What is Your Opinion of Proxies?
General forum
Posted on Dec. 7, 2022, 8:50 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Some player use proxy cards, unofficial duplicates of official cards, either when they do not wish to spend an exorbitant sum of money on an expensive card that they desire, or when they already own such a card, but do not wish to use it in events.
Thus far, I do not have any proxy cards in any of my decks, because I have not needed them, since I do not use any cards that I cannot afford to purchase; however, I have been contemplating possibly purchasing proxies of certain cards to use in my decks, since it is very unlikely that I shall ever enter any WotC-sanctioned events, as I am not a very competitive player. I obviously would not be so cheap as to use proxies of Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, or the original moxen in my decks, but I see no problem with proxies of Sol Ring, as it is now an inexpensive and ubiquitous card, due to numerous reprints, or the original dual lands, as they are powerful, but not game-breakingly so, and are on the reserved list, so WotC shall never reprint them (at least not in tournament-legal form).
What does everyone else say about this? How do you feel about proxy cards?
MintyFarts says... #2
Without proxies MTG is effectively pay to win. If you arent playing in something like that forbids them you should feel free to use them.
January 4, 2023 4:42 p.m.
In our community we have avid deck-builders. It would cost $$$$ to try all that we want to do since many deck ideas required very specific pieces. During Covid, we played on online services and loved that evolving/lots of new decks. Proxiing allows us to have that same feel. Some of us do buy the cards for decks that we really love.
Also, I try not to loose too much money, and buying singles, even though it'sn't as throwing cash in the garbage as some other form of buying Magic, it still is.
January 9, 2023 4:12 p.m.
wallisface says... #4
One great thing about proxies that hasn’t been stated yet is that it helps force Wotc to “up their game”. If proxies became super-popular, Wizards would be forced into pricing their product more reasonably to compete. It would likely also make them lean more into supporting competitive environments also (where proxies wouldn’t be allowed).
The more I consider the different aspects of proxies, the more I feel they should have waaay more acceptance into the game. They incentivise inclusivity of anyone wanting to play the game, while making it harder for Wotc to constantly extort their customer-base and ignore LGSs.
January 9, 2023 5:22 p.m.
I have 0 problems with like "Professional" proxies, that look and feel like the real card for a fraction of the price. I Feel however that a name and couple infos of a card scribbled on a piece of paper is at the very least not correct for the opponents. Printed copies.... if they are well done... sure.... I also don't like "full Proxies" decks you know? But if a guy proxies (but once again, professionally) 4 Cavern of Souls cause he doesn't want to pay 200$ for 4 lands... I'm okay with it.
January 10, 2023 9:56 a.m.
wallisface yeah, I thought about the "upping the game" benefit. I do like the idea of necessity breeding creativity. I think it is possible to still meet halfway with the more: plays for the experience/social aspect/Wizard-Poker crowd & cEDH, whales, or collectors. I also did not say casual because I think it is not always fair to categorize the social gamers as casual
I think online play like Arena is one way they have upped their game, more for the: plays for achievements crowd (I wouldn't really know, I like multiplayer socialization too much) :)
January 10, 2023 3:43 p.m.
wallisface says... #7
Gleeock i don’t played Arena (just mtgo as far as online), but personally i think it’s just another example of Wotc abusing their customer base. There’s various magic youtubers who’ve done the math and determined the economy of Arena is far too expensive (more so than paper magic) and completely disrespectful to their player-base
January 10, 2023 4:30 p.m.
Huh! I didn't know that, sounds like they are missing an opportunity then... what's new? :) In theory, adding depth, & appropriate value to digital MtG would be one way to address issues, if there are any, with proxies.
I do like proxies as a way to hopefully force Hasbro's hands a bit as far as creativity, they keep pushing the whale/collector market & there is a risk of bursting the bubble, if that happens they would REALLY have to get more creative :)
Proxies are a nifty way for me to speak with my wallet; I can keep playing MtG, but only pay for what I deem as an acceptable cardboard tax threshold... Though like i've said, I'm lucky enough to be at a comfortable spot with my collection & decks.
January 10, 2023 5:01 p.m.
Arrzarrina says... #9
I proxy full decks. I'm open about this when playing with somebody for the first time (I do have a real deck but it's evolved into something kinda stax-y).
Proxying full decks lets me build a new $200 deck every month with whatever weird crap I think would make a funny deck. Sometimes the deck doesn't play well, sometimes the deck does play well but isn't fun for opponents, sometimes the deck does what its supposed to (plays well and is fun for the table) and I look at building a real deck at the ~$100 level now that I have a better understanding on what makes the deck tick. In all honesty, if I really love a deck, I'll buy the cards for the $100 version and still proxy the entire deck with custom art/frames/whatever.
Making reasonable proxies isn't a huge amount of effort if you own a printer. Use 300gsm card stock (I make foils using 200gsm holographic paper and 100gsm self-adhesive vinyl).
January 14, 2023 1:38 p.m.
i realized while reading others thoughts here the real reason i personally don't like proxies is because part of the fun for me is being a budget player. if i have expensive cards in my decks its because i pulled them from packs or traded for them. sort of like a personal achievement system. when someone uses proxies at my tables it unintentionally cheapens my hard work using what i have to make the decks i play. why i don't allow them at my tables is because of several people who proxied CEDH power level decks and ended game after game in 3 turns. im starting to think the only real problem with proxies is not actually about proxies. people just need to be upfront about their decks. how they win, how fast do they go off, etc. if people play at the right tables proxies would hardly be an issue. even for me...
January 16, 2023 10:44 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #11
Oh, people absolutely need to be upfront about how and when a deck goes off and about how powerful overall the deck is. I have had problems with people who are running legitimate cards not playing to the table's level. After my son left the table I pulled out a good deck to demonstrate that we were playing lower powered on purpose and that it isn't that we don't have very high powered decks, it is that we were playing casually. (Again I only proxy things I have a copy of, so any of my decks could be 100% "real" if you give me 10 minutes to pull the proxies, find the real, and make the switch. So I'm proxying for amount of decks, not power.)
People who intentionally pubstomp, proxy or not, just need to grow the hell up. I have unintentionally pulled out a deck way too high powered for a game, but that is when my alternate goal of "how many infinites or locks can I have on board before someone calls me on not using them" kicks in.
January 16, 2023 6:25 p.m.
Given two and a half pages worth of comments on this thread, I don't think I could add anything new. However, I do want to put in my vote that proxies are perfectly acceptable, on multiple levels.
At the moment, I don't proxy. If I want to build a deck, I first design it on this website as a prototype, playtest it using the tool on the site, promote it (through deck cycling and feature tokens) with the hope of getting suggestions, then decide A) if it's good and/or fun enough to build irl, and B) if I will be able to afford to do so. Then, I shuffle through my collection to find out how many cards I already have, make a price list of whatever I don't, and create a weekly budget for ordering the cards I still need a little at a time. That process probably sounds familiar to a lot of you. I've had decks that took me over a year to finally gather all the pieces for (no pun intended).
In short, I spend a long time and a lot of money to have real cards in all of my decks, and I take pride in doing so. HOWEVER, I also have been playing the game for a reeeeally long time, and have been fortunate enough to have been able to amass a sizeable collection over all of those years. AND, I share a collection with my cousin, who has the same passion for the game as I do, and so our collective buying power has given us both an advantage over all of those decades of buying cards and building decks.
If I was a new player just getting into the game, I'd probably look at the money needed just to maximize the effectiveness of one deck, and run screaming.
I own two decks that would each cost over two grand to build from scratch, and neither of them would likely be competitive in a cEDH meta. I own a few other decks that are worth between $500-$800 that are simply fun, and rarely win even in a casual setting. I saw a T-shirt once with an MtG logo on it with text that read "should've gotten into heroin instead." This game is damn expensive.
Furthermore, the playtesting tool on this site and others like it only do so much in the way of determining how good a deck is. The only real way to know for certain that a deck is good is to play it irl. It's at that point when you know if you need more ramp, or more draw, or if those board wipes are entirely necessary, or if that $50 card will fizzle when facing actual competition. Inevitably, you end up making adjustments to the deck after seeing it in action. And trust me, in the many, many years of playing this game, I can't begin to fathom the amount of times that I've tried over and over again to make a deck work the way I envisioned it, only to eventually give up on it because no amount of revision makes it perform in the way that was originally intended.
So there are a few legitimate arguments here for using proxies. First, for the sake of playtesting a deck before spending the money on it. Second, because you just started playing the game and want to win every now and then. Third, because you are just too poor to keep up with other people. Fourth, because you do own all of those cards, but don't want to continuously shift cards from one deck to another to another. Fifth, because the deck really just needs that Mana Crypt, and that's the only thing it needs, and yes you will at some point use your Christmas bonus or tax refund to get an actual copy of it, but dropping $200 on one piece of cardboard isn't something you can just do all the time, and it's not like it automatically makes you win every game anyway. And also for all of the other reasons people have already named on this thread.
Have you ever bought a ticket to a concert or sporting event for a friend who couldn't afford it, just because you didn't want to go alone, and you knew that they'd love it? How is that different than letting friends use proxies even though you yourself spend money to build your collection? The game is a game, and exists to have fun playing it. That doesn't work if nobody else can afford to play.
Okay, I went on much longer than I intended.
January 17, 2023 7:09 p.m.
I play EDH, and my personal policy is that I proxy cards that I already own, but want to use in other decks. The card is $10+ and I want to use it in another deck? Proxy. Sometimes I use them also when building a deck I want to test out first, but in general I don't mind people using them. Magic has become so expensive that I only find it natural.
January 18, 2023 9:48 a.m.
wotanaz1337 says... #14
I'd say do it according to your play-group. Just don't abuse it and print overpowered cards relative to your meta. As far as moral/ethical questions...really, Hasbro doesn't care about MtG (and doesn't seem to care about DnD either) so why is it your duty to only play legal cards in a casual setting.
January 18, 2023 4 p.m.
I think the sentiment of most people (myself included) is just to check with the folks you're playing with and try to set some 'ground rules' for the power level of your decks, or rather just make sure the proxies don't come at the cost of people having fun at the table.
I personally don't have any proxies as of now, I've been lucky that the cards I want are in my price range, but for the next deck I'm considering I will be getting one or two proxies for it. I don't really think one should feel bad about about not being able to afford the original and considering a proxy instead. Some cards like Kobold Overlord just haven't had many reprints and the price reflects that rarity, while what seemed like a matter weeks I watched Sheoldred, the Apocalypse double then triple in price, and $60+ for a single card is kinda like . . . bruh >_>
I guess ultimately I'm just in the business of making decks I find fun and that I think will make an interesting mix vs my buddies decks at the table.
January 30, 2023 2:01 p.m.
Most of my experience with Magic has been at tight-knit casual tables built from friend group to friend group. In my own experience of teaching people how to play, I straight up ban proxies at the table. This isn't to "level the playing field" or anything like that, but moreso because I want the new players to have a fresh, clean, and steady experience dipping their toes into the game, and I don't want them to be intimidated. The hardest part of learning Magic is memorizing what certain cards do, and when proxies become widespread at a beginners' table it seems equivalent to throwing the players into the ocean to teach them to swim. I find proxies fun whenever I play at LGS's or local clubs, but at my casual tables I don't allow them because of all our new players.
February 1, 2023 7:27 p.m.
Proxies of cards you already own for the convenience of not having to shuffle cards between decks is acceptable in my playgroup, but if we can proxy anything we want then our games would turn into a game of prison MTG with nothing off limits: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/yx5p1c/these_are_the_mtg_decks_i_made_while_i_spent_most/
February 2, 2023 2:04 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #19
Grends27, I most certainly will not use proxies of Black Lotus or the original moxen, but I think that proxies of the original dual lands should not upset most players in casual games.
February 4, 2023 6:04 p.m.
DemonDragonJ the original dual lands are worth over double the value of most of the decks in my playgroup. I’d get salty if people were proxying in cards of that high of value into our games if they didn’t own it. To each their own tho.
February 4, 2023 8:34 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #21
Grends27, I shall be using those lands only in a five-colored EDH that I have, since that deck needs the best possible mana base that it can have, and I also feel that it is unfair that certain cards being on the reserved list prevents most players from being able to obtain them; I wish to play against another player, not against their bank account.
February 4, 2023 11:40 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #22
Grends27 Why would it be different if they owned them, if the value disparity to group is the issue?
February 5, 2023 12:37 a.m.
I say go nuts producing duals. It's not even a massive power jump at that point, more convenience... Honestly, I don't even care about proxying for power either. I hilariously played an og Demonic Tutor (real), then a Thought Vessel (proxied). I think it was literally in there because of time constraints. My playgroup is so inclusive, probably the only thing that would chap some asses is if you proxied, and now that you did, you just played only that one deck over eternally.
February 5, 2023 12:56 a.m.
Grubbernaut that’s a fair point. I guess I look at proxies as a slippery slope - one guy proxies a Taiga, so I proxy a Badlands, then someone else proxies an Imperial Seal to upgrade their Diabolic Tutor and all the sudden our decks are filled with lined-notebook paper proxies instead actual cards.
Every group uses their own rules - the requirement of owning a proxy in my playgroup helps make sure that we’re still actually playing with cards instead of lined notebook paper.
February 5, 2023 6:17 p.m.
wallisface says... #25
Grends27 if your group is proxying cards by writing on note-paper instead of printing out something readable, then I would be equally frustrated with proxies. Get people into the habit of putting effort into printing out readable proxies resembling the actual cards, and you may find it less miserable to deal with.
While I'm in full support of people proxying whatever they want, I do think people should be required to put in actual effort to ensuring the proxies resemble the actual card, to avoid detracting from the actual play experience.
February 5, 2023 7:17 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #26
Grends27 You can print proxies at home easy peasy, or get professional-level proxies online for around $30/deck, depending on order volume. In general, I only see non-printed/MPC proxies when someone is trying a new-to-them card and doesn't have access to a printer.
February 5, 2023 8:44 p.m.
wallisface & Grubbernaut: I think you’ve helped me figure out why I dislike proxies lol. Thanks!
February 5, 2023 8:57 p.m.
Pretty great with everyone in my playgroup just figuring out what they truly like using proxies as the engine. Make what you want, play what you want. No one even knows which deck has my 310 gsm cardstock proxy Scrubland & which one has my true Scrubland - hint, its Breena, the Demagogue :)
It's the wild-west as to who has what & it's beautiful. From doing it so much firsthand, I have seen the exact opposite of homogenization. People in the playgroup are more willing to make less common decks with proxies open to play. But, we seem to just practice restraint instead of just proxying a
February 5, 2023 9:12 p.m.
Speaking of one of the no-proxy decks in the playgroup, there's Krarkashima... a complete Gomer Pyle of a deck, that not even the creator now likes to play. So power level & pay to play is not necessarily = more proxies
I have something like 4 non-proxy decks ranging from low-high power (no true cEDH). Something like 6 yes-proxy decks ranging from low-mid. Pretty much no rhyme or reason to power level vs. proxies in the playgroup.
Proxies have allowed a college student to keep playing with us, allowed my buddies 9-year old son to make his own deck, delighted the table with a Kibo, Uktabi Prince deck, as well as a lesser Jund Maarika, Brutal Gladiator deck - because they just plain ran out of Jund goodstuff but wanted to build an exciting & different Jund commander.
February 5, 2023 9:23 p.m.
Maarika, Brutal Gladiator is a great case for proxying based on scarcity-based pricing.. This $15 price tag is not a function of power level. It was the same way with Zurzoth the Chaos Rider he was $15 dollars for awhile due to jumpstart... But no way was the card appropriately priced. I wasn't about to jump on a ripoff or try to remember in several months that I wanted to add fun, diverse, but overpriced cards. So I proxy, maybe then if it is a deck you focus on alot you reexamine prices and find out you can put a 30 cent Zurzoth in
February 5, 2023 9:49 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #31
Man, Maarika is cool someone should make an alter that is Zangief from Street Fighter.
February 6, 2023 7:32 a.m.
Haha, well I get that. But, alot of people want their Magic cards to be Magic cards & not a random Streetfighter character with Jund-Magic goodstuff. I am a little surprised that Zangief is in the <$4.00 range though... I think even he would get proxied in my playgroup though based more on accessibility & not wanting to order up online, especially just to build a Jund goodstuff deck.
February 6, 2023 12:10 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #33
I was more trying to support your claim that the only reason Maarika is expensive is because of scarcity.
February 6, 2023 9:16 p.m.
Hah, now I see! :) I thought you were poking fun at me like there wasn't cheaper options :)... Which technically Mr. Red Cyclone is, but also isn't that much different for scarcity. Most the things I end up proxying for fun project decks, or test-&-see decks are like that. Not overly powerful, but found in commander products only, or needing to be special order.
February 6, 2023 11:42 p.m.
Wife aggro is real if I am ordering stuff online all the time! :) .... & when it comes to cards like that, where you know how much of a ripoff it is to jump on the chase can you really blame the wife for the aggro?
February 6, 2023 11:44 p.m.
I use Proxies quite frequently. I will proxie off cards I don't have for a deck that I'm building to playtest before I go to buy the remaining cards that I need, or just keep the proxies in the deck if the cost of the card is out of my price range. But I always check with a new playgroup before playing proxies. Because it definitely is not fair to play a proxied deck against one that is not. And of course if you play proxies you should allow the other players in your group to run them as well, that should go without saying.
February 7, 2023 7:23 p.m.
I'm just gunna be real, MTG isn't fun without somewhat optimized decks, not optimized as what you may hear here, but just, being able to consistently do the thing you want to do, especially with commander now it's more important to have certain types of cards, and the most vital parts of those decks are locked behind huge paywalls.
I know multiple people that quit MTG because of inconsistency of decks such as card draw, land draw, or just not being able to get the thing they want to do (Kaalia without drawing any creatures for example).
Of course, you can definitely build a deck for 200$ that can compete with "meta" 1000$ decks, I had a 200$ Kaalia deck that I made originally, but at the end of the day your options on what you can do are severely limited and the best version of cards and majority of commanders are locked behind the paywall.
At the end of the day, unless you want to spend dozens of hours with extensive MTG deckbuilding knowledge and don't care what cards you use you end up having to spend multiple hundreds of dollars just to get in to the door.
hell just the cost of effective lands alone are usually half or more of the cost of most over 1000$ decks. If we wanted to make any progress, I would say have WoTC mass print viable commander lands that are cheap.
February 8, 2023 12:04 p.m.
Also, I'm not saying to proxy, and I'm definitely not saying that pretty good start to proxying a card would be to...
-use edhrec looking up the cards you want then saving the high quality images from that site
-going to google docs for free and inserting all of those images from a folder and changing their size to 2.51inches
-changing the margins to fit 9 cards per page
-exporting it as a pdf
-going to a print shop and having them print said PDF in 100 point/pound high gloss or preferably silk gloss paper and being to print ANY 9 cards for 1-2$ USD per page
-then using a 3mm or 4mm Radius Corner Rounder Punch Cutter - Heavy Duty Clipper Approx 1/8-inch to cut corners off
-then sleeving the cards to make them actually indistinguishable to anyone outside of a tournament setting
I would never condone such things, and I am not on a first name basis with the people at my print shop who have also NOT told me that the number of people doing the same thing has increased by a large margin in the last 6 months and that almost 1/4th of their customers are card game players, mostly magic, doing the same thing.
Again, NONE of these things are condoned or have happened to me
February 8, 2023 12:36 p.m.
dramaege As someone who plays commander and limited I'm gonna disagree pretty hard with that assessment. It's perfectly valid for someone to feel that they will only enjoy playing Magic with decks that are optimized, but lots and lots of other people don't feel that way. Most of the people I play commander with have explicitly powered down their decks because everyone collectively finds that ends up in a better play experience.
Just last night at commander night at my LGS I was in a game where we didn't have a good enough rule-zero discussion and I misread the table with the deck I chose to play. It was on the more optimized end of the spectrum (although not close to cEDH) and I ended up with a pretty good draw. It ended up not being a good game for the table and I felt pretty bad about bringing a sword to a knife fight. I have a range of deck power levels but the majority are far from optimized but most importantly they are fun to play. That doesn't mean I don't want and have good cards in them that work well together, just that they are far from optimized and they don't need to be.
February 8, 2023 2:23 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #40
dramaege My guy, mtgprint is a thing. Waaaay easier even if you're not printing at home, but IMO there's not a huge benefit to pay-to-print if you're not going MPC.
February 8, 2023 6:06 p.m.
Just a reminder, discussing proxies is fine - discussing paying for proxies, including paying to have a professional printer print off cards on your behalf, is not.
Wizards is pretty clear on this - they’ve effectively decided to turn a blind eye to personal proxying, but made it very clear they would rather folks not profit from their trademarks, copyrights, and patents.
Let’s all try to keep from crossing that particular line of actively advocating for paid proxies.
February 8, 2023 6:44 p.m.
Abaques I see what you're saying and have seen lots of stories like this before, however I personally think that that is just a rule 0 thing. As well, when I'm saying optimized, I'm not saying in terms of power, I just mean to be able to consistently do the thing you want to do every game.
Using Kaalia of the Vast as an example, every game I would love to draw at least 1-3 angels, dragons, or demons since that's the whole reason I'm playing Kaalia of the Vast. Now, those angels, dragons, and demons can vary wildly in power, but I at least want that consistently.
If I'm playing a deck that doesn't allow me to do that every game, my game experience is going to be diminished as a whole. As well, one thing I find with "optimized" decks is that games are shorter, lots of commander games I play with unoptimized decks go from 1-3 hours, with multiple playgroups, and many times people didn't get to do the fun thing with their deck they wanted to so one person is usually a little disappointed at the end.
I think most people, if given the opportunity would not turn down "fix it" cards, if offered. Like for example if the cards were exactly the same price, would anyone deny using an OG dual lands, shocks, and some fetches if they understood how much better they were? Especially if they play with 3 or more colors? At the end of the day there are better versions of multiple cards that in a vacuum, no one would not play.
Also, it allows people who love trying things out and deckbuilding so much more freedom than buying cards.
How terrible of a feeling is it to spend 50$ on a card you swear is gunna be great in your deck, just to have it fall flat and go into the box? I have been building a Saheeli, the Gifted deck that has gone through a dozen changes over years because she was my first commander and I really wanted to make her work.
Some of the strategies that worked best with her that I ended up trying were eldrazi ramping, and well, every eldrazi is 50$. I think I had spent over 600$ on different cards that ended up being cycled out over my years of testing before I got her to a spot that I liked. With proxying, the testing would have costed the cost of ink and paper, and I wouldn't have had to have waited the days, weeks, and sometimes months just to get the cards in the mail, sometimes with the cards being damaged which wasn't fun.
Ultimately to me, regardless of the power level of the decks you want to build, giving players access to the whole roster of cards allows them to do more things and explore more ideas.
Maybe your players want to play at "4/10" power level, maybe they all LOOOVE CEDH but have 10$ between them, maybe they want to play jank decks with out of print rare cards, ALL OF THIS IS AWESOME, but give them ALL the tools to do that.
I don't support proxying in any "official" setting, as of course LGS's and WoTC has their own prerogative to support their own product, and whenever I play at my LGS, proxy or not, I try to throw money at them, but I really don't see any legitimate reason to take deck-building tools out of the hands of the players, at the end of the day, some cards are just too expensive, and we shouldn't push people out of the MTG hobby by price-checking them when MTG finally "clicks" for them and they want to be spending hours deckbuilding, theorycrafting, and trying new things out.
February 8, 2023 11:20 p.m.
dramaege I think I get where you're coming from now. I think I misread your earlier post, so my bad. For the record I posted in this thread about two months ago that while I personally don't like to proxy I don't care at all if others want to provided that the proxies are legible (so everyone can see what the card is) and that the proxy is in line with the power level of the local meta (so no Gaea's Cradle in casual games).
February 8, 2023 11:29 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #44
Caerwyn, how do you feel about the fact that WotC essentially printed proxies that cost $1000 for a pack of fifteen cards?
February 9, 2023 8:35 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #45
It isn't about how anyone personally feels 30th Anniversary. Their comment is as an administrator to shield the site from liability if Hasbro gets litigious. This is a deck building site with forums. Discussions need to not stray into how to commit IP theft. Continued ignoring of requests to not condone/encourage professional printing of proxies is a sure-fire way to get what has proven to be a popular thread locked and possibly deleted.
February 9, 2023 8:48 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #46
Gidgetimer, I fully understand what Caerwyn said, and I am not ignoring it, but I am saying that WotC has absolutely no moral high ground, after what they did.
February 9, 2023 9:01 p.m.
DemonDragonJ I get what you're saying and I actually 100% agree with you and would even go farther and say that they haven't had moral high ground for more than a decade now and actively have contempt for those who support them.
BUT Caerwyn is right, i did go a little to far and the last thing I want to do is get people in trouble for a little tongue and cheek. I personally think people should be able to openly encourage that kind of thing if they want, but I also understand tappedout is a private site
February 9, 2023 11:36 p.m.
DemonDragonJ - I despise the 30th Anniversary cards and think they’re an incredible PR blunder that fundamentally miscalculated what players wanted from something that should have been a mutual celebration of both Wizards and the players for collectively making a first-of-its-kind project last three whole decades.
But the fact remains that the cards are still made by Wizards using Wizards’ intellectual property, making them fundamentally different from “third party profiting off someone else’s copyrights, patents, and trademarks.” Ethically by most standards, and certainly legally, they are not congruent situations - and there are pretty clear reasons why a third-party site like TappedOut would not want to be confused for a place that actively supports the violation of Wizards’ IP.
Just for reference, here are the relevant TappedOut Terms:
- Rule 2(d): “In using this Website, you must respect the intellectual property rights of us and others, all as outlined below.”
- Rule 2(e)(viii) “ You agree that, while accessing or using this Website, you will not: . . . assist, support, incite or cause any third party in engaging in any activity set forth in this Section 2(d) or that otherwise violates these Website Terms.”
Those rules exist to protect the site and its users, so let’s just be careful and make sure no lines are crossed that might get the site in any trouble.
February 10, 2023 12:08 a.m. Edited.
Shade_is_King says... #49
The biggest argument I’ve heard irl against proxies has been “Budget decks are more creative, you don’t need to spend a lot of money to make a good deck”. Which I partially agree with, however if the main limiting factor between a good deck and a great deck is the number of expensive cards (cough cough dual lands) then I’d rather everyone be able to enjoy great decks with proxies.
As well I’ve played with some wonderful people that couldn’t even budget for an affordable deck, being broke shouldn’t stop you from having fun! Even more so if a budget deck is very creative, why limit the creativity of the deck with a price tag? Just because you can “print out the best cards” doesn’t mean everyone will, personally I don’t use cards over $10 and try to keep my decks at about $100 with some exceptions.
February 16, 2023 5:11 a.m.
Arrzarrina says... #50
It's not just trying to make a budget deck work.
If you're like me and have a thing for more out there commanders (think Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant Flip or Ben-Ben, Akki Hermit), then you need to work harder in the 99 to bring the deck up to parity since you're trying to get theme with less card support than Big stompy Jodah, the Unifier has.
Continuing in terms of card support, there are many effects that can protect a creature. Swiftfoot Boots gets reprinted every 5 minutes while Lightning Greaves is an extra effect in the same vein. Mask of Avacyn, Whispersilk Cloak, Neurok Stealthsuit and Mirror Shield all fill a very similar role. You can get 4 of those equipments to protect your commander for under a dollar each. On the flip side, an effect like Pariah's Shield exists on very few cards (I only know of Pariah as a similar effect) so outside of a white colour identity, you've got to use one card for that idea which was printed nearly 20 years ago and has never (The list is so diverse it basically doesn't count) been reprinted.
Pariah's shield isn't a bankbreaking card, but the scarcity of similar effects shows how even the most creative budget player is stuck away from creative/interesting strategies when their brew needs a specific piece which will cause problems in their budget.
Goryu says... #1
TypicalTimmy True that was aggressive. caught me venting.. well truly i wouldnt be mean to anyone over proxies but my local shops tend to shun proxy players from how frustrating they always end up being. its either someone proxies a crazy CEDH deck thatd normally cost a couple grand or the just write the name of the card and expect everyone to know what they do.
January 3, 2023 11:28 a.m.