Drawing a comparison between pirating music and proxy cards is slim at best. Context matters here. Mainly, the amount of proxy cards is far less then pirated music. Proxy cards have little to no impact on the primary or secondary market, where as pirated music does.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Magic is infinitely better when everyone has access to all the cards.
1. Proxying cards absolutely does have an impact on the secondary market. And as EDH grows it could increase if more and more playgroups allow proxies. Think about the value of something as ubiquitous as Sol Ring and impact on it if proxies are common in EDH.
2. Magic is NOT infinitely better when everyone has access to everything. Variety is a good thing, and the cost/rarity of some cards helps to promote that variety. It is a good thing for a "rare" to be rare.
That's the point – other uses, such as Cockatrice, aren't licensed. If the argument is, "You must support Wizards to play Magic," then Cockatrice and programs like it should be verboten, ethically speaking. You can't say using paper proxies is some horrible scourge then turn around and play Cockatrice; the two are morally equivalent.
No, they aren't.
MTGO is a product sold by Hasbro. Cockatrice is a competing product which happens to be free. MWS is another competing product which also happens to be free unless you pay for the "full" version.
Cockatrice was issued a C&D because Hasbro thinks it is violating the ToS of Gatherer. If Cockatrice behaved like MWS (i.e. used its own images), the C&D wouldn't even have a leg to stand on.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Jiv, you're missing the point – playing online, under Wizards' plan, is a separate licensing agreement from playing with paper. You can't go to a paper tournament with slips of paper representing your MTGO cards. You can't go on MTGO and play with your paper cards. If you redeem your MTGO cards, you can't play with them online anymore.
Wizards has placed a high wall between MTGO and paper products.
If you're dedicated to respecting Wizards' licensing, then Cockatrice isn't another proxy of paper Magic – it's a proxy of online Magic. You'd be fine, under your construct, if you played Cockatrice as a proxy of your MTGO cards. That's not what you're doing, though, which is why you're ignoring MTGO licensing issues.
As it stands, you've got an internally opposed approach to how "fine" proxies are, and it undermines your argument – you're picking and choosing which of Magic's licenses you'll honor and which you'll ignore, so who are you to attack others for picking and choosing which ones they'll ignore?
Come now, you don't grow up to be a professional athlete merely by the training you had as a kid. I'll agree it helps, but becoming a professional certainly depends on more variables than that. You'll also need a certain gift for the sports and dedicated training. Both factors unrelated to money. How well you can play poker is unrelated to how much money you have*. However, I agree that money does play a large part in most professional sports, but EDH/Commander isn't a professional sport/game.
EDH/Commander isn't a professional sport/game in the same way that Backyard Baseball isn't a professional sport/game. If you're going to use the word "competitive," you have to talk about the competitive level of the game.
Other than that, I think that is the way how games work. Take chess for example. The level of skill is purely measured on skills alone. EDH/Commander is the perfect place to create such fair competitiveness, since proxying allows you to level the playing field.
And to be competitive in chess, you still have to get to the tournament. I could be the best chess player in the world, but if I can't afford a plane ticket to your country, I'll never compete there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Jiv, you're missing the point – playing online, under Wizards' plan, is a separate licensing agreement from playing with paper. You can't go to a paper tournament with slips of paper representing your MTGO cards. You can't go on MTGO and play with your paper cards. If you redeem your MTGO cards, you can't play with them online anymore.
And that's as far as it goes. If you don't own MTGO cards you can't play on MTGO. The existence of MTGO does not mean you can't play Magic: the Gathering over the internet.
Using Cockatrice or MWS is no different from using Skype or Google Hangouts to play with other people using your paper cards.
Keep in mind MWS was around before MTGO.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Jiv, you're missing the point – playing online, under Wizards' plan, is a separate licensing agreement from playing with paper. You can't go to a paper tournament with slips of paper representing your MTGO cards. You can't go on MTGO and play with your paper cards. If you redeem your MTGO cards, you can't play with them online anymore.
Wizards has placed a high wall between MTGO and paper products.
If you're dedicated to respecting Wizards' licensing, then Cockatrice isn't another proxy of paper Magic – it's a proxy of online Magic. You'd be fine, under your construct, if you played Cockatrice as a proxy of your MTGO cards. That's not what you're doing, though, which is why you're ignoring MTGO licensing issues.
As it stands, you've got an internally opposed approach to how "fine" proxies are, and it undermines your argument – you're picking and choosing which of Magic's licenses you'll honor and which you'll ignore, so who are you to attack others for picking and choosing which ones they'll ignore?
It's a good thing I'm not using Trice as MTGO but paper magic.
You're so busy trying to prove me wrong you've forgotten the first rule of this forum: Never argue with Jiv when being right is on the line.
I think proxies in EDH are fine if you already own a copy of the actual card. For instance, my friend proxied Gaea's Cradle in his Kamahl, Fist of Krosa EDH because his actual copy is being used in his Cube.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
If this is true, then how come cards only lose value after getting reprinted? Assuming proxies are created on a daily basis, many cards (like Woodfall Primus*) should devalue visibly. I don't think proxies impact the primary or secondary market, since cards retain their value based of tournament results. People who play tournaments need those cards, because proxies are (obviously) not allowed.
*Woodfall Primus might be a bad example, since it's probably losing value right now, due to being reprinted in Modern Masters. But you get the point.
A few reasons:
Proxies tend to be of cards that are expensive and popular. Thus the demand for them maintains their value despite the proxying. But what proxying does is reduce that demand.
And lets be clear: EDH is a serious driver of the secondary market. Tourney results matter for some stuff, but their are plenty of EDH-centric cards that have very high value today because of EDH.
Well yeah, technically, in a sense. By "playing competitively" I meant "playing to win". As in using all your skills to win the game, without holding back.
Some of my skills include earning a large amount of money which I use to support my family and spend a little of the excess on cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
EDH/Commander is the perfect place to create such fair competitiveness, since proxying allows you to level the playing field
No it isn't. EDH is a horrible format for that kind of goal. Between multiple opponents, 100 card decks, and singleton it is a format filled with randomness.
EDH is a great format for having fun. It is a terrible format for competitiveness.
It's a good thing I'm not using Trice as MTGO but paper magic.
Could the logic be reversed? I think that's what Mewens is trying to point it out.
If I own all my cards in MTGO only and print proxies only of the ones I effectively own, can I consider I'm not playing paper Magic but a different game that follows the same rules?
Ha ha ha, to spare everyone the headaches of 14 replies from me, I'll just address you both in any other posts I make here.
Quote from Jivanmukta »
It's a good thing I'm not using Trice as MTGO but paper magic.
And that's exactly the logic I'm pointing to: You're ignoring that Wizards licenses its products for online use. It may be through a clunky, money-grabbing system, but the licensing procedure exists, and you've ignored it because you believe you've already paid Wizards enough. That, of course, by your own words, means you actually hate Magic – unless you misstated your argument, and meant to say "People who don't support Magic to some set level actually hate Magic." Or maybe you meant, "People who proxy cards they don't physically own or have on their MTGO accounts actually hate Magic." Either you didn't clarify your original point enough, or you're a hypocrite.
It's cool, there's an edit button on the forums.
Quote from Dechs Kaison »
And that's as far as it goes. If you don't own MTGO cards you can't play on MTGO. The existence of MTGO does not mean you can't play Magic: the Gathering over the internet.
Of course it doesn't; this isn't about your ability to play Magic over the Internet. In this particular argument, I'm concerned with licensing issues, which govern your ability to legally do something (in this case, play Magic over the Internet). Wizards has a system to legally use its cards to play games of Magic: the Gathering over the Internet; if you choose not to use it, but you choose to use some third-party system that mimics Magic: the Gathering games, you're choosing to ignore Wizards' licensing agreements regarding their product. Regardless of how you spin it, that's the same as proxying print product. I'm not worried about the legality of Cockatrice; I'm pointing out the inherent contradiction in Jiv's stated position. If he wants to clarify, I'm all ears.
Could the logic be reversed? I think that's what Mewens is trying to point it out.
If I own all my cards in MTGO only and print proxies only of the ones I effectively own, can I consider I'm not playing paper Magic but a different game that follows the same rules?
Again, this is missing the point that we're acknowledging the fact that we can't use our paper cards to play MTGO.
The existence of MTGO does not preclude people from playing Magic over the internet.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Could the logic be reversed? I think that's what Mewens is trying to point it out.
If I own all my cards in MTGO only and print proxies only of the ones I effectively own, can I consider I'm not playing paper Magic but a different game that follows the same rules?
Of course it doesn't; this isn't about your ability to play Magic over the Internet. In this particular argument, I'm concerned with licensing issues, which govern your ability to legally do something (in this case, play Magic over the Internet). Wizards has a system to legally use its cards to play games of Magic: the Gathering over the Internet; if you choose not to use it, but you choose to use some third-party system that mimics Magic: the Gathering games, you're choosing to ignore Wizards' licensing agreements regarding their product. Regardless of how you spin it, that's the same as proxying print product.
Incorrect. Wizards has a system to legally use its digital cards in one specific online environment. They have not gone after MWS, despite it's longer life than Cockatrice. The only thing Cockatrice does that violates the license is that of Gatherer.com, and even this is up for debate. It was never brought to court; a letter was issued to bully the Cockatrice developer into taking his product off the internet. Cockatrice only displays images that Gatherer provides.
I'm not worried about the legality of Cockatrice; I'm pointing out the inherent contradiction in Jiv's stated position. If he wants to clarify, I'm all ears.
You have to worry about the legality of Cockatrice because it is inseparable from the imagined contradiction in Jiv's position. Proxying cards is illegal. Somehow hacking into MTGO so you can play for free is illegal. Using MWS is not illegal. Playing paper magic with web cameras is not illegal. Using Cockatrice has yet to be demonstrated as illegal, and with one minor modification, could not even be considered illegal.
The use of Cockatrice is incomparable to the use of proxies.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
True, but, if someone didn't pull the legal vs illegal argument I wouldn't follow down this road. What is illegal of me writing this on paper?
Volcanic Hammer
Sorcery, 1R
Volcanic Hammer deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
This is essentially what MWS and Cockatrice do by providing you the info of what you'd be playing.
---
For the sake of simplifying, if we consider MTGO to be the "sanctioned event" of online and Cockatrice as the kitchen table, why is the logic of "proxying" in one not applicable to the other?
Any unauthorized reproduction - digital or otherwise - of an owned intellectual property constitutes copyright infringement and is therefore illegal. This is why Brukie was given a cease and desist order. What they were doing was copyright infringement, plain and simple.
It's no different from illegal digital reproductions of anything else. Movies, music, games, anything.
Any unauthorized reproduction - digital or otherwise - of an owned intellectual property constitutes copyright infringement and is therefore illegal. This is why Brukie was given a cease and desist order. What they were doing was copyright infringement, plain and simple.
And why was MWS given no such C&D? That's because neither of them were reproducing digital intellectual property. You don't understand that the C&D was not issued for copyright infringement. It was issued for "improper use" of Gatherer, and again I express, the legal weight of that C&D is still in question.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Jiv said people who don't support Wizards actually hate Magic. He doesn't support Wizards online. Ergo, he either misstated his position – or he's a hypocrite who secretly hates Magic. (I'll be honest: I suspect he just misstated his position.)
That's what this particular argument comes down to.
Jiv said people who don't support Wizards actually hate Magic. He doesn't support Wizards MTGO product. Ergo, he either misstated his position – or he's a hypocrite who secretly hates Magic. (I'll be honest: I suspect he just misstated his position.)
That's what this particular argument comes down to.
Fix'd that for you to show the false dichotomy you've presented.
Jiv supports Wizards with the purchase of his paper cards. He does not buy digital cards on MTGO. He does not play with digital cards on MTGO.
I'll say it again: The existence of MTGO does not mean Magic: the Gathering cannot be played over the internet in other ways.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Wizards also doesn't sell singles so unless you are buying boxes or packs of new cards you really arent supporting wizards. You are supporting stores like SCG and other retailers who control the secondary market.
Saying that you buy your EDH cards to support Wizards is total bs. 90% of cards worth anything in EDH are not the new ones.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
1. Proxying cards absolutely does have an impact on the secondary market. And as EDH grows it could increase if more and more playgroups allow proxies. Think about the value of something as ubiquitous as Sol Ring and impact on it if proxies are common in EDH.
2. Magic is NOT infinitely better when everyone has access to everything. Variety is a good thing, and the cost/rarity of some cards helps to promote that variety. It is a good thing for a "rare" to be rare.
No, they aren't.
MTGO is a product sold by Hasbro. Cockatrice is a competing product which happens to be free. MWS is another competing product which also happens to be free unless you pay for the "full" version.
Cockatrice was issued a C&D because Hasbro thinks it is violating the ToS of Gatherer. If Cockatrice behaved like MWS (i.e. used its own images), the C&D wouldn't even have a leg to stand on.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Wizards has placed a high wall between MTGO and paper products.
If you're dedicated to respecting Wizards' licensing, then Cockatrice isn't another proxy of paper Magic – it's a proxy of online Magic. You'd be fine, under your construct, if you played Cockatrice as a proxy of your MTGO cards. That's not what you're doing, though, which is why you're ignoring MTGO licensing issues.
As it stands, you've got an internally opposed approach to how "fine" proxies are, and it undermines your argument – you're picking and choosing which of Magic's licenses you'll honor and which you'll ignore, so who are you to attack others for picking and choosing which ones they'll ignore?
EDH/Commander isn't a professional sport/game in the same way that Backyard Baseball isn't a professional sport/game. If you're going to use the word "competitive," you have to talk about the competitive level of the game.
And to be competitive in chess, you still have to get to the tournament. I could be the best chess player in the world, but if I can't afford a plane ticket to your country, I'll never compete there.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
And that's as far as it goes. If you don't own MTGO cards you can't play on MTGO. The existence of MTGO does not mean you can't play Magic: the Gathering over the internet.
Using Cockatrice or MWS is no different from using Skype or Google Hangouts to play with other people using your paper cards.
Keep in mind MWS was around before MTGO.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
It's a good thing I'm not using Trice as MTGO but paper magic.
You're so busy trying to prove me wrong you've forgotten the first rule of this forum: Never argue with Jiv when being right is on the line.
A few reasons:
Proxies tend to be of cards that are expensive and popular. Thus the demand for them maintains their value despite the proxying. But what proxying does is reduce that demand.
And lets be clear: EDH is a serious driver of the secondary market. Tourney results matter for some stuff, but their are plenty of EDH-centric cards that have very high value today because of EDH.
Some of my skills include earning a large amount of money which I use to support my family and spend a little of the excess on cards.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
No it isn't. EDH is a horrible format for that kind of goal. Between multiple opponents, 100 card decks, and singleton it is a format filled with randomness.
EDH is a great format for having fun. It is a terrible format for competitiveness.
You say you own one copy and proxy it in other decks to save the time of switching.
I say I don't own a copy but I could if I worked an extra shift this week, but instead I just save the time by proxying it.
We are both proxying to save time.
Could the logic be reversed? I think that's what Mewens is trying to point it out.
If I own all my cards in MTGO only and print proxies only of the ones I effectively own, can I consider I'm not playing paper Magic but a different game that follows the same rules?
And that's exactly the logic I'm pointing to: You're ignoring that Wizards licenses its products for online use. It may be through a clunky, money-grabbing system, but the licensing procedure exists, and you've ignored it because you believe you've already paid Wizards enough. That, of course, by your own words, means you actually hate Magic – unless you misstated your argument, and meant to say "People who don't support Magic to some set level actually hate Magic." Or maybe you meant, "People who proxy cards they don't physically own or have on their MTGO accounts actually hate Magic." Either you didn't clarify your original point enough, or you're a hypocrite.
It's cool, there's an edit button on the forums.
Of course it doesn't; this isn't about your ability to play Magic over the Internet. In this particular argument, I'm concerned with licensing issues, which govern your ability to legally do something (in this case, play Magic over the Internet). Wizards has a system to legally use its cards to play games of Magic: the Gathering over the Internet; if you choose not to use it, but you choose to use some third-party system that mimics Magic: the Gathering games, you're choosing to ignore Wizards' licensing agreements regarding their product. Regardless of how you spin it, that's the same as proxying print product. I'm not worried about the legality of Cockatrice; I'm pointing out the inherent contradiction in Jiv's stated position. If he wants to clarify, I'm all ears.
Again, this is missing the point that we're acknowledging the fact that we can't use our paper cards to play MTGO.
The existence of MTGO does not preclude people from playing Magic over the internet.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Paper will always trump non-paper.
But that is another discussion entirely.
Incorrect. Wizards has a system to legally use its digital cards in one specific online environment. They have not gone after MWS, despite it's longer life than Cockatrice. The only thing Cockatrice does that violates the license is that of Gatherer.com, and even this is up for debate. It was never brought to court; a letter was issued to bully the Cockatrice developer into taking his product off the internet. Cockatrice only displays images that Gatherer provides.
You have to worry about the legality of Cockatrice because it is inseparable from the imagined contradiction in Jiv's position. Proxying cards is illegal. Somehow hacking into MTGO so you can play for free is illegal. Using MWS is not illegal. Playing paper magic with web cameras is not illegal. Using Cockatrice has yet to be demonstrated as illegal, and with one minor modification, could not even be considered illegal.
The use of Cockatrice is incomparable to the use of proxies.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
What if my proxies are the worst of all: sticky notes where I've written the names of the cards?
All proxies are equal.
True, but, if someone didn't pull the legal vs illegal argument I wouldn't follow down this road. What is illegal of me writing this on paper?
Volcanic Hammer
Sorcery, 1R
Volcanic Hammer deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
This is essentially what MWS and Cockatrice do by providing you the info of what you'd be playing.
---
For the sake of simplifying, if we consider MTGO to be the "sanctioned event" of online and Cockatrice as the kitchen table, why is the logic of "proxying" in one not applicable to the other?
Any unauthorized reproduction - digital or otherwise - of an owned intellectual property constitutes copyright infringement and is therefore illegal. This is why Brukie was given a cease and desist order. What they were doing was copyright infringement, plain and simple.
It's no different from illegal digital reproductions of anything else. Movies, music, games, anything.
And why was MWS given no such C&D? That's because neither of them were reproducing digital intellectual property. You don't understand that the C&D was not issued for copyright infringement. It was issued for "improper use" of Gatherer, and again I express, the legal weight of that C&D is still in question.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Jiv said people who don't support Wizards actually hate Magic. He doesn't support Wizards online. Ergo, he either misstated his position – or he's a hypocrite who secretly hates Magic. (I'll be honest: I suspect he just misstated his position.)
That's what this particular argument comes down to.
Fix'd that for you to show the false dichotomy you've presented.
Jiv supports Wizards with the purchase of his paper cards. He does not buy digital cards on MTGO. He does not play with digital cards on MTGO.
I'll say it again: The existence of MTGO does not mean Magic: the Gathering cannot be played over the internet in other ways.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Saying that you buy your EDH cards to support Wizards is total bs. 90% of cards worth anything in EDH are not the new ones.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies