All about the Proxies

Proxies are a very divisive issue in the Magic community. In my experience most players don't like them, especially when their opponent's proxy good cards. A common phrase I hear goes something like "You didn't win, you had proxies". I would argue the exact opposite. If a player is willing to proxy that means they must have put effort into their deck, but have come up short when picking cards out of their collection. If anything I consider proxies a sign of a good player, one who is willing to sacrifice the respect of their peers and suffer the grumblings to win games.

Often times the proxies I see don't result in a better deck, but a more optimized one. Most often optimizing a deck means tightening up mana bases, cutting irrelevant duplicates, and playtesting, playtesting, playtesting. However with the rapidly rising cost of our game playtesting requires the use of quite expensive pieces of cardboard, especially in formats such as EDH or Standard. Some formats only open up once you pay 500 dollars for a mana base, and that only gets you two colours. Wizards has made great strives to make the game more accessible to newer and younger players, this summer's upcoming Modern Masters an excellent example of this. But many staples of yesteryear will never be printed again due to the arcane Reserved List and Wizard's modern understanding of the colour pie, plus a little thing called game balance. Even new cards quickly hit extraordinary high prices (remember when Boros Charm was 10 bucks?). Due to the extremely high price of the game I find no issues with proxies, especially when playing expensive formats.

Now many of you will question the right to proxy considering it is banned in competition. But let me counter by pointing out what would happen if proxies weren't banned. Tournament attendance would no doubt soar as every Magic player ever would have a competitive deck. However the actual amount of product Wizards is shifting (which has hit record highs these past few years) would no doubt drop. Wizards is a company, and cutting their gross would severally affect their profits and the long term survivability of Magic. Therefore to continue to ban proxies at competition is a necessary evil to continue the viability of the game as a product, not a design to quash the integrity of proxy users.

Magic is a game, and games are ultimately about winning and having fun doing so. Some games (not Magic) don't even care about winning or force players to cooperate against some game controlled enemy (sometimes Magic). Proxies allow players to play whatever deck they want outside of the competitive scene, increasing the fun to be had. Instead of having to suffer agonizing weeks of suboptimal performance while looking for that elusive Scalding Tarn, that player can simply cut a notecard in half and return to the game a stronger, and more interesting, opponent.

I hope you enjoyed my essay, feel free to continue the discussion below.
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Jaxck

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