From the author - I just want to apologize for the recent lack of content, this site is currently a one man show and I've recently started up a new course of studies (Early Childhood Education & Care) that has been taking up the lion's share of my time. I have managed to accumulate a decent number of photos and ideas which I hope to turn into the 1-2 weekly articles I was maintaining earlier on so please look forward to it. Also anyone interested in becoming a contributor to the site please contact me. - Luke Gration
What is a Proxy? Lots of people may have heard the term used in a legal or computing context but for card games like Magic the definition goes along these lines -
A proxy card is an easily acquired or home-made substitute for a collectible card. A proxy is
used when a collectible card game player does not own a card, and it would be impractical
for such purposes to acquire the card. (from wikipedia)
The use of proxies can be a contentious issue with some people being fine with any number of them and other people being insistent that all cards used should be legit cards owned by the players. As with anything the context and situation can matter a lot when using proxies so i'm going to go over several different contexts and discuss my thoughts (and the opinions of others) for each case.
Almost Always A-OK
Although you'll find dissenters to pretty much anything the following 2 contexts for using proxies are pretty much universally accepted.
Placeholder Proxies - IE. when a player has a lot of EDH decks but only 1 copy of an expensive card so uses proxies as placeholders for the card in some of the decks. This should be a non-issue and playing with the proxy version while just showing the real version if it turns up should be totally fine in almost any situation.
Proxied deck or card for casual testing - IE. a player has a new deck idea and wants to test it out first before investing in the cards. As long as this is done in casual play and mentioned at the start of a game no one should have a problem with this. Having easy to read proxies that don't slow down the game is important though.
Playing with a Playgroup at Someones House
When casually playing with a playgroup people usually don't mind proxies BUT if you are new to a group it's always best to ask instead of just assuming. For some people Proxies irritate them for visual or other reasons and can hurt their enjoyment of the game. You don't have to agree with their opinion on proxies but they also don't have to let you play in their group so basic courtesy and social skills come in handy.
Playing Casually at an LGS
Pretty much the same as the previous but when you are trying to pick up games with random strangers at an LGS you are more likely to run across a few people who dislike proxies so having at least one deck without proxies is probably a good idea. Also your LGS lets you play there in the hope that you will also spend some money so things like proxying an affordable card you could buy right there or advocating people use more proxies because buying cards is for suckers are poor manners.
Playing Semi-Competitively at an LGS or Event
When you play in a competition things change, unless specified otherwise (10 proxy vintage MTG tournaments for example) you shouldn't be using proxies at all.
What about cEDH?
cEDH is a sub-format of EDH with the c standing for competitive, it's a type of EDH where the goal becomes 100% about winning and the fun comes heavily from running optimal decks and making the best plays and counter plays. Because of the "optimal decks" part of the equation cEDH can also be notoriously expensive with cards like Dual Lands, Timetwister, Imperial Seal etc. (all of which are worth hundreds of dollars) being format staples. Because of this I advocate for the use of proxies in cEDH, if your goal is an optimal high power play experience then having everyone be able to access all the cards is only a good thing. In general proxying cards worth $100+ shouldn't be an issue in cEDH and if your LGS is thinking about holding cEDH events then advocating that they allow 10 proxies (similar to many vintage tournaments) is a good way to manage things so that the event doesn't become pure pay to win (where the guy with the most cash or the oldest collection just wins on card power).
Proxy Quality
At bare minimum a proxy should be easily readable and contain all the important info about the card that it's a proxy for. The most basic of basic proxy is the classic - back of an MTG card with the info sharpie'd onto it. A good option if you have any spare is to use the new Blank Dual Faced cards (which are less readily at hand but are much nicer looking and easier to read than the standard card back). Another more expensive but reusable variant of the classic sharpie proxy comes in the form of dry erasable tokens (https://www.infinitokens.com/), i'm not sponsored in any way but I do like their product for both Token and Proxy use.
The best proxies to my mind are the gold bordered World Championship deck cards because they were made by wizards using the same card stock and everything (they also aren't real or legal MTG cards at least currently although recently there's been community talk about the idea of changing that for EDH like this video on The Commander's Quarters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbpzEyY_L0g) even the the actual cards don't cover every conceivable proxy card and have become very hard to obtain (and expensive) in recent times the decks they came from also contained blank cards that can be used for custom proxies in the same way as the blank dual faced insert cards.
Somewhere between those 2 are printed proxies, if you put the term MTG Proxy Generator into google (or other search engine of your choice) you will find a number of sites where you can generate correctly sized sheets of card images that you can then cut up and use as proxies.
note: using thin or sticker paper for the printing and using thick sleeves is important to keep
your cards as indistinguishable from normal ones as possible when you play.
Personally I also think that keeping proxies easily distinguishable as proxies is important and a good way to do that is to use MTGO exclusive art like the ones from Vintage Masters.
Example Proxy Images:
Important Subnote: There are now online stores (I won't name names because they don't deserve the attention) that advertise high quality MTG proxy cards. Don't use them! They aren't proxies, they are fake cards (and scarily keep getting more and more realistic as time goes on) and even if you are honorable and want to use them as proxies many other people just want to rip people off by calling them real cards. Please don't contribute to that.
Just say no to fakes being sold as realistic proxies.
Thanks for reading, I hope that you got something out of this article, if you have any opinions or alternative proxy types that you would like to bring up please go ahead and post here or on tabletopLG's social media.
Comments