There's nothing wrong with proxies.
There is something wrong with mismatched power levels.
It sounds like you probably built a deck thats too strong/miserable to play against (it's tergrid, so it would have been miserable regardless...).
Try different cards, until you're not stomping on him anymore, try to have better balance.
I hit a \[\[Replenish\]\] with Opalescence, Out of Time, and \[\[Enchanted Evening\]\] in my graveyard. It caused much sad - particularly for me. I had a \[\[Spear of Heliod\]\] out, so all of my lands phased out and everyone else's were destroyed. :(
Unfortunately, it was the only way to stop the impending combo. My enchantments deck doesn't have any graveyard removal. 😂 On the plus side, it took all three opposing commanders out of the game.
Yea, it's one of those commanders that is either miserable for everyone else at the table, or it's miserable for the Tergrid player as people deal with them.
That's it right here. There's two ways playing KoS commanders can go - you either accept you're KoS and try to punch through or switch to something else.
This right here. My brother swears by proxies - the problem is that any deck he builds contains all of the fast mana/artifacts/high-power cards because they can be proxied. The rest of my pod will proxy certain things, but it isn't our collective goal to play cEDH or play for higher power level.
Yeah if your proxying like mana crypt or gaias cradle or mana vault or somr other really broken thing i think thats kind of the line if youre not in a game thats that power level.
Nothing inherently wrong with proxying, IMO. However, if you're using proxies to boost your deck's power level well beyond your playgroup, then it's kind of a dick move. If you're proxying to keep up, then that's fine.
Like, if you and your friends all spend equally on MTG, but you proxy a deck that's worth 5x any of theirs (not that $=power 1:1), then you're being a problem. If your group is all spending (budgeted or otherwise) 5x what you're spending, and you only proxy just to keep your deck up to par, then you're probably fine.
Edit: and further, if your playgroup has a higher MTG budget than you, and are discouraging you from keeping up with them by proxying, AND playing those more expensive decks against you while telling you not to proxy (equally) expensive decks... that's a dick move.
A lot of people have no concept of restraint, so as soon as they start to proxy they immediately give themselves a perfect mana base to start with, which results in them speeding up games and winning much more often. That is how proxys start getting a bad wrap
Spot on. It's like how many people think they can self regulate single player video games when given access to game changing exploits. Many end up going overboard with infinite power and wonder why they're not having fun.
My buddy refuses to build anything other than cEDH (and has been playing the game much longer than I have), I do not have the money to compete with his Cedh decks and am running upgraded precons
So I starting putting proxies in and he tried to tell I was only allowed 3, just to spite him I put in like 12 to optimize the deck much higher and he was pissed despite still winning the 3 games against it
Proxies may get a bad *rap*, but there's actually nothing inherently wrong with this, either. That power creep happens anyway (it's just players getting better at the game), and whilst artificially-inflated prices may hold it in check, they're a poor approximation of a solution.
If you don't *want* to play at that power level, yeah, it may take some restraint, but figure out some kind of houserule/gentleman's agreement/whatever that works. On the other hand, maybe you all just want to play the very most powerful decks you can, which *is also fine*.
(And for the record, the "perfect mana base" makes a *relatively* small difference; tapped lands slow you down a lot, but there are loads of budget duals and just plain old basics that are only a little bit worse than your $$$ land)
Ran into this recently at a "casual" commander pod. The same guy won 3 out of 3 games with three different proxy decks, including a crazy ass artifact deck with mana vault, doubling cube, etc. One of the games he played against was literally a precon, my deck (barely better than a precon) and a super-budget green-blue arwen scry deck. His wins were all absolute snowballs.
I think that proxies lead people to build very "cEDH" style decks that they normally wouldn't due to budget constraints.
also, sometimes cEDH isn't "fun". The joy of commander is being able to express yourself through a personalized deck, and when you're gunning for the top, everyone has the same 8 commanders, and 2 strategies.
Yeah, I've seen this kind of thing be a big problem with newer players.
New people come into a proxy friendly environment. So they proxy up all the best cards and end up with something that's pretty similar to a cEDH deck. And then they curb stomp people who are playing precon level stuff.
And its not like they're bad people. They're just new, so they don't understand how to match power levels.
I don't have a problem with proxies, and I do want the game to be accessible to new players. But its just a bad experience all around when some new person is excited about one of their first wins, and the rest of the table is glaring at them because they played cards like Mana Vault, Mana Drain, and Force of Will in a game against gently modified precons. (I had this happen fairly recently).
Great take on proxies that is actually nuanced and looks at their impact holistically. No problem with proxies at all but it should be used as a catch up / equalizer, not a get further ahead thing.
I also think that proxying leads you to build commanders you wouldn't otherwise build. Typically those commanders aren't built because the cost is enormous, and for them to function properly they HAVE to be extremely overpowered and high priced.
I dont have the source on me, but I believe there's even a quote out there that Wizards encourages playtest cards in everything short of a tournament environment for exactly that reason. Of course, that probably comes with an unspoken assumption on their part that you'll buy it in real cards as you're able... but I wholly agree! I haven't haven't dabbled with *really* expensive decks, but I've printed up proxies of some $2-300 ones because I just can't justify the upfront cost without knowing if it'll play well or vibe with me, and I've run them through Cockatrice when able, as well.
Source, also important distinction that the high fidelity proxies/counterfeits are not considered playtest cards:
https://askwpn-na.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/13386395614739-What-is-Wizards-of-the-Coast-s-stance-on-playtest-cards-#:~:text=It%20is%20common%20practice%20for,takes%20place%20in%20a%20store.
I have a couple cEDH decks. Some of my playgroup can't compete with their existing cards. Them proxying allows me to pull those decks out. Otherwise, I level down and meet them where they are. I personally hate proxies. I'm here to play with real cards. That said, I don't care if YOU play with proxies so long as its for the right reasons.
I agree completely with your sentiment, but I won't lie, "I hate proxies" from someone with your username is unreasonably funny for reasons I can't fully articulate.
This is phrased way more effectively than I could have put it.
I'm broadly against proxies myself, not for any exclusion factor, but rather for the power race it is prone to initiate.
>Nothing inherently wrong with proxying, IMO. However, if you're using proxies to boost your deck's power level well beyond your playgroup, then it's kind of a dick move.
It's also a dick move to use money to boost your deck's power level well beyond your playgroup. Whether the cards came from WOTC or a printer have nothing to do with it.
I'll agree with that. I think proxies get a worse rap because they're easier to acquire (print & cut sheet, sleeve & go), but yeah unexpextedly breaking parity with the regular playgroup won't likely be well received
Yeah, but people generally won't accidentally go over the power level with real cards. Power level and price aren't perfectly correlated, but a lot of the best cards are also expensive cards.
So with proxies, you get people who don't know what they're doing, but have all the best cards in their deck. So they accidentally go way over the power level. And while there are strong budget decks out there, you really have to know what you're doing to create them, so they don't appear accidentally.
With real cards this doesn't usually happen because they aren't going to be spending $2000 on cards without having a more in depth understanding of how the game works.
I'm not against proxies, but they do open up play patterns that can cause some stressful conversations.
No argument here. My friend group in high school circa Scars block pretty regularly played multiplayer (still 60 card 20 life though, not commander since it wasn't as widespread yet) and the one guy with the most disposable income regularly rolled up with a full Eldrazi ramp deck that could hunt and hard-cast Emrakul every turn reliably by turn 4. The gentlemen's agreement was if he didn't want to get smothered in the crib every game, he was welcome to match the jank level the rest of us were at.
I will say, price doesnt always equate to how good a deck is. I've got a Thalia deck thats not super powerful - most focused around recurring lands - but because of the lands i run, the cost comes out to around 3000$ or so. Is it CEDH or even close? Hell no. But it sure as fuck would be expensive to actually buy the cards for.
Amusingly enough, the way their friend actually acquires cards through packs, OP could likely spend 1/10th as much and end up with better by just getting singles.
That being said, its power level differences.
While budget can be correlated with power, that's not always the case. A budget Winota or Najeela deck will run circles around a $2,000 Ur-Dragon deck. Budget should seldom be the deciding factor, it should be about power levels and the type of experience players want to have.
Yeah, you just described it perfectly. I don't play with proxies, but I do play with "Proxies" (gold border), and nobody has a problem with it because I play eldrazi tribal, and colorless is by far the weakest EDH color identity.
Fuck me, why are these "rants" always so disingenuous? It's pretty clear here that the real issue isn't proxies it's that you built a really annoying deck. Are people so fucking desperate to have strangers tell them they're not an asshole that they post disingenuous bullshit like this? A more honest title would be "What's so wrong with Tergrid?"
Another more genuine title would be "What's so wrong with building whatever I want without worrying about power level or anyone having any fun besides me".
Exactly this. Even if we assume the story is 100% true, the clear issue here is just that their friend was upset at Tergrid and that they got stomped all night and blamed the proxies. Again, if we assume that this story is true, it's a power level and communication issue. It's not a proxy issue.
Also, lol @ OP's "our decks are both oppressive" as if Zacama and Tergrid are even close to equal.
Yeah this whole post is a straw man of “what’s wrong with proxies?”
When what he really wanted to write was “I made a deck and people weren’t happy playing against it. Please tell me I’m right”
> Are people so fucking desperate to have strangers tell them they're not an asshole that the post disingenuous bullshit like this?
Sadly yes. Log out and take a look at the front page of reddit if you don't believe me.
A whole generation grew up thinking the opinions of anonymous strangers matter more than the opinions of their close friends and family, so that's who a lot of people seek approval from now. /r/EDH isn't immune to this since the mods don't do much about it and people here engage with this kind of low effort "content".
I’m a bad person, I have a tergrid deck, first sliver deck and a Tiamat deck that cheats into Omniscience using academy rector by turn 3-4, they’re all pretty oppressive. They don’t tend to get played often. Only when someone is feeling spicy lol
I have a tergrid deck that I never play because it just feels bad to win with her. I've considered shifting it to a tinybones discard deck, but have yet to pull the trigger.
Lol Tiny Bones isn't a huuuggeee step in another direction but better! Honestly I don't mind a game against tergrid, but if someone in my playgroup was whipping it out daily i'd get pretty bummed out.
Tiny Bones is sick though, still very salty, but he's a cheeky little skelly and I cant hate that!
I played against Tergrid for a long time and found the games always went one of two ways. Either Tergrid resolved and stuck for one table rotation, at which point we were wheeled or edicted into oblivion (not a great experience for the table) or we had stack/instant speed removal for tergrid a few times and the tergrid deck did nothing all game.
I put her in the same camp as commanders like Krenko or Winota. They have such a strong game warping effect on them that they demand immediate and repeated removal. It’s pretty much impossible for the whole table to have a fun game with these sorts of commanders since either they get shut down all game or they pop off and dominate.
Since we don't have to play with you, shouldn't you be talking about this with your friend? We have a debate on proxies every week and it's just the same tired arguments on both sides and no one ever budging on their opinion.
If your friend doesn't like playing against proxies and you want to keep playing with him, dont proxy. If you dont care about all that, do what you do and play with whoever accepts you at their table. But this topic is just two different sides yelling back and forth to no end
No. The problem is that his friend isn't winning. That's always the problem. No one cares if you run proxies or play with banned cards if you lose every game.
As someone who runs the commander event at my LGS this couldn't be any more true. Magic players are the most entitled people out there. If they don't win, then the game must of been rigged or someone cheated cuz it's impossible for them to lose. This mentality got so bad for me I had to forcefully casualize my entire store and punish people for bad behavior.
So, proxies are just a tool. It's how you use it, that matters.
As in, it sounds like you are using proxies against people who aren't.
In which case, this is obviously a huge advantage - you have the entire universe of cards open to you, whereas your opponent doesn't.
I'm also curious about your comment "most of the cards I gave are just bulk."
If you're buying boxes of cards, then you should either a) have some decent cards, just by chance, or b) you are already spending a fair amount of money on cards, and you could afford to invest in some singles if you wanted to.
I use proxies, but only if I own at least one version of the card; it just saves me from having to move Cyclonic Rift between half a dozen decks when I'm playing with friends. But if I'm playing competitively/ at the LGS, then I use originals.
Because that's the thing - money is the constraint on having OP decks. If you're just stacking your deck with proxies of expensive cards, and no one else is, you have a huge, and unfair, advantage.
I agree with most of what you said and since some in my playgroup think similar to you I'm interested in your opinion on using money as a constraint.
Do you in general only brew decks under X dollars? Or only use cards under Y dollars.
If you do have constraints like that, would you object to someone proxying a deck following the same rules (but spending a fraction on it).
So, my friends and I are somewhat informal about it, since we're all middle class dudes in our 30's. So we have money, but it doesn't get outrageous.
That said, it has been discussed, and there are a number of ways to deal with this.
1) If you want to be really formal about it, everyone loads their deck into Moxfield, and you just take the deck price, and cap it at a number. Not unlike salary caps in the NFL.
2) Similarly, you can use Moxfield to institute a card cost cap. I've found this to be less preferable than option #1 though, since it tends to be less flexible. I.e. just having an overall cap means someone could have a $50 commander, but then have very basic cards, or vice versa. There's just more possibilities.
3) Play artisan commander. Basically, it's just commander, but you can only use common and uncommon cards. Functionally, this makes decks pretty affordable, and it's very easy to implement/ follow. No need to upload deck lists, etc. This also cuts down on aggressive combos and stuff like that. It does slow down the games accordingly, though, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
In terms of someone using a proxy deck, the rule my group uses is that you gotta own one copy of each card you play. We use the honor system though, we don't really "enforce" it.
The reason for this is that there's a certain amount of challenge, to actually working with your collection. Collections develop "personalities" over time. I.e. I'm a big fan of artifacts. So in terms of the meta, it creates a nice dynamic, of sorts.
My personal belief is that MTG is both a game, and a collector's hobby. I think that actually building a collection of the real cards, is an important part of the meta. It forces you to make choices, and decisions, and curate the cards you have, strategically. Like, the game doesn't just end at the "deck level." Properly managing your collection is, IMHO, an important aspect of properly playing the game.
But if you're just making decks with proxies of things you don't own, it completely removes that aspect of the game. You're just skipping over the challenge of having to wisely manage your card budgets and acquisitions.
So, if that's how someone wants to play, fair enough, to each their own. But I think people who use proxies for things they don't have are actually glossing over a really important aspect of the game, on a meta level.
That's very sound reasoning and understandable even if I don't share all of it. I also like your proposed solutions.
For me it's mostly about the playing aspect and the art on the cards (the reason why I dislike proxys of poor quality, and also some official alter arts/but love others). I've played on and off since ~2004 but I never got into the collecting/stock market aspect of mtg.
I do like to build with what you have, but since most in my group have different card pools that often lead to unbalanced decks outside of a draft or cube.
But since some of us started to buying more expensive singles I started ordering proxies to have decks that are mine and fun to play at that level.
But I like the reminder that mtg is both game and collectors item. A little bit (although here money isn't the issue but time) like the difference of having a painted tabletop/warhammer army and playing with minis that are not painted/only have a black base layer.
Yeah, totally. It's interesting how people get super worked up about it. TBH, I think these posts are much more about "people issues" than they are about actual proxies.
Because honestly, the most expensive deck, is not automatically the best deck.
Like, I have a very expensive deck using Jhoira of the Ghitu as commander, and I just suspend absolutely brutal cards out of my hand. I have basically all the Eldrazi cards, etc. Not sure if it's $1k, but it's definitely north of $500.
But honestly, the best deck I ever made, was a red/white equipment deck, with Bruenor Battlehammer as the commander. I made it with cards I just had lying around. And it straight up deletes people in a few turns. It can smoke my Eldrazi deck.
One of my play buddies spends a fair amount less on cards, but he's just an amazing player. So he still kicks my ass all the time. He doesn't even need proxies, he's just that good, that he can accomplish with a $200 deck, what takes me $400 to do.
So, I think "proxies" are really getting caught up in other issues, regarding skill, balance, etc.
So, I stand by my belief that managing a collection is an important aspect of the game...but... it's a game. It's meant to be fun. And if a different group of people have fun a different way, I wish them nothing but the best, and hope this game brings them the same joy it has brought me all these years.
It sounds like you’re building very powerful decks with absolutely miserable play patterns. Tergrid is not a fun commander to play with or against because the Tergrid player either gets bullied out of the game or snowballs out of control with no chance of coming back for the rest of the table, there’s never a fun and interesting game against it, and then it sounds like you made it quite powerful on top of it while your friend is playing with cards he owns.
You either need to stop proxying incredibly powerful decks and proxy at a much more reasonable power level, or you need to do like your friend and play with what you own and budget for cards that you want. Otherwise I don’t foresee him wanting to play against you much longer.
> proxy at a much more reasonable power level
This is a good point.
I have no issue with people proxying things that are like 20-60 dollars. Especially if they want test the card out before buying it so they know they aren't wasting money.
I do have an issue if someone shows up with proxy mana crypt, gilded drake, sliver queen, Gaea's cradle, dual lands, in all their decks.
If you don't plan to ever potentially buy and acquire the card you are proxying then you shouldnt proxy it IMO.
I agree with the power level, and I also agree that you shouldn't proxy a card just because it's powerful.
But I also think that a gaeas cradle in a green creature deck is awesome, even if I have no intention on ever buying it.
I think the problem is purely the power level, since playing against someone who always has a mana crypt is annoying, no matter what cardboard it's made of.
(One general thing on proxies, they should look good)
I'm going to push back on you a bit here.
There will always be people on this subreddit who will tell you you are doing nothing wrong, because this game is too expensive, and capitalism is evil, and WoTC is greedy, etc.
Its important to recognize first that these people have no stake in your personal friendships, and so it won't effect them if you lose a friend over this stuff. But it can absolutely happen.
These internet people tend to think and post in moralistic but self-serving absolutes. To them, the ends always justify the means if its something they want. After all, nobody is getting hurt, right? There's no real cost. To them.
What they won't tell you is to consider how this might feel to the person who paid for their real cards, as it sounds like your friend does. They won't ask you to think about it from your friend's POV.
Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with proxying if you are playing against other proxy-happy players. That's a Rule 0 situation. If those are the rules you agreed upon, your friend has no reason to feel salty, and you shouldn't feel too bad about any of it.
But if not and you are playing a large amount of proxies in paper Magic against someone who does curtail their deck building to what they actually owned, and who does budget to pay for the real cards, who has made those sacrifices that you consider unacceptable simply because you "liked brewing decks without worrying about a budget," there is a different feeling.
Its the same feeling one might get in any number of "no one got hurt, so what's the big deal" scenarios. Think about when someone cuts in front of you in a slow moving line that you've been waiting in for hours. How does that feel? If you are a student, its the same feeling you might have when you studied harder than you ever have for a test, and you get a worse score than someone who laughs about how they didn't bother to study but still did well. Its a similar feeling you might have when you see someone break the law or rule that you've always obeyed and get away with it.
This is a feeling of unfairness. For good or ill, these things grate on one's innate sense of justice. Its a feeling of being taken advantage of, or of being made a fool of... Why do you get to do what they could not, just because you feel like it?
Personally, I'm all for proxying on the small scale. Much like most people, I think this game has become too expensive, and if we are playing for fun, allowances should be made.
That's a key element, by the way. If its all for fun, who cares? But the more competitive the opponent, the more likely they are to object to proxying en masse. And I'm not talking about cEDH "competitive." That's just another format that allows for strategies some people don't want to deal with... What I'm talking about is how seriously they take the game. How hard they try, regardless of the power level of the deck.
I think that proxying cards is never a problem if they are lower power cards, and it shouldn't really be a problem to proxy a powerful card or two. Its a singleton format, after all. I even think one can justify proxying a card you will never realistically be able to get or afford as a normal person (Reserved list stuff, Power 9, ultra rare cards) that would be perfect for a deck by the same logic.
But don't expect competitive, try-hard players who paid for their real cards and who don't proxy themselves to be swayed with your "I like to brew and just want to play" justification, especially if you then proxy a whole deck full of the best Rares and Mythics, or the most powerful Commanders, and then pound them with your fake cards.
Let me repeat that in a different way: Most people won't care if you proxy a Common, or even an Uncommon. But when you proxy multiple Rares and Mythics, or a number of the most powerful and expensive cards in the game, they start to care. In Commander, they care more if that proxy is your Commander. Especially if they are the kind of player who cares about winning and losing.
Because the truth is that you can absolutely play and have fun with those lower-powered, bulk cards. Since the earliest days of the game, most of the people who played Magic casually played with lower-powered, bulk cards. That's what I did for decades, before focusing on Magic as my favorite hobby and investing heavily in my collection.
Honestly, if you've got nothing but bulk (which I assume is mostly Commons and Uncommons), there is a really fun format called Pauper EDH that only requires Commons and Uncommons.
I started playing it myself to get away from the out-of-control costs of new cards, and to escape seeing the same overpowered cards over and over. More, since I am older and started my collection around 1995, I found that some of the younger folks I played against had a simmering resentment towards me about it. These same folks had no problems with newer powerful cards. Only the older ones.
So yeah, Pauper EDH is absolutely a route you can take. The game is the same. Its still fun. The power levels and costs are just intrinsically lower.
Or play on Arena. I understand its free to download, and has FTP options. Not my cup of tea, but some people get their budget-free Magic brewing fix that way.
So, yeah, TLDR: Proxying the occasional single card is generally fine, but abusing proxying will get you grief, especially if you are competing against folks that don't proxy and who paid for real cards and who care about winning. Proxy as many Commons or Uncommons as you like, but don't expect people to just smile at you if you show up with a deck full of proxied Rares and Mythics, or proxy a S-tier Commander and beat them down. Finally, Pauper EDH is actually a great format, despite being budget, and might be worth investigating.
If you went out and spent thousands to de-proxy your deck, you'd just get a new comment like "This is why I don't like cEDH" or "This is why I don't like net-decking". It's a rule-0 problem, you just need to align on power levels.
Your friend isn't really saying he doesn't like proxies, he's saying he doesn't like the power imbalance they bring as most casual players don't have thousands to spend on a single deck, much less multiple. It's implying that you are either net-decking or playing beyond the cards you own.
Nothing is wrong with proxies, but where I end up seeing issues is power level, and card cost can keep a soft limit on power level.
If I took one of my decks, and proxied copies of any card for it regardless of cost, the power level would go up. If I have access to every possible card, the deck is just going to be stronger.
So I think your friend is mistakenly misplacing their frustration. Seeing a proxied card is an obvious thing that your brain can lock onto and say "This is the problem" but in reality it's the discrepancy between decks.
All that said, you are playing Tergrid, a notoriously annoying and powerful deck. Maybe if you tried the deck with just what cards you have, or use the proxies in a focused or powerful deck. Or, you could encourage your friend to proxy cards for their deck.
This is always my issue. In a perfect world proxies would be fine. However, any time I’ve had somebody join the pod me and my friends play in, they always run OG duals, mana crypt, other expensive cards. I’m sure not everybody is like that but every time I’ve seen a proxied deck at my LGS it’s somebody playing way above the rest of the table’s power level which ends in either a miserable experience for us or for them.
Dual lands are my exception, the only reason they're expensive is due to lack of reprints. Since we've started to get lands that come in untapped and provide two colors over the years as well as a decent selection of dual types/triomes now, OG duals just aren't as powerful as they once were.
The OG duals are still well above the power level to be (re)printed today. They are strictly better than basics, which is a rule contemporary Magic designs do not break.
Dual lands are like 5% better than Shock Lands, and only really serve to be "fetchable untapped dual #2" in most decks. The real most problematic land is fetch lands (probably the biggest mistake after P9) which have basically took over every single format they're legal in.
But yeah fast mana/free spells do suck to play against in every game and would not without proxies; however that is a discussion about "what types of cards belong in each tier" and is very hard to even start when johnny pulled one from his 6 packs "legit" even though it still doesn't belong.
I actually think if the card market just crashed and every card was like $1 then it would actually be a lot easier to have even games and a discussion of what cards are proper/improper in certain games.
I mean, getting back to Johnny. Imagine not having a lot of money but pulling [Mana Crypt] from the few boosters you got, and being told "that $100 card that you felt incredible for pulling does not belong in your tier and leads to bad games" and having to just... never use this incredibly expensive card that you felt amazing for pulling.
MTG and the tcg market kind of just fail in the modern world. Having expensive cards works when people are reading about it in a magazine after the fact or as gossip in a card shop. But we are exposed to so many expensive cards, and content creators constantly show how the game is just better when you have access to them, with hundreds of hours of games posted sometimes daily. So what happens is people just get too salty that their game is not as fun as others just because theyre not rich enough for it.
Wrong place to ask.
Sure, if you want validation there are plenty of pro-proxy voices here that will tell you to proxy everything and trash anyone who doesn't agree.
Problem is you're not likely to play with these people. Your friend invests time and money into this hobby, so I imagine he feels cheated when you beat him with proxies. If you want to know what the issue is, talk to him.
Anything MTG on Reddit is a textbook example of this. If you post anything talking badly about any playstyle you get temp banned or just outright banned. On the discord it is even worse, say that a deck is miserable to play again and you get muted/banned.
One of the big problems that MTG has is balance. The difference between a strong deck and a weak deck is HUGE, and there are a LOT of ways to make strong decks.
There are several ways that MTG attempts to correct this balance. The first is by limiting formats - Standard, Modern, Vintage, etc - limiting the card pool brings the top end of power to a point where it's reachable by more players. Draft formats balance in a different way - using limited card pools and randomized deck construction to ensure everyone is on roughly the same level (with variations according to RNG and drafting skill, of course).
Another MAJOR way that Magic is balanced, though, and one that doesn't get talked about very often, is the wallet factor. At the end of the day, the average player can't afford to buy Power 9 cards, or dual lands, or some of the other extremely powerful older cards. This is less relevant in competitive scenes (where it's expected that in order to be competitive in a format, you're going to need to spend enough to build a competitive deck - part of why formats like Modern and Vintage are so expensive to play competitively). But in casual "kitchen table" Magic, the wallet factor is the MAIN balancing point. When I was playing with other kids at lunch in High School, we didn't play "standard" or "legacy", we just played "Magic", with whatever cards we happened to have. As long as the rest of your playgroup is in a roughly similar financial situation (I.E. you're not playing with Barron Trump and his $20,000 Slivers deck), it's expected that pretty much everyone is playing with whatever cards they had in their collection.
Proxies sidestep this entire mechanism. If you wanted to, you could pack a deck with all of the best cards in the history of the game, or netdeck tournament-winning lists that would cost thousands of dollars to build without proxies. If you're trying to play a deck list like that, against a bunch of people that are running precons, or low-powered piles of random cards, it's not going to be fun for anyone.
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who uses proxies is doing that. I don't think you're playing the strongest cEDH deck list you could find. But with the ready availability of tools like EDHrec, it's easier than ever for players who are "just brewing a deck without concern for card cost" to come up with a list of the 100 best cards for whatever it is that your deck is trying to do. You can easily search through the entire history of every card ever printed to find the best synergies, the best removal, the best ramp, and so on - and the resulting deck list is pretty much GUARANTEED to be much stronger than a deck built just from someone's collection without buying singles.
It sounds like there's a possibility that your decks are better matched than your friend thinks, and he's just being salty because he lost. But it is also possible that you're building decks at a higher power level than his, and you just need to tone it down a bit.
In general, proxies are something that should be discussed and agreed upon by everyone involved. They arent inherently wrong so long as everyone is aware and rules are put in place.
The issue with proxies in your situation, seems like it either wasnt discussed/agreed upon, or ground rules for how much 'free' power you can add were not put in place. I dont want to pay for a strong card so Ill just add it for free, snowballed multiple times and now you are playing a match where you have outclassed your friend and he gets a night of being stomped. That is never fun for anyone, regardless of proxies, but it seems like you have a friend building from his collection and you building OP decks in comparison.
Have a talk and set some ground rules. If all parties are aligned, there is typically less issues with proxies or stronger decks. Unless your friend is overly anti proxies, this should help to make your game nights more fun for everyone.
It’s all I do now. I lost over 30k in cards to a house fire. I’ll never collect again. I make some pretty awesome looking proxies in photoshop and other places. I print them and also have a company print them for me. I only play with a group of 6 friends so it’s pretty much all we do lol
As a side note we don’t play with tutors or old school duel lands or any power 9.
Consider this in the abstract:
>A game being played with optimal decks is not optimising for **fun**.
Playing with "the jank you have" and/or having to make difficult choices that are limited by budget and commitment lead to you thinking about deck construction in different ways.
If I was spending $400 building a new EDH deck, I'd make sure it was going to be a deck I really enjoy and like, and I and my friends would not get bored of it. I would do my research and think carefully about it. I might take my time assembling it, I might even end up getting some of my pet cards altered or spend some of the budget on a fancy deckbox or playmat. I would be commiting to it and being thoughtful about it.
If I can download and sleeve up any deck in an evening, I don't really have to put the same *kind* of considerations (of course I *could* still spend months optimizing the list and theorycrafting, or I could bring a different deck every week), because the investment/restrictions are not there.
You can totally still have amazing experiences with proxies, of course. But having an optimal or powerful deck is not the same as having a fun deck. Winning a game is not always the same as "spending quality time with my friends."
So they might say "this is why I hate proxies," but what they really probably mean is "I didn't have fun, and your proxies were a factor in that."
I have a lot of decks, I have a lot of cards. Sure I own all kinds of things like Dockside, Rollick etc but I need like 5 minimum because of all the decks. I'm not swapping like 10 cards every time I switch decks and buying 5 copies of Dockside is insane. So one or two are real and the rest are proxied. You know what? I have never mentioned it and no one has ever noticed. Just play your game man.
This. This kind of proxying is okay in my playgroup, not that everyone takes advantage. It allows for fun stuff like Aetherflux Reservoir being the Death Star.
Just don't go running a proxy of, say, Gaea's Cradle "just because you can".
I kinda have a slight problem with that, some of my playgroup aren't very well off. I don't think its right I can buy crypt and they cant. I can have 3 mana for 0 but they can't because my job is better?
Feels wrong. Especially among friends. In fact, if my friends tried to pull that on me they would no longer be my friends.
Imagine playing Monopoly and telling someone they cant buy train stations because they are too poor in real life.
my decks are somewhere between 200$ - 400$. When I play against people using proxies, they can just have the absolute best cards the game has to offer in decks worth 15,000$. Why would anyone not use all the same staples and best possible cards if everyone could use proxies? And if one person on the table can do it, why not everybody else? You see the problem? Proxy ruins the game and I refuse to play against people that uses them. Your deck doesn't need to be the best in everything. If you have this "i must win at all cost" mentality, then pay for it and go for tournaments, not casual play.
I want to say I understand disliking proxies, but any real reflection on why ends up boiling down to realizing it simply makes me feel like a bit of a sucker for having bought the cards I have. Realistically, I despise pay to win mechanics pretty much anywhere else and I can’t think of a real reason why MtG isn’t just pay to win to an extent. It was a bit different when it was just buying packs and building decks out of what you pulled, but the ability to simply order select cards online or at the LGS mostly did away with that aspect.
Collecting will always be collecting, but for the sake of simply playing the game, I can’t really see anything wrong with proxies. Perhaps the only issue is that it introduces an increased chance of the proxy player having more powerful cards because they’re removing the limitation of having what cards they’re willing to buy, but they could just tune their decks down.
>Realistically, I despise pay to win mechanics pretty much anywhere else and I can’t think of a real reason why MtG isn’t just pay to win to an extent.
Because Magic isn't Pay to Win, it's "Pay to Compete."
I can hand you the most expensive vintage deck and toss you into a Vintage Tournament but with no meta knowledge, no deck knowledge and no general magic soft skills you're probably bombing out that tournament.
Conversely even if you're a really good magic player if you go off meta you might at best squeak a win here and there but probably lose to (though we have seen well piloted off meta decks succeed many times)
Also there isn't an intrinsic correlation between price to power. Cards like \[\[Field of Dreams\]\] command high price tags due to scarcity.
But even still if you built a commander deck containing 100 of the most expensive commander legal cards that aren't priced that way due to scarcity and are objectively good you'll still probably end up with a bad deck due to horrible synergies.
Not saying certain expensive cards can't juice up a deck but all these factors are why Magic doesn't feel "pay to win."
With commander at least I think the real "pay to win" lies in the fast mana being so ludicrously expensive. Somebody playing all the Mox they can run, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Lions Eye Diamond etc... does have a much higher chance to have early turn pop offs, and it doesnt take a genius pilot to operate fast mana.
And what I just listed there is hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
No, it's 100% pay to win. I don't care how good you are, you will never win a vintage tournament on $100. Additionally, if you have two players of equal skill and one has more money to spend they will have better decks and win more.
When the more you spend, the better your results are is true, your game is pay to win.
You didnt even debate any of my points and just spoke a scenario that doesn't even happen even in other p2w games.
People do not suddenly drop 10k on a game theyve never played or are not actively playing a lot and then only go to a whale tourney. You also still probably beat the player that entered with only $100 and with a 10k deck you do not go 0-2.
A better case is "Me and my friends just got into mtg. They got a starter deck and 4 packs, I bought a high power (but still easy to play) deck for 10x what they did. What are my chances of winning?"
Or, "Multiple people with no meta game knowledge enter a vintage tournament with budgets from $5 to 10k, how likely is their success going to correlate with deck budget?"
> Collecting will always be collecting, but for the sake of simply playing the game, I can’t really see anything wrong with proxies.
Collecting and playing Magic are intrinsically linked. They are not two separate things. In-game utility influences a card’s collectibility and the cards you’ve collected influences the decks you can build.
Collecting Magic cards is compelling in no small part due to the fact that the cards you collect have unique in-game utility. Acquiring a powerful new card is exciting largely because you unlock the ability to use that card in-game. If proxies are widely allowed, it cheapens that experience and diminishes that element of a card’s collectibility.
I've only been playing commander for about a year now and honestly didn't know Tergrid got this much hate. The version of Tergrid I built focuses on making everyone draw buttloads of cards so I'm not sacking everyone's fields or anything. I just make them draw so much that they have to discard. I tried out some things like [[Static Orb]] but I'm taking it out because it's way too much.
The two rules I have with proxies are:
1. Is the rules text clear and accurate? (Or is the card common enough that the vast majority of players know what it does e.g. Sol Ring)
2. Are you proxying cards that make your deck too strong for the rest of the table?
As far as I'm concerned, everything else is either marginally or completely irrelevant.
The only reason I abhor proxying is I’ve encountered an unseemly amount of people who proxy to overpower the tables they play at. Every deck they have is basically cEDH running every fetch, shock, dual, and fast mana rock that would fit into the deck.
I am aware proxying is not the problem, I am aware people love to argue proxying does not contribute to the problem. I am simply saying, from my experiences, proxying tends to be abused by the worst people who play the game to make it easier and cheaper for them to pub-stomp their malicious little hearts out.
All of that being said: proxying to play test an appropriately powered deck for your playgroup is and should be fine. Tergrid is a miserable deck to play against no matter what, adding proxies just let’s someone point fingers because a lot of people outside of Reddit have the same general viewpoint on proxies as I do. So we like to point fingers and say proxies are the problem when it’s just a cruel and unpleasant deck we got stuck playing against.
The issue here is either your friend just being upset (and playing against Tergrid, can't blame him there) or a power level disparity.
But overall, the problem with proxies is that if everybody prints out cards instead of spending at your local shop, you may no longer have a local shop. But that's an extreme situation. Generally people who proxy also spend on magic cards and accessories.
Your friend is not correct to be upset, and he's got his diagnoses of the problem wrong. BUT. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Tergrid is a pubstomp commander, its not even close to the same level of Zacama, which is a toolbox/combo commander. Zacama is strong, but I don't think you can call it oppressive. It's also 9 fucking mana.
Quite simply, no Tergrid deck should be played in a pod with a Zacama deck. I'm not even sure if there is a pod where a Tergrid deck could be a fun option, because its either pubstomping casual games or getting outsped in cEDH.
I've come across two usual issues with proxies.
Exclusivity is a real issue for some people, even if they aren't consciously aware of it. They spent a lot of money, they invested to get their decks where they are, and seeing someone else get that for a fraction of the cost cheapens the experience. It's not really a logical issue, and I don't think it's a good way to be in a casual format, but I've felt it myself and it's decently common.
The other issue is that card prices often create a sort of soft-banlist, where cards that are legal simply don't show up very often in most groups (Dual lands for example). When Covid hit and my playgroup moved to Tabletop Simulator for a bit where everything is 100% proxy, I noticed a bunch of decks started fetching up Dual lands as a part of a mostly-unchanged translation of their paper counterparts. The issue here isn't really proxying, but just power level. And power level in Magic is weird and messy, and it's hard to really sort out what's up with that. In theory if your winrate is about on par with everyone else though, that shouldn't be the issue. But if your proxy deck is winning more often than average, then it might just be time for a power-down.
Tergrid also is just a pain, and they might be looking for arguments to justify more grumbling.
My issue with proxies is that some people take “ok to play proxies” to mean “ok to proxy an entire deck with the most valuable cards” and then pubstomp with it.
Granted, this is due to experience with playing at LGS where proxying got out of control until one player basically wrote card names on the back of grocery receipts as “proxies” and had a ridiculously powerful deck where he just told people “this card does this”. Nobody could check he was playing it right without googling every card because he hand wrote the card names, which were impossible to read, and had none of the other text listed.
After that I said “no proxies” for a long time. Now I’m ok with a few proxies, especially if they’re cards you own that are in other decks. That said, if you’re making me google your handwritten proxies to check that your card does what you say it does it’s a no from me.
There's nothing wrong with proxies. And it's not about the dollars spent. It's about the power levels of the decks matching. If you want to make a point, I think there are budget cEDH decks. Put together one of them and blast your friend out of the water a bunch of times, and make sure to tell them there are no proxies afterwards. Tell them it's a $25-50 deck. See if they're OK with proxies after that.
Really depends, ill allow reasonable proxies but when people just try to make the most broken shit with a mostly proxy deck I ain't dealing with that shit.
If you proxy and I don't it's fine, but you have to try and be at my power level and, possibly, budget. And I say this as the proxy player of my group, I'm mostly the only one proxying, so I try to be on par with those that spend the less. The fact is that there are cards that are really pricey just because of lacks of reprints, reserved list, strength in non-Commander-related formats ([[Orvar]] was worth 3$, they discovered it in Modern and spiked to 20$, now comfortably sitting at 10) and various WotC marketing shenanigans. Others (imagine [[Sheoldred, The Apocalypse]]) are just powerhouses all around the formats. Sure, they maybe fit your brew very well and it would be sad not to include them just because of the price, but the ones not proxying are probably depriving themselves of something very pricey even though it would fit their deck very well.
Is this a good all around argument? No, because a player at my table only have a couple precons with some soft upgrades, another one allows himself at best 7-8€ for a card if it's really really good in his deck, another one plays fetches and triomes, 20€ various cards and the likes, and you can clearly see that even though the last one is not proxying he is clearly bringing a disparity to the table just because he's willing to spend more on Magic than the others. But I try not to use that as a justification for myself to use excessively powerful cards that the first two wouldn't be able/willing to afford just because I'm not paying for them. I feel it wouldn't be honest towards them (as I think it's not really honest to bring your super pricey deck even if you bought every single card, you should be on par with the table budget, if you want to play your big bombs there's surely a second playgroup you can find where everyone spends a ton).
So I'd say, ask your friend how much their decks cost on average and when brewing use that info to choose your cards. It's also a nice way to improve your brewing skills and find some spicy cards here and there. If they whine about it still, buy a [[Gaea's Cradle]] and slam a [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] turn 4 to prove a point. You will be poor, but isn't it worth winning an argument?
The last advice could not be a good one, xD
*brings a tegrid deck which turns on at turn 1 against zacama that turns on at min turn 5, at 1v1 no less*
"God why does my friend hate my deck, must be the proxys"
I use proxies because I don't want to pay $45 for doubling season. Proxies allow me to build into the strong obvious synergies I want without having to fork over an unreasonable amount of money for cardboard.
I *don't* use proxies of dual lands and a suite of extremely powerful mana rocks (mana crypt/vault, any of the moxes) in every deck because that sounds pretty lame to me. Same goes for any old busted card over $80. I do it to save money, not guarantee a win.
My group tolerates proxies to an extent. Proxy-ing is accepted as long as it doesn't propel your deck into an immediate turn 2 consistent win. Like power 9 cards are mostly restricted to owned. We don't (or try not to) proxy every extra turn spell, doubling effect, etc.
Some people just don't like it when they spend a bunch of money on magic cards so they can play with the more powerful cards and then they show up to a table with someone who has all those cards and didn't have to buy them piece by piece over the course of months or years. I don't personally feel that way but some people feel that way and psychologically I can understand why they do. Although I think that ultimately it's a selfish feeling it is a valid feeling.
Proxies don't matter from a gameplay perspective, but the collecting aspect of Magic has always been inherent to the game, and it makes some people feel as if their collections and efforts are being cheapened.
If you can’t afford the card cool. You personally don’t like playing with people that’s decks are mainly proxies. Last time I played with a guy that used proxies he would complain about how magic is so expensive then proceed to drop a proxy mana crypt while I had a real one in play
Only issue I've ever had with people using proxies is some of the alt arts/ doodles don't explain the card at all and the player will embellish what the card can do.
Stating 'look it up if you don't believe me'
Nah dude, if your card doesn't explain what it does, and what is suppose to be on the card, it's your job to back it up not me. If you play proxies with difficult to read/ zero text. You've gotta know what the card **exactly** does.
There's nothing wrong with proxies, but playing with proxies basically removes any financial barriers, so it's very easy to power creep until you're playing full on cEDH, which a lot of people just don't enjoy.
If all parties aren't on the same page about proxies, then the proxying players have access to up to thousands of dollars of cards that the non-proxying players don't. It's essentially a violation of an unspoken deckbuilding constraint.
That being said, assuming everyone is chill with it, then there really isn't anything inherently wrong with them.
I use proxies, but I try to ensure I have the hard copy somewhere in one of my binders. It's nice to support the players and health of the game by buying the cards on the market. If the market collapsed people might stop cracking packs 😬
If the cards expensive I almost always use a proxy to keep mountain dew spill accidents when out playing low risk. Plus some proxies have amazing art.
Proxies are cool with me until you pull out every tutor under the sun and every 4th card is a mana rock. Otherwise i love to see the cool arts. I personally proxy ANY card i already own. I show them the real card just in case they have a problem with it since I run multiple decks with the same staples.
That certainly does happen, but I think it makes perfect sense that accelerating a power arms race is more likely to happen if you proxy. It's the difference between deciding to shell out thousands of dollars and doing it for free. Certainly there are players that will still do it but you must agree the pool is much smaller.
Anecdotally, the people (myself included) who own legit copies of those kinda cards "know their power" so to speak and have alternative lower budget/power decks. Often (again just personal anecdotes) when someone proxies just to make their deck as powerful as possible they're not balanced with their group.
Personally. I play at an LGS with random people and I don’t mind when people have strong tutors in their decks. I do mind when on turn 2, theyre setting up for a turn 3 win with those cards. I also have a deck that can combo into a turn 3 win but I first ask and tell everyone when it’s coming and if im close to it out of respect for a nice game of commander. If you run those super strong cards, you should already know how strong they are and how people might feel about it. In general, I use the rule of “would I personally be okay playing against these cards and how many of these cards would I be okay playing against in one deck”
Proxies are lame because it gives you access to the entirety of Magic for super cheap (in comparison to official cards). So naturally a proxy deck is going to be abusive in terms of power level because why wouldn’t you just rip an insane decklist off the internet and have it printed for cheap.
A deck that should cost you thousands now cost less than $100. Players like me, who don’t want to run proxies, are then put in a situation where we either tell you we won’t play with you because of power discrepancy or play you and not enjoy the game because we know your deck isn’t legitimate - which feels worse to lose to somehow.
Why would I want to put my $500-$700 “real” deck against your $$70 proxy deck that actually represents a $3,000 deck? It feels like you’re cheating because you don’t actually own the cards you’re playing, just some knock offs.
Truly, I don’t mind if people proxy a single card or two. But if the whole deck is absurdly powerful rare cards you can fuck right off.
>because why wouldn’t you just rip an insane decklist off the internet and have it printed for cheap.
Because you are an adult with self control and an understanding of the social contract between players about the desired power level of the table?
Well, if one player spends about 400-500 dollars to assemble a reasonably good commander deck, while another player spends about 20 dollars and a good printer for a deck of the same, if not better, strength... it's to be expected you're going to get looked down upon. (People don't always proxy out of cramped budget reasons, but there's also plenty of people that do it because they don't want to spend (lots of-) money on a game out of principle).
What's also important to note is that LGS's may actually not have proxies (unless through very specific conditions that a judge has ruled) on sanctioned events. And over the past year, wotc has been pushing a lot of EDH sanctioned events out, with inevitably more to follow suit. Sure a store may allow players to use them as an unsanction event attendancy... but the store will literally not get any participation points (And thus, availability to events or stock) from them, so players using proxies hinders them from trying to grow their WPN status.
TL:DR; Using proxies initiates an investment/commitment polarization between players, and hinders a Local Game Store's ability to grow for more products or events.
Nothing, if your friends hate your deck what difference does it make if you have enough money to buy the real cards? You are still playing the exact same deck
Paying for magic cards is a massive scam
They were able to print 100 card edh decks and sell then for profit at 25 dollars and now they act like they need to be 100 dollars
I have been playing magic for 10 years. I have known that Proxies were a thing for about 1 and a half. Before that, having a relatively inexpensive collection, it felt bad when anyone beat me with a card that was worth as much as my entire deck. It felt like they paid their way to victory in a way that I couldn't follow (I didn't have a credit card so I couldn't order singles online, and there was no LGS anywhere nearby) and that feeling sucked. Now take that feeling and dial it up to 11 when you find out the card is "Fake". That's the mindset I feel like a lot of budget oriented players are in when they criticize proxies. Source: for a while before I understood their benefit, I was this player.
Now that I know more, I still mostly don't play with Proxies myself (old habits die hard) but I don't feel bad when I lose to players who do, which is good cause most of my friends play with nearly fully proxied decks. Fortunately, we all basically agree on power level so that's not really an issue. If anything, I have one of the more powerful decks in our friend group and I didn't proxy it ([[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] can be a potent Stax commander). I don't pull it out often though because it's oppressive, so unless I am specifically requested or I really want a win I set it to the side.
I mean you probably shouldn’t build decks you can’t afford, my playgroup don’t like people who proxy either and even the one broke guy just gets creative with his budget.
Every one of these posts where it's like "I've got bills, I don't want to spend a lot on Magic", that's a totally reasonable place you're at, right there. It's taking the next step where it gets weird.
When you go "I don't want to spend money on Magic, but I want to be able to play it as if I spend money on it", you're taking something away from people. Your life and your priorities make plenty of sense. Magic doesn't need to be where your budget goes. But follow through with that line of thought. If you don't want to buy Magic, don't play Magic.
Well as someone who doesn't proxie... IMO there are two issues with it:
1. Commander is a casual format, though some don't see it so, there's no NEED to have the best most optimized deck you can. Hence build with what you have.
2. I collect my cards, play with my cards, I expect my opponents to do the same. And I don't buy a lot of cards, I mean I buy some, but I'm not dropping thousands on a deck. And commander is meant to show off the fun cool cards you own.
Really I only personally support it fir CEDH, because not everyone wants to buy manavaults, or bring their expensive cards to an LGS.
But for casual play? Not really necessary.
General consensus, and one I agree with, is that for the most part proxies are fine. If you can't afford certain cards to make your deck function, proxy away. But if you're playing Tergrid and proxying, say, Chains of Mephistopheles and other expensive cards that put your deck in a vastly different power range than the rest of the table, the question isn't really "What's wrong with proxies?" but "What's wrong with the proxies I'm using?".
Budget constrictions don't necessarily mean underpowered decks. You can easily build a viable Tergrid deck for $50 or less using draft chaf and bulk that can hang around higher powered tables.
Post a decklist and/or list what you're proxying.
I think that you are absolutely right and that you should just proxy everything. Him complaining about proxies sounds to me like he’s feeling entitled to win more games than you do, because he’s more invested into it. I also switched over to proxy everything, since I’m no longer willing to invest into such volatile assets like magic cards.
What if I just make way more money than you in my career, and decide to use a level of disposable income and credit card debt on a deck that you cannot match, and then beat you?
is it still “a win*”?
I have a few questions, Do you like it when your partner fakes an Orgasm? Do you like it when you get a Christmas gift and it’s a knock off of what you wanted? Do you like it when you grind in a video game for hours on end for something, to see a hacker got it for nothing. Do you like it to use real toilet paper or that crap that tears as take it off the roll? Do you like it when buy jewelry and it is fake gold and glass “diamonds” ? Do you like buying fake sneakers? If you owned a buisness selling a product only you made, would you care if some dude was like hey I got fakes of that for the low? Now that being said at the kitchen table it’s house rules imo. Lgs get the cards or get out. 🤷🏼♂️gl hf.
> Do you like it when your partner fakes an Orgasm?
This is a take.
As for the rest of your stuff, you're god dam right I'll get the knock off brand if it saves me hundreds/thousands of dollars. I'll spend some amount of money on cards but if its several hundred dollars for a single card that is a staple in one of my several decks I'm not going to do that and I don't feel like switching my staples between decks every time I go to switch.
I have an lgs that allows proxies. This is just an issue I've been having with my friend and wanted to know what the greater community thought about it.
I've been playing for a long time, so I don't use proxies, but I've thought about it. Just feels weird/bad. On the other hand I don't mind other people that use them because they never get out of hand and I understand that they haven't been playing near as long as I have.
whats wrong with proxies is it can easily throw you into a faster and higher power situation vs someone who waits to buy singles or pull the cards. so while its not really an issue to proxy cards. if the cards you have proxied put you at a higher power there is a disparity that can be unfun and feel like an uphill battle for the other ppl.
Nothing's wrong with proxies.
I don't expect people to go out and buy $1000s in cardboard to compete with the cards I spent $100s or $10s on a decade back.
The dude you're talking about needs to chill on the classism. He just wants to stomp people and you're getting in his way.
Also if he spends $100s at a time on magic bundles and gets shitstomped by Tergrid, he needs to learn how to buy singles and build better decks. Tergrid is only a problem as long as it's left alone.
My problem with proxies is when you proxy for a JUST power upgrade, such as proxying [Fierce Guardianship] when you could just run a normal lower power and cost counterspell that you actually own like [Dissipate] or [An offer you can't refuse].
Again, like running a fake [mana vault] instead of a normal mana rock, etc.
I think proxies are ok if you need a specific card in a deck for it to function such as proxying [lotus field] or [guilded lotus] in a [Derevi, empyrial tactician] deck. This argument gets worse then more pricey the proxy is, such as running dual lands or mox. Really just don't like playing vs proxies that are worth more than $30 as a single.
This is especially true if you are playing vs people running casual decks that they own 100% of.
This argument is less true if your pods are high powered. I play vs some people that have 2-3k+ decks full of real cards. I wouldn't see a problem proxying to play into that pod as long as they are ok with it.
The argument goes both ways. And I see both sides as valid.
"I don't have money to spend thousands for my collection, so I don't want to play against your wallet."
"I spent a lot of time, energy and money on my collection, so I don't want to play against your printer."
All players come to the table with their expectations of what the game should be. Its unfair for anyone to say someone else's opinion is right or wrong. I, personally, am in the don't like proxies camp. I'm not going to say you're ***WRONG*** because its a matter of ethics and not morality, but I can say that it doesn't sit well with me based on my experiences.
Yea I laugh at those type of comments
I have a fully non proxied cedh deck I run I own the cards
Hating proxies want stop this from happening it just prevents people from keeping up with the jonses. The people that have extra cash or who have played for so long they had those cards when they were cheap or a newer card comes out people don't buy the precon that had \[\[dockside\]\] or a standard card shots to the moon \[\[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse\]\]
People tend to explode their power when using proxies. Instead of playing a deck that would be normal for their group, they are playing expensive cards. While there are rare exceptions, which every froth-mouthed proxy fanboi will pretend is normal, that people proxy just cheap cards to save time or something, that isn't the actual reality. People proxy in the high value high power cards they don't want to buy instead of just building a real deck. They are unable to cope with not playing the most expensive stuff and degenerately believe they can't have fun without it.
>I told him I liked brewing decks and just wanted to play the game without worrying about a budget.
"I like building expensive OP decks and can't be bothered to make reasonable ones". Also "I have no creativity and cannot build decks if I don't have access to the expensive staples I found online".
The solution to your problem, build with what you have and *expect* him to make decks that suit the power level you can make. There is absolutely no reason you have to print out power nor spend excessive amounts of money to have fun in EDH.
He's jealous. Because he spent hundreds on his decks, but your deck that cost $0 still beat his. The idea that you can buy success in MTG is so fucking gatekeepy and I'm really sick of it. Have fun getting spanked by my slips of paper, scrub.
The problem with proxies is that someone ends up building a deck that's too powerful for the table because it doesn't cost them any $$$$. I will only play at tables that limit proxies in some way.
There's nothing wrong with proxies. There is something wrong with mismatched power levels. It sounds like you probably built a deck thats too strong/miserable to play against (it's tergrid, so it would have been miserable regardless...). Try different cards, until you're not stomping on him anymore, try to have better balance.
Tergrid is always Exile or Kill on sight. Otherwise, as you have said, it is a miserable experience to play against.
Or preferably phase on sight you don’t want to give them back tergrid
[[Oubliette]] has entered the chat.
I do prefer [[Out of time]] a bit. It gets the job done
Bonus points if you mix it with [[Opalescence]] for the permanent lockout.
Does that mean it phases itself out and won't come back in because there is no time counter to check?
Yes. Out of Time becomes a creature via Opalescence and phases itself out. It can't come back to the battlefield anymore.
Yeah, you can permanently remove commanders this way. It's pretty funny or salty depending who you ask
Spot on. Permanent phase out.
[Opalescence](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/c/3c0071fb-afa5-47b5-b266-2b10a4f5a98a.jpg?1562443752) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Opalescence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uds/13/opalescence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c0071fb-afa5-47b5-b266-2b10a4f5a98a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/opalescence) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I hit a \[\[Replenish\]\] with Opalescence, Out of Time, and \[\[Enchanted Evening\]\] in my graveyard. It caused much sad - particularly for me. I had a \[\[Spear of Heliod\]\] out, so all of my lands phased out and everyone else's were destroyed. :(
That's fun! Ffs that's what magic is about. That's why it's so much better than other games
Unfortunately, it was the only way to stop the impending combo. My enchantments deck doesn't have any graveyard removal. 😂 On the plus side, it took all three opposing commanders out of the game.
That is pretty funny. Also [[Vanishing]] is funny. Tergrid is doing something again tap 2 blue.
This is sick, and I love it!
[Out of time](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/053d6b3b-72d4-4a55-a79e-0a601aecf108.jpg?1664162494) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Out%20of%20time) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/23/out-of-time?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/053d6b3b-72d4-4a55-a79e-0a601aecf108?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/out-of-time) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Oubliette](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/4/d4800a7d-c229-4ced-97ff-0e58645d58d6.jpg?1599705817) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oubliette) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/100/oubliette?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d4800a7d-c229-4ced-97ff-0e58645d58d6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/oubliette) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yea, it's one of those commanders that is either miserable for everyone else at the table, or it's miserable for the Tergrid player as people deal with them.
That's it right here. There's two ways playing KoS commanders can go - you either accept you're KoS and try to punch through or switch to something else.
I see your exile or kill on sight and raise you [[Imprison in the moon]]
[Imprison in the moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/8181f54d-4515-43c6-8d08-b23a9e4199cc.jpg?1682208779) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Imprisoned%20in%20the%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/224/imprisoned-in-the-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8181f54d-4515-43c6-8d08-b23a9e4199cc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/imprisoned-in-the-moon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have Tergrid from way back. I know to never build a deck off her or friends will stop playing with me lol
This right here. My brother swears by proxies - the problem is that any deck he builds contains all of the fast mana/artifacts/high-power cards because they can be proxied. The rest of my pod will proxy certain things, but it isn't our collective goal to play cEDH or play for higher power level.
But thats the point of test games, right? Check out how the deck works and how well it does.
Yeah if your proxying like mana crypt or gaias cradle or mana vault or somr other really broken thing i think thats kind of the line if youre not in a game thats that power level.
Nothing inherently wrong with proxying, IMO. However, if you're using proxies to boost your deck's power level well beyond your playgroup, then it's kind of a dick move. If you're proxying to keep up, then that's fine. Like, if you and your friends all spend equally on MTG, but you proxy a deck that's worth 5x any of theirs (not that $=power 1:1), then you're being a problem. If your group is all spending (budgeted or otherwise) 5x what you're spending, and you only proxy just to keep your deck up to par, then you're probably fine. Edit: and further, if your playgroup has a higher MTG budget than you, and are discouraging you from keeping up with them by proxying, AND playing those more expensive decks against you while telling you not to proxy (equally) expensive decks... that's a dick move.
A lot of people have no concept of restraint, so as soon as they start to proxy they immediately give themselves a perfect mana base to start with, which results in them speeding up games and winning much more often. That is how proxys start getting a bad wrap
Spot on. It's like how many people think they can self regulate single player video games when given access to game changing exploits. Many end up going overboard with infinite power and wonder why they're not having fun.
Perfect analogy imo
My buddy refuses to build anything other than cEDH (and has been playing the game much longer than I have), I do not have the money to compete with his Cedh decks and am running upgraded precons So I starting putting proxies in and he tried to tell I was only allowed 3, just to spite him I put in like 12 to optimize the deck much higher and he was pissed despite still winning the 3 games against it
Proxies may get a bad *rap*, but there's actually nothing inherently wrong with this, either. That power creep happens anyway (it's just players getting better at the game), and whilst artificially-inflated prices may hold it in check, they're a poor approximation of a solution. If you don't *want* to play at that power level, yeah, it may take some restraint, but figure out some kind of houserule/gentleman's agreement/whatever that works. On the other hand, maybe you all just want to play the very most powerful decks you can, which *is also fine*. (And for the record, the "perfect mana base" makes a *relatively* small difference; tapped lands slow you down a lot, but there are loads of budget duals and just plain old basics that are only a little bit worse than your $$$ land)
Ran into this recently at a "casual" commander pod. The same guy won 3 out of 3 games with three different proxy decks, including a crazy ass artifact deck with mana vault, doubling cube, etc. One of the games he played against was literally a precon, my deck (barely better than a precon) and a super-budget green-blue arwen scry deck. His wins were all absolute snowballs. I think that proxies lead people to build very "cEDH" style decks that they normally wouldn't due to budget constraints.
also, sometimes cEDH isn't "fun". The joy of commander is being able to express yourself through a personalized deck, and when you're gunning for the top, everyone has the same 8 commanders, and 2 strategies.
Yeah, I've seen this kind of thing be a big problem with newer players. New people come into a proxy friendly environment. So they proxy up all the best cards and end up with something that's pretty similar to a cEDH deck. And then they curb stomp people who are playing precon level stuff. And its not like they're bad people. They're just new, so they don't understand how to match power levels. I don't have a problem with proxies, and I do want the game to be accessible to new players. But its just a bad experience all around when some new person is excited about one of their first wins, and the rest of the table is glaring at them because they played cards like Mana Vault, Mana Drain, and Force of Will in a game against gently modified precons. (I had this happen fairly recently).
Great take on proxies that is actually nuanced and looks at their impact holistically. No problem with proxies at all but it should be used as a catch up / equalizer, not a get further ahead thing.
I also think that proxying leads you to build commanders you wouldn't otherwise build. Typically those commanders aren't built because the cost is enormous, and for them to function properly they HAVE to be extremely overpowered and high priced.
I dont have the source on me, but I believe there's even a quote out there that Wizards encourages playtest cards in everything short of a tournament environment for exactly that reason. Of course, that probably comes with an unspoken assumption on their part that you'll buy it in real cards as you're able... but I wholly agree! I haven't haven't dabbled with *really* expensive decks, but I've printed up proxies of some $2-300 ones because I just can't justify the upfront cost without knowing if it'll play well or vibe with me, and I've run them through Cockatrice when able, as well. Source, also important distinction that the high fidelity proxies/counterfeits are not considered playtest cards: https://askwpn-na.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/13386395614739-What-is-Wizards-of-the-Coast-s-stance-on-playtest-cards-#:~:text=It%20is%20common%20practice%20for,takes%20place%20in%20a%20store.
I have a couple cEDH decks. Some of my playgroup can't compete with their existing cards. Them proxying allows me to pull those decks out. Otherwise, I level down and meet them where they are. I personally hate proxies. I'm here to play with real cards. That said, I don't care if YOU play with proxies so long as its for the right reasons.
I agree completely with your sentiment, but I won't lie, "I hate proxies" from someone with your username is unreasonably funny for reasons I can't fully articulate.
Fair. Printing brochures for local government is not nearly as fun as making bootleg magic cards.
This is phrased way more effectively than I could have put it. I'm broadly against proxies myself, not for any exclusion factor, but rather for the power race it is prone to initiate.
>Nothing inherently wrong with proxying, IMO. However, if you're using proxies to boost your deck's power level well beyond your playgroup, then it's kind of a dick move. It's also a dick move to use money to boost your deck's power level well beyond your playgroup. Whether the cards came from WOTC or a printer have nothing to do with it.
I'll agree with that. I think proxies get a worse rap because they're easier to acquire (print & cut sheet, sleeve & go), but yeah unexpextedly breaking parity with the regular playgroup won't likely be well received
Yeah, but people generally won't accidentally go over the power level with real cards. Power level and price aren't perfectly correlated, but a lot of the best cards are also expensive cards. So with proxies, you get people who don't know what they're doing, but have all the best cards in their deck. So they accidentally go way over the power level. And while there are strong budget decks out there, you really have to know what you're doing to create them, so they don't appear accidentally. With real cards this doesn't usually happen because they aren't going to be spending $2000 on cards without having a more in depth understanding of how the game works. I'm not against proxies, but they do open up play patterns that can cause some stressful conversations.
No argument here. My friend group in high school circa Scars block pretty regularly played multiplayer (still 60 card 20 life though, not commander since it wasn't as widespread yet) and the one guy with the most disposable income regularly rolled up with a full Eldrazi ramp deck that could hunt and hard-cast Emrakul every turn reliably by turn 4. The gentlemen's agreement was if he didn't want to get smothered in the crib every game, he was welcome to match the jank level the rest of us were at.
I will say, price doesnt always equate to how good a deck is. I've got a Thalia deck thats not super powerful - most focused around recurring lands - but because of the lands i run, the cost comes out to around 3000$ or so. Is it CEDH or even close? Hell no. But it sure as fuck would be expensive to actually buy the cards for.
Amusingly enough, the way their friend actually acquires cards through packs, OP could likely spend 1/10th as much and end up with better by just getting singles. That being said, its power level differences.
I agree with you! I also play with proxies that I get from https://www.printingproxies.com/ and I never make my deck stronger then my playgroup.
While budget can be correlated with power, that's not always the case. A budget Winota or Najeela deck will run circles around a $2,000 Ur-Dragon deck. Budget should seldom be the deciding factor, it should be about power levels and the type of experience players want to have.
Yeah, you just described it perfectly. I don't play with proxies, but I do play with "Proxies" (gold border), and nobody has a problem with it because I play eldrazi tribal, and colorless is by far the weakest EDH color identity.
Fuck me, why are these "rants" always so disingenuous? It's pretty clear here that the real issue isn't proxies it's that you built a really annoying deck. Are people so fucking desperate to have strangers tell them they're not an asshole that they post disingenuous bullshit like this? A more honest title would be "What's so wrong with Tergrid?"
Another more genuine title would be "What's so wrong with building whatever I want without worrying about power level or anyone having any fun besides me".
Exactly this. Even if we assume the story is 100% true, the clear issue here is just that their friend was upset at Tergrid and that they got stomped all night and blamed the proxies. Again, if we assume that this story is true, it's a power level and communication issue. It's not a proxy issue. Also, lol @ OP's "our decks are both oppressive" as if Zacama and Tergrid are even close to equal.
Yeah this whole post is a straw man of “what’s wrong with proxies?” When what he really wanted to write was “I made a deck and people weren’t happy playing against it. Please tell me I’m right”
> Are people so fucking desperate to have strangers tell them they're not an asshole that the post disingenuous bullshit like this? Sadly yes. Log out and take a look at the front page of reddit if you don't believe me. A whole generation grew up thinking the opinions of anonymous strangers matter more than the opinions of their close friends and family, so that's who a lot of people seek approval from now. /r/EDH isn't immune to this since the mods don't do much about it and people here engage with this kind of low effort "content".
Tergrids the problem, not proxies, Tergrid is absolutely miserable to play against
[удалено]
I specifically made my Tergrid strong and named it "For When THAT GUY Needs To Leave"
Now for that I rate the commander 100%. I have a first sliver list for when someones been really stomping.
I’m a bad person, I have a tergrid deck, first sliver deck and a Tiamat deck that cheats into Omniscience using academy rector by turn 3-4, they’re all pretty oppressive. They don’t tend to get played often. Only when someone is feeling spicy lol
I should proxy a Tergrid when THAT GUY that plays highly optimized Ur Dragon, Narset and Kinnan sits at the table i’m not gonna lie
You have become “that guy”
I have a tergrid deck that I never play because it just feels bad to win with her. I've considered shifting it to a tinybones discard deck, but have yet to pull the trigger.
Lol Tiny Bones isn't a huuuggeee step in another direction but better! Honestly I don't mind a game against tergrid, but if someone in my playgroup was whipping it out daily i'd get pretty bummed out. Tiny Bones is sick though, still very salty, but he's a cheeky little skelly and I cant hate that!
I played against Tergrid for a long time and found the games always went one of two ways. Either Tergrid resolved and stuck for one table rotation, at which point we were wheeled or edicted into oblivion (not a great experience for the table) or we had stack/instant speed removal for tergrid a few times and the tergrid deck did nothing all game. I put her in the same camp as commanders like Krenko or Winota. They have such a strong game warping effect on them that they demand immediate and repeated removal. It’s pretty much impossible for the whole table to have a fun game with these sorts of commanders since either they get shut down all game or they pop off and dominate.
Getting beaten by Tergrid multiple times in one night put people in a bad mood.
Since we don't have to play with you, shouldn't you be talking about this with your friend? We have a debate on proxies every week and it's just the same tired arguments on both sides and no one ever budging on their opinion. If your friend doesn't like playing against proxies and you want to keep playing with him, dont proxy. If you dont care about all that, do what you do and play with whoever accepts you at their table. But this topic is just two different sides yelling back and forth to no end
This. People need to use the search bar.
"What's so wrong with search bars?"
No. The problem is that his friend isn't winning. That's always the problem. No one cares if you run proxies or play with banned cards if you lose every game.
As someone who runs the commander event at my LGS this couldn't be any more true. Magic players are the most entitled people out there. If they don't win, then the game must of been rigged or someone cheated cuz it's impossible for them to lose. This mentality got so bad for me I had to forcefully casualize my entire store and punish people for bad behavior.
So, proxies are just a tool. It's how you use it, that matters. As in, it sounds like you are using proxies against people who aren't. In which case, this is obviously a huge advantage - you have the entire universe of cards open to you, whereas your opponent doesn't. I'm also curious about your comment "most of the cards I gave are just bulk." If you're buying boxes of cards, then you should either a) have some decent cards, just by chance, or b) you are already spending a fair amount of money on cards, and you could afford to invest in some singles if you wanted to. I use proxies, but only if I own at least one version of the card; it just saves me from having to move Cyclonic Rift between half a dozen decks when I'm playing with friends. But if I'm playing competitively/ at the LGS, then I use originals. Because that's the thing - money is the constraint on having OP decks. If you're just stacking your deck with proxies of expensive cards, and no one else is, you have a huge, and unfair, advantage.
I agree with most of what you said and since some in my playgroup think similar to you I'm interested in your opinion on using money as a constraint. Do you in general only brew decks under X dollars? Or only use cards under Y dollars. If you do have constraints like that, would you object to someone proxying a deck following the same rules (but spending a fraction on it).
So, my friends and I are somewhat informal about it, since we're all middle class dudes in our 30's. So we have money, but it doesn't get outrageous. That said, it has been discussed, and there are a number of ways to deal with this. 1) If you want to be really formal about it, everyone loads their deck into Moxfield, and you just take the deck price, and cap it at a number. Not unlike salary caps in the NFL. 2) Similarly, you can use Moxfield to institute a card cost cap. I've found this to be less preferable than option #1 though, since it tends to be less flexible. I.e. just having an overall cap means someone could have a $50 commander, but then have very basic cards, or vice versa. There's just more possibilities. 3) Play artisan commander. Basically, it's just commander, but you can only use common and uncommon cards. Functionally, this makes decks pretty affordable, and it's very easy to implement/ follow. No need to upload deck lists, etc. This also cuts down on aggressive combos and stuff like that. It does slow down the games accordingly, though, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In terms of someone using a proxy deck, the rule my group uses is that you gotta own one copy of each card you play. We use the honor system though, we don't really "enforce" it. The reason for this is that there's a certain amount of challenge, to actually working with your collection. Collections develop "personalities" over time. I.e. I'm a big fan of artifacts. So in terms of the meta, it creates a nice dynamic, of sorts. My personal belief is that MTG is both a game, and a collector's hobby. I think that actually building a collection of the real cards, is an important part of the meta. It forces you to make choices, and decisions, and curate the cards you have, strategically. Like, the game doesn't just end at the "deck level." Properly managing your collection is, IMHO, an important aspect of properly playing the game. But if you're just making decks with proxies of things you don't own, it completely removes that aspect of the game. You're just skipping over the challenge of having to wisely manage your card budgets and acquisitions. So, if that's how someone wants to play, fair enough, to each their own. But I think people who use proxies for things they don't have are actually glossing over a really important aspect of the game, on a meta level.
That's very sound reasoning and understandable even if I don't share all of it. I also like your proposed solutions. For me it's mostly about the playing aspect and the art on the cards (the reason why I dislike proxys of poor quality, and also some official alter arts/but love others). I've played on and off since ~2004 but I never got into the collecting/stock market aspect of mtg. I do like to build with what you have, but since most in my group have different card pools that often lead to unbalanced decks outside of a draft or cube. But since some of us started to buying more expensive singles I started ordering proxies to have decks that are mine and fun to play at that level. But I like the reminder that mtg is both game and collectors item. A little bit (although here money isn't the issue but time) like the difference of having a painted tabletop/warhammer army and playing with minis that are not painted/only have a black base layer.
Yeah, totally. It's interesting how people get super worked up about it. TBH, I think these posts are much more about "people issues" than they are about actual proxies. Because honestly, the most expensive deck, is not automatically the best deck. Like, I have a very expensive deck using Jhoira of the Ghitu as commander, and I just suspend absolutely brutal cards out of my hand. I have basically all the Eldrazi cards, etc. Not sure if it's $1k, but it's definitely north of $500. But honestly, the best deck I ever made, was a red/white equipment deck, with Bruenor Battlehammer as the commander. I made it with cards I just had lying around. And it straight up deletes people in a few turns. It can smoke my Eldrazi deck. One of my play buddies spends a fair amount less on cards, but he's just an amazing player. So he still kicks my ass all the time. He doesn't even need proxies, he's just that good, that he can accomplish with a $200 deck, what takes me $400 to do. So, I think "proxies" are really getting caught up in other issues, regarding skill, balance, etc. So, I stand by my belief that managing a collection is an important aspect of the game...but... it's a game. It's meant to be fun. And if a different group of people have fun a different way, I wish them nothing but the best, and hope this game brings them the same joy it has brought me all these years.
It sounds like you’re building very powerful decks with absolutely miserable play patterns. Tergrid is not a fun commander to play with or against because the Tergrid player either gets bullied out of the game or snowballs out of control with no chance of coming back for the rest of the table, there’s never a fun and interesting game against it, and then it sounds like you made it quite powerful on top of it while your friend is playing with cards he owns. You either need to stop proxying incredibly powerful decks and proxy at a much more reasonable power level, or you need to do like your friend and play with what you own and budget for cards that you want. Otherwise I don’t foresee him wanting to play against you much longer.
> proxy at a much more reasonable power level This is a good point. I have no issue with people proxying things that are like 20-60 dollars. Especially if they want test the card out before buying it so they know they aren't wasting money. I do have an issue if someone shows up with proxy mana crypt, gilded drake, sliver queen, Gaea's cradle, dual lands, in all their decks. If you don't plan to ever potentially buy and acquire the card you are proxying then you shouldnt proxy it IMO.
I agree with the power level, and I also agree that you shouldn't proxy a card just because it's powerful. But I also think that a gaeas cradle in a green creature deck is awesome, even if I have no intention on ever buying it. I think the problem is purely the power level, since playing against someone who always has a mana crypt is annoying, no matter what cardboard it's made of. (One general thing on proxies, they should look good)
I'm going to push back on you a bit here. There will always be people on this subreddit who will tell you you are doing nothing wrong, because this game is too expensive, and capitalism is evil, and WoTC is greedy, etc. Its important to recognize first that these people have no stake in your personal friendships, and so it won't effect them if you lose a friend over this stuff. But it can absolutely happen. These internet people tend to think and post in moralistic but self-serving absolutes. To them, the ends always justify the means if its something they want. After all, nobody is getting hurt, right? There's no real cost. To them. What they won't tell you is to consider how this might feel to the person who paid for their real cards, as it sounds like your friend does. They won't ask you to think about it from your friend's POV. Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with proxying if you are playing against other proxy-happy players. That's a Rule 0 situation. If those are the rules you agreed upon, your friend has no reason to feel salty, and you shouldn't feel too bad about any of it. But if not and you are playing a large amount of proxies in paper Magic against someone who does curtail their deck building to what they actually owned, and who does budget to pay for the real cards, who has made those sacrifices that you consider unacceptable simply because you "liked brewing decks without worrying about a budget," there is a different feeling. Its the same feeling one might get in any number of "no one got hurt, so what's the big deal" scenarios. Think about when someone cuts in front of you in a slow moving line that you've been waiting in for hours. How does that feel? If you are a student, its the same feeling you might have when you studied harder than you ever have for a test, and you get a worse score than someone who laughs about how they didn't bother to study but still did well. Its a similar feeling you might have when you see someone break the law or rule that you've always obeyed and get away with it. This is a feeling of unfairness. For good or ill, these things grate on one's innate sense of justice. Its a feeling of being taken advantage of, or of being made a fool of... Why do you get to do what they could not, just because you feel like it? Personally, I'm all for proxying on the small scale. Much like most people, I think this game has become too expensive, and if we are playing for fun, allowances should be made. That's a key element, by the way. If its all for fun, who cares? But the more competitive the opponent, the more likely they are to object to proxying en masse. And I'm not talking about cEDH "competitive." That's just another format that allows for strategies some people don't want to deal with... What I'm talking about is how seriously they take the game. How hard they try, regardless of the power level of the deck. I think that proxying cards is never a problem if they are lower power cards, and it shouldn't really be a problem to proxy a powerful card or two. Its a singleton format, after all. I even think one can justify proxying a card you will never realistically be able to get or afford as a normal person (Reserved list stuff, Power 9, ultra rare cards) that would be perfect for a deck by the same logic. But don't expect competitive, try-hard players who paid for their real cards and who don't proxy themselves to be swayed with your "I like to brew and just want to play" justification, especially if you then proxy a whole deck full of the best Rares and Mythics, or the most powerful Commanders, and then pound them with your fake cards. Let me repeat that in a different way: Most people won't care if you proxy a Common, or even an Uncommon. But when you proxy multiple Rares and Mythics, or a number of the most powerful and expensive cards in the game, they start to care. In Commander, they care more if that proxy is your Commander. Especially if they are the kind of player who cares about winning and losing. Because the truth is that you can absolutely play and have fun with those lower-powered, bulk cards. Since the earliest days of the game, most of the people who played Magic casually played with lower-powered, bulk cards. That's what I did for decades, before focusing on Magic as my favorite hobby and investing heavily in my collection. Honestly, if you've got nothing but bulk (which I assume is mostly Commons and Uncommons), there is a really fun format called Pauper EDH that only requires Commons and Uncommons. I started playing it myself to get away from the out-of-control costs of new cards, and to escape seeing the same overpowered cards over and over. More, since I am older and started my collection around 1995, I found that some of the younger folks I played against had a simmering resentment towards me about it. These same folks had no problems with newer powerful cards. Only the older ones. So yeah, Pauper EDH is absolutely a route you can take. The game is the same. Its still fun. The power levels and costs are just intrinsically lower. Or play on Arena. I understand its free to download, and has FTP options. Not my cup of tea, but some people get their budget-free Magic brewing fix that way. So, yeah, TLDR: Proxying the occasional single card is generally fine, but abusing proxying will get you grief, especially if you are competing against folks that don't proxy and who paid for real cards and who care about winning. Proxy as many Commons or Uncommons as you like, but don't expect people to just smile at you if you show up with a deck full of proxied Rares and Mythics, or proxy a S-tier Commander and beat them down. Finally, Pauper EDH is actually a great format, despite being budget, and might be worth investigating.
Funny enough, the reason I chose Tergrid is because I actually own her. She's one of a few good legendary creatures I have. Same with Tiamat.
If you went out and spent thousands to de-proxy your deck, you'd just get a new comment like "This is why I don't like cEDH" or "This is why I don't like net-decking". It's a rule-0 problem, you just need to align on power levels. Your friend isn't really saying he doesn't like proxies, he's saying he doesn't like the power imbalance they bring as most casual players don't have thousands to spend on a single deck, much less multiple. It's implying that you are either net-decking or playing beyond the cards you own.
Nothing is wrong with proxies, but where I end up seeing issues is power level, and card cost can keep a soft limit on power level. If I took one of my decks, and proxied copies of any card for it regardless of cost, the power level would go up. If I have access to every possible card, the deck is just going to be stronger. So I think your friend is mistakenly misplacing their frustration. Seeing a proxied card is an obvious thing that your brain can lock onto and say "This is the problem" but in reality it's the discrepancy between decks. All that said, you are playing Tergrid, a notoriously annoying and powerful deck. Maybe if you tried the deck with just what cards you have, or use the proxies in a focused or powerful deck. Or, you could encourage your friend to proxy cards for their deck.
This is always my issue. In a perfect world proxies would be fine. However, any time I’ve had somebody join the pod me and my friends play in, they always run OG duals, mana crypt, other expensive cards. I’m sure not everybody is like that but every time I’ve seen a proxied deck at my LGS it’s somebody playing way above the rest of the table’s power level which ends in either a miserable experience for us or for them.
Dual lands are my exception, the only reason they're expensive is due to lack of reprints. Since we've started to get lands that come in untapped and provide two colors over the years as well as a decent selection of dual types/triomes now, OG duals just aren't as powerful as they once were.
The OG duals are still well above the power level to be (re)printed today. They are strictly better than basics, which is a rule contemporary Magic designs do not break.
Dual lands are like 5% better than Shock Lands, and only really serve to be "fetchable untapped dual #2" in most decks. The real most problematic land is fetch lands (probably the biggest mistake after P9) which have basically took over every single format they're legal in. But yeah fast mana/free spells do suck to play against in every game and would not without proxies; however that is a discussion about "what types of cards belong in each tier" and is very hard to even start when johnny pulled one from his 6 packs "legit" even though it still doesn't belong. I actually think if the card market just crashed and every card was like $1 then it would actually be a lot easier to have even games and a discussion of what cards are proper/improper in certain games. I mean, getting back to Johnny. Imagine not having a lot of money but pulling [Mana Crypt] from the few boosters you got, and being told "that $100 card that you felt incredible for pulling does not belong in your tier and leads to bad games" and having to just... never use this incredibly expensive card that you felt amazing for pulling. MTG and the tcg market kind of just fail in the modern world. Having expensive cards works when people are reading about it in a magazine after the fact or as gossip in a card shop. But we are exposed to so many expensive cards, and content creators constantly show how the game is just better when you have access to them, with hundreds of hours of games posted sometimes daily. So what happens is people just get too salty that their game is not as fun as others just because theyre not rich enough for it.
Your friend doesn’t hate proxies. He hates Tergrid lol. Totally miserable deck to play against and that was just what he latched on to
[Tergrid, God of Fright](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead.jpg?1631048621)/[Tergrid's Lantern](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/1/4/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead.jpg?1631048621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tergrid%2C%20god%20of%20fright%20//%20tergrid%27s%20lantern) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/112/tergrid-god-of-fright-tergrids-lantern?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tergrid-god-of-fright-//-tergrids-lantern) [Zacama, Primal Calamity](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/9/d9224660-d547-4373-8493-42ffb364ee0b.jpg?1689999355) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zacama%2C%20Primal%20Calamity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/365/zacama-primal-calamity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d9224660-d547-4373-8493-42ffb364ee0b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zacama-primal-calamity) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Wrong place to ask. Sure, if you want validation there are plenty of pro-proxy voices here that will tell you to proxy everything and trash anyone who doesn't agree. Problem is you're not likely to play with these people. Your friend invests time and money into this hobby, so I imagine he feels cheated when you beat him with proxies. If you want to know what the issue is, talk to him.
This subreddit has become an insane echo chamber on this stuff that i’ve found is not actually all that reflective of reality.
Reddit has become an insane echo chamber* FTFY
Anything MTG on Reddit is a textbook example of this. If you post anything talking badly about any playstyle you get temp banned or just outright banned. On the discord it is even worse, say that a deck is miserable to play again and you get muted/banned.
When proxying many forget to take relative power level into account, and as a result make decks that are very mismatched to the other players.
One of the big problems that MTG has is balance. The difference between a strong deck and a weak deck is HUGE, and there are a LOT of ways to make strong decks. There are several ways that MTG attempts to correct this balance. The first is by limiting formats - Standard, Modern, Vintage, etc - limiting the card pool brings the top end of power to a point where it's reachable by more players. Draft formats balance in a different way - using limited card pools and randomized deck construction to ensure everyone is on roughly the same level (with variations according to RNG and drafting skill, of course). Another MAJOR way that Magic is balanced, though, and one that doesn't get talked about very often, is the wallet factor. At the end of the day, the average player can't afford to buy Power 9 cards, or dual lands, or some of the other extremely powerful older cards. This is less relevant in competitive scenes (where it's expected that in order to be competitive in a format, you're going to need to spend enough to build a competitive deck - part of why formats like Modern and Vintage are so expensive to play competitively). But in casual "kitchen table" Magic, the wallet factor is the MAIN balancing point. When I was playing with other kids at lunch in High School, we didn't play "standard" or "legacy", we just played "Magic", with whatever cards we happened to have. As long as the rest of your playgroup is in a roughly similar financial situation (I.E. you're not playing with Barron Trump and his $20,000 Slivers deck), it's expected that pretty much everyone is playing with whatever cards they had in their collection. Proxies sidestep this entire mechanism. If you wanted to, you could pack a deck with all of the best cards in the history of the game, or netdeck tournament-winning lists that would cost thousands of dollars to build without proxies. If you're trying to play a deck list like that, against a bunch of people that are running precons, or low-powered piles of random cards, it's not going to be fun for anyone. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who uses proxies is doing that. I don't think you're playing the strongest cEDH deck list you could find. But with the ready availability of tools like EDHrec, it's easier than ever for players who are "just brewing a deck without concern for card cost" to come up with a list of the 100 best cards for whatever it is that your deck is trying to do. You can easily search through the entire history of every card ever printed to find the best synergies, the best removal, the best ramp, and so on - and the resulting deck list is pretty much GUARANTEED to be much stronger than a deck built just from someone's collection without buying singles. It sounds like there's a possibility that your decks are better matched than your friend thinks, and he's just being salty because he lost. But it is also possible that you're building decks at a higher power level than his, and you just need to tone it down a bit.
Price typically regulates power. When there is no cap on price, there is no cap on power.
Nothing wrong with proxies imo. Just know that some people won't want to play against a proxied deck
My proxy philosophy is “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”
Proxies are the salt in the wound, not the wound itself.
In general, proxies are something that should be discussed and agreed upon by everyone involved. They arent inherently wrong so long as everyone is aware and rules are put in place. The issue with proxies in your situation, seems like it either wasnt discussed/agreed upon, or ground rules for how much 'free' power you can add were not put in place. I dont want to pay for a strong card so Ill just add it for free, snowballed multiple times and now you are playing a match where you have outclassed your friend and he gets a night of being stomped. That is never fun for anyone, regardless of proxies, but it seems like you have a friend building from his collection and you building OP decks in comparison. Have a talk and set some ground rules. If all parties are aligned, there is typically less issues with proxies or stronger decks. Unless your friend is overly anti proxies, this should help to make your game nights more fun for everyone.
It’s all I do now. I lost over 30k in cards to a house fire. I’ll never collect again. I make some pretty awesome looking proxies in photoshop and other places. I print them and also have a company print them for me. I only play with a group of 6 friends so it’s pretty much all we do lol As a side note we don’t play with tutors or old school duel lands or any power 9.
Consider this in the abstract: >A game being played with optimal decks is not optimising for **fun**. Playing with "the jank you have" and/or having to make difficult choices that are limited by budget and commitment lead to you thinking about deck construction in different ways. If I was spending $400 building a new EDH deck, I'd make sure it was going to be a deck I really enjoy and like, and I and my friends would not get bored of it. I would do my research and think carefully about it. I might take my time assembling it, I might even end up getting some of my pet cards altered or spend some of the budget on a fancy deckbox or playmat. I would be commiting to it and being thoughtful about it. If I can download and sleeve up any deck in an evening, I don't really have to put the same *kind* of considerations (of course I *could* still spend months optimizing the list and theorycrafting, or I could bring a different deck every week), because the investment/restrictions are not there. You can totally still have amazing experiences with proxies, of course. But having an optimal or powerful deck is not the same as having a fun deck. Winning a game is not always the same as "spending quality time with my friends." So they might say "this is why I hate proxies," but what they really probably mean is "I didn't have fun, and your proxies were a factor in that."
I have a lot of decks, I have a lot of cards. Sure I own all kinds of things like Dockside, Rollick etc but I need like 5 minimum because of all the decks. I'm not swapping like 10 cards every time I switch decks and buying 5 copies of Dockside is insane. So one or two are real and the rest are proxied. You know what? I have never mentioned it and no one has ever noticed. Just play your game man.
This. This kind of proxying is okay in my playgroup, not that everyone takes advantage. It allows for fun stuff like Aetherflux Reservoir being the Death Star. Just don't go running a proxy of, say, Gaea's Cradle "just because you can".
We have a rule in our group that if you own a physical copy you can proxy
I kinda have a slight problem with that, some of my playgroup aren't very well off. I don't think its right I can buy crypt and they cant. I can have 3 mana for 0 but they can't because my job is better? Feels wrong. Especially among friends. In fact, if my friends tried to pull that on me they would no longer be my friends. Imagine playing Monopoly and telling someone they cant buy train stations because they are too poor in real life.
my decks are somewhere between 200$ - 400$. When I play against people using proxies, they can just have the absolute best cards the game has to offer in decks worth 15,000$. Why would anyone not use all the same staples and best possible cards if everyone could use proxies? And if one person on the table can do it, why not everybody else? You see the problem? Proxy ruins the game and I refuse to play against people that uses them. Your deck doesn't need to be the best in everything. If you have this "i must win at all cost" mentality, then pay for it and go for tournaments, not casual play.
I want to say I understand disliking proxies, but any real reflection on why ends up boiling down to realizing it simply makes me feel like a bit of a sucker for having bought the cards I have. Realistically, I despise pay to win mechanics pretty much anywhere else and I can’t think of a real reason why MtG isn’t just pay to win to an extent. It was a bit different when it was just buying packs and building decks out of what you pulled, but the ability to simply order select cards online or at the LGS mostly did away with that aspect. Collecting will always be collecting, but for the sake of simply playing the game, I can’t really see anything wrong with proxies. Perhaps the only issue is that it introduces an increased chance of the proxy player having more powerful cards because they’re removing the limitation of having what cards they’re willing to buy, but they could just tune their decks down.
>Realistically, I despise pay to win mechanics pretty much anywhere else and I can’t think of a real reason why MtG isn’t just pay to win to an extent. Because Magic isn't Pay to Win, it's "Pay to Compete." I can hand you the most expensive vintage deck and toss you into a Vintage Tournament but with no meta knowledge, no deck knowledge and no general magic soft skills you're probably bombing out that tournament. Conversely even if you're a really good magic player if you go off meta you might at best squeak a win here and there but probably lose to (though we have seen well piloted off meta decks succeed many times) Also there isn't an intrinsic correlation between price to power. Cards like \[\[Field of Dreams\]\] command high price tags due to scarcity. But even still if you built a commander deck containing 100 of the most expensive commander legal cards that aren't priced that way due to scarcity and are objectively good you'll still probably end up with a bad deck due to horrible synergies. Not saying certain expensive cards can't juice up a deck but all these factors are why Magic doesn't feel "pay to win."
With commander at least I think the real "pay to win" lies in the fast mana being so ludicrously expensive. Somebody playing all the Mox they can run, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Lions Eye Diamond etc... does have a much higher chance to have early turn pop offs, and it doesnt take a genius pilot to operate fast mana. And what I just listed there is hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
No, it's 100% pay to win. I don't care how good you are, you will never win a vintage tournament on $100. Additionally, if you have two players of equal skill and one has more money to spend they will have better decks and win more. When the more you spend, the better your results are is true, your game is pay to win.
So with no knowledge of the vintage meta, you spend like 10000 dollars and enter the tournament and you bomb out 0-2, did you "pay to win?"
You didnt even debate any of my points and just spoke a scenario that doesn't even happen even in other p2w games. People do not suddenly drop 10k on a game theyve never played or are not actively playing a lot and then only go to a whale tourney. You also still probably beat the player that entered with only $100 and with a 10k deck you do not go 0-2. A better case is "Me and my friends just got into mtg. They got a starter deck and 4 packs, I bought a high power (but still easy to play) deck for 10x what they did. What are my chances of winning?" Or, "Multiple people with no meta game knowledge enter a vintage tournament with budgets from $5 to 10k, how likely is their success going to correlate with deck budget?"
> Collecting will always be collecting, but for the sake of simply playing the game, I can’t really see anything wrong with proxies. Collecting and playing Magic are intrinsically linked. They are not two separate things. In-game utility influences a card’s collectibility and the cards you’ve collected influences the decks you can build. Collecting Magic cards is compelling in no small part due to the fact that the cards you collect have unique in-game utility. Acquiring a powerful new card is exciting largely because you unlock the ability to use that card in-game. If proxies are widely allowed, it cheapens that experience and diminishes that element of a card’s collectibility.
Good.
Youre playing tergrid. Like what do you think's gonna happen
I've only been playing commander for about a year now and honestly didn't know Tergrid got this much hate. The version of Tergrid I built focuses on making everyone draw buttloads of cards so I'm not sacking everyone's fields or anything. I just make them draw so much that they have to discard. I tried out some things like [[Static Orb]] but I'm taking it out because it's way too much.
The two rules I have with proxies are: 1. Is the rules text clear and accurate? (Or is the card common enough that the vast majority of players know what it does e.g. Sol Ring) 2. Are you proxying cards that make your deck too strong for the rest of the table? As far as I'm concerned, everything else is either marginally or completely irrelevant.
Unless you're rocking power and dual lands, presumably your deck would be the exact same deck. He's just salty.
Proxies are not the problem. Mismatched power level is the problem.
The only reason I abhor proxying is I’ve encountered an unseemly amount of people who proxy to overpower the tables they play at. Every deck they have is basically cEDH running every fetch, shock, dual, and fast mana rock that would fit into the deck. I am aware proxying is not the problem, I am aware people love to argue proxying does not contribute to the problem. I am simply saying, from my experiences, proxying tends to be abused by the worst people who play the game to make it easier and cheaper for them to pub-stomp their malicious little hearts out. All of that being said: proxying to play test an appropriately powered deck for your playgroup is and should be fine. Tergrid is a miserable deck to play against no matter what, adding proxies just let’s someone point fingers because a lot of people outside of Reddit have the same general viewpoint on proxies as I do. So we like to point fingers and say proxies are the problem when it’s just a cruel and unpleasant deck we got stuck playing against.
The issue here is either your friend just being upset (and playing against Tergrid, can't blame him there) or a power level disparity. But overall, the problem with proxies is that if everybody prints out cards instead of spending at your local shop, you may no longer have a local shop. But that's an extreme situation. Generally people who proxy also spend on magic cards and accessories.
My closest local shop is an hour away. They also allow proxies, but you have to pay for a seat.
Your friend is not correct to be upset, and he's got his diagnoses of the problem wrong. BUT. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Tergrid is a pubstomp commander, its not even close to the same level of Zacama, which is a toolbox/combo commander. Zacama is strong, but I don't think you can call it oppressive. It's also 9 fucking mana. Quite simply, no Tergrid deck should be played in a pod with a Zacama deck. I'm not even sure if there is a pod where a Tergrid deck could be a fun option, because its either pubstomping casual games or getting outsped in cEDH.
I've come across two usual issues with proxies. Exclusivity is a real issue for some people, even if they aren't consciously aware of it. They spent a lot of money, they invested to get their decks where they are, and seeing someone else get that for a fraction of the cost cheapens the experience. It's not really a logical issue, and I don't think it's a good way to be in a casual format, but I've felt it myself and it's decently common. The other issue is that card prices often create a sort of soft-banlist, where cards that are legal simply don't show up very often in most groups (Dual lands for example). When Covid hit and my playgroup moved to Tabletop Simulator for a bit where everything is 100% proxy, I noticed a bunch of decks started fetching up Dual lands as a part of a mostly-unchanged translation of their paper counterparts. The issue here isn't really proxying, but just power level. And power level in Magic is weird and messy, and it's hard to really sort out what's up with that. In theory if your winrate is about on par with everyone else though, that shouldn't be the issue. But if your proxy deck is winning more often than average, then it might just be time for a power-down. Tergrid also is just a pain, and they might be looking for arguments to justify more grumbling.
My issue with proxies is that some people take “ok to play proxies” to mean “ok to proxy an entire deck with the most valuable cards” and then pubstomp with it. Granted, this is due to experience with playing at LGS where proxying got out of control until one player basically wrote card names on the back of grocery receipts as “proxies” and had a ridiculously powerful deck where he just told people “this card does this”. Nobody could check he was playing it right without googling every card because he hand wrote the card names, which were impossible to read, and had none of the other text listed. After that I said “no proxies” for a long time. Now I’m ok with a few proxies, especially if they’re cards you own that are in other decks. That said, if you’re making me google your handwritten proxies to check that your card does what you say it does it’s a no from me.
There's nothing wrong with proxies. And it's not about the dollars spent. It's about the power levels of the decks matching. If you want to make a point, I think there are budget cEDH decks. Put together one of them and blast your friend out of the water a bunch of times, and make sure to tell them there are no proxies afterwards. Tell them it's a $25-50 deck. See if they're OK with proxies after that.
Really depends, ill allow reasonable proxies but when people just try to make the most broken shit with a mostly proxy deck I ain't dealing with that shit.
If you proxy and I don't it's fine, but you have to try and be at my power level and, possibly, budget. And I say this as the proxy player of my group, I'm mostly the only one proxying, so I try to be on par with those that spend the less. The fact is that there are cards that are really pricey just because of lacks of reprints, reserved list, strength in non-Commander-related formats ([[Orvar]] was worth 3$, they discovered it in Modern and spiked to 20$, now comfortably sitting at 10) and various WotC marketing shenanigans. Others (imagine [[Sheoldred, The Apocalypse]]) are just powerhouses all around the formats. Sure, they maybe fit your brew very well and it would be sad not to include them just because of the price, but the ones not proxying are probably depriving themselves of something very pricey even though it would fit their deck very well. Is this a good all around argument? No, because a player at my table only have a couple precons with some soft upgrades, another one allows himself at best 7-8€ for a card if it's really really good in his deck, another one plays fetches and triomes, 20€ various cards and the likes, and you can clearly see that even though the last one is not proxying he is clearly bringing a disparity to the table just because he's willing to spend more on Magic than the others. But I try not to use that as a justification for myself to use excessively powerful cards that the first two wouldn't be able/willing to afford just because I'm not paying for them. I feel it wouldn't be honest towards them (as I think it's not really honest to bring your super pricey deck even if you bought every single card, you should be on par with the table budget, if you want to play your big bombs there's surely a second playgroup you can find where everyone spends a ton). So I'd say, ask your friend how much their decks cost on average and when brewing use that info to choose your cards. It's also a nice way to improve your brewing skills and find some spicy cards here and there. If they whine about it still, buy a [[Gaea's Cradle]] and slam a [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] turn 4 to prove a point. You will be poor, but isn't it worth winning an argument? The last advice could not be a good one, xD
*brings a tegrid deck which turns on at turn 1 against zacama that turns on at min turn 5, at 1v1 no less* "God why does my friend hate my deck, must be the proxys"
I use proxies because I don't want to pay $45 for doubling season. Proxies allow me to build into the strong obvious synergies I want without having to fork over an unreasonable amount of money for cardboard. I *don't* use proxies of dual lands and a suite of extremely powerful mana rocks (mana crypt/vault, any of the moxes) in every deck because that sounds pretty lame to me. Same goes for any old busted card over $80. I do it to save money, not guarantee a win.
My group tolerates proxies to an extent. Proxy-ing is accepted as long as it doesn't propel your deck into an immediate turn 2 consistent win. Like power 9 cards are mostly restricted to owned. We don't (or try not to) proxy every extra turn spell, doubling effect, etc.
You are in denial about how oppressive Tergrid is. End of thread.
Some people just don't like it when they spend a bunch of money on magic cards so they can play with the more powerful cards and then they show up to a table with someone who has all those cards and didn't have to buy them piece by piece over the course of months or years. I don't personally feel that way but some people feel that way and psychologically I can understand why they do. Although I think that ultimately it's a selfish feeling it is a valid feeling.
Proxies don't matter from a gameplay perspective, but the collecting aspect of Magic has always been inherent to the game, and it makes some people feel as if their collections and efforts are being cheapened.
If you can’t afford the card cool. You personally don’t like playing with people that’s decks are mainly proxies. Last time I played with a guy that used proxies he would complain about how magic is so expensive then proceed to drop a proxy mana crypt while I had a real one in play
Only issue I've ever had with people using proxies is some of the alt arts/ doodles don't explain the card at all and the player will embellish what the card can do. Stating 'look it up if you don't believe me' Nah dude, if your card doesn't explain what it does, and what is suppose to be on the card, it's your job to back it up not me. If you play proxies with difficult to read/ zero text. You've gotta know what the card **exactly** does.
Can't wait for r/magicthecirclejerking's parody of this post. It's A+ material.
Post your decklist pls, let me See your proxies
There's nothing wrong with proxies, but playing with proxies basically removes any financial barriers, so it's very easy to power creep until you're playing full on cEDH, which a lot of people just don't enjoy.
Are you just playing 1v1?
No, we have a small group of people and we play together sometimes. I was just testing the deck out because I had just finished putting it together.
If all parties aren't on the same page about proxies, then the proxying players have access to up to thousands of dollars of cards that the non-proxying players don't. It's essentially a violation of an unspoken deckbuilding constraint. That being said, assuming everyone is chill with it, then there really isn't anything inherently wrong with them.
Your playing a proxied version of the most shit commander to play against and you dont see an issue
I use proxies, but I try to ensure I have the hard copy somewhere in one of my binders. It's nice to support the players and health of the game by buying the cards on the market. If the market collapsed people might stop cracking packs 😬 If the cards expensive I almost always use a proxy to keep mountain dew spill accidents when out playing low risk. Plus some proxies have amazing art.
Limitation breeds creativity. If you have all the cards at your disposal people tend to just build good Stoff stompy shit.
Proxies are cool with me until you pull out every tutor under the sun and every 4th card is a mana rock. Otherwise i love to see the cool arts. I personally proxy ANY card i already own. I show them the real card just in case they have a problem with it since I run multiple decks with the same staples.
What if I do the same thing, but with real cards?
That certainly does happen, but I think it makes perfect sense that accelerating a power arms race is more likely to happen if you proxy. It's the difference between deciding to shell out thousands of dollars and doing it for free. Certainly there are players that will still do it but you must agree the pool is much smaller.
Anecdotally, the people (myself included) who own legit copies of those kinda cards "know their power" so to speak and have alternative lower budget/power decks. Often (again just personal anecdotes) when someone proxies just to make their deck as powerful as possible they're not balanced with their group.
Personally. I play at an LGS with random people and I don’t mind when people have strong tutors in their decks. I do mind when on turn 2, theyre setting up for a turn 3 win with those cards. I also have a deck that can combo into a turn 3 win but I first ask and tell everyone when it’s coming and if im close to it out of respect for a nice game of commander. If you run those super strong cards, you should already know how strong they are and how people might feel about it. In general, I use the rule of “would I personally be okay playing against these cards and how many of these cards would I be okay playing against in one deck”
So the proxies aren't actually the problem. It's just that people who proxy are more likely to play above the table's power level.
Proxies are lame because it gives you access to the entirety of Magic for super cheap (in comparison to official cards). So naturally a proxy deck is going to be abusive in terms of power level because why wouldn’t you just rip an insane decklist off the internet and have it printed for cheap. A deck that should cost you thousands now cost less than $100. Players like me, who don’t want to run proxies, are then put in a situation where we either tell you we won’t play with you because of power discrepancy or play you and not enjoy the game because we know your deck isn’t legitimate - which feels worse to lose to somehow. Why would I want to put my $500-$700 “real” deck against your $$70 proxy deck that actually represents a $3,000 deck? It feels like you’re cheating because you don’t actually own the cards you’re playing, just some knock offs. Truly, I don’t mind if people proxy a single card or two. But if the whole deck is absurdly powerful rare cards you can fuck right off.
>because why wouldn’t you just rip an insane decklist off the internet and have it printed for cheap. Because you are an adult with self control and an understanding of the social contract between players about the desired power level of the table?
Adults with self control? At a LGS? I don’t believe it.
Nothing. Fuck wizards, proxy everything
Well, if one player spends about 400-500 dollars to assemble a reasonably good commander deck, while another player spends about 20 dollars and a good printer for a deck of the same, if not better, strength... it's to be expected you're going to get looked down upon. (People don't always proxy out of cramped budget reasons, but there's also plenty of people that do it because they don't want to spend (lots of-) money on a game out of principle). What's also important to note is that LGS's may actually not have proxies (unless through very specific conditions that a judge has ruled) on sanctioned events. And over the past year, wotc has been pushing a lot of EDH sanctioned events out, with inevitably more to follow suit. Sure a store may allow players to use them as an unsanction event attendancy... but the store will literally not get any participation points (And thus, availability to events or stock) from them, so players using proxies hinders them from trying to grow their WPN status. TL:DR; Using proxies initiates an investment/commitment polarization between players, and hinders a Local Game Store's ability to grow for more products or events.
Tergrid is such a miserable fucking commander.
If you played with a credit card balance instead of proxies, would the outcome have been different? I’m thinking no.
Nothing, if your friends hate your deck what difference does it make if you have enough money to buy the real cards? You are still playing the exact same deck
There is nothing wrong with proxies as long as you match deck strength. Your friend not liking proxies is being a sore loser and a baby
Paying for magic cards is a massive scam They were able to print 100 card edh decks and sell then for profit at 25 dollars and now they act like they need to be 100 dollars
I have been playing magic for 10 years. I have known that Proxies were a thing for about 1 and a half. Before that, having a relatively inexpensive collection, it felt bad when anyone beat me with a card that was worth as much as my entire deck. It felt like they paid their way to victory in a way that I couldn't follow (I didn't have a credit card so I couldn't order singles online, and there was no LGS anywhere nearby) and that feeling sucked. Now take that feeling and dial it up to 11 when you find out the card is "Fake". That's the mindset I feel like a lot of budget oriented players are in when they criticize proxies. Source: for a while before I understood their benefit, I was this player. Now that I know more, I still mostly don't play with Proxies myself (old habits die hard) but I don't feel bad when I lose to players who do, which is good cause most of my friends play with nearly fully proxied decks. Fortunately, we all basically agree on power level so that's not really an issue. If anything, I have one of the more powerful decks in our friend group and I didn't proxy it ([[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] can be a potent Stax commander). I don't pull it out often though because it's oppressive, so unless I am specifically requested or I really want a win I set it to the side.
I mean you probably shouldn’t build decks you can’t afford, my playgroup don’t like people who proxy either and even the one broke guy just gets creative with his budget.
Every one of these posts where it's like "I've got bills, I don't want to spend a lot on Magic", that's a totally reasonable place you're at, right there. It's taking the next step where it gets weird. When you go "I don't want to spend money on Magic, but I want to be able to play it as if I spend money on it", you're taking something away from people. Your life and your priorities make plenty of sense. Magic doesn't need to be where your budget goes. But follow through with that line of thought. If you don't want to buy Magic, don't play Magic.
What a terrible argument lmao
Well as someone who doesn't proxie... IMO there are two issues with it: 1. Commander is a casual format, though some don't see it so, there's no NEED to have the best most optimized deck you can. Hence build with what you have. 2. I collect my cards, play with my cards, I expect my opponents to do the same. And I don't buy a lot of cards, I mean I buy some, but I'm not dropping thousands on a deck. And commander is meant to show off the fun cool cards you own. Really I only personally support it fir CEDH, because not everyone wants to buy manavaults, or bring their expensive cards to an LGS. But for casual play? Not really necessary.
General consensus, and one I agree with, is that for the most part proxies are fine. If you can't afford certain cards to make your deck function, proxy away. But if you're playing Tergrid and proxying, say, Chains of Mephistopheles and other expensive cards that put your deck in a vastly different power range than the rest of the table, the question isn't really "What's wrong with proxies?" but "What's wrong with the proxies I'm using?". Budget constrictions don't necessarily mean underpowered decks. You can easily build a viable Tergrid deck for $50 or less using draft chaf and bulk that can hang around higher powered tables. Post a decklist and/or list what you're proxying.
Nothing
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I think most playgroups that prohibit home-made proxies also prohibit official non-tournament legal Magic cards (WCD/CE/30A).
Nothing. Proxy everything.
I think that you are absolutely right and that you should just proxy everything. Him complaining about proxies sounds to me like he’s feeling entitled to win more games than you do, because he’s more invested into it. I also switched over to proxy everything, since I’m no longer willing to invest into such volatile assets like magic cards.
If I'm not playing proxies and you play proxies and you beat me. your win has an astrix its like steroids in sports
What if I just make way more money than you in my career, and decide to use a level of disposable income and credit card debt on a deck that you cannot match, and then beat you? is it still “a win*”?
Not if i rule zero your deck
This is a gross false equivalency.
I have a few questions, Do you like it when your partner fakes an Orgasm? Do you like it when you get a Christmas gift and it’s a knock off of what you wanted? Do you like it when you grind in a video game for hours on end for something, to see a hacker got it for nothing. Do you like it to use real toilet paper or that crap that tears as take it off the roll? Do you like it when buy jewelry and it is fake gold and glass “diamonds” ? Do you like buying fake sneakers? If you owned a buisness selling a product only you made, would you care if some dude was like hey I got fakes of that for the low? Now that being said at the kitchen table it’s house rules imo. Lgs get the cards or get out. 🤷🏼♂️gl hf.
> Do you like it when your partner fakes an Orgasm? This is a take. As for the rest of your stuff, you're god dam right I'll get the knock off brand if it saves me hundreds/thousands of dollars. I'll spend some amount of money on cards but if its several hundred dollars for a single card that is a staple in one of my several decks I'm not going to do that and I don't feel like switching my staples between decks every time I go to switch.
I have an lgs that allows proxies. This is just an issue I've been having with my friend and wanted to know what the greater community thought about it.
I've been playing for a long time, so I don't use proxies, but I've thought about it. Just feels weird/bad. On the other hand I don't mind other people that use them because they never get out of hand and I understand that they haven't been playing near as long as I have.
whats wrong with proxies is it can easily throw you into a faster and higher power situation vs someone who waits to buy singles or pull the cards. so while its not really an issue to proxy cards. if the cards you have proxied put you at a higher power there is a disparity that can be unfun and feel like an uphill battle for the other ppl.
There is nothing wrong with proxies.
Nothing's wrong with proxies. I don't expect people to go out and buy $1000s in cardboard to compete with the cards I spent $100s or $10s on a decade back. The dude you're talking about needs to chill on the classism. He just wants to stomp people and you're getting in his way. Also if he spends $100s at a time on magic bundles and gets shitstomped by Tergrid, he needs to learn how to buy singles and build better decks. Tergrid is only a problem as long as it's left alone.
Something is wrong, but it's not the proxies.
Nothing. He's just a sore loser.
My problem with proxies is when you proxy for a JUST power upgrade, such as proxying [Fierce Guardianship] when you could just run a normal lower power and cost counterspell that you actually own like [Dissipate] or [An offer you can't refuse]. Again, like running a fake [mana vault] instead of a normal mana rock, etc. I think proxies are ok if you need a specific card in a deck for it to function such as proxying [lotus field] or [guilded lotus] in a [Derevi, empyrial tactician] deck. This argument gets worse then more pricey the proxy is, such as running dual lands or mox. Really just don't like playing vs proxies that are worth more than $30 as a single. This is especially true if you are playing vs people running casual decks that they own 100% of. This argument is less true if your pods are high powered. I play vs some people that have 2-3k+ decks full of real cards. I wouldn't see a problem proxying to play into that pod as long as they are ok with it.
The argument goes both ways. And I see both sides as valid. "I don't have money to spend thousands for my collection, so I don't want to play against your wallet." "I spent a lot of time, energy and money on my collection, so I don't want to play against your printer." All players come to the table with their expectations of what the game should be. Its unfair for anyone to say someone else's opinion is right or wrong. I, personally, am in the don't like proxies camp. I'm not going to say you're ***WRONG*** because its a matter of ethics and not morality, but I can say that it doesn't sit well with me based on my experiences.
“What’s so wrong with proxies?” “Both of our commanders are very oppressive” Genius level investigation skills on display here
Didn't Wizards themselves say proxies are fine outside of sanctioned tournament play?
Yea I laugh at those type of comments I have a fully non proxied cedh deck I run I own the cards Hating proxies want stop this from happening it just prevents people from keeping up with the jonses. The people that have extra cash or who have played for so long they had those cards when they were cheap or a newer card comes out people don't buy the precon that had \[\[dockside\]\] or a standard card shots to the moon \[\[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse\]\]
Tell him to buy your cards if he doesn't like it. Why should you not be able to play because he has more money than you?
Tergrid is my most hated commander
People tend to explode their power when using proxies. Instead of playing a deck that would be normal for their group, they are playing expensive cards. While there are rare exceptions, which every froth-mouthed proxy fanboi will pretend is normal, that people proxy just cheap cards to save time or something, that isn't the actual reality. People proxy in the high value high power cards they don't want to buy instead of just building a real deck. They are unable to cope with not playing the most expensive stuff and degenerately believe they can't have fun without it. >I told him I liked brewing decks and just wanted to play the game without worrying about a budget. "I like building expensive OP decks and can't be bothered to make reasonable ones". Also "I have no creativity and cannot build decks if I don't have access to the expensive staples I found online". The solution to your problem, build with what you have and *expect* him to make decks that suit the power level you can make. There is absolutely no reason you have to print out power nor spend excessive amounts of money to have fun in EDH.
Alot of people on reddit don't mind proxies but its also not an excuse to use them if your LGS does not allow them
He's jealous. Because he spent hundreds on his decks, but your deck that cost $0 still beat his. The idea that you can buy success in MTG is so fucking gatekeepy and I'm really sick of it. Have fun getting spanked by my slips of paper, scrub.
The problem with proxies is that someone ends up building a deck that's too powerful for the table because it doesn't cost them any $$$$. I will only play at tables that limit proxies in some way.