a commander game and they bring me so much joy and happiness.
I've seen comments like "I spent thousands on cards and people proxying invalidates my collection. If I spent money on these cards so should you" - it's like a bucket of crabs situation only they're advocating for pay to win.
I HAVE spent money on the cards.
I’m not gonna do it again lol
It’s like they’ve completely forgotten that they can take those cards to tournaments and use them while people who proxy them can’t.
ah so if you're poor then you are limited to playing blue/something or focusing on removal?
seriously, if counterspell and removal were hard counters to such strategies, then the cards that revolve around them wouldn't be considered really powerful. @@KrayZieTyler
@KrayZieTyler a complete set of fetch and shock lands costs around 5-600$. A complete set of tutors costs around 200$+. And "staples" like Rhystic Study, cyclonic rift, and Cavern of Souls will stack up to another couple hundred or so. To have the basics of a competitive cEDH deck you're already out 800$+ before you even get to actually building your deck or even buying a commander.
@KrayZieTyler they're called staples for a reason bud. People dont like shock lands for the art.
my absolute fave proxy I own is Pirated Copy with the art replaced with 'you wouldn't download a trading card'. 10/10 would recommend
Anti-proxy people are really just shouting "I SPENT $2000 ON 3 CARDS AND THAT MEANS EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD HAVE TO AS WELL"
When I first started playing (a looooong time ago), I was decidedly against proxies. To some degree I still am, but only for the fact that I don't see diversity in decks like I used to. There was something...authentic?... about shuffling up against someone whose deck was made up of whatever cards they happened to pull in packs. It felt good to win with a card that's wasn't the best of the best, but because you had it and liked it, and it didn't feel as bad to lose when someone managed to hit you 6-7 times with their River Boa. I'm ok with proxies for people who want the opportunity to play with the game piece, because that can be fun too.
well the rich folk could always just buy the cyclonic rifts tho. I see your point but this just levels the playing field for everyone, while netdecking has been a thing for many many years now.
Yeah, it does feel more exciting when someone manages to wipe the floor with you with some cards you've never heard of. There are so many cards in Magic, and the only downside to everyone having access to the best cards is that all the weaker ones disappear into obscurity. Unless of course you go out of your way to put weird cards in your deck.
Proxies are less of the reason for lack of diversity, vs resources like edhrec and mtggoldfish and more fluid access to information.
And we aren't going back, players are too knowledgeable now and the resources are too good. Instead of knowledge being the main barrier to having an optimized deck, now it's either "I want to be different" or cost.
There’s a great service that makes entire decks of beautiful proxies. It’s only $70 for non foil or $100 for foil, absolutely worth the price for a deck that could possibly cost thousands for the real cards.
Ohh that sounds awesome!
Sounds like theft. I’m sure you’re LGS loves seeing you stroll in with that crap
Man, Just put all the cards on Word and ask for Couche Paper 300g on the place you like to press things. I payed, like, 24 Bucks on my gf deck doing this, and the cards are great.
Love the video bro. Completely agree on everything. Have been watching for a while, but this is the video that made me subscribe. Also really enjoyed the format of the degrees of clown applying make up on the Facebook profile photos on the users who left the comments. May just re-use that concept in another context sometime, ty.
Awesome! Thank you and welcome to channel moving forward. :)
20:15 i still feel this way with my collection. My play group recently stopped playing so I've found other to play with but its not the same. The excitement for the game and the desire to hold onto my cards has been changing.
I’m pro proxy, and additionally I don’t use proxies myself. Amazing how I can be pro something that makes others happy even if I personally don’t benefit from it.
Wonder where else that sentiment applies… hm
Your very first point is why I love and accept proxies in any commander game I play. I still find joy in owning the cards, so I buy them. But I don't buy more than 1 copy of any card over $5. If I own a Steam Vents but need one for another deck, well...printer go brrrrr
Exactly that's my ethos on it too. They're completely justified if you own one already. I personally keep all my proxied cards in a binder just so both me and others can look and reference off of them. Lands are fine too. And if you want to proxy something else make sure the play group agrees. I don't see much issue in proxying a test deck you built before you buy anything yet as long as it's a temporary measure.
@@eddiemarohl5789There’s at least one LGS in my area that gives away basic lands for free. At that point the paper and ink for the proxies cost more than the real deal, lol. But yeah, basic lands should absolutely be fine to proxy.
@magnusprime962 Oh, the lands aren't for cost. Usually, it's mostly for consistent looks, like those pretty unfinity land arts. My local shop has a huge card bin of lands that's a quarter for 40 lands, so basically, a commander deck's worth with some wiggle room.
It's interesting. I was anti proxy 15 years ago when magic had a more unified art theme, I was also anti alter art, and anti full border art cards without rules text, and anti non local language cards. To me back then Magic had it's own art and theme which I liked the consistency of seeing in the game and I wanted the cards to be clear and understandable without needing to pull out a computer to look up what that card is and what it says. Nowadays that ship has sailed as you mentioned I still personally don't care to proxy cards I don't own a copy of but I wouldn't look askance at someone doing it for themselves as long as it wasn't a pub stomping thing(which is a separate issue obviously).
But I think it's also worth noting that while the cards "having value" offsets some of the cost of entry (assuming that a player wants to divest themselves from magic in the future) if that is used as an excuse to increase the cost of entry then it is no longer really offsetting the cost. There's also the fact that ideally we don't want players to divest from magic our goal isn't for someone to hawk their collection to pay the down payment on their house it would be better for the game if those players just held onto the cards for sentimental reasons because they had minimal value and then later had more of an excuse to rejoin the game and in making those cards worthless we vastly increased the accessibility for new players so that instead of legacy being played by people with the necessary $5000 to throw away on pieces of paper we could get people who want to sit down and play a game.
But the other simple fact is that it is objectively less profitable than getting rid of X% of the playerbase and increasing the monetization by (X+1)% so they won't do it. But as people we have no obligation to play along in WotC's profit. We should act in our own self interest and that means printing proxies and using them when it is in our interest which is anytime we are not playing in a competitive setting for prize money or when we are not drafting.
I've had so many hours of good fun playing a live mtg vintage cube with friends. If we had to buy the cards we'd be indebted for decades, would have to pay big money whenever we wanted to bring the cube up to date and would never be able to invite outsiders for fear of theft. By proxying the cards we separate playing the game from owning a collection. If prices werent so prohibitive we would have no problem buying the actual cards but as things stand, we have no qualms skipping the ownership step in order to enjoy a great game
5+ years ago, I was a purist: I ONLY played cards that I had pulled myself, I didn’t buy single cards, and I refused to play with anyone who had proxy’s. Now as far as I see it, hasbro can suck it and as long as you’re not making a $500 proxy deck to beat my face
Even still, it’s more about power level discussion moreso than proxies
Imagine an edh night where every card was pulled from booster packs
Not like a draft, just none of it had been bought as singles.
Thanks for fighting the good fight!
I’m 100% okay with proxy’s so long as they aren’t being used/ don’t have the capability to be used to scam someone in the future.
The problem I have with the "I want to play against you, not your wallet" perspective is that every player I've played who uses proxies does so in order to play borderline broken super-optimised decks, meaning that it forces you to either also use proxies heavily (which will cost a surprising amount of money if you want to print something that doesn't look like complete ass) or spend money on individual cards in order to compete. The "playing against your wallet" situation essentially gets reversed if you don't want to end up playing with a deck full of crappy homemade cards.
The argument Deckbuilding is about building the best deck you can from the cards you OWN makes no sense because it suggests that you are also not allowed to buy new cards for a deck since you did not own them when you started building the deck. I personally think proxing in casual is totaly fine. I monstly proxy for my cedh list and or proxy cards I own but play in multiple decks (mainly my fetches and shocks). That is one of the things I really like about the cedh community where most people say "I want to play against you at the highest possible lvl not against your wallet"
I also have a friend who doesn't want to spent money on cardbeard and proxies all his deck 100% (even basics) and his decks are just as funky and stompy as our own casual decks, because that is one of the fun parts of commander that stompy decks and pet cards can still be playable
When it comes to tournament play (small or big) I simply lack the necessary knowledge to argue for either side.
It feels like every time proxies, or the idea of them end up near one of my groups someone will build insanely meta/high tier instead of something they would have actually thought of creatively.
We play with an online game sometimes, and allow our newbies to proxy decks they don't own there. We try to set a price limit to keep it more interesting and fair for everyone.
If it's a physical thing at a lgs that's like a tournament I'd probably see more of a reason to not allow them though.
@lazarustea7498 I think that's a good solution. If it's your normal playgroup you can agree on the kind of proxies that are allowed. For example, don't proxy infinite combos. Or a set price limit.
In games with strangers you need to talk about the expected power lvl anyways or you can end up in unfair games regardless of if someone proxies or not.
When it comes to tournaments, I think the organiser need to make the call and make sure that if they allow them that everyone is aware of that and that no one uses "modified" proxies to cheat
@@arrivtuber infinite combos are fine, and smart choices are fine it's just if you go to (tapped/mox/insert mtg site) and copy paste a deck that's meta instead of coming up with it yourself it's a little lame. From my experience people tend not to do that (even over time with equal budgets) when they don't proxy. Proxies are whatever tbh outside of tournament play, but I'm just pointing out a consistent thing that happens lol.
@@arrivtuber tbh any play style should be fair, and considering power level is really a courtesy thing. My whole issue is the past few times I've done the budget thing with groups it either ends with people just copy/pasting a meta deck/combo they really wouldn't normally do, or breaking the budget limit.
@@lazarustea I mean what exactlly is allowed can each group decide for themselves I just named some examples. But sure If you try to have fair rules and people simply ignore them and care more about winning than having a fun experience with everyone than I'd say it's fair to ban proxies from the play group.
But I think you can let people try it out and when they decide to abuse it you can still say you're not gonna play against those decks anymore.
Our house rule is, if you own a legit copy of the card in question, you can proxy it as many times as you wish. Seems to work well for us from both a monetary and gameplay standpoint.
well there are still cards some people cant afford once and others can so thats still only works in close groups where people have similar wallets
@@DaxRaider You are correct. I think if you wanted to take it a step further though you could say, 'if one person has X card, anyone in that group can proxy said card'
Our group hasnt purchased a card for the last 3 years, be it direct or second hand. We do manage to pop down a proxy order annually however to ensure we update our decks and add new ones. With shipping and taxes, our last order cost us about £500 in total, and we got around 2200 cards. We play every week and have a grand ol' time with never a concern about power creep or trying to wallet compete. Heck, we can even bling out certain cards with foil and so forth - the game pieces we are buying, are no longer an outrageous stretch on our wallets/purses.
Proxies also add modern oracle text for cards they can't reprint. You can also get better art/old border for commons/uncommons for Cube that don't have good art. Also, not buying power and reserve list stuff for Cube when I'm playing every couple months and having beers on the table while playing. Your commentary on the social media posts brightened my day. Thanks for the content.
When in doubt, proxy out. I have one kid in college and another about to be, so yeah, anything I don't get in my one box purchase per set is 100% proxy eligible.
There’s a disconnect with playtest cards in cEdh though. The playtest card needs to use official art to be recognisable across the table
Oof. Interesting talking point.
@@PleasantKenobi when I’ve had to use these kinds of playtest cards I’ve always at the least made sure the back doesn’t say magic the gathering or deckmaster, and instead of the WotC copyright is says “proxy: not for sale”. But I’d rather the reserved list be abolished or wizards provide affordable proxies for eternal format play
@@jasonsavory9748 I use official art for my proxies too. They look and feel like real cards but without the copyright information and they say proxy on them.
If it’s for personal use there’s no legal problem with it. The copyright issues only come up when you try to sell them.
I’m sure you’re aware of this. Just adding to your comment for anyone else reading.
im an alter artist for 10 years now. it has been a bummer to see WotC basically take that from us too. ive felt no reason to paint cards for a long time. thanks for mentioning our long forgotten art form.
What blows my mind is that people think that proxying comes without self control, and I suppose for some, that might me true. I feel like most of this hate is because people (scumbags) try to get away with using fake cards in sanctioned events or just proxy extremely powerful cards and don't properly have a rule 0 talk just to try and steal a win in a casual format.
I have had a total of 0 incidents where people have got mad/upset at me for having proxies. The reason for that is because: 1) I know how to properly build a deck that synergizes with my commander and I dont just jam in every single "staple" that people think should be in there. This way theres no power disparity between what people think they're going up against vs. what I'm actually bringing to the table.
2) FNM's and other events are strictly for real cards. Whether it be Modern or Pauper, I always play with decks I've actually built, or I just don't play at all.
3) I proxy when it's reasonable and when I've already talked it over with my normal playgroup. For instance, we really wanted to get into both Pre-Modern and cEDH. I fully proxied a cEDH list that wouldve ran me about $14k for about $50, and the same for a $1600 premodern deck for about the same price. Now we can enjoy different formats and different power levels without selling our kidneys for cards that will never get reprints.
One last thing for people worried about the Magic economy. I might proxy a bunch of cards but the moment I see one in my local LGS's I always snag it to replace my proxies. Thats because just like Kenobi, actually owning the cards still feel better than having proxies of them.
So thats pretty much it, proxy responsibly, buy the real ones when you come by them, don't try to squeak into events with fake cards, and have an honest rule 0 discussion before your games and you'll be good! :)
i didn't mind them as long as they weren't super expensive cards
i had this kind of mentality of the last poster in your video, "printing proxies gives unlimited power to the printee", but something you said is totally right and did change my mind
Commander is broken as is, and we are the ones who have to make it work, that's what the social agreement of the power levels and pre-game chats means after all
if i am printing a deck with the most expensive cards i should not be sitting with the lower level people, because its us who make this happen so evverybody at the table has fun
there's really no difference between a high level bully who sits at a lower level table with a printed deck or a paid deck, save for the money either of them spent on the game
I mean, it doesn't matter if the cards are proxied or official for pub stomping like this
@@bestaround3323 yeah, i didn't see it, it's more of a rule 0 problem or someone being a douchebag, whether rich or with a printer makes no difference
I'm gonna be more open to proxies now
@@DragoSmash You can make a very unfun to play against deck for cheap lol
My favorite part of any proxy discussion on social media is the gatekeeping replies that start with, "I'm ok with proxies as long as..." bud no one cares, we don't play with you.
Two instances I use proxies for:
1. Cards that are obscenely priced to make the deck work. IE: Duals, Gaea's Cradle, Mana Crypt.
2. Cards I don't feel like shuffling in and out of different decks. IE: shocks, fetches, some staples.
Stark contrast to where I was like 5 years ago.
I 100% understand why people proxy and I have done it for 2 or 3 cards myself in the past. However, ever since I started to work at a card shop, I have understood why proxies can hurt the community, particularly when it comes to an LGS. When everyone starts to proxy cards, people start to buy less product from their LGS and it begins to make it more difficult for the LGS to function. In turn, if the LGS can't function and stay open, people won't have a place to play. Proxy all you want, but please continue to support your LGS in the best way possible!!
I feel like some of the later arguements weren;t really represented as intended. I am fine with proxies, provided:
1. They own the actual card in another deck, as in it is too much hassel to move cards backand forth across multiple decks
2. they have the intention on ordering or already ordered the card.
3. And I can ignore the top two, provided the reason for the proxy isn't solely to get the upper hand on everyone else.
Most of the decks in our playgroup are of similar power level, but we have a person who proxies cards strictly to max out the power level of their deck and push it well above everyone elses. It's not about money, or accessability, the sole reason they do it is so that they can win everytime, and everyone loses. In the context of commander, it is a casual format, it is about fun, not winning at all costs. Something that seems to slip peoples minds once they go full steam into proxying everything.
When it's proxying the odd card to complete the deck sure, but when they proxy stuff like time twister, mox diamond, etc when noone else has any hope of getting these cards, it's pretty bullshit in my opinion. It DOES then become an arms race of everyone having to proxy or not standing a chance to play.
That's a rule 0 issue, not a proxy issue tho
Frankly, it seems like you're playing with an assman problem instead of proxy problem.
What if they used to own all the cards, but then they got stolen?
would that be fine if he was really rich tho? it's just a non-commander behavior if you're going above the powerlevel of the table.
I play old school magic and our group allows proxies and counterfeit cards. This allows people to build competitive decks from day one and as such, new players are often trying it out whereas otherwise I believe they would not. Even though proxies are allowed players are still interested in collecting the actual cards when they have the opportunity. I have seen young people join the group with completely proxied decks and overtime they will get the real cards as they become more attached to the format. It is a wonderful thing to see. Also, allowing proxies means that even the long time members of the group have the ability to build new decks and try out new ideas to keep the meta changing and "evolving"? (Well, it's kind of an already solved format).
I feel like a paradox. I have always been pro proxies.
And yet, I very much like the idea of "playing to your collection". There's a truth to that idea that when there are no limitations, it sort of becomes a netdecking fiesta of the most powerful things. At least at first.
Thus, my favorite format to play is "random set".
You invite your friends, you hit the "random card" key on scryfall 300 times and note all the cards that showed up. That's the cards you are allowed to use! Go nuts! I'll see you in a month.
Sometimes the randomily generated set is extremely imbalanced and lacks something key, like a boardwipe or a color is almost not present, and you can take advantage of that.
The one issue I have with proxies is when people are talking about budget decks or cards and someone brings up proxies unprompted. Like obviously I'm not dumb, there's a reason why I want to buy *these* cards.
I have been making proxies for awhile now as my collection of precons has exploded. I do NOT want to take apart those precons to make decks every time I want a card or two from them to use in another deck. That being said, I do enjoy building absolute jank based on whatever I happen to have in front of me.
As an example, I just constructed an esper investigation deck. If I'm planning on having clues, I should also have the 500 year diary from the doctor who precon. I am not going to take that singular card out of that deck to use in my new clues deck.
Ive bought maybe five cards in the past two years. For commander, I proxy everything. I just don't care about whether the cards are "real," it's all just a fancy stand in for rules text. I do still get real cards for modern so I don't get kicked out, but it's mostly been in the form of trade-ins for my commander cards.
The artificial scarcity is just ridiculous. I proxied a warhammer precon card-for-card because it cost half as much to print the full decklist in nice glossy cardboard than to buy the real thing off the shelf. If wotc wants me to buy their products then they should price them competitively. Let the whales buy fancy versions all they want but make the basic playable cards available to anyone.
As someone who's been sailing the high seas since Napster, proxy all of the things, me hearties!! Yo ho, yo ho, it's a pirates life for me!
I first started playing MTG in about 2009 - loved it, really got into it, started with some booster boxes and precons then started buying singles to play competitive standard. It was a fun time for a few years, but it was really expensive, and when I ultimately had to sell my cards a few years later due to financial issues I made a decent loss on the whole thing.
These days I still play, but I'm a staunch believer in proxies (and obviously just play casually as a result). The fact that many decks cost as much as entire board games - as much as multiple board games if you go all out on the lands - is pretty ridiculous. Let me think, do I want a Dominion expansion, or do I want a single Magic deck that's only strong enough to compete at the kitchen table and isn't even optimised due to holding back on lands, and after all that needs someone else to have done the same thing at least once in order to play a single matchup?
Man I’m so glad the people who got me into magic made proxies, now my form of treating myself is buying myself good proxies still at a fraction of the price of the real things.
I was discussing proxies with a guy I was playing with and he asked me what is stopping me from just printing the best possible deck and win every game. My response was "the same thing that's stopping me from stealing your cards while you're away, my moral"
australian highlander is super proxy friendly, where i live there are proxy events for highlander basically every month, where any number of proxies can be used in the deck. its really cool
My Malcolm Kediss cedh deck is between $4k-$5k that I’ve been foiling out. Although most of the price is on the non-foil reserve list cards (volcanic island, mox diamond, LED). While I love the deck and the investment contributes to the subjective value I have for it there has been a downside forming. I’ve become increasingly paranoid about it. I count the deck before I go to an event, I have to be hyper focused in game that theft effects don’t become actual theft, I count the deck before leaving the event. Sometimes I hide my deck bag in my apartment in case someone breaks in. Then the thing that actually contributes to many theft cases is leaving my bag in the car makes me pretty nervous.
I never have proxied my whole life (40 y/o, pkaying since 96') but a buddy of kine got back into the game. He heard that I have a 5 color deck that I don't like to leave the house with because it runs multiple dual lands and he got me high quality proxies for those dual lands which was nice of him. He asked me if there were any cards I wanted proxies of and the only thing I can think of were to proxy cards that I already own that I wish I could play in different decks. I personally feel kind of weird proxying just any card but my friend doesn't. I told him I don't care and he can proxy cards if he cards if he wants to but when I start seeing fierce guardianship, mana drain, blightsteel, great henge, cyc rift, teferis protection, etc etc etc every game at some point I'll have to "join em if i cant beat em." We'll see.
Probably the stupidest thing I've heard someone say about proxying was from someone at my LGS who said, "If you proxy, you're not actually playing Magic the Gathering."
I used to have that "traditional" stance on proxies, but as I've shifted to playing more dead ccgs or ccgs that have a virtual community support keeping it alive, I find that proxies are really just a tool to keep game options open for players without forcing those who can't afford to open their wallet. I do still run into it in some games that seem to keep the NO proxies allowed as some form of gatekeeping and I find that approach dumb. I'd rather see new players joining to play a game than turn them away.
thank you ,Vince, for not saying "I'm not gonna Armageddon you" and using the appropriate "I'm not gonna Armageddon you without a wincon" This needs to be reinforced and MLD needs to not be frowned upon when used properly
In casual play I don't care if you play with Proxies that don't look so real someone may be taken advantage of.
I have a Gishath, Sun's Avatar EDH Dino deck with 42 proxies. (13 creatures, 21 lands, & 8 non-creature/non-lands)
I play a weekly casual EDH gathering with a group at a local Biergarten. Our group is pretty chill with Proxies. (The guy who runs it was the one who gave me the proxies to "upgrade" my deck.)
Otherwise, I have about 12 decks of cards I've collected from Return to Ravnica to Ravnica Alligence. (That's when I started playing to when my local game store closed.)
My say is "Play what makes you happy. Proxies are welcome"
I am completely pro-proxy. That does however have some caveats. I regularly play against a guy at my LGS that runs completely proxied decks. Not a big fan of that. I feel like if more than 50% of your deck is proxied, not counting the lands then just don't bring it to play until it's done. Testing is one thing or just proxying the most expensive cards are generally acceptable but it gets to a point where one doesn't seem to care and they just want to build the, "most OP decks" filled with OG duals, old busted Legacy cards when you can easily do without them with almost no impact in the pacing of your play because of how power creep has worked. I don't blame someone for proxying a fetch land. But if you proxy a check land or a filter land and it's NOT just because you want cool different artwork then I'll probably ask what's up because a single proxy is MORE than the cost of some cards where there is literally no point. I'm all about sticking it to WOTC and Hasbro. Proxy away, only buy singles you can afford and if you can, proxy a car.
I’m fine with proxies in both a casual setting and even in certain tournament settings. 10 Proxy Vintage and Legacy events for example.
On the flip side, I have seen in play groups where the introduction of proxies leads to a sort of arms race. It starts out innocent enough, but over time it devolves into what started as casual commander becoming cEDH. If that's what your group wants then fine, but it can become a situation where one must also proxy or become irrelevant at the table. So proxy with caution.
My only real beef with proxying is that you can lose your emotional attachment to your deck/cards. If your cards are fake they hold no value and as such are just a disposable hobby. When you scrimp and save to afford something it holds far more value to you. If you hunt and search and finally find that one card at a great discount that feels awesome, if you had to wheel and deal in a trade to get awesome card you’ll remember that forever. Building one’s collection isn’t always about point and click shopping online or just throwing cash at your LGS. Acquiring cool and/or expensive cards, building your collection, can be quite the journey. That journey is for the love of the game. You cannot proxy that love. I am aware that one could counter this line of reasoning with the idea that proxying is for people who love the playing of the game verses collecting the cards, and that could be a valid point. But find me the proxy players who’ve been playing for 20+ years who are obsessed with the game, that aren’t proxying to make up for lost, stolen cards or are simply play testing.
We had that issue in my group that you describe. Got some new players who proxied everything and it resulted in the group powering up significantly. Eventually, the whole group broke up over it (we don't play anymore) because every game was ending on turn 5 and there were big disagreements over the power level of the group.
The one question I've always wanted to ask people who don't forsee proxy arms races and say "It's a people problem" is what their views on guns are. Because the argument for gun control is that some or many people can't control themselves and that's why we need to limit or remove access, that without access to weapons those people wouldn't be shooting things up. I feel like a large continent of the "all proxy all the time" crowd is all for gun control, not buying NRA arguments like "guns don't kill people, bad people do." But that's the same argument they make when they say "People can use proxies with restraint!"
@@JD-gk7ehif a proxy arms race occurs and a disagreement occurs, the group breaks up and goes home. if everyone starts carrying guns and a disagreement occurs, someone doesn't make it home. There's a huge difference in the failure case there.
Im okay with proxies. In my experience, it has some practical uses because I dont often buy expensive and high power cards. I often build decks on strats that dont require killing my wallet and honestly, I rarely add high powered cards. However, I do buy some high powered cards if I could and if it's really needed (especially when my friends play a really high powered deck).
The main use of proxies for me is to act as a substitute for a high powered card that I really have. If I think that one of my decks need a duplicate of a high powered card that I have, I use proxies. While it's easy to just use the original I have, my problem is that I may need to look at my other decks just to find it. And I have a tendency to misplace things and I forget to put back the card in their original decks. I do have a personal rule that I need to ask permission from my playgroup if they're okay with proxies and I also say that I do own an original copy. If they persist that I use an original, then I will use the original.
And lastly, it's a very budget-friendly act because I don't need to buy another expensive copy of a high powered card that I have. And to go back to a pt I made: I rarely buy a high powered card (let alone, a duplicate of it).
I've spent a lot of money on my cards. I have a self rule that I won't proxy cards I don't already own at least one copy. That being said, that is my rule to myself. Many years ago when I first started my stance was different. I had someone who asked if they could play their proxied land. I asked which one and he pulled a tabernacle from his deck showing a very well reproduced proxy. Stating that he had paid $50 on a set of expensive proxy land so he could use them cause he still paid for it, just not $1000. I asked what use did it have in his list to justify it. He said "no reason, it's just a really good land". I told him no and he clearly wasn't happy about it. One of the other players sided with him and let him play it. I reluctantly allowed it just so we could play and not argue. Turned out it wasn't his only proxy and not his only proxied land either. He turn 2nd Proxied Gaea's Cradle and easily won in a slightly above casual pod. He thought since we allowed Tabernacle anything else was fair game and didn't need to ask again. I don't care if you proxy. Don't proxy just to Pubstomp. He laughed afterwards, we kicked him from the pod, and I haven't seen him since.
i dont know if ive ever seen a video of your before but i got to 15:30 and your delivery of albert einstein walking into the building and sucking the proxy-god player off was so charming i had to subscribe right then and there
we recently had a Legacy tournament for the first time, but our LGS allowed a space for up to 20 cards that you were able to proxy for that game. I played reanimator that game and it was super fun.
The moment of realizing that something suddenly becomes seen as "respectful" as soon as money is involved is peak capitalism.
After WOTC “deleted” Portuguese and Chinese cards, I renamed my printer “Hasbro”.
A guy at my LGS plays what I can only describe as "Money Tribal". 5 color decks using all the best super staples, best lands, fast mana, tutors, etc. And if they are proxies, they are very convincing. If his cards are real, his decks are worth probably $10k. But you know what? I've beaten him more than he has me. My pile of synergistic, well constructed play pieces that probably are 30x less expensive kick that pile of money's ass regularly. Expensive cards do not autowin the game so proxying them is fine so long as they match the power level of the game you're looking to play.
Side note last year I learned how to make super high quality proxies some of which feel better to play with now then the real cards. It's also fun to photoshop the art on a proxy.
I would love if they would make artcards its own product. They could "reprint" reservedlist cards for casual commander and for collecting the artworks. This way they also could increase the availability of special art versions (like the anime versions of cards) and even maybe make foil versions of artcards?
As a player you could use those artcards as proxies in casual commander, haveing a nice representation of your proxycard, and the rulestext could even be on the back as a reminder! :D
I have a case of a different type of proxying. A couple of weeks ago when editing a deck I found out I had somehow lost 11 cards from it a month prior. Luckily I didn't lose anything particularly valuable but the most annoying part was breaking a set of 100 sleeves. As I didn't have any spares of that sleeve type I partially re-sleeved the deck with other textured sleeves of the same colour so it was a 49/50 split with the commander in a different colour. I deliberately split lands evenly so I have no idea what is where and the deck isn't marked. When I went to play the deck last week I explained the situation to the table and they were fine with it.
It was that or use some old sleeves from nearly 30 years ago that are not coloured on the back, thin and faded. When I first started commander those were the only sleeves I had at the time and people gave me crap over it. So over time I have not only had to buy new cards as my old ones are powercrept out of playability for the most part but also numerous sets of 100 sleeves. Though I am considering going back to the cheap crappy ones for decks of little value or mostly intact precons that use no flip cards as all the cards are in good condition and not marked.
Personally I prefer to use cards I own. That has always been my preference and it stems back to tournament play where that was a necessity. Although we did used to playtest using proxies and often lend cards to each other to play at the tournament.
I think proxies in commander comes down to rule zero as not all players like them. If someone is only proxying a card or two (say a Sliver deck proxying an Overlord as the commander) I don't think people generally mind when it is something that is hard to get and if playing in a LGS they aren't selling copies of. That's more about respect for the LGS though. Kitchen table magic go nuts.
The problems would come when people proxy up a lot of general good stuff just to reach absurd power levels outside rule zero conversations vs a casual pod. I have played decks people don't like (eg - 2 players quit midgame vs my Hidetsugu deck as I hit my creature and artifact board wipes consistently) but they are all real cards and nothing in that deck is worth more than $5-10 aside from from a single Gilded Lotus (yay for lucky pack pulls). If I were to proxy in cards like Wheel of Fortune, Mana Crypt, Dockside Extortionist and the like people might have reason to complain as the deck runs well without them.
The absolutely most hilarious part of all this is that super-powerful commander decks can be built for incredibly cheap with little to no advanced deckbuilding skill or massive collection. Just take every Goblin and Haste enabler with mv
gold border cards are technically proxies and it always cracks me up to call someone out for using a proxy in tabletop simulator