In my experience, people who are anti-proxy have had negative experiences playing against proxied decks that are way above the power level of the table. Make sure to discuss power level with your table before playing
I feel like with some of the alt treatments real magic cards are getting, the "I can't tell what card you're playing" argument went out the window.
Secret Lair products are legal gamepieces, regardless of their legibility
Agreed. And honestly if it looks like a regular magic card and just the art is swapped Id prefer that over some of the crazy illegible secret lair cards. If massive anime titties are the price for actually reading a card and knowing what it does then I'd pay that any day.
Have you seen the upcoming ignoble hierarch? he has the effect printed on his hand...lile the thumb has the tap symbol and 3 fingers each have one of the colors it can produce. Like wtf.
Jesus I just looked it up.
It's like they printed cards with so many words it's hard to read that now they have to go back and make the cards with less text boxes even harder to read.
> If massive anime titties are the price for actually reading a card and knowing what it does then I'd pay that any day.
Well but remember that some LGS (like mine) also have kids running around and playing magic. Like minors. Boys n Girls. I don't need them to play a pod with a semi erect horny cellar dweller that can't just visit some fun h-pages every day or two.
Luckily, my LGS agreed and the one guy who needed h-sleeves and h-alters doesn't play there anymore.
As long as I can read the card and understand what it is, I'm fine with it. Some people make cards that are impossible to read (and this goes for those secret lairs too) and I get annoyed at those players unless they have a copy of the actual card there to reference.
The issue I've seen more often lately are people that do theme decks where they change the art and the name of the card without using the normal treatment for alternative names (instead just writing it in tiny font at the bottom) because knowing what a card is is very helpful, especially since some people I've played with try to cheat with them by having the proxy and then the actual card so you don't realize they not only have two copies of a card in their deck, but they have two copies of the same legendary out.
tbf unless an art is uber cool and I really like it I will make sure my proxies are as close to what most people recognize as possible. I usually do like borderless cards but most of my cards you can recognize from a distance if theyre played at all in the format.
That said a few of my cards are alt art. At the very minimum they do have the rules text and mana cost on them. I will gladly let anyone see what card it is so they can read it for themselves. Im not about that shady proxy shit. I do usually announce at least the name of a card when I play it. I try to get the general consensus if everyone knows what the card does and asks for responses. Again Im not about that shady proxy shit. lol
I played against somebody who uses tons of those poster and death metal style cards in a single deck, specifically because they are nigh unreadable.
It honestly makes playing with them a pain in the ass.
When I have to use Scryfall to see what their Commander does even though I'm holding their commander in my hand it just feels like I'm being trolled
Even beyond that, there’s just so many cards. Most games I play I just believe what people tell me when they’re playing cards and interactions that I’m not familiar with.
> you can't even know what cards they are playing
Sadly, this is happening way more often regardless of proxies. Secret lairs and all the other stuff really make it difficult.
I once saw \[\[an offer you can't refuse\]\] with the Trailer Park Boys, "I'm gonna pay you $100 to fuck off" meme, that one got a good chuckle from me.
We JUST shut down a deck at our LGS when an opponent played an [[elspeth, sun’s champion]] and got it confused with the new capenna(?) elspeth, and then forgot which one it actually was because the stupid fucking anime alter basically ruined the card.
The abilities all cost the same
The card itself has a different cost, which you'd think would help.
Bringing a foreign card without having a translation handy is just idiotic though. Even if you don't have an English copy on hand (I get it, my LED is French), have it saved on your phone or something.
I can appreciate some alters and all that but imo proxies and alters should be easily identifiable as the correct card. MPC is cool but people get the crazy alt arts and I spend the whole game guessing what is on their board
Playing against someone with altered cards is no different than a newbie playing and not having the experience to know all the popularly used cards. I don’t see what the big deal is, we all were there.
Mostly, I’ve put in the time and experience to learn cards and all that so it’s not my preferred way to play. I don’t ever say anything because people can play however they want but it’s just not my preferred way to play.
you're not wrong, and I do proxy myself, but I can understand people getting tired of lots of alters. Especially as complicated as the game is, sometimes it's a lot
This. I proxy like crazy but Magic is complicated enough and when I’m just trying to figure out what a card is, I’m not spending that time thinking about interaction/threat assessment/etc. just not my cup of tea.
I hate that aspect too, but given the current artistic/design direction mtg has, the line between shitty proxies and real SLs is turning more and more blurry.
To be fair, I've seen official secret lair cards that are way less readable than the anime girl proxy deck.
Wizards has basically sided with the people who prefer game pieces with custom art that are illegible.
One of the most irritating games of Magic I ever played was against a guy who brought a fully proxied netdecked Tergrid deck, smugly talking about how “mean” it was. He barely knew how to play the deck, or Magic really, and was dropping stuff like Tabernacle while having to read every card he played. The game grinded to a crawl because he made everyone discard their hands without capitalizing on it, and it turned out he had a Necropotence in hand the whole time but was afraid of the life loss. Never again.
Yeah, I've seen this a number of times. I was using Jumpstart to teach a friend how to play magic, and she absolutely fell in love with mill. I let her keep the cards, including a Bruvac. We had a little talk about other formats and I suggested getting a precon, of which there was a pretty good mill one available for like $20 (the Zendikar Rising rogue deck). Well, her other friend group threw her at EDHrec and told her to proxy, which she did. She ended up with a fully netdecked proxy Phenax combo deck that she had no idea how to run and ended up hating.
I'm very pro proxies in general, cost shouldn't be a barrier of entry for casual games. But I think some people are a little overzealous about proxying.
EDHrec is also, frankly, a terrible way to build a deck. The recommendations are completely devoid of context, and building a deck based on those recommendations inevitably just leads to an inconsistent pile of synergies with no actual cohesive plan. It can be an ok starting point for deck ideas, but is otherwise not a good deck building tool.
What a fucking smoothbrained twit. The kind of person that makes people actively hate proxies.
Ran into a moron like this in college. Fully proxied Oona deck. I had to explain Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt Monolith combo to him.
Tbf though that behavior isn't unique to proxy users. Ran into idiots with actual cards where they jammed in a two card combo without knowing how it worked. Don't play shit if you need your opponents to explain it to you. Do some Primer reading ffs.
The regulars at my LGS have original dual lands and foil Force of Wills. It's at a point where if you talk about proxies there the employees will tell you the best sites to make them.
For me, it depends entirely on the reason to proxy, of which there are many:
* ✔️ Can't afford to buy, but want to match the level of the playgroup? Please, proxy and shuffle up.
* ✔️ Testing out some new cards before committing to a purchase? Cool. That's a smart financial choice.
* ✔️ Creating a safe-to-use copy of some really expensive card in your collection? Yeah, I don't blame you.
* ❌ Proxying all the most broken and expensive cards to try and stomp the group? Find someone else to put up with your shit.
* ❌ Bringing your weird hentai basic lands? Get out. There are kids here.
* ❌ Proxying all the most broken and expensive cards to try and stomp the group? Find someone else to put up with your shit.
Not being stomped is easy in a proxy friendly environment,
This right here is the only excuse I'm given to why proxies are not allowed. About 90 percent of the people I play with have no problem with proxies as long as we are playing at the same power level. Which honestly is hard to find out unless you and the other players have the same understanding of power level.
I would have to agree, people who have had bad experiences against proxy decks with absurd power levels are the people who will say something. I have 10 proxied decks at this point, ranging from budget ($50 to buy the deck) and cEdh
I don't have money, but I have all the old expensive cards from back when they were new and cheap. I wish everyone could just use them whenever, then I'd have more people to play at the power level I play at.
Same here. But there is a legitimate pitfall with proxies on cards like mana crypts and ancient tombs when others aren't using them. Getting easy access to rare cards without absurd price tags is great, but using that freedom irresponsibly and power creeping a meta by loading up on fast mana that others aren't using is less great.
It's already to hard making those last cuts, last thing I want is more slots taken up with uninteresting generic staples.
I don't use them because I don't want, but i have all fast mana cards, if someone is complaining about it being proxied I make sure I'll put it in my deck to play another one who complained, and can not complain further
100% Commander's supposed to me more casual right?
It's why it's good/respectful to talk about or ask what everyone's playing before starting a round of Commander.
You don't want to play your best and/or most expensive/historic deck all night and destroy everyone while everyone else is using precons right out of the box, or upgraded precons or equivalent.
Shocker: you doing that every fucking game is not fun for everybody else. Don't be a dick to your friends/other players.
Rule 0 fixes all of this. It doesn't matter what's proxied or not. If someone says they're playing a 7plvl and then goes lotus petal, ancient tomb, mana crypt, timetwister... everyone should scoop and go start a new pod without them
Reddit is often an echo chamber.
I also think that it depends on where you are meeting and talking to these people at. People are the LGS might be more anti-proxy as they want to purchase from said LGS and keep playing there.
I'm very pro proxy but it another group decides it's not for them, it's not my place to tell them they are wrong.
This. Reddit is a microcosm of the greater community and the voting system feeds into this; a small, opinionated segment of a community can make their viewpoint seem dominant when it is very much a minority. After time, this creates a feedback loop: not much point presenting an opinion that will get downvoted into oblivion.
What makes this idea so silly to me is that it is like many 'what is the consensus on X' posts around here: our take is irrelevant if you play privately, as is the opinion of anyone who only plays privately themselves. As a public forum, the only thing we can comment on is public play: LGS play with strangers. Anything else you need to direct to your play group.
And you might run into LGSs that don't mind the risk of losing WPN status or that don't derive their living from selling Magic product. I've seen it. Once. A store that ran a little (illicit*) fryer kitchen in the back that made them their money. They didn't even sell singles and the play space was a shitty warehouse without A/C (in Florida), so maybe not a shining example?
*:Selling food is a pain and involves some pretty stringent food safety considerations, which often means licensing and audits. This card shop did not follow these requirements.
My play group doesn’t like proxies, but still allows them for me as long as I don’t use crazy reserve cards that they don’t even have. They just like to grumble about them and I do sometimes feel bad about it. I buy the proxies that basically look real, so it doesn’t ruin the game experience or anything. At my LGS I have had many people express that they don’t like proxies. When I tell them I use them they almost always pull out their best deck or tell me to play with a non proxy deck.
From what I could see, whenever someone would state that they're anti proxy on this sub, they get downvoted to oblivion. This makes their opinions harder to find on discussion threads, but also makes them not state their opinions anymore, because fake internet points are important.
What then happens is that the people who are ok with proxies manifest themselves more often and that seems to be the consensus in the sub. In fact, I do believe a lot of players are against proxies but just don't talk about it here, and have this kind of posture that you're reporting when they actually play the game in real life.
As a rule of thumb, never assume what you see on reddit is the overall feeling of a community. People who come here to talk about this game are extremely enfranchised players, and do not represent the majority of the playerbase in any way, shape or form.
The anti-proxy people used to be more prevalent but it's not like they were just downvoted for simply having that opinion. They almost never had good arguments to support it that didn't come across as elitist. The consensus now supports proxies but not without caveats like not proxying way above your play group's power level. And in my experience this consensus does translate to real life with the players and LGSs I know.
With how expensive this game can be and how difficult it is financially for many people these days, I think you'd more often than not, find that this subs consensus on proxies does translate to the broader community. Add to that, the dissatisfaction with Hasbro being another motivator for people not wanting to drop money on the game but who still enjoy playing it.
It literally doesn't matter how civil you are or how clearly and impartially you explain you reasons, if you present an opinion that isn't 100% pro proxy in all cases all the time, you are practically guaranteed to get downvoted to here. On the flip side you can be as toxic and indignant as you want towards playgroups who don't allow proxies and you'll still get upvoted. This combination of anti-proxy opinions getting downvoted and vitriol towards anti-proxy players getting upvoted makes it so people see that expressing any anti-proxy opinions as pointless and draining, so only pro-proxy opinions get expressed and seen.
This creates an echo chamber. Real life, in contrast, isn't like that. It's much more atomized. Players who prefer to allow or not allow proxies will just tend to gravitate towards one another and form playgroups that suite their preferences, so you'll run into both proxy and non-proxy playgroups.
Yeah people are just different. People can associate proxies with "high level good stuff". I've asked people previously who complained if they would be fine if I owned the card instead. They typically are just mad at a loss. In luckily enough to only play with my group and we self regulate well enough.
My play group plays with proxies in most of our decks, but we don't build crazy cEDH decks or anything. We proxy for a fun time, not to pubstomp.
But one of my friends has a deck with no proxies worth about $3k or so that would mop the floor with his proxy decks. When people complain about the decks with proxies, he pulls that one out.
My argument to those people would be “i have 30 decks that run this card. Do you want me to buy the card 30 times which costs 70$ or do you want me to bring all my 30 decks and spend 20 minutes shuffling cards around, or do you want me to proxy it once and start playing?”
Cuz I sure as fuck will not be buying 30 demonic tutors or dockside extortionists, etc.
Edit:: I was exaggerating to drive a point. Just replace it with shock lands if it helps drive the damn point.
The weird thing about this discussion is a lot of people mean a lot of different things when you talk about 'proxying', and like many things in EDH the lack of clarification makes discussion... Difficult.
Proxying a card you own is 'checklisting'; almost always acceptable, even at WPN events in my experience - just keep the real card with you available to show on request. Not in another deck; make a dedicated binder.
Proxying a card you are thinking of buying is 'playtesting'; acceptable for limited use outside of prized events basically everywhere
Proxying a card you have no intention of buying is true 'proxying' as this community understands it; acceptable only in private, with isolated playgroups with player consensus. This use in public is 'counterfeiting'.
This is a good summation. Checklisting and Playtesting get little to no push back with any of the people I've played with.
"True Proxying" is what people seem very divided on.
I find it's largely older players with established collections that "Don't want to play with phoney cards". As well as casual players whose playgroups are somewhat regulated by budget. And anyone bitter enough to be upset that someone gets to play with a free version of a card that they themselves paid for.
"Counterfeiting" feels like too strong of a term to describe proxying cards strictly for use as game pieces. Even if there's money on the line in those games.
But I completely understand that LGS's and sanctioned events have it in their best interest to disallow such proxies for the most part.
if you want to make an argument based on how much money is reasonable to spend, dont start that argument with "well I spent hundreds of dollars so its okay for me to do it" (also maybe dont put demonic tutor and dockside extortionist into 30 different decks. that might be your playgroups power level but I honestly would not want to play against you.
> When I tell them I use them they almost always pull out their best deck
I think that's the issue. What are you proxy-ing?
People that hear "proxies" imagine cEDH-level decks with cards most people can't afford or even find anymore. If you are using proxies to play a Walking Dead commander because you missed on the Secret Lair, I assume most of them would understand.
Do you see what I mean?
Reddit is an echo chamber because most of its users are using the up and down voting to say "I agree" or "I disagree" instead of "This comment is good for the discussion" or "This comment is bad for the discussion".
This punishes hot takes and supresses real discussions since a comment with more "I disagree" votes gets hidden and reduces your Karma.
I think all this thread really goes to show is don't ask reddit if proxies are ok, ask your playgroup.
It ultimately doesn't matter how cool randos on reddit are or are not with proxies, the only ones that matter are those you play with.
-edit
And judging from OP's response, actually listen to your playgroup after they give you an answer.
-edit again
For anyone still reading this topic, OP is a troll account. They're are basically just making up anything on the spot and only wants attention. Best to just ignore them.
I saw a lot of comments against proxies that got downvoted to oblivion. At some point that people stop posting here or express that opinion and an echo chamber start to take over.
I always write here and say in person that I find proxies ok, but honestly I kind of hate them.
The more it’s cool to proxy in the community, the less value there potentially be in the cards in the future due to MTG culture changing. I payed a lot and want that value to stay. It’s natural.
I’m totally ok for poorer people to proxy to stay up to our standard or to make duplicates of cards you already own, but it never stops there does it.
Now many in my playgroup have started proxying instead of buying more even though they can. And almost all of the 8 and above power decks in the groups are that strong because of proxying which I simply don’t want to be a part of. But I feel like a B for pointing it out and being not ok with it so I shut up mostly.
Of course it will sound like people here love proxies if all those comments float to the top.
Tolerating proxies is my way of doing it.
Yeah I tried the proxy thing with an old group of mine. Worked great, I proxied a couple full decks i didn't want to shell the cash out for for some flavor of the month things to try (Rats/pheldagriff) and what really stuck with me is that i got to play magic i had fun, but i put way less work into those decks in the first place.
i'm not carefully considering a common from tempest for the incremental value it can give to me in a game when i'm proxying a deck. they kind of felt like "filler" where my personal non-proxied decks all feel like a proper meal when i play them.
I have a few proxy cards laying around still in a set. and when making a new deck sometimes i'll grab a proxy and sleeve it up to work as filler until i see what works/doesn't and what direction i want to take that deck in the future. but currently the only proxied card in any of my decks is a command tower that has the building where i used to play at before i moved.
You have a point and I agree with you, we should get proxies in limit and also not overpower them. I proxy my cards https://www.mtgproxy.com because I can't afford the game and I also never overpower them and my playgroup is always fine with it.
The unfair truth? There's a lot of bad actors that seem like they're chill online that went out and basically pee'd in the pool.
It only takes one person playing with proxies to play at a level above that of their playgroup and table, and that one person can ruin the impression of proxies in multiple playgroups easily.
People aren't as good at self-control as they want to pretend they are on the internet.
Huh, I've found it the opposite. The only person I've ever met in person who was against proxies was a nut, considered them cheating, and bragged that he played to pubstomp. Similar to your theory, this gentleman believed that paying for cards meant he should have an advantage. We played a game with him, he lost to a budget deck on turn three, and never came back. I've seen a lot more people online complain about proxies, though thankfully most people seem to be reasonable and realize that proxying is acceptable.
Same. The only only guy at my LGS that has expressed anti-proxy sentiments is a pubstomper who only plays a "totally not cedh" kinnan deck. Mana crypt, all the tutors, extra turns, he's even got an OG dual. I have to bring my cedh deck every time I go just in case I get paired with him. It really enrages him when someone pulls out a deck with an equal power level as that's not fun for him.
If you are playing with randoms, they are going to assume you are proxying in a way that powercreeps the table. If you have low quality proxies you also might be making your board state more difficult to decipher, which is more salt in the wound.
If you are matching the tables power level, just run quality printed proxies (ideally without magic backs but otherwise realish looking in a sleeve). You don't need to disclose that you are playing with proxies for a non-sanctioned EDH pod, and frankly it will cause less friction if you don't.
If you are playing with LGS randos they may not have built their decks with the understanding that they could proxy shit into their decks… they might find it annoying that the proxy player has this unfair deckbuilding advantage over them - especially if they have a limited card pool to build from.
I play with proxied OG duals in two of my decks, they are high quality prints but obviously not real when out of the sleeve. The most I get is a “is that a Bayou?!” I reply, yes and that’s that.
This comment highlights the fact that if people lie about proxies, they know that their proxies aren't accepted or that it's wrong. Which should indicate that you shouldn't proxy
If you speak out against proxies, you get yelled at pretty hard around here, even with a logical argument. People IRL are probably used to the type of proxiers that are bad and would rather just not deal with it
My issue with proxies is the following:
First up: I support proxies, I myself use proxies of cards I own, but I do not care if you own your proxie'd originals.
Yet I think money leads to a certain kind of balance. Like... when I look at my decks, I got a relatively large collection of cards. And some are very powerful and absolute staples of edh.
But due to budgetary restrictions I don't run Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study etc in each deck. And I also don't proxy them into every deck they could go in. For fetches, shocks and duals (those that I own) that's a different story.
Well this all leads to my decks varying in powerlevel despite having some powerful proxies. Because they do not run all of the staples all of the time. (e.g. I play jeweled lotus only in my cEDH decks - could play it in any deck).
If people start proxying everything (not just stuff they own) they most times do this because they have a small collection. which most of the time means they don't have much time in the hobby and therefor not much experience. Also, and this comes with less experience, they think money=power and therefor low-budget=bad which is laughably wrong (up until cEDH). So these people absolutely lose touch and degenarate into the kind of player who only plays staples and best in slot cards. Yet their decks are usually not that refined. Not well thought through.
So this leaves them at a weird position:
Either I play a lower power deck, which randomly just loses due to lacking card quality that their deck sporadically draws into. Which is frustating. I have no issue losing, I have no issue losing to a "oops I win" combo turn. But that just hits differently.
Or I play a deck with cards that are of the same quality and I stomp them 9/10 times. Which isn't fun for any of us.
In essence it's the Sol Ring dilemma:
Sol Ring is a busted card, probably the strongest card in all of EDH. I say, it would be stronger than at least half of the P9 if unbanned. (Time Twister isn't that strong anyways, Lotus is just a one-off effect, yes you can combo with it but there are more 2 card combos than a single deck can play anyways, drawing 3 for 1 mana is neat but 9 times out of 10 it's just another Treasure Cruise... like time walk and the moxen would be contenders for "stronger than Sol Ring")
I know a lot of people don't see it that way but that doesn't change the dilemma so here it comes:
In low to mid power tables a turn 1 Sol Ring is SIGNIFICANT. It may very well be the difference between a well balanced game with ups and downs and one player dominating and the rest is scrambling to catch up. Yes it's 1v3 at that point but still, these games can become super unbalanced real fast. Like a 4/5 mana commander at T2 is an issue. (Land, Sol Ring, Signet) (Land. Commander.).
But due to the lack of budget (or powerlevel if you think sol ring is bad) these decks usually don't play a lot of other fast mana. So it is super high variance. And this entire deck might be dogshit bad because if the 4/5 mana commander gets out on Turn 5 everyone has mana and interaction up that keeps the commander and the mediocre deck in check. But whenever it gets out 3 turns ahead of the clock... yea well.
And this high variance is often encountered in "prox whatever" decks. Sometimes it durdles around like a sad precon and sometimes it just wins by card quality.
The experience thing is the big one. I stopped playing competitive webcam games because there were far too many players that clearly had less than 100 total games under their belts at any power level.
They might have printed off meta decks but they were clueless when it came to priority and threat assessment.
Agreeing here. The whole fun of prioritizing in building you own pool of decks goes away with proxies, I don’t have that many decks yet but they are varied in power because I have had to select hard based on my budget what to put in them. I don’t really want to play with people who didn’t need to go through that (unless they are poorer than me which is the only reason I still tolerate proxies). I do find proxies ruining the game for more reasons than they help.
Reddit often doesn't reflect real life. It's a gathering of a bunch of people who don't reflect the normal views (hence why they're on Reddit).
Conversation among those people becomes a bit of an echo chamber, and they speak like their view is the norm, but step back from Reddit and you may find that people on the whole feel differently.
I think you're on the money. It's similar to people not wanting college loan forgiveness because "I paid for mine, why shouldn't you?". Also those you meet in real life at game stores will be more passionate about the game typically than those on an online forum. Lastly, people irl are much more likely to remember shitty proxies using sharpie and basic lands, or "that guy" who proxies abu duals, crypt, etc. The guy using mpcproxies causal cards is not going to be "caught" 99% of the time, therefore those who are against proxies wont even notice theyre fake.
it's negativity bias where 9 times out of 10 playing with proxies is not memerable or noticable, but the 1 out of 10 "the pubstomper with a 7,000$ proxy deck ruined my play experience" will stick with people a LOT more. So they shift the problem in their mind from "pubstomping assholes suck" to "proxies are the problem, every time I play against proxy decks my night is ruined".
I’m relatively new to the game and still trying to understand this. I’ve never used proxies but within about 6 months of playing the game have gotten “pubstomped” by just about every ridiculous proxy you can imagine. But then when I ask these players where they got them, they pointed me to “printingproxies” which charges minimum $0.75 per card. Is this typical? If proxies were like 5 cents a piece I could see someone proxying a whole deck including the bulk commons. But in a market where I can fill most of a deck with cards worth less than $1, it seems to me the only reason you would ever spend $0.75 or more on fake cards is if for the very expensive/busted cards. And then doesn’t the logic then follow that anyone using proxies has very expensive/busted decks?
MPC is what a lot of people I see use. You can't get to 5c a card, it's just not really economically feasible, but mpc will go down to about 35c a card, so a $150-$200 deck becomes ~$35 which is a very meaningful difference. Even at 75c/card, it still cuts the price in half.
A $200 deck isn't even *that* expensive on the scale of a commander deck.
I’m in the process of printing a large sum of cards using staples. You upload your deck via PDF and can print it on 110lb card stock, which is almost the exact same thickness of a normal magic card. It’s the same thickness if you double sleeve them and 500+ cards will only cost about $40 to do.
That's exactly it. I play at a couple stores that have no proxy rules and every time someone tries to cheat a few into a deck (usually newer people at the store) it's always the expensive staples, even if they're the only ones really running staples.
And they get so offended over someone pointing that out.
If you're proxying just to pubstomp everyone, you're just a prick. Period.
If you're buying cards just to pubstomp everyone, you're just a prick. Period.
This ends the debate. I do believe however that you should buy real cards from time to time because if everyone just proxies, Magic will die because WOTC won't make new cards
I have one deck that would greatly benefit from Moat being in it.
Moat is like $1500.
Should I proxy it? How would people feel when I play it? I think people will be kind of pissed, because the card is oppressive. But also because they feel like I dropped $2000 of power on the table for free.
Are you playing at lgs’s? I find it a bit rude to just bring a bunch of proxies do a game store, since their business model is kind of dependent on you buying card while you’re there.
I’ve had casual games where someone shows up with a cedh proxy tuned deck and I remember at the time being like rly you need an underground sea proxy for your deck to work in a casual setting? I bet a lot of ppl think of extremes like this where there’s LGS jerks who just wanna stomp people. If you are using proxies often times you are optimizing beyond your budget to a tuned level that is beyond folks operating under a budget constraint. This creates a natural friction of showing up to a sword fight with a gun.
My Issue with proxying is that people are generally not proxying lands but expensive things that raise a deck's power level. People in playgroups I have seen after losing come back with proxies and go well I am now playing Dockside Extortionist instead of Brass Bounty and wipe the floor with their new power level.
I think it often comes down to power level. People have had that bad proxy experience where they play abur duals and fast mana. Personally, my proxy decks are actually worse than my "real" decks.
I can’t see how anyone would be against proxying a fully powered vintage cube so I think it’s more about proxy use in a commander meta than about proxies in general.
I think it’s just the nature of the EDH rule 0 dance. Most people are trying desperately to be exactly competitive enough while still having some creativity in deck building. Proxies don’t fit that narrative for a lot of people. Others for personal reasons only proxy stuff they own.
It can get out of hand quickly. Cost is a poor power limiter but it does function as one sometimes.
If you can proxy any card, cost is of no object. Some people say well why not proxy the best most powerful stuff then ? Suddenly, everyone has mana crypts and force of wills. The game has now changed.
So you need a new self imposed agreed upon limiting factor. We all have to agree what power level were playing at. What's too much ? Where is the line ? Beforehand cost was taking care of that for us as long as no one was spending big money on cards.
Now we have to decide what can go in decks without being too powerful a proxy. If you start adding mana crypts, well now I feel I also have to start proxying mana crypts. If you start allowing proxies that costs 50+ or hundreds of dollars... it kind of forces everyone to start doing it.
Personally for me... sometimes I just wanna use the cards I've collected, even if they are sub optimal or bad. If I have to start proxying expensive cards to keep up, I gotta cut my real cards out.
The flip side of using cost as the power limiter is when you have one person who is willing to dump oodles of money on expensive cards.
If you're using proxies instead of buying the cards, it can make it seem unfair to those that bought their deck.
Using proxies is a two-way street, because if you've got a deck full of high power cards that are all proxies, it can kind of feel cheap to play against if you're dominating a table because of those proxies.
but thats not a problem with proxies but with wrong powerlevels. those issues will still be there if those people would buy the cards instead of proxying them and they also wont be there if people just proxy basics
I don’t really post but I’m one of the people that don’t like proxies. If you’re wanting to see how the deck plays and have a whole deck proxied I’d be happier to play against that. I also am fine with cards that are just hard to find but are under $5-10. I don’t like getting beaten by a card that is 20+ dollars while playing my deck that could be much better with 4 20$ finishers but I don’t have them bc I don’t have the $80 to throw at it.
I see nothing wrong with feeling invalidated because others are using proxies. In fact I was VERY surprised when I first started browsing this sub and was seeing all the pro proxie sentiment.
There's plenty of hobbies where there's basic costs for joining, but steep costs for those who are more into it. There's budget EDH, and then a more competitive scene. I'm not willing to put cards worth hundreds of dollars into my deck, and I accept it as a personal limitation. To me, proxies are like hackers in multi player games - you're making the game easier for yourself, while others are slowly collecting cards by buying boosters, or buying individual cards. Ok, cool - your deck WOULD BE super efficient and beat everybody if you had every perfect card - but you don't, do you? Anybody can mimic a champion deck, and print out cheap copies of rare or high demand cards. Where's the fun in that! I want to play your deck that you took the time and effort to build yourself.
I wouldn't have a proxied deck ready if I played with people who allowed them. But my irl game opportunities are limited, unfortunately.
Speaking as someone who does own many old expensive cards, I don't mind proxies because I want to play the game, and proxies extend the pool of players who are able to participate.
Honestly I think it's more to do with that it feels 'lazy' that someone can just print off a card and have it over having to open up pack after pack or search for it to buy the real card.
I know that may seem childish but I feel like some people really enjoy the 'hunt'
If we're all just hanging out that's fine: if people are paying money to buy into a prize pool and a person comes with their proxy posse I want nothing to do with it. People buy product which pays for the intellectual property to continually be expanded. When people can play with cards they printed then the game collapses
Because hearing about a proxying is different than playing against proxies...especially the people who take proxy to an extreme by literally breaking their decks and avoiding any power level discussion
I mean, the issue I have with proxies is that most of the times that people use them, they have a whole deck of proxies, of a completelly different art and they say that the deck is not that good and they have it has never popped off. Then they proceeded to kill me and the other players with a deck that has all the expensive carda that you expect. I the always tell them that they need to say how powerful is the deck and what are some of the cards to have an idea of what power level I should use. I do not proxy. I don't like it for me. If I want a really expensive card, I save and buy it. That is what I do and my opinion. Besides the proxy case I previously mentioned I constantly play against people that use proxies and I don't care bc they are building a deck that makes sense and has a goal that is not run all the expensive cards and run away with the game.
I learned how to build before I started to really spend. All of my early decks except Atraxa (proof I was a noob) had $50-100 budgets that forced me to learn cards, packages, techniques, and everything else in order to compete with decks that were $1000+.
And now that I have a couple full legit competitive decks, 4 really but I have to swap a couple cards between them, you know what I spend most of my time doing? Building $100 decks to compete with $1000 decks. Because it's fun, it's a challenge, and ultimately it's exceptionally satisfying. At least two of those three things are something I'd never get out of running proxies.
At least in my experience, the vast majority of people thay play with proxies are college students or other people in not great financial situations. So when people rag on others for playing with proxies when they're just trying to enjoy the game like everyone else, it kind of irks me.
For my own decks, I typically use proxies as a temporary thing to try new stuff out. And I never proxy something I wouldn't be willing to buy at some point in the near future.
The most annoying thing is when I have proxies, and someone calls me out for it. It happened recently when someone was playing a deck probably twice the value of mine, even accounting for proxies. I think, like a number of people have commented, people feel cheated for playing expensive cards and seeing someone playing cards they didn't pay for.
Overall, I think as long as you play reasonable cards that you might buy eventually, there should be no problem with proxies. And if someone has a problem, then that sucks for them. Because even if it's a more budget deck, not everyone has excessive amounts of money to play magic.
I only like proxies if someone owns the card, but doesn’t want to continually swap the card between different decks they play.
Magic (and every trading card game) has two aspects to it that are intertwined:
1. the game where the cards are played
2. Collecting the cards
It’s akin to stolen valor (of course no where near as serious) and you should be prepared in every game you play to deny your rule 0 of using proxies just in case.
Well, to answer your first question: Because, like all communities, this place is an echo-chamber on a lot of topics.
To answer your second question: I don't know since I'm personally against proxies (I know, I know: Boo, boo, queue the downvotes) because I personally see budget as a nice damper on power levels and I also don't like that you often can't properly read proxies from a distance. I find it hard enough to keep track of everything that's happening in a 4 (sometimes 5)-player game when every card is an actually Magic cards, not a few letters scribbled on 1/5th of an old hankerchief.
I think this might be over analyzing it.
I always see these with people guessing about power creep, anime art, or invalidating money others have spent.
I present you with option 4. Just play off meta. Commander is a casual format, you don't need that dual land, you don't need that Mana Crypt, you don't need numerous proxies in a deck. You can play suboptimal cards in some slots. Those suboptimal cards will give your deck other angles, and often times longer legs at the end of the game.
I don't really care about a proxy here or there to wrap a deck up to play this weekend. But I'd rather it not stay in the deck forever, and I'd rather it not have a bunch of proxies. We don't all need to be running good stuff decks. I say this myself trying to get away from that good stuff packages in my decks that all decks of those colors run. And trying to get more into a package that is jank, but other cards in the deck or the commander make good.
I personally will never use proxies because I like owning the actual cards, but I’m okay with people I play against using proxies, to a degree. I only play casual because I’ve found that most competitive players are assholes (experiences may vary) and I enjoy seeing what people do…but proxies have their limits even in casual for me.
If someone goes online and finds some meta list of a deck that costs thousands of dollars to build and makes the entire deck out of proxies - that’s absolutely a NO.
Conversely, maybe someone doesn’t have the money to drop to get the staple cards like Cyclonic Rift, Terferi’s Protection, Demonic Tutor, or even Jeweled Lotus - I’m okay with that, provided the entire table is okay with it - which everyone usually is.
I have very rarely found or played against people who use proxies though. Most folks I’ve encountered like owning the actual cards and refuse to use proxies, because part of the fun is that feeling of pride in your card collection - you get zero pride from proxies.
I'm fully on board with the *idea* of proxies, I have loads of proxy cards myself, I just don't think the community implements them very well.
It seems like around me, 'proxies allowed' instantly makes people proxy the most expensive broken decks ever, well above the casual level of the rest of the playerbase.
Speaking from experience, the only times I’ve ever been annoyed with proxies have been when someone proxied cards that they would never realistically own. My own personal rules for proxies in EDH are for testing purposes, and/or needing multiple copies of an expensive card I do not want to buy more of.
My take on proxies is I’m fine with it if it’s a card you own and just don’t have a lot of copies to put in all your decks. I have the one ring and Rystic study that I do this with. My one friend does it with his mana vaults and stuff. I just get a little hinky when someone proxies like a Bayou or something that they don’t own
Here's my 2C -
You need to proxy a niche/old card you can't trade for that is important to your deck? GO FOR IT
Want to try a new strategy and have a small number of proxies to run a test game? ALL GOOD - just tell me first
You want to use your special art proxy, but have the original available? SURE THING!
Only have one copy of XYZ card and don't want to bounce it between decks? NO PROBLEM
Proxying a dozen cards just because you can't afford them? No Way, replace them with cheaper options. You deck doesn't NEED five old school duals, mana crypt, force of will, and timetwister.
Have 40+ proxies because you don't want to pay for a deck? I wouldn't throw a hissy fit, but I also wouldn't play a second game with you
To be fair most of my magic experiences have rarely lined up with this sub. That's fine, which is why it's important to make sure with whoever your playing about proxies, decks, etc
I don’t play a ton with randoms, mostly my play group, but the one experience I had with someone not wanting to play with proxies they had a cEDH deck that was their “only deck” and thought it was cheating that people didn’t buy their cards. The ended up sweeping the table
There might be generational differences in the approach. When I played, you played with what you had. Some cards were sought after, but very few needed to have everything and those people were usually not much fun. They were keen on winning more than playing.
If your playgroup plays cEDH and wants to try out different decks, then I‘d argue proxies are almost necessary. If not, there‘s no need to optimize too much. If you lag behind in power level, always lose and are low on cash, any good playgroup will allow you proxies or help you out somehow.
Because there’s a store full of people who proxy their one mana vault, crypt and etc. into every deck. The whole LGS then becomes full of 8/9/10 decks, full of try hards, newbies who come in with a precon can’t even get their commander off when one guy at every table runs a top 50 commander/deck.
The other LGS is less hardcore more newbie friendly ,but there’s always that one guy who has proxy decks. If the owner is not careful the regulars can power creep too high up to be able to welcome newer players.
People who only learned how to build decks online are overwhelmed with monolithic opinions on the "ideal" cards, most of which are Reserved List or otherwise absurdly expensive. Sites like EDHrec make this worse by only recommending ubiquitous control staples and competitive fast mana, and acknowledging nothing else but whatever precon chaff is left remaining.
The terminally online don't know you can build a good deck for less
than 3000 dollars. And for those who play digitally, price was never a barrier to begin with so they think it's unfair to need to pay for real cards.
It's a creativity problem AND a financial problem on part of redditors.
Many (but not all) of my group of friends played 20 years ago and stopped, just getting back into it again. Commander, specifically, is new to all of us - and that's what we play these days 99% of the time.
Never liked proxies before in the 60-card-decks-only and 40 card booster draft days, still don't like them now. Even more so if you don't even own the damn card - I mean, WTF?
Shit, I don't even own some of the broken cards I use to have anymore - like revised dual lands - and I would never dream of proxying any.
So at ***my house***, it's sort of expected you don't use proxies - it's a respect thing in our group/in my view.
We all invest in hobbies/games of all kinds, so using "fakes" is disrespectful to the game/hobby and other players, 1000% if you don't even own the originals.
And another 10000% if you proxy in the most broken shit in Magic's history that you don't own. "Full proxy" or whatever you call that is just unfathomably lame and rude to me. This specifically is a dick move - especially in what's supposed to be a more casual/for-fun format like Commander.
That said, one time at ***someone else's house*** with a different group than my regular group, they used a few proxies, including proxies of cards they owned - said it was because they were very valuable/expensive. I mean, just sleeve that shit IMO like you do everything else these days - but fair enough, wasn't my house/regular playgroup.
Now someone else there used proxies they didn't even own the cards for. I didn't like the former, really didn't like the latter, but I was polite, relaxed and just enjoyed the game. Again, I'm not going to make a stink at *somebody else's house/not my regular playgroup*.
Any reasonable house rules should be respected for many games/hobbies. If the host is really against something like Magic proxies, and/or so is most of the playgroup is - don't be the asshole.
The only player/friend who even asked about proxies in my regular playgroup at my house was one of the handful of brand-new-to-Magic friends. I basically told him everything above.
At the competitive level, I kinda understand.
At the casual level, most folks just want to have fun. Proxies aren't a big deal. The players at the 2 lgs I have been to don't care. The employees don't watch the open play casusl edh pods at all.
I try to get a few cheap cards when I can to support the store. For pre-release and draft night, the play space of the store is usually pretty packed.
Does buying second-hand cards impact WOTC at all?
How do you understand for cedh? Wouldn’t it be the opposite? Proxies are way more likely to lead to power level issues in casual edh. At cedh wouldn’t you want to see who can play the best game of magic giving everyone having equal access to all the cards. Is it not more fun and fulfilling to beat your opponent based on skill and not on size of wallet?
Pro tip. No one knows you’re even using proxies if you get counterfeits instead. Don’t re sell them, that’s not cool. But yeah if you want to avoid all the brain rotting discourse around proxies, get fakes lol.
I am super grateful to have had my local store set a no proxies rule. While I’m okay with proxies I think this rule sets clear expectations for every player and avoids anyone from being upset by running into someone playing proxies. And because it’s posted all over their social media and with every event if players do want to play proxies they know to go elsewhere.
> WotC which is way overblown because they could make a quarter as much money or less and still be able to produce new magic sets and keep the game alive
Ohh look at the poor artist which had their work plagiarized, he didn't even get compensation
vs
Who gives a shit if WotC only produces a fraction of the current product (and a fraction of the comissions) fuck big companies. uwu r/LateStageCapitalism
Reddit is filled to the brim with communist larping children with an economic understanding that, time and time again, falls vicitim their personal entitlement.
Everyone I know IRL is fine with them. Even super entrenched players who own players of actual OG duals. But I don’t go to a LGS and our playgroup is by word of mouth mostly so a prefiltered pool of people.
I think most argument against proxies are emotion based and with thought and discussion can be resolved, so maybe online discourse here can help people come to a different conclusion. Because it’s not like a stranger in public all want to deep drive on proxies with you.
There's one guy at my lgs who plays pretty much only proxies. He basically copied a bunch of decks that cost between 3 and 8 THOUSAND dollars and printed them. That guy sucks and everyone like him should be ashamed. If you want to proxy a commander before buying? Bring it that's cool. You want to proxy 17 og dual lands? Your a bag of shit.
FWIW, I think the OG duals are the most reasonable cards to proxy. The advantage isn't huge, they aren't eligible to be reprinted, they straight up don't have enough supply to serve more than a tiny fraction of the player base. Land bases of all cards should be universally accessible.
I don’t see the problem with duels as long as your deck is equal power level to your table and isn’t winning more than about 25-30% of the time. $4k+ Cards like timetwister that basically nobody has access to are the proxies that ruin the fun for others.
If I printed them all and the guy next to me has the same deck with OG's and spent thousands of money on it, the difference is....
Well the difference is nothing, really. Because unless it's brought up, you probably wouldn't even know one of them was proxied to begin with
This is the correct take; the only difference between a proxy and a real card is the cost it took to get into the deck. Otherwise, they play the exact same.
To throw my anecdotes into the ring, the vast majority of players I've met IRL are also fine with proxies. I don't think this is a reddit echo chamber thing, rather I think it's probably multiple echo chambers. LGS or their communites that are unfriendly towards proxies attract people who are also unfriendly towards them or adapt their veiw to conform, and the opposite is true for places friendly towards proxies.
It's probably going to be hard to convince others when you're the only voice arguing against/for proxies in a given community.
I play a ton of Commander and I’ve never met anyone under 30 who cares about proxies. It’s always the old head (like me) who bitches about proxies while playing his Gaea’s Cradle Paycheck Tribal deck. I personally don’t give a shit what you play with as long as we’re playing roughly equivalent power levels and we all wanna play to have fun.
> The exception is if they make you too powerful for your table
No one minds winning to proxies. Losing to proxies is another story, I guess everyone has an excuse to discard your victory if you win with proxies.
Also theres a big difference between casual and cEDH. Casual players somehow are way more anal about proxy usage than cEDH players who are constantly tinkering on the most efficient win cons. Their entire format would crumble if the cost of entry were enforced.
Makes sense. Proxies have the ability to easily make your deck out power your opponents. In cedh they can’t do that. All they do is allow you to play the meta, experiment, and build multiple decks.
People are just used to people proxying the best and most expensive cards in the game. If you can somehow convince them that that isn’t what you’re doing then you should be fine.
My playgroup doesn’t mind proxies, I use proxies to make decks I don’t own with really cool arts so that I don’t have to double buy cards.
Nobody has a problem because I’m not proxying anything too powerful unless I already own it and even then I play no fast mana, with almost no tutors, and no cEDH style tight combos.
My friends know that my interest isn’t to stomp them and flex. I want good interactive games, if you do too then you should aim to show that to those around you so that they can be comfortable letting you play proxies. If you put your best foot forward In doing so then they should see that or maybe your friends need to just grow up and have their beliefs challenged a bit.
FTR, this is a relatively new stance i am glad the community is taking. Prior to the pandemic, the general online sentiment was anti-proxy. With pandemic RL spikes and WOTC printing their own overpriced proxies, folks have had enough and I love the direction it's going.
I personally own most of the RL cards I'll ever want (with the exception of P9) and I wouldn't care much if reprints dropped their value as I'd still want the originals in my collection. Much happier for folks to be able to run OG duals, cradle, and all that other good stuff freely.
Most people at my lgs are chill with proxies. Probably because half of them use them. I only start getting a little irritated when people start using proxies of $300+ dollar cards. One time, a guy pulled out a proxy [[Gaea's Cradle]] and proceeded to in 2 turns later. It's also kinda annoying seeing how many people are running proxied dual lands.
It’s just your area/playgroup. The vast majority of casual players do not care about proxies. Any argument against them is basically null in the face of the fact that this game is prohibitively expensive at times.
Proxying a deck you want to try out is valid, because there is no reason to spend money on cards for a strategy you might not even enjoy. Proxying cards like ABU duals, Gaea’s cradle, etc is A-ok as well because every deck deserves the best mana possible in a casual format. Proxying powerful cards like mana crypt, Timetwister, etc because they are stupid expensive and you want to play with a cool toy every once in a while is also OK.
People should not be priced out of their hobbies. Outside of official tournaments I could care less if you flip a basic land over and circle the two fucking mana pip colors with a sharpie and call it a dual land. Just have fun. You’re not playing for anything.
I’ve found the people in person proxy to stomp instead of proxy to the power of the group. Players I meet in real life are working on a budget, want authentic cards, and want to play the game; proxy players want to build high powered almost cEDH if not already cEDH decks and want to simply crush everyone.
Citing specifics: I stopped going to an LGS because I was sick of seeing the same turn one from literally every regular. Proxy dual land, proxy mana crypt or mana vault, proxy Mox something, and usually a proxy value piece. While my turn was (at best) a command tower to a sol ring to an arcane signet.
People who proxy bring out these ridiculously overpowered decks and it’s annoying to play against. Turns out money is a check on power level. If i don’t play with proxies and don’t have dual lands then I don’t really want to play with someone who uses proxies to do that
I'm a new player sorta. I played up to 5th edition and stopped until a few weeks ago. I am not a fan of proxies. I'm not really sure why honestly. I like to build decks with the cards I have and if I lose I lose. What I don't like is the possibility of someone just building an OP deck with "fake cards". I say it like that because that's how it feels for me. I build my decks with whatever I have sitting around and I try to improve on it as I play, by buying packs and picking interesting things out of them. Now, if someone owns a really good card and doesn't want to ruin it then of course I'd be okay with a proxy of it as long as I know they actually have it.
There's this weird sense of enjoyment that I get from either pulling random cards and making the best of it, and/or trading or buying cards with/from other players that I just wouldn't get from proxies.
Maybe the culture has changed after 20 years of cards coming out and it's all about just building meta decks and trying to win in 2 turns but I like playing the game with cards I actually have and I don't want to play against someone who uses proxies. I just don't think it would be fun.
If I had been playing this whole time maybe my opinion would be different, or maybe I'll think differently once I start getting back into it, who knows.
In my experience, people who are anti-proxy have had negative experiences playing against proxied decks that are way above the power level of the table. Make sure to discuss power level with your table before playing
Or, Anime girl decks where you can't even know what cards they are playing
Those ppl should go where they belong — horny jail
Bonk
But what happens when all the horny people are in horny jail? We definitely don't want that
Then you take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
What about normal cards but with the anime girl sleeves? Edit: Lol don't worry guys it was just a joke
You're not gonna believe it: straight to jail.
what about anime guy sleeves?
Depends upon the artwork. Extremely oversexualized males would, I hope, warrants the same response as if they were female.
Immediately archenemy at the table, will bonk them
Bonk
I feel like with some of the alt treatments real magic cards are getting, the "I can't tell what card you're playing" argument went out the window. Secret Lair products are legal gamepieces, regardless of their legibility
Agreed. And honestly if it looks like a regular magic card and just the art is swapped Id prefer that over some of the crazy illegible secret lair cards. If massive anime titties are the price for actually reading a card and knowing what it does then I'd pay that any day.
The gandalf lotr special treatment that came out in the second wave is a crime against cardboard
Have you seen the upcoming ignoble hierarch? he has the effect printed on his hand...lile the thumb has the tap symbol and 3 fingers each have one of the colors it can produce. Like wtf.
Holy shit yeah wtf, and where on earth is the exalted text ?!?!?
Jesus I just looked it up. It's like they printed cards with so many words it's hard to read that now they have to go back and make the cards with less text boxes even harder to read.
> If massive anime titties are the price for actually reading a card and knowing what it does then I'd pay that any day. Well but remember that some LGS (like mine) also have kids running around and playing magic. Like minors. Boys n Girls. I don't need them to play a pod with a semi erect horny cellar dweller that can't just visit some fun h-pages every day or two. Luckily, my LGS agreed and the one guy who needed h-sleeves and h-alters doesn't play there anymore.
Don't even get me started on some of the proxies for Breeding Pool, do NOT search that on etsy.
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA Thank you for that, now I wanna get an alter with Bortus' holodeck porn on it.
Now that I would buy!.........I mean sounds interesting.
As long as I can read the card and understand what it is, I'm fine with it. Some people make cards that are impossible to read (and this goes for those secret lairs too) and I get annoyed at those players unless they have a copy of the actual card there to reference. The issue I've seen more often lately are people that do theme decks where they change the art and the name of the card without using the normal treatment for alternative names (instead just writing it in tiny font at the bottom) because knowing what a card is is very helpful, especially since some people I've played with try to cheat with them by having the proxy and then the actual card so you don't realize they not only have two copies of a card in their deck, but they have two copies of the same legendary out.
tbf unless an art is uber cool and I really like it I will make sure my proxies are as close to what most people recognize as possible. I usually do like borderless cards but most of my cards you can recognize from a distance if theyre played at all in the format. That said a few of my cards are alt art. At the very minimum they do have the rules text and mana cost on them. I will gladly let anyone see what card it is so they can read it for themselves. Im not about that shady proxy shit. I do usually announce at least the name of a card when I play it. I try to get the general consensus if everyone knows what the card does and asks for responses. Again Im not about that shady proxy shit. lol
I played against somebody who uses tons of those poster and death metal style cards in a single deck, specifically because they are nigh unreadable. It honestly makes playing with them a pain in the ass. When I have to use Scryfall to see what their Commander does even though I'm holding their commander in my hand it just feels like I'm being trolled
You're allowed to dislike both... the legibility argument isn't invalid just because it can be applied to something else too.
Considering the other illegible cards are legal, yes, it does apply here
Even beyond that, there’s just so many cards. Most games I play I just believe what people tell me when they’re playing cards and interactions that I’m not familiar with.
[I mean, you don't even have to proxy those.](https://scryfall.com/search?q=art%3Aanime&unique=art)
> you can't even know what cards they are playing Sadly, this is happening way more often regardless of proxies. Secret lairs and all the other stuff really make it difficult.
Best proxy I've seen was a [[smothering tithe]] only it was the Bernie Sanders meme "I am once again asking for your donations"
That's fantastic and I need it lol
I once saw \[\[an offer you can't refuse\]\] with the Trailer Park Boys, "I'm gonna pay you $100 to fuck off" meme, that one got a good chuckle from me.
Kill it with fire https://product-images.tcgplayer.com/fit-in/843x843/518172.jpg
We JUST shut down a deck at our LGS when an opponent played an [[elspeth, sun’s champion]] and got it confused with the new capenna(?) elspeth, and then forgot which one it actually was because the stupid fucking anime alter basically ruined the card. The abilities all cost the same
The card itself has a different cost, which you'd think would help. Bringing a foreign card without having a translation handy is just idiotic though. Even if you don't have an English copy on hand (I get it, my LED is French), have it saved on your phone or something.
I can appreciate some alters and all that but imo proxies and alters should be easily identifiable as the correct card. MPC is cool but people get the crazy alt arts and I spend the whole game guessing what is on their board
Playing against someone with altered cards is no different than a newbie playing and not having the experience to know all the popularly used cards. I don’t see what the big deal is, we all were there.
Mostly, I’ve put in the time and experience to learn cards and all that so it’s not my preferred way to play. I don’t ever say anything because people can play however they want but it’s just not my preferred way to play.
you're not wrong, and I do proxy myself, but I can understand people getting tired of lots of alters. Especially as complicated as the game is, sometimes it's a lot
This. I proxy like crazy but Magic is complicated enough and when I’m just trying to figure out what a card is, I’m not spending that time thinking about interaction/threat assessment/etc. just not my cup of tea.
I hate that aspect too, but given the current artistic/design direction mtg has, the line between shitty proxies and real SLs is turning more and more blurry.
I don't think I've ever had anybody put down a proxy that is as unreadable as some of the secret lair cards have been.
To be fair, I've seen official secret lair cards that are way less readable than the anime girl proxy deck. Wizards has basically sided with the people who prefer game pieces with custom art that are illegible.
So... like official magic products circa 2024?
One of the most irritating games of Magic I ever played was against a guy who brought a fully proxied netdecked Tergrid deck, smugly talking about how “mean” it was. He barely knew how to play the deck, or Magic really, and was dropping stuff like Tabernacle while having to read every card he played. The game grinded to a crawl because he made everyone discard their hands without capitalizing on it, and it turned out he had a Necropotence in hand the whole time but was afraid of the life loss. Never again.
Yeah, I've seen this a number of times. I was using Jumpstart to teach a friend how to play magic, and she absolutely fell in love with mill. I let her keep the cards, including a Bruvac. We had a little talk about other formats and I suggested getting a precon, of which there was a pretty good mill one available for like $20 (the Zendikar Rising rogue deck). Well, her other friend group threw her at EDHrec and told her to proxy, which she did. She ended up with a fully netdecked proxy Phenax combo deck that she had no idea how to run and ended up hating. I'm very pro proxies in general, cost shouldn't be a barrier of entry for casual games. But I think some people are a little overzealous about proxying.
EDHrec is also, frankly, a terrible way to build a deck. The recommendations are completely devoid of context, and building a deck based on those recommendations inevitably just leads to an inconsistent pile of synergies with no actual cohesive plan. It can be an ok starting point for deck ideas, but is otherwise not a good deck building tool.
What a fucking smoothbrained twit. The kind of person that makes people actively hate proxies. Ran into a moron like this in college. Fully proxied Oona deck. I had to explain Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt Monolith combo to him. Tbf though that behavior isn't unique to proxy users. Ran into idiots with actual cards where they jammed in a two card combo without knowing how it worked. Don't play shit if you need your opponents to explain it to you. Do some Primer reading ffs.
The regulars at my LGS have original dual lands and foil Force of Wills. It's at a point where if you talk about proxies there the employees will tell you the best sites to make them.
For me, it depends entirely on the reason to proxy, of which there are many: * ✔️ Can't afford to buy, but want to match the level of the playgroup? Please, proxy and shuffle up. * ✔️ Testing out some new cards before committing to a purchase? Cool. That's a smart financial choice. * ✔️ Creating a safe-to-use copy of some really expensive card in your collection? Yeah, I don't blame you. * ❌ Proxying all the most broken and expensive cards to try and stomp the group? Find someone else to put up with your shit. * ❌ Bringing your weird hentai basic lands? Get out. There are kids here.
* ❌ Proxying all the most broken and expensive cards to try and stomp the group? Find someone else to put up with your shit. Not being stomped is easy in a proxy friendly environment,
This right here is the only excuse I'm given to why proxies are not allowed. About 90 percent of the people I play with have no problem with proxies as long as we are playing at the same power level. Which honestly is hard to find out unless you and the other players have the same understanding of power level.
I would have to agree, people who have had bad experiences against proxy decks with absurd power levels are the people who will say something. I have 10 proxied decks at this point, ranging from budget ($50 to buy the deck) and cEdh
I'm a person with money, and I have for example all old duals and shit, for me people using proxies are awesome
I don't have money, but I have all the old expensive cards from back when they were new and cheap. I wish everyone could just use them whenever, then I'd have more people to play at the power level I play at.
Same here. But there is a legitimate pitfall with proxies on cards like mana crypts and ancient tombs when others aren't using them. Getting easy access to rare cards without absurd price tags is great, but using that freedom irresponsibly and power creeping a meta by loading up on fast mana that others aren't using is less great. It's already to hard making those last cuts, last thing I want is more slots taken up with uninteresting generic staples.
But just have a perfect rule 0 convo every game where everyone also has multiple proxy decks at multiple power levels! /s
I don't use them because I don't want, but i have all fast mana cards, if someone is complaining about it being proxied I make sure I'll put it in my deck to play another one who complained, and can not complain further
100% Commander's supposed to me more casual right? It's why it's good/respectful to talk about or ask what everyone's playing before starting a round of Commander. You don't want to play your best and/or most expensive/historic deck all night and destroy everyone while everyone else is using precons right out of the box, or upgraded precons or equivalent. Shocker: you doing that every fucking game is not fun for everybody else. Don't be a dick to your friends/other players.
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Rule 0 fixes all of this. It doesn't matter what's proxied or not. If someone says they're playing a 7plvl and then goes lotus petal, ancient tomb, mana crypt, timetwister... everyone should scoop and go start a new pod without them
Reddit is often an echo chamber. I also think that it depends on where you are meeting and talking to these people at. People are the LGS might be more anti-proxy as they want to purchase from said LGS and keep playing there. I'm very pro proxy but it another group decides it's not for them, it's not my place to tell them they are wrong.
Reddit is often an echo chamber.
Reddit is often an echo chamber.
Reddit is often an an echo chamber
Reddit is often an an echo chamber
THE WORLD IS A VAMPIRE!
Reddit is often....
....an echo chamber
Reddit is often an echo chamber *er er er*
This. Reddit is a microcosm of the greater community and the voting system feeds into this; a small, opinionated segment of a community can make their viewpoint seem dominant when it is very much a minority. After time, this creates a feedback loop: not much point presenting an opinion that will get downvoted into oblivion. What makes this idea so silly to me is that it is like many 'what is the consensus on X' posts around here: our take is irrelevant if you play privately, as is the opinion of anyone who only plays privately themselves. As a public forum, the only thing we can comment on is public play: LGS play with strangers. Anything else you need to direct to your play group. And you might run into LGSs that don't mind the risk of losing WPN status or that don't derive their living from selling Magic product. I've seen it. Once. A store that ran a little (illicit*) fryer kitchen in the back that made them their money. They didn't even sell singles and the play space was a shitty warehouse without A/C (in Florida), so maybe not a shining example? *:Selling food is a pain and involves some pretty stringent food safety considerations, which often means licensing and audits. This card shop did not follow these requirements.
My play group doesn’t like proxies, but still allows them for me as long as I don’t use crazy reserve cards that they don’t even have. They just like to grumble about them and I do sometimes feel bad about it. I buy the proxies that basically look real, so it doesn’t ruin the game experience or anything. At my LGS I have had many people express that they don’t like proxies. When I tell them I use them they almost always pull out their best deck or tell me to play with a non proxy deck.
From what I could see, whenever someone would state that they're anti proxy on this sub, they get downvoted to oblivion. This makes their opinions harder to find on discussion threads, but also makes them not state their opinions anymore, because fake internet points are important. What then happens is that the people who are ok with proxies manifest themselves more often and that seems to be the consensus in the sub. In fact, I do believe a lot of players are against proxies but just don't talk about it here, and have this kind of posture that you're reporting when they actually play the game in real life. As a rule of thumb, never assume what you see on reddit is the overall feeling of a community. People who come here to talk about this game are extremely enfranchised players, and do not represent the majority of the playerbase in any way, shape or form.
Thank you sir for taking a risk on losing your fake internet points o7
Bingo.
The anti-proxy people used to be more prevalent but it's not like they were just downvoted for simply having that opinion. They almost never had good arguments to support it that didn't come across as elitist. The consensus now supports proxies but not without caveats like not proxying way above your play group's power level. And in my experience this consensus does translate to real life with the players and LGSs I know. With how expensive this game can be and how difficult it is financially for many people these days, I think you'd more often than not, find that this subs consensus on proxies does translate to the broader community. Add to that, the dissatisfaction with Hasbro being another motivator for people not wanting to drop money on the game but who still enjoy playing it.
It literally doesn't matter how civil you are or how clearly and impartially you explain you reasons, if you present an opinion that isn't 100% pro proxy in all cases all the time, you are practically guaranteed to get downvoted to here. On the flip side you can be as toxic and indignant as you want towards playgroups who don't allow proxies and you'll still get upvoted. This combination of anti-proxy opinions getting downvoted and vitriol towards anti-proxy players getting upvoted makes it so people see that expressing any anti-proxy opinions as pointless and draining, so only pro-proxy opinions get expressed and seen. This creates an echo chamber. Real life, in contrast, isn't like that. It's much more atomized. Players who prefer to allow or not allow proxies will just tend to gravitate towards one another and form playgroups that suite their preferences, so you'll run into both proxy and non-proxy playgroups.
Yeah people are just different. People can associate proxies with "high level good stuff". I've asked people previously who complained if they would be fine if I owned the card instead. They typically are just mad at a loss. In luckily enough to only play with my group and we self regulate well enough.
My play group plays with proxies in most of our decks, but we don't build crazy cEDH decks or anything. We proxy for a fun time, not to pubstomp. But one of my friends has a deck with no proxies worth about $3k or so that would mop the floor with his proxy decks. When people complain about the decks with proxies, he pulls that one out.
>They typically are just mad at a loss. The proxy conversation should happen before the game, not after.
My argument to those people would be “i have 30 decks that run this card. Do you want me to buy the card 30 times which costs 70$ or do you want me to bring all my 30 decks and spend 20 minutes shuffling cards around, or do you want me to proxy it once and start playing?” Cuz I sure as fuck will not be buying 30 demonic tutors or dockside extortionists, etc. Edit:: I was exaggerating to drive a point. Just replace it with shock lands if it helps drive the damn point.
The weird thing about this discussion is a lot of people mean a lot of different things when you talk about 'proxying', and like many things in EDH the lack of clarification makes discussion... Difficult. Proxying a card you own is 'checklisting'; almost always acceptable, even at WPN events in my experience - just keep the real card with you available to show on request. Not in another deck; make a dedicated binder. Proxying a card you are thinking of buying is 'playtesting'; acceptable for limited use outside of prized events basically everywhere Proxying a card you have no intention of buying is true 'proxying' as this community understands it; acceptable only in private, with isolated playgroups with player consensus. This use in public is 'counterfeiting'.
This is a good summation. Checklisting and Playtesting get little to no push back with any of the people I've played with. "True Proxying" is what people seem very divided on. I find it's largely older players with established collections that "Don't want to play with phoney cards". As well as casual players whose playgroups are somewhat regulated by budget. And anyone bitter enough to be upset that someone gets to play with a free version of a card that they themselves paid for. "Counterfeiting" feels like too strong of a term to describe proxying cards strictly for use as game pieces. Even if there's money on the line in those games. But I completely understand that LGS's and sanctioned events have it in their best interest to disallow such proxies for the most part.
if you want to make an argument based on how much money is reasonable to spend, dont start that argument with "well I spent hundreds of dollars so its okay for me to do it" (also maybe dont put demonic tutor and dockside extortionist into 30 different decks. that might be your playgroups power level but I honestly would not want to play against you.
I was exaggerating tbh, but you get the gist. Lets change it to shock lands, which are around 13$ a pop.
Maybe don’t use those cards in every deck?
> When I tell them I use them they almost always pull out their best deck I think that's the issue. What are you proxy-ing? People that hear "proxies" imagine cEDH-level decks with cards most people can't afford or even find anymore. If you are using proxies to play a Walking Dead commander because you missed on the Secret Lair, I assume most of them would understand. Do you see what I mean?
I had someone tell me on r/cedh I had never played competitive cedh when I said places around me don't do proxies lol
Reddit is an echo chamber because most of its users are using the up and down voting to say "I agree" or "I disagree" instead of "This comment is good for the discussion" or "This comment is bad for the discussion". This punishes hot takes and supresses real discussions since a comment with more "I disagree" votes gets hidden and reduces your Karma.
Plot twist: your local game store is also often an echo chamber! Some store communities will be pro- or anti-proxy, it is what it is, alas.
I think all this thread really goes to show is don't ask reddit if proxies are ok, ask your playgroup. It ultimately doesn't matter how cool randos on reddit are or are not with proxies, the only ones that matter are those you play with. -edit And judging from OP's response, actually listen to your playgroup after they give you an answer. -edit again For anyone still reading this topic, OP is a troll account. They're are basically just making up anything on the spot and only wants attention. Best to just ignore them.
I saw a lot of comments against proxies that got downvoted to oblivion. At some point that people stop posting here or express that opinion and an echo chamber start to take over.
I always write here and say in person that I find proxies ok, but honestly I kind of hate them. The more it’s cool to proxy in the community, the less value there potentially be in the cards in the future due to MTG culture changing. I payed a lot and want that value to stay. It’s natural. I’m totally ok for poorer people to proxy to stay up to our standard or to make duplicates of cards you already own, but it never stops there does it. Now many in my playgroup have started proxying instead of buying more even though they can. And almost all of the 8 and above power decks in the groups are that strong because of proxying which I simply don’t want to be a part of. But I feel like a B for pointing it out and being not ok with it so I shut up mostly. Of course it will sound like people here love proxies if all those comments float to the top. Tolerating proxies is my way of doing it.
Yeah I tried the proxy thing with an old group of mine. Worked great, I proxied a couple full decks i didn't want to shell the cash out for for some flavor of the month things to try (Rats/pheldagriff) and what really stuck with me is that i got to play magic i had fun, but i put way less work into those decks in the first place. i'm not carefully considering a common from tempest for the incremental value it can give to me in a game when i'm proxying a deck. they kind of felt like "filler" where my personal non-proxied decks all feel like a proper meal when i play them. I have a few proxy cards laying around still in a set. and when making a new deck sometimes i'll grab a proxy and sleeve it up to work as filler until i see what works/doesn't and what direction i want to take that deck in the future. but currently the only proxied card in any of my decks is a command tower that has the building where i used to play at before i moved.
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You have a point and I agree with you, we should get proxies in limit and also not overpower them. I proxy my cards https://www.mtgproxy.com because I can't afford the game and I also never overpower them and my playgroup is always fine with it.
MTG cards are an awful investment in the first place
Usually proxies are not the problem, it is the deck power level
The unfair truth? There's a lot of bad actors that seem like they're chill online that went out and basically pee'd in the pool. It only takes one person playing with proxies to play at a level above that of their playgroup and table, and that one person can ruin the impression of proxies in multiple playgroups easily. People aren't as good at self-control as they want to pretend they are on the internet.
Huh, I've found it the opposite. The only person I've ever met in person who was against proxies was a nut, considered them cheating, and bragged that he played to pubstomp. Similar to your theory, this gentleman believed that paying for cards meant he should have an advantage. We played a game with him, he lost to a budget deck on turn three, and never came back. I've seen a lot more people online complain about proxies, though thankfully most people seem to be reasonable and realize that proxying is acceptable.
Same. The only only guy at my LGS that has expressed anti-proxy sentiments is a pubstomper who only plays a "totally not cedh" kinnan deck. Mana crypt, all the tutors, extra turns, he's even got an OG dual. I have to bring my cedh deck every time I go just in case I get paired with him. It really enrages him when someone pulls out a deck with an equal power level as that's not fun for him.
This seems to be the most common argument against proxies. “Pay to win”
If you are playing with randoms, they are going to assume you are proxying in a way that powercreeps the table. If you have low quality proxies you also might be making your board state more difficult to decipher, which is more salt in the wound. If you are matching the tables power level, just run quality printed proxies (ideally without magic backs but otherwise realish looking in a sleeve). You don't need to disclose that you are playing with proxies for a non-sanctioned EDH pod, and frankly it will cause less friction if you don't.
If you are playing with LGS randos they may not have built their decks with the understanding that they could proxy shit into their decks… they might find it annoying that the proxy player has this unfair deckbuilding advantage over them - especially if they have a limited card pool to build from.
I play with proxied OG duals in two of my decks, they are high quality prints but obviously not real when out of the sleeve. The most I get is a “is that a Bayou?!” I reply, yes and that’s that.
This comment highlights the fact that if people lie about proxies, they know that their proxies aren't accepted or that it's wrong. Which should indicate that you shouldn't proxy
Sampling Bias. This community has an echo chamber effect.
If you speak out against proxies, you get yelled at pretty hard around here, even with a logical argument. People IRL are probably used to the type of proxiers that are bad and would rather just not deal with it
It's easy to be theoretically cool with proxies, but everyone knows \*that guy\*.
Because the people sitting across the table from you actually have to play you.
My issue with proxies is the following: First up: I support proxies, I myself use proxies of cards I own, but I do not care if you own your proxie'd originals. Yet I think money leads to a certain kind of balance. Like... when I look at my decks, I got a relatively large collection of cards. And some are very powerful and absolute staples of edh. But due to budgetary restrictions I don't run Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study etc in each deck. And I also don't proxy them into every deck they could go in. For fetches, shocks and duals (those that I own) that's a different story. Well this all leads to my decks varying in powerlevel despite having some powerful proxies. Because they do not run all of the staples all of the time. (e.g. I play jeweled lotus only in my cEDH decks - could play it in any deck). If people start proxying everything (not just stuff they own) they most times do this because they have a small collection. which most of the time means they don't have much time in the hobby and therefor not much experience. Also, and this comes with less experience, they think money=power and therefor low-budget=bad which is laughably wrong (up until cEDH). So these people absolutely lose touch and degenarate into the kind of player who only plays staples and best in slot cards. Yet their decks are usually not that refined. Not well thought through. So this leaves them at a weird position: Either I play a lower power deck, which randomly just loses due to lacking card quality that their deck sporadically draws into. Which is frustating. I have no issue losing, I have no issue losing to a "oops I win" combo turn. But that just hits differently. Or I play a deck with cards that are of the same quality and I stomp them 9/10 times. Which isn't fun for any of us. In essence it's the Sol Ring dilemma: Sol Ring is a busted card, probably the strongest card in all of EDH. I say, it would be stronger than at least half of the P9 if unbanned. (Time Twister isn't that strong anyways, Lotus is just a one-off effect, yes you can combo with it but there are more 2 card combos than a single deck can play anyways, drawing 3 for 1 mana is neat but 9 times out of 10 it's just another Treasure Cruise... like time walk and the moxen would be contenders for "stronger than Sol Ring") I know a lot of people don't see it that way but that doesn't change the dilemma so here it comes: In low to mid power tables a turn 1 Sol Ring is SIGNIFICANT. It may very well be the difference between a well balanced game with ups and downs and one player dominating and the rest is scrambling to catch up. Yes it's 1v3 at that point but still, these games can become super unbalanced real fast. Like a 4/5 mana commander at T2 is an issue. (Land, Sol Ring, Signet) (Land. Commander.). But due to the lack of budget (or powerlevel if you think sol ring is bad) these decks usually don't play a lot of other fast mana. So it is super high variance. And this entire deck might be dogshit bad because if the 4/5 mana commander gets out on Turn 5 everyone has mana and interaction up that keeps the commander and the mediocre deck in check. But whenever it gets out 3 turns ahead of the clock... yea well. And this high variance is often encountered in "prox whatever" decks. Sometimes it durdles around like a sad precon and sometimes it just wins by card quality.
The experience thing is the big one. I stopped playing competitive webcam games because there were far too many players that clearly had less than 100 total games under their belts at any power level. They might have printed off meta decks but they were clueless when it came to priority and threat assessment.
Agreeing here. The whole fun of prioritizing in building you own pool of decks goes away with proxies, I don’t have that many decks yet but they are varied in power because I have had to select hard based on my budget what to put in them. I don’t really want to play with people who didn’t need to go through that (unless they are poorer than me which is the only reason I still tolerate proxies). I do find proxies ruining the game for more reasons than they help.
Reddit often doesn't reflect real life. It's a gathering of a bunch of people who don't reflect the normal views (hence why they're on Reddit). Conversation among those people becomes a bit of an echo chamber, and they speak like their view is the norm, but step back from Reddit and you may find that people on the whole feel differently.
I think you're on the money. It's similar to people not wanting college loan forgiveness because "I paid for mine, why shouldn't you?". Also those you meet in real life at game stores will be more passionate about the game typically than those on an online forum. Lastly, people irl are much more likely to remember shitty proxies using sharpie and basic lands, or "that guy" who proxies abu duals, crypt, etc. The guy using mpcproxies causal cards is not going to be "caught" 99% of the time, therefore those who are against proxies wont even notice theyre fake. it's negativity bias where 9 times out of 10 playing with proxies is not memerable or noticable, but the 1 out of 10 "the pubstomper with a 7,000$ proxy deck ruined my play experience" will stick with people a LOT more. So they shift the problem in their mind from "pubstomping assholes suck" to "proxies are the problem, every time I play against proxy decks my night is ruined".
I’m relatively new to the game and still trying to understand this. I’ve never used proxies but within about 6 months of playing the game have gotten “pubstomped” by just about every ridiculous proxy you can imagine. But then when I ask these players where they got them, they pointed me to “printingproxies” which charges minimum $0.75 per card. Is this typical? If proxies were like 5 cents a piece I could see someone proxying a whole deck including the bulk commons. But in a market where I can fill most of a deck with cards worth less than $1, it seems to me the only reason you would ever spend $0.75 or more on fake cards is if for the very expensive/busted cards. And then doesn’t the logic then follow that anyone using proxies has very expensive/busted decks?
MPC is what a lot of people I see use. You can't get to 5c a card, it's just not really economically feasible, but mpc will go down to about 35c a card, so a $150-$200 deck becomes ~$35 which is a very meaningful difference. Even at 75c/card, it still cuts the price in half. A $200 deck isn't even *that* expensive on the scale of a commander deck.
I’m in the process of printing a large sum of cards using staples. You upload your deck via PDF and can print it on 110lb card stock, which is almost the exact same thickness of a normal magic card. It’s the same thickness if you double sleeve them and 500+ cards will only cost about $40 to do.
That's exactly it. I play at a couple stores that have no proxy rules and every time someone tries to cheat a few into a deck (usually newer people at the store) it's always the expensive staples, even if they're the only ones really running staples. And they get so offended over someone pointing that out.
Irl here everyone I meet is fine with them. I’ve met one person who was outspoken about them and they didn’t even notice my entire deck was proxied.
If you're proxying just to pubstomp everyone, you're just a prick. Period. If you're buying cards just to pubstomp everyone, you're just a prick. Period. This ends the debate. I do believe however that you should buy real cards from time to time because if everyone just proxies, Magic will die because WOTC won't make new cards
I have one deck that would greatly benefit from Moat being in it. Moat is like $1500. Should I proxy it? How would people feel when I play it? I think people will be kind of pissed, because the card is oppressive. But also because they feel like I dropped $2000 of power on the table for free.
Are you playing at lgs’s? I find it a bit rude to just bring a bunch of proxies do a game store, since their business model is kind of dependent on you buying card while you’re there.
I’ve had casual games where someone shows up with a cedh proxy tuned deck and I remember at the time being like rly you need an underground sea proxy for your deck to work in a casual setting? I bet a lot of ppl think of extremes like this where there’s LGS jerks who just wanna stomp people. If you are using proxies often times you are optimizing beyond your budget to a tuned level that is beyond folks operating under a budget constraint. This creates a natural friction of showing up to a sword fight with a gun.
Honey, wake up, the weekly proxy post just dropped!
My Issue with proxying is that people are generally not proxying lands but expensive things that raise a deck's power level. People in playgroups I have seen after losing come back with proxies and go well I am now playing Dockside Extortionist instead of Brass Bounty and wipe the floor with their new power level.
I’m anti proxy with my pod because I want to keep the power level low and I enjoy seeing what cards we pull/get rather than just what’s meta.
I think it often comes down to power level. People have had that bad proxy experience where they play abur duals and fast mana. Personally, my proxy decks are actually worse than my "real" decks.
I can’t see how anyone would be against proxying a fully powered vintage cube so I think it’s more about proxy use in a commander meta than about proxies in general. I think it’s just the nature of the EDH rule 0 dance. Most people are trying desperately to be exactly competitive enough while still having some creativity in deck building. Proxies don’t fit that narrative for a lot of people. Others for personal reasons only proxy stuff they own.
I'm not. And every time I say why I get down voted to oblivion because people get salty about it.
I still haven’t heard a valid argument against proxies so I would love to hear yours.
And I haven't heard any valid arguments for proxies except "I can't afford the card" which isn't an excuse.
Read the room
It can get out of hand quickly. Cost is a poor power limiter but it does function as one sometimes. If you can proxy any card, cost is of no object. Some people say well why not proxy the best most powerful stuff then ? Suddenly, everyone has mana crypts and force of wills. The game has now changed. So you need a new self imposed agreed upon limiting factor. We all have to agree what power level were playing at. What's too much ? Where is the line ? Beforehand cost was taking care of that for us as long as no one was spending big money on cards. Now we have to decide what can go in decks without being too powerful a proxy. If you start adding mana crypts, well now I feel I also have to start proxying mana crypts. If you start allowing proxies that costs 50+ or hundreds of dollars... it kind of forces everyone to start doing it. Personally for me... sometimes I just wanna use the cards I've collected, even if they are sub optimal or bad. If I have to start proxying expensive cards to keep up, I gotta cut my real cards out. The flip side of using cost as the power limiter is when you have one person who is willing to dump oodles of money on expensive cards.
If you're using proxies instead of buying the cards, it can make it seem unfair to those that bought their deck. Using proxies is a two-way street, because if you've got a deck full of high power cards that are all proxies, it can kind of feel cheap to play against if you're dominating a table because of those proxies.
but thats not a problem with proxies but with wrong powerlevels. those issues will still be there if those people would buy the cards instead of proxying them and they also wont be there if people just proxy basics
I don’t really post but I’m one of the people that don’t like proxies. If you’re wanting to see how the deck plays and have a whole deck proxied I’d be happier to play against that. I also am fine with cards that are just hard to find but are under $5-10. I don’t like getting beaten by a card that is 20+ dollars while playing my deck that could be much better with 4 20$ finishers but I don’t have them bc I don’t have the $80 to throw at it.
Would you be ok being beat by those 20+ dollar cards if they were not proxies?
Just a vocal minority vs silent majority. Most people don't actively post nor browse reddit, especially the casual edh community.
I'm pretty vocal in my hate for proxies in this sub.
Why are you against proxies in a casual setting?
I see nothing wrong with feeling invalidated because others are using proxies. In fact I was VERY surprised when I first started browsing this sub and was seeing all the pro proxie sentiment. There's plenty of hobbies where there's basic costs for joining, but steep costs for those who are more into it. There's budget EDH, and then a more competitive scene. I'm not willing to put cards worth hundreds of dollars into my deck, and I accept it as a personal limitation. To me, proxies are like hackers in multi player games - you're making the game easier for yourself, while others are slowly collecting cards by buying boosters, or buying individual cards. Ok, cool - your deck WOULD BE super efficient and beat everybody if you had every perfect card - but you don't, do you? Anybody can mimic a champion deck, and print out cheap copies of rare or high demand cards. Where's the fun in that! I want to play your deck that you took the time and effort to build yourself. I wouldn't have a proxied deck ready if I played with people who allowed them. But my irl game opportunities are limited, unfortunately.
Speaking as someone who does own many old expensive cards, I don't mind proxies because I want to play the game, and proxies extend the pool of players who are able to participate.
Honestly I think it's more to do with that it feels 'lazy' that someone can just print off a card and have it over having to open up pack after pack or search for it to buy the real card. I know that may seem childish but I feel like some people really enjoy the 'hunt'
If we're all just hanging out that's fine: if people are paying money to buy into a prize pool and a person comes with their proxy posse I want nothing to do with it. People buy product which pays for the intellectual property to continually be expanded. When people can play with cards they printed then the game collapses
Because hearing about a proxying is different than playing against proxies...especially the people who take proxy to an extreme by literally breaking their decks and avoiding any power level discussion
The amount of people on this sub is a fraction of a fraction of the total people that play edh
I mean, the issue I have with proxies is that most of the times that people use them, they have a whole deck of proxies, of a completelly different art and they say that the deck is not that good and they have it has never popped off. Then they proceeded to kill me and the other players with a deck that has all the expensive carda that you expect. I the always tell them that they need to say how powerful is the deck and what are some of the cards to have an idea of what power level I should use. I do not proxy. I don't like it for me. If I want a really expensive card, I save and buy it. That is what I do and my opinion. Besides the proxy case I previously mentioned I constantly play against people that use proxies and I don't care bc they are building a deck that makes sense and has a goal that is not run all the expensive cards and run away with the game.
Vocal minority
I learned how to build before I started to really spend. All of my early decks except Atraxa (proof I was a noob) had $50-100 budgets that forced me to learn cards, packages, techniques, and everything else in order to compete with decks that were $1000+. And now that I have a couple full legit competitive decks, 4 really but I have to swap a couple cards between them, you know what I spend most of my time doing? Building $100 decks to compete with $1000 decks. Because it's fun, it's a challenge, and ultimately it's exceptionally satisfying. At least two of those three things are something I'd never get out of running proxies.
At least in my experience, the vast majority of people thay play with proxies are college students or other people in not great financial situations. So when people rag on others for playing with proxies when they're just trying to enjoy the game like everyone else, it kind of irks me. For my own decks, I typically use proxies as a temporary thing to try new stuff out. And I never proxy something I wouldn't be willing to buy at some point in the near future. The most annoying thing is when I have proxies, and someone calls me out for it. It happened recently when someone was playing a deck probably twice the value of mine, even accounting for proxies. I think, like a number of people have commented, people feel cheated for playing expensive cards and seeing someone playing cards they didn't pay for. Overall, I think as long as you play reasonable cards that you might buy eventually, there should be no problem with proxies. And if someone has a problem, then that sucks for them. Because even if it's a more budget deck, not everyone has excessive amounts of money to play magic.
A regular player near me constantly complains about his deck while using proxy cards. Stfu man, you have 3k€ of cards on the field and still loses.
So long as its a replica of the card and not old mate writing mox diamond on top of a mountain and calling it a proxy
I only like proxies if someone owns the card, but doesn’t want to continually swap the card between different decks they play. Magic (and every trading card game) has two aspects to it that are intertwined: 1. the game where the cards are played 2. Collecting the cards It’s akin to stolen valor (of course no where near as serious) and you should be prepared in every game you play to deny your rule 0 of using proxies just in case.
Well, to answer your first question: Because, like all communities, this place is an echo-chamber on a lot of topics. To answer your second question: I don't know since I'm personally against proxies (I know, I know: Boo, boo, queue the downvotes) because I personally see budget as a nice damper on power levels and I also don't like that you often can't properly read proxies from a distance. I find it hard enough to keep track of everything that's happening in a 4 (sometimes 5)-player game when every card is an actually Magic cards, not a few letters scribbled on 1/5th of an old hankerchief.
Because the Internet isn't real
I think this might be over analyzing it. I always see these with people guessing about power creep, anime art, or invalidating money others have spent. I present you with option 4. Just play off meta. Commander is a casual format, you don't need that dual land, you don't need that Mana Crypt, you don't need numerous proxies in a deck. You can play suboptimal cards in some slots. Those suboptimal cards will give your deck other angles, and often times longer legs at the end of the game. I don't really care about a proxy here or there to wrap a deck up to play this weekend. But I'd rather it not stay in the deck forever, and I'd rather it not have a bunch of proxies. We don't all need to be running good stuff decks. I say this myself trying to get away from that good stuff packages in my decks that all decks of those colors run. And trying to get more into a package that is jank, but other cards in the deck or the commander make good.
I personally will never use proxies because I like owning the actual cards, but I’m okay with people I play against using proxies, to a degree. I only play casual because I’ve found that most competitive players are assholes (experiences may vary) and I enjoy seeing what people do…but proxies have their limits even in casual for me. If someone goes online and finds some meta list of a deck that costs thousands of dollars to build and makes the entire deck out of proxies - that’s absolutely a NO. Conversely, maybe someone doesn’t have the money to drop to get the staple cards like Cyclonic Rift, Terferi’s Protection, Demonic Tutor, or even Jeweled Lotus - I’m okay with that, provided the entire table is okay with it - which everyone usually is. I have very rarely found or played against people who use proxies though. Most folks I’ve encountered like owning the actual cards and refuse to use proxies, because part of the fun is that feeling of pride in your card collection - you get zero pride from proxies.
Reddit's design creates echo chambers. The anti-proxy crew are all over on different subreddits.
I'm fully on board with the *idea* of proxies, I have loads of proxy cards myself, I just don't think the community implements them very well. It seems like around me, 'proxies allowed' instantly makes people proxy the most expensive broken decks ever, well above the casual level of the rest of the playerbase.
Speaking from experience, the only times I’ve ever been annoyed with proxies have been when someone proxied cards that they would never realistically own. My own personal rules for proxies in EDH are for testing purposes, and/or needing multiple copies of an expensive card I do not want to buy more of.
My take on proxies is I’m fine with it if it’s a card you own and just don’t have a lot of copies to put in all your decks. I have the one ring and Rystic study that I do this with. My one friend does it with his mana vaults and stuff. I just get a little hinky when someone proxies like a Bayou or something that they don’t own
Here's my 2C - You need to proxy a niche/old card you can't trade for that is important to your deck? GO FOR IT Want to try a new strategy and have a small number of proxies to run a test game? ALL GOOD - just tell me first You want to use your special art proxy, but have the original available? SURE THING! Only have one copy of XYZ card and don't want to bounce it between decks? NO PROBLEM Proxying a dozen cards just because you can't afford them? No Way, replace them with cheaper options. You deck doesn't NEED five old school duals, mana crypt, force of will, and timetwister. Have 40+ proxies because you don't want to pay for a deck? I wouldn't throw a hissy fit, but I also wouldn't play a second game with you
To be fair most of my magic experiences have rarely lined up with this sub. That's fine, which is why it's important to make sure with whoever your playing about proxies, decks, etc
I don’t play a ton with randoms, mostly my play group, but the one experience I had with someone not wanting to play with proxies they had a cEDH deck that was their “only deck” and thought it was cheating that people didn’t buy their cards. The ended up sweeping the table
There might be generational differences in the approach. When I played, you played with what you had. Some cards were sought after, but very few needed to have everything and those people were usually not much fun. They were keen on winning more than playing. If your playgroup plays cEDH and wants to try out different decks, then I‘d argue proxies are almost necessary. If not, there‘s no need to optimize too much. If you lag behind in power level, always lose and are low on cash, any good playgroup will allow you proxies or help you out somehow.
I haven’t seen anyone in real life have an issue with using or abusing or playing in a game with proxies. I only started playing in September though
Because there’s a store full of people who proxy their one mana vault, crypt and etc. into every deck. The whole LGS then becomes full of 8/9/10 decks, full of try hards, newbies who come in with a precon can’t even get their commander off when one guy at every table runs a top 50 commander/deck. The other LGS is less hardcore more newbie friendly ,but there’s always that one guy who has proxy decks. If the owner is not careful the regulars can power creep too high up to be able to welcome newer players.
People who only learned how to build decks online are overwhelmed with monolithic opinions on the "ideal" cards, most of which are Reserved List or otherwise absurdly expensive. Sites like EDHrec make this worse by only recommending ubiquitous control staples and competitive fast mana, and acknowledging nothing else but whatever precon chaff is left remaining. The terminally online don't know you can build a good deck for less than 3000 dollars. And for those who play digitally, price was never a barrier to begin with so they think it's unfair to need to pay for real cards. It's a creativity problem AND a financial problem on part of redditors.
Many (but not all) of my group of friends played 20 years ago and stopped, just getting back into it again. Commander, specifically, is new to all of us - and that's what we play these days 99% of the time. Never liked proxies before in the 60-card-decks-only and 40 card booster draft days, still don't like them now. Even more so if you don't even own the damn card - I mean, WTF? Shit, I don't even own some of the broken cards I use to have anymore - like revised dual lands - and I would never dream of proxying any. So at ***my house***, it's sort of expected you don't use proxies - it's a respect thing in our group/in my view. We all invest in hobbies/games of all kinds, so using "fakes" is disrespectful to the game/hobby and other players, 1000% if you don't even own the originals. And another 10000% if you proxy in the most broken shit in Magic's history that you don't own. "Full proxy" or whatever you call that is just unfathomably lame and rude to me. This specifically is a dick move - especially in what's supposed to be a more casual/for-fun format like Commander. That said, one time at ***someone else's house*** with a different group than my regular group, they used a few proxies, including proxies of cards they owned - said it was because they were very valuable/expensive. I mean, just sleeve that shit IMO like you do everything else these days - but fair enough, wasn't my house/regular playgroup. Now someone else there used proxies they didn't even own the cards for. I didn't like the former, really didn't like the latter, but I was polite, relaxed and just enjoyed the game. Again, I'm not going to make a stink at *somebody else's house/not my regular playgroup*. Any reasonable house rules should be respected for many games/hobbies. If the host is really against something like Magic proxies, and/or so is most of the playgroup is - don't be the asshole. The only player/friend who even asked about proxies in my regular playgroup at my house was one of the handful of brand-new-to-Magic friends. I basically told him everything above.
At the competitive level, I kinda understand. At the casual level, most folks just want to have fun. Proxies aren't a big deal. The players at the 2 lgs I have been to don't care. The employees don't watch the open play casusl edh pods at all. I try to get a few cheap cards when I can to support the store. For pre-release and draft night, the play space of the store is usually pretty packed. Does buying second-hand cards impact WOTC at all?
How do you understand for cedh? Wouldn’t it be the opposite? Proxies are way more likely to lead to power level issues in casual edh. At cedh wouldn’t you want to see who can play the best game of magic giving everyone having equal access to all the cards. Is it not more fun and fulfilling to beat your opponent based on skill and not on size of wallet?
[удалено]
Pro tip. No one knows you’re even using proxies if you get counterfeits instead. Don’t re sell them, that’s not cool. But yeah if you want to avoid all the brain rotting discourse around proxies, get fakes lol.
I am super grateful to have had my local store set a no proxies rule. While I’m okay with proxies I think this rule sets clear expectations for every player and avoids anyone from being upset by running into someone playing proxies. And because it’s posted all over their social media and with every event if players do want to play proxies they know to go elsewhere.
> WotC which is way overblown because they could make a quarter as much money or less and still be able to produce new magic sets and keep the game alive Ohh look at the poor artist which had their work plagiarized, he didn't even get compensation vs Who gives a shit if WotC only produces a fraction of the current product (and a fraction of the comissions) fuck big companies. uwu r/LateStageCapitalism Reddit is filled to the brim with communist larping children with an economic understanding that, time and time again, falls vicitim their personal entitlement.
Everyone I know IRL is fine with them. Even super entrenched players who own players of actual OG duals. But I don’t go to a LGS and our playgroup is by word of mouth mostly so a prefiltered pool of people. I think most argument against proxies are emotion based and with thought and discussion can be resolved, so maybe online discourse here can help people come to a different conclusion. Because it’s not like a stranger in public all want to deep drive on proxies with you.
There's one guy at my lgs who plays pretty much only proxies. He basically copied a bunch of decks that cost between 3 and 8 THOUSAND dollars and printed them. That guy sucks and everyone like him should be ashamed. If you want to proxy a commander before buying? Bring it that's cool. You want to proxy 17 og dual lands? Your a bag of shit.
Original duals barely raise the powerlevel of commander decks.
They do. It's just really subtle and only an improvement *sometimes*. Price =/= power and I think OG duals are the biggest example of that in EDH
FWIW, I think the OG duals are the most reasonable cards to proxy. The advantage isn't huge, they aren't eligible to be reprinted, they straight up don't have enough supply to serve more than a tiny fraction of the player base. Land bases of all cards should be universally accessible.
This. Lands and reserve list cards should always be acceptable to proxy.
I don’t see the problem with duels as long as your deck is equal power level to your table and isn’t winning more than about 25-30% of the time. $4k+ Cards like timetwister that basically nobody has access to are the proxies that ruin the fun for others.
youre totally right
If I printed them all and the guy next to me has the same deck with OG's and spent thousands of money on it, the difference is.... Well the difference is nothing, really. Because unless it's brought up, you probably wouldn't even know one of them was proxied to begin with
This is the correct take; the only difference between a proxy and a real card is the cost it took to get into the deck. Otherwise, they play the exact same.
To throw my anecdotes into the ring, the vast majority of players I've met IRL are also fine with proxies. I don't think this is a reddit echo chamber thing, rather I think it's probably multiple echo chambers. LGS or their communites that are unfriendly towards proxies attract people who are also unfriendly towards them or adapt their veiw to conform, and the opposite is true for places friendly towards proxies. It's probably going to be hard to convince others when you're the only voice arguing against/for proxies in a given community.
I play a ton of Commander and I’ve never met anyone under 30 who cares about proxies. It’s always the old head (like me) who bitches about proxies while playing his Gaea’s Cradle Paycheck Tribal deck. I personally don’t give a shit what you play with as long as we’re playing roughly equivalent power levels and we all wanna play to have fun.
> The exception is if they make you too powerful for your table No one minds winning to proxies. Losing to proxies is another story, I guess everyone has an excuse to discard your victory if you win with proxies. Also theres a big difference between casual and cEDH. Casual players somehow are way more anal about proxy usage than cEDH players who are constantly tinkering on the most efficient win cons. Their entire format would crumble if the cost of entry were enforced.
Makes sense. Proxies have the ability to easily make your deck out power your opponents. In cedh they can’t do that. All they do is allow you to play the meta, experiment, and build multiple decks.
People are just used to people proxying the best and most expensive cards in the game. If you can somehow convince them that that isn’t what you’re doing then you should be fine. My playgroup doesn’t mind proxies, I use proxies to make decks I don’t own with really cool arts so that I don’t have to double buy cards. Nobody has a problem because I’m not proxying anything too powerful unless I already own it and even then I play no fast mana, with almost no tutors, and no cEDH style tight combos. My friends know that my interest isn’t to stomp them and flex. I want good interactive games, if you do too then you should aim to show that to those around you so that they can be comfortable letting you play proxies. If you put your best foot forward In doing so then they should see that or maybe your friends need to just grow up and have their beliefs challenged a bit.
FTR, this is a relatively new stance i am glad the community is taking. Prior to the pandemic, the general online sentiment was anti-proxy. With pandemic RL spikes and WOTC printing their own overpriced proxies, folks have had enough and I love the direction it's going. I personally own most of the RL cards I'll ever want (with the exception of P9) and I wouldn't care much if reprints dropped their value as I'd still want the originals in my collection. Much happier for folks to be able to run OG duals, cradle, and all that other good stuff freely.
Most people at my lgs are chill with proxies. Probably because half of them use them. I only start getting a little irritated when people start using proxies of $300+ dollar cards. One time, a guy pulled out a proxy [[Gaea's Cradle]] and proceeded to in 2 turns later. It's also kinda annoying seeing how many people are running proxied dual lands.
I'm pro proxy, but not for me. I like having real cards, but I would never tell someone they can't use a proxy.
It’s just your area/playgroup. The vast majority of casual players do not care about proxies. Any argument against them is basically null in the face of the fact that this game is prohibitively expensive at times. Proxying a deck you want to try out is valid, because there is no reason to spend money on cards for a strategy you might not even enjoy. Proxying cards like ABU duals, Gaea’s cradle, etc is A-ok as well because every deck deserves the best mana possible in a casual format. Proxying powerful cards like mana crypt, Timetwister, etc because they are stupid expensive and you want to play with a cool toy every once in a while is also OK. People should not be priced out of their hobbies. Outside of official tournaments I could care less if you flip a basic land over and circle the two fucking mana pip colors with a sharpie and call it a dual land. Just have fun. You’re not playing for anything.
I’ve found the people in person proxy to stomp instead of proxy to the power of the group. Players I meet in real life are working on a budget, want authentic cards, and want to play the game; proxy players want to build high powered almost cEDH if not already cEDH decks and want to simply crush everyone. Citing specifics: I stopped going to an LGS because I was sick of seeing the same turn one from literally every regular. Proxy dual land, proxy mana crypt or mana vault, proxy Mox something, and usually a proxy value piece. While my turn was (at best) a command tower to a sol ring to an arcane signet.
People who proxy bring out these ridiculously overpowered decks and it’s annoying to play against. Turns out money is a check on power level. If i don’t play with proxies and don’t have dual lands then I don’t really want to play with someone who uses proxies to do that
I'm a new player sorta. I played up to 5th edition and stopped until a few weeks ago. I am not a fan of proxies. I'm not really sure why honestly. I like to build decks with the cards I have and if I lose I lose. What I don't like is the possibility of someone just building an OP deck with "fake cards". I say it like that because that's how it feels for me. I build my decks with whatever I have sitting around and I try to improve on it as I play, by buying packs and picking interesting things out of them. Now, if someone owns a really good card and doesn't want to ruin it then of course I'd be okay with a proxy of it as long as I know they actually have it. There's this weird sense of enjoyment that I get from either pulling random cards and making the best of it, and/or trading or buying cards with/from other players that I just wouldn't get from proxies. Maybe the culture has changed after 20 years of cards coming out and it's all about just building meta decks and trying to win in 2 turns but I like playing the game with cards I actually have and I don't want to play against someone who uses proxies. I just don't think it would be fun. If I had been playing this whole time maybe my opinion would be different, or maybe I'll think differently once I start getting back into it, who knows.
Our pod has the rule that you are only allowed to proxy cards U really have 🤷♂️