Quote from Flisch »Excuse me but demanding people to play with you under the threat of calling you a gatekeeper is kind of insane. Playing a game is still a consentual act.
I have no intention to play with superman and gandalf and captain kirk in a magic game. Calling people gatekeepers because they choose what and how to enjoy their entertainment is pretty digusting. You're not entitled to playing with me and I reserve the right to spend my free time however I choose.
I generally figure that it's your deck, your rules. This is why I really wish they'd commit alternate names for MtG stuff - people can play with the other IP stuff, but those that would rather not have MtG themed versions to use. Some people don't like foils, but demanding that other players don't play foils against them would be pretty weird. Maybe your playgroup could have a no foils rule, but if some random person shows up at the game store, it'd be pretty weird to walk away from a casual game because they brought their shiny Mountains.
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However, the more important piece is the "if you do" clause on Shepherd. This requires that every component of the pile be exiled in order for you to get a new token. While the trigger should have happened, it is impossible for you to exile every component since the token component ceased to exist.
It certainly sounds like a bug if the trigger didn't occur, but you can't get the new token anyway so the end result ends up being correct. Since you can't just perform part of the process, you also can't exile the card components just because you want to. It is all or nothing and since you can't choose "all" you end up exiling "nothing".
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So, no, the symbols on the front face don't change anything. Or, if they do, they don't matter because the rule says to just look at the back face and the back face has those symbols too.
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As to your question, each of those cards add one trigger. So, with both, you get 3 triggers instead of 1 for each Landfall trigger whenever a land enters since you get 2 extra triggers (one from Yarok and one from Greenwarden). So, Elemental gets +6/+6 total. Moraug would get you 3 extra combat phases. And so on for anything else with Landfall.
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My decks still end up having similar cards to one another, though I make a conscious decision to try to keep the overall "feel" of the decks distinct. So, all my blue decks play Cyclonic Rift and Mana Drain for example. And, again, none of these are proxies so it isn't like allowing for proxies is pushing things in my decks to be degenerate; I have the cards to build whatever I want and I want those two cards because they are good (Rift especially being a sort of "get out of jail" type card).
So, with that being said about what I do with proxies, I have done my best to really encourage proxies in my group. There is one player who proxies his entire deck which I am fine with. And others play generally lower powered stuff because they don't want to use proxies, which is also fine. But I keep trying to push for the "proxies are ok" mentality because it shouldn't lead anyone to any particular playstyle.
Maybe things are a little homogenous as players start out, and maybe they don't evolve from there but that is a playgroup issue and seems like it is a weird thing to accept and/or advocate. That is, it seems like your point is that players would dive more into homogeny and optimization except they are simply priced out of doing so. Which....I guess I don't see the point. Plenty of cheap cards offer homogeny; plenty of powerful cards are cheap due to reprints. To suggest that you don't want to see too many Scroll Racks simply because it is expensive while you are fine with Kinnan combo simply because it is cheap (enough pieces are anyway) seems sort of backwards.
I have a feeling that if you really cracked down on proxies, at least from the "too powerful" or "optimized" category, and then someone like me showed up to your group and played every blue deck I had which includes all the stuff your group has said was not ok to proxy, I imagine it would feel sort of unfair. I mean, what is really the difference between proxying a Rift for every blue deck and simply buying it from a play perspective? You force someone to spend money, sure, but your games are the exact same as they would be with proxies.
If there is an issue with power or whatever then talk to your group. Encourage diversity but don't do it through some sort of gatekeeping based entirely on personal budget or finances.
In short, I think there is plenty of degeneracy that can occur without proxies; that is a player issue, not a budget issue.
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Someone did ask Tabak about Tawnos's Coffin though and he seemed open to it. Though, it sounds like he might not have been completely on board with Oubliette so who knows.