When it comes to proxies I say use whatever you want, just match the power of the table. You should always do that proxies or not. For example I have two CEDH decks that are not proxied at all. If I sit down at a table and see my openers pull out precons I’m not gonna play those so I proxied out two mid tier and one low tier deck that I can use to play with others. You match the power level so everyone can enjoy the game. How much money you have, or don’t have, should never effect your ability to play with friends. At its core EDH is a social event.
Yes. When I hear people complaining about proxy, they are usually actually complaining about a power mismatch. Proxy cards play the exact same as real cards and the power mismatch is bad regardless if they are proxy or not. The problem has nothing to do with proxy cards. In fact, proxy cards may actually fix a power mismatch. You have to work with your play group and find the power balance that is most fun for all.
I draw a mean stick figure. We're talking Da Vinci level stick figures boys and girls. Even CGP Grey wants a body like the stick figure bodies I scrawl on my proxies.
I've started making proxies with my only rule being that I own the card, I just don't want to buy 4-5 copies of a $50 card to put in several decks I bought blank cards and I put the name, mana cost, type, and effect on each card, complete with hilariously awful drawings all made from sharpie lmao
There is only one time when I thought breaking a deal was an acceptable thing to do: my friend was playing a pirate deck. I was of course salty at first, but then he looked right at me and said "Never trust a pirate." I immediately realized my own foolish mistake. And now I silently laugh to myself every time he makes a deal with anyone else while using that deck, because I know what's about to happen.
I remember I opened one for Christmas and was like "Sweet, now I can add this and my Stomping Ground to my Animar deck. Just gotta buy a Steam vents. Thats gunna hurt cause vents is the most expensive shock. A week later I made a Vannifar deck and got slapped in the face when I saw the cost of a breeding pool. So turns out Steam Vents aint so bad...
A disgusting lack of attention to such a fundamental aspect of the game since rosewater was hired and pain lands replaced og duals... a true and profound disgust
My playgroup plays with fully proxied decks due to life circumstances. We want to play and have fun, we have played with "power" and thats our style and we just cant afford it with our monthly bills that we each have. For us it works, we still buy magic to have fun drafts, however our choice for commander is proxies. I think that just depends on the playgroup though because we all are fine doing it since we can play whatever we want and enjoy it, yet we don't try to bring our decks to LGS's because we don't want to offend others that did spend the money. We welcome others to play with us with the warning that almost all of our decks are between $1000 - $10,000+, and they tend to have fun as well since it creates games they likely never played before.
Straight up. It's weird how people ignore the class implications of people being addicted to magic, with pay to win elements, because players are priced out of the game. Turns out more people are interested in challenging peoples' wallets than their minds than I thought.
On your comments on Proxies and negative emotions can't the same thing be said about your feelings when someone is using proxies? "Oh they just use proxies and are "pub stomping"? I think if they are pub-stomping that is the problem, not the proxies. Whatever someone needs to do to afford to play the game imho. Personally I enjoy collecting and spend my money accordingly. But if someone is deciding between using proxies and not playing at all, why are we locking them out of a casual format?
Thats less an issue with the proxies and more an issue with a difference in powerlevels. You can proxy your dual lands and your tutors and your fast mana, its just the only fair decks I have to play against those are monoblue and slivers...so ima play slivers.
@@suikodin2501 Yes, Budget decks can compete. But you have to spent a lot more time on budget decks. And some people neither have time nor money. In my playgroup, people use proxies to get to the same levels as the other people who spent a lot of money. Or just to do silly stuff. I have a medium sized collection, but I love it to bring new silly decks as often as possible. And simply using proxies makes that a lot easier. I have a Adun Oakenshield Reanimator Deck, that uses about 70 % proxies, because my idea was to only use old border cards and I don't have much of those.
I think we should actually be pissed off more at the rich bitches that go out and spend tons of money on uber powerful cards and throw them all in their decks to completely stomp all over their playgroup, which ultimately promotes people who can't afford those cards to go buy proxies to be competitive and not look pathetic at the table the next time!
@@coryledwitch6492 yes exactly! Rich people stomping everyone with overpowered decks is fine? But poor people proxying the same overpowered deck and stomping everyone is somehow not fine? It's not fine in both cases, and it's because the problem are not the proxies, but the power level. Let people proxy whatever they want, and just discuss about power level, like you would do with decks using "real" cards.
I'm fine with people using proxies regardless of their status as counterfeit or not. I hold myself to the same standard as what Josh and Jimmy are saying, I only have proxies of cards that I own. I'm guessing that for Josh and Jimmy to maintain their relationship with Wizards, advocating for wanton proxy creation wouldn't be a good thing. So if that's the case, of course their position is understandable and necessary. However, not letting people play with proxies for monetary reasons is inherently classist. Magic the Gathering is a business, but from a gaming point of view, money shouldn't determine access to cards.
@@fandomewhisper - I'm all for proxies and imo the issue they're complaining about has to do with the power level of the decks they're mis-attributing to the use of proxies, but counterfeiting is another topic entirely, and one they _also_ botched horribly in the video. If you print a Taiga on your ink jet on standard printer paper with no back and slot it into a sleeve in front of a token or basic, that's a proxy, full stop. If you never intend to replace it, it's still a proxy, despite what they're saying in the video. If you're getting it from someone advertising as "tournament playable" who prints the original art and back on as similar cardstock as possible who is trying make it indistinguishable? That's counterfeit. Again, I don't have any issues with proxying, but trying to pass it off as real - especially when it comes to trading - I definitely take issue with. And unfortunately, buying these from the sellers that make them with the intent to use as proxies only props up the actual counterfeit market :/
I see he gets a lot of product from Wizards and Ultra Pro. They have clearly built their studio and channel up from the ground. I doubt they’re saying what they normally would off camera. If they spoke their mind, it could potentially ruin their channel and relationship with Wizards and Ultra Pro.
@Repeat Aftermeme This is why I don't even look at their reviews because I know they are not allowed to speak a single bad word so they're untrustworthy.
I would suggest these for reprints: 1. Battlebond lands & include missing combinations 2. Mana Rocks that are 0-2 cmc and good (signets/talismans) 3. Win Cons: Craterhoof/Expropiate/Lab Maniac/Rise of the Dark Realms 4. Powerful Draw spells: Rhystic Study/ Consecrated Sphinx/Remora 5. Powerful Commanders: Urza/Yawgmoth/Atraxa/Meren/etc I believe these are what most people would appreciate as they represent the best of the best, and the battlebond stuff had some amazing ideas for commander, I wonder whywe haven't seen more of that. Hopefully we will in Commander Legends
IMO every single shock and fetch land should be reprinted constantly. Every 3rd set should be one of the 2 so they are always in rotation for standard.
As a couple other comments have pointed out, choosing to oust proxy players just favors the idea of pay to win. It might not matter in every playgroup, but it certainly matters in some, and if you know people who like to bring higher power decks to lower power tables and happen to have a rather luxurious amount of finances enabling them to do so (I know people like this), the idea that they get to play powerhouse decks and everyone else has to suffer because of budget is just ridiculous. The object of the game is to have fun. As long as people aren't abusing proxies to be the deck that pubstomps, and are instead using those proxies to keep parity with their playgroup, barring them from using proxies just inherently devalues the proxy players because of their personal budget. That seems very wrong to me, especially when they could have a whole gamut of life issues that prevents them from justifying dropping money into buying what amounts to painted paper.
i agree, but one thing to take into account is that it can go both ways. the person with a lot of money could make a 50$ deck to play with the person with not a lot of money to spend on cards. i think - like you said - that the object of the game is to have fun, and thus if you're communicating with your playgroup proxies are fine. but if the person is a player you're playing with often, they probably don't mind making a few budget decks to level the playing field. but it's just a matter of what the player determine to be the best course of action, and for some people it might be proxies, but imo that shouldn't be the first option.
Basic rule of thumb I heard once and now practice: Don't skimp on anything that comes between you and the ground: mattress, shoes, desk chair (especially if you work in an office), tires, etc.
Literally, my group is ok with proxies as long as they look nice, because not everyone has money. Piont blank. I've met two people who have pub stomped, both of which owned all their cards. One was expensive, the other was midrange cost. That elitist attitude of "its disrespectful " to be poor? Like, it's a card game. They are like $0.20 per card to make. They shouldn't be hundreds of dollars for 100 cards.
Yeah, i think part of the issue is when people go over board with it. Like you can make a pretty reasonable deck for 100-200 bucks. There are some very good budget decks for
@@MikeJones-we8pb How would it be any better if I sat down with a deck that was way above the power level of the rest of the table but I owned all of them and none of them were proxied? What difference does it make whether the cards are real or not? That is a powerlevel issue not a proxy issue. Proxies even have the edge here because you can swap them out for other cards with minimal monetary loss and less feel bads.
@@MikeJones-we8pb Like if proxy guy with OG duals, timetwister, mana drain etc won the lottery and bought all of the cards for his proxy deck would that suddenly make it okay? No, the problem is still the same.
@@liamfoote7164 So that was part of my poi t. Unless you play group is running decks that average 3 grand each, have no reason to proxy that much value. A big part of commander is being able to use old cards from your collection that you cant use in other formats. Alot of those cards have value due to age. Pick a expensive card and there is a budget alternative. You are choosing to save money not by building on a budget but by using a bunch of fake cards. If I own a expensive card I opened 10 years ago and get to have some fun with it and get the small reward of playing with it after holding onto it why wouldnt it be annoying if someone else prints off a copy of it I stead of just running a cheaper card. Your just looking at it from a overall power level perspective but really you can achieve similar results with budget cards. Mana drain is great. Counterspell does a very similar job at a fraction of the price. If you dont have or cant afford a mana drain just run counter spell. You dont have to have the best version of every card to have fun or do well.
About proxies: most guys at my team need them if we wanna test out cEDH Decks. Outside of that, i got only one player that play full Proxies and he do well with that, cause it helps our group to see some Cards we dont have and he tryes to balance them in the power our group can play. I prefer playing with someone that has full proxies and is on the groups powerlvl then someone that outpowers everyone, cause he had the luck to start earlyer so he hasnt to pay that much money then we do, to reach his power^^. Luckyly my Group is nice to each and we manage to find ways to play out our different powerhouse-decks.
That is one of the biggest discrepancies between cEDH and casual EDH. Most cEDH players don't care about proxies: they want to see skill, not bling. It also doesn't help that many of the staples of the subformat are bankbreaking. They want to see what you're made of, and that a wallet shouldn't prevent you from having fun. Casual EDH players are more sensitive about that, but answers vary wildly: Some don't care at all, some don't care about others using them but they will never use them themselves, some allow a limited number or certain proxies - establishing boundaries -, and some are a hard no. My playgroup is very comfortable with proxies, probably because of me. I was also able to get my roommates to proxy cards when they previously were in the "you can but I won't" group. The two rules that Josh mentioned are actually my personal rules on proxies, and have been for three years, and I have yet to meet anyone who reasonably opposes them. I believe they are solid enough for most groups. They're permissive but also restrictive. Also, regarding Jimmy's comment on respect, these rules do not necessarily show disrespect. Some people are higher on the job food chain and can therefore dish out more for cards. Yes, it's a product that must be purchased, but most of the time one is buying singles. WotC already profited from the sale of whatever card you're looking for, so it's not disrespectful to the makers, either. Again, the wallet should not be a barrier to fun. This isn't a microtransaction game.
@@PaoloSilverInzaghi A casual EDH-player myself, I'd say it depends. There are players at my LGS who frequently print out new decks to try the idea, then slowly collect into them if they want to keep the deck. I'm not a fan of printer Magic, but I can live with that kind of attitude. Or the people who proxy cards they have as one-ofs, just so they don't have to take one deck apart to play another, that's okay with me. On the other hand, there are players who just don't want to pay for expensive cards, but nevertheless play decks that half the time wouldn't even work without them, or that unnecessarily push the powerlevel of their decks above that of the group. Expensive fast mana and color fixing are on top of that list. And with that kind of behaviour I have a problem. If you're a freakin' casual, there's no need to crank up your deck's power like that, especially since it de-values the deckbuilding-skills of the people who come up with pretty efficient decks at much lower prices.
Pretty much, this. In our playgroup, cEDH pods don't care, you can proxy the entire 100 if you really want to play, and that's fine. In more causal pods, there's a limit to what you could proxy. If it's a new deck or something you want to test out, go ahead. We don't want you spending a lot on cards you might not even like. If it's a vital part of your strategy and *you are planning* to buy that card in the near future, go ahead. The only time we say no is when you have something like dual lands, or Mana Crypt/Mox D in a casual table. No one needs that in their casual decks. That being said, the whole "if you own it, you can proxy them in every deck" still applies, regardless of the card and power level. If they own a Crypt and every dual, they have the right to play it in their more casual decks, it's fine.
I agree. Jimmy and Josh don't really seem to click with the fact that in cedh, Twister, Bazaar, Tabernacle are going to seriously power your decks up or down and I'd rather play against the real version of a deck than not. Please proxy those 3. Spending 5 Grand on 3 cards is stupid. Also, I'm not even sure that if people had the cash there would be enough copies. It limits that format. With that said, I think $300-500 threshold is a good place to put the cap. Proxy that dual lands or cradle. Don't proxy shocklands. Don't be that guy... Also, that stats episode does not capture the value of those above cards - they were never played in those episodes.
Yeah this is my policy for all EDH. I want to play with all the cool cards available to everyone regardless of whatever nonsense the secondary market is up to. Personally I like to collect those old cards, but most of my other friends aren't as insane as I am and spending $200 on one goddamn card doesn't sound fun to them. Plus, even if they utterly blow me out in the game, that just means I get to spend more time deck building for next time.
Reguarding your stance on proxies, I still believe your situation is still very different than (probably) most players. While it may be true that you have players in your playgroup with a bigger and more expensive collection than you, you guys probably still have no issue buying a Doubling Season or a Rhystic Study. But for many people spending 15+ dollars on a single card is not always something they can do, and sometimes that prevents them from playing cards that they want to play. Let's say someone plays Pir and Toothy, and they want to play Doubling Season because it synergies very well in their deck, but it's way outside their budget.allowing them to proxy the card allows them still to participate and enjoy a wonderful game. And I feel that the argument that proxies will cause players to bring super expensive cards and stomp everyone else is ridiculous. Because that's a power level issue, not a proxy issue. If the guy stomping everyone else with a Gaia's Gradle proxy and a proxy Tabernacle suddenly bought the cards, it doesn't make him stomping everyone else ok.
Yeah that is called being an asshole, I have decks to suit all power levels and still use proxies to fill out specific staples and would only use stuff like the tabernacle proxy on a cEDH table but targeting a casual player just to stomp on them is not fun.
Also the fact that Josh and Jimmy earn income from their Commander content makes it easier to splurge on $20/$30/$60 cards, since the hobby directly fuels this channel and Patreon, etc. For most everyone else that sort of a purchase isn't as easy since this is just a hobby for the rest of us. Proxies remove the exorbitant entry fee for some of these awesome cards. Do we really want to say that only those people willing to blow $200+ on a single small piece of cardboard are allowed to play an Angus Mackenzie deck?
Thing is, we're talking about essentially fake versions of the card. How would you feel if you saved and bought a Mana Crypt, and then came across someone with a 2 dollar proxy and that proxy was regarded in the same way as your real Mana Crypt? They make people feel their legitimate cards are invalidated. And at the end of the day, we're playing a trading card game that has existed for decades. This is a game made of collectibles. Value will vary. I have no problem with proxies in commander if you own the card, and I think everyone agrees there. There is no reason to own 3 Rhystic studies if you only play a singleton format. But again, if you don't own the card, you're circumventing the collectible aspect of Magic. And more often than not there is another option for the expensive card that is just less effective. I.e. Diabolic vs. Demonic Tutor. The "pay to play" argument is very weak when, as I mentioned earlier, we are playing a TRADING CARD game.
@@FantabulousMe100 if you buy the real copy of a card, it has actual value, and you can resell that card if you want to. That proxy is not worth anything. And I think that the argument that it'd be a feelsbad to spend money on a card while someone else just proxied the card is a bit ridiculous. You have the real thing, he doesn't. Your card is worth something while theirs is worth nothing. I think Magic is, first and foremost, a game, and that the trading aspect comes second. I don't see why the amount of money the guys sitting besides you should matter to you, as long as he's not trying to sell you that proxy.
@@FantabulousMe100 Sorry, that doesn't hold any water for a lot of folks - myself included. The fact that *you* value the collectible aspect of the game is awesome for you, and me using fake cards (for cards that are exorbitantly overpriced due to asinine reprint policies from WOTC) doesn't devalue your legitimate cards. Remember, mine are *fake* so they don't affect the limited availability of your authentic ones. Maybe wayyyyy down the road it could affect the market/price if tons of people proxied one card, but I'm not aware of anything in that realm for now - or even close. If you find intrinsic value in owning the authentic version of a card, like a $50 Scroll Rack, that's great. But it's ridiculously expensive 'cause Wizards won't reprint it. I disagree that you should feel bad about your legit copy when someone has a proxied one - you have the real deal! And if you still feel bad about it, is it because you genuinely feel like it was pointless for you to buy the authentic copy, orrrrrr is it because you don't get the exclusivity of being the only person running the card 'cause you're the only one willing to blow a lot of money on it and the rest of the players didn't want to spend money on such overpriced cardboard?
Yesssss! LOL. I literally proxied that card the other day because I only had one and didn't want to take it out of that deck since I would be using that deck in the same day at my LGS. I refused to spend the money on that card for a deck I had just built.
A lot of mana rocks have risen a lot in price. These and lands are the first things that should be printed because they form the base of every single deck in the format.
Syr Carah the Bold is Impulsive Draw without having to attack. She has to deal damage but she has the tap ability to get it in. She's mono red, though.
I feel like the idea of Syr Carah is the right way to make aggro/burn “more viable” in the sense that you get rewarded for playing burn spells or swinging with Syr Carah by gaining that card acceleration, even if it’s only temporary. That’s basically the thesis of mono red aggro. It’s quite unfortunate that they are costed at 3RR.
At a rather steep cost, though. 5 mana for a 3/3 that doesn't do anything by itself the turn it's played. Imo, we have Anje and Daretti. Daretti may not draw, but he gives you access to cards, and Anje, while she is just looting, she definitely helps to dig.
Guys, 5 CMC isn't a thing in mono red at all. If they made her any cheaper to cast she'd be busted. I've been tinkering with a Syr Carah list for some time now, and it's going to be big mana + big spells. Red has serious ramp at its disposal. Between Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Might, Seething Song, Geosurge, Irencrag Feat, Mana Geyser, Jaya Ballard, Koth of the Hammer and every decent mana rock ever printed (preferably those that draw me some cards if sac'ed), plenty of burnination will be had. >:-D
I have this deck and it’s very strong. I made it Impulsive Draw tribal. Has around 5 different chandras. Once I get 2 on the field with chandras regulator, I’m drowning the table in card advantage. If I have the Chandra that adds loyalty to other red planeswalkers, I’m ultimating the other ones very fast. Last game I ulted Torch of defiance and copied the ult. Got 2 emblems. The game ended very fast
For proxies/personal preferences: I think it is important to be aware of how others, especially in your play group, CAN feel about decks/cultural norms. Asking if proxies are okay or just feeling out how phones or distractions effect the groups attitude and enjoyment. For the group I host (of which I am the newest player) my goal for the group is the level of fun and replay/return value. If a player wants to proxy cards in order to participate and enjoy the game, then by all means. Most all my play group just wants to have fun and usually rotate decks within our play time. If our decks do what we want, then we are all winners even if we lose.
Bryan Philips I wouldn’t discount a younger kid. I’ve played with plenty of younger kids at my LGS that are easily more skilled than the adults in the room.
@33:07 You make the argument against proxies, saying a player with proxies will win purely because they own more expensive and powerful cards, yet immediately after you say Cassius uses cards way more expensive and powerful than yours but you don't feel he wins because of it, completely contradicting your first point.
You need to see their proxy stance in light of their relationship with sponsors who sell real cards. Do you think they woud be happy with video that is proxy-friendly? What they say is not contradiction. Pay2Win: You are allowed to win with real cards exactly same way because you paid for them. So you should be striving to fork over cash for stronger cards. So of couse the loophole of being able to proxy is evil because it allows you to bypass singles market. In any case, CZ is not budget minded at all. You do not come here for ideas how to make commander decks cheaper.
They said after a certain threshold (about $500 in value) the price tag of a deck doesn't increase win rate as much as it did before. A $400 deck will often stomp all over $150 decks, they will win many but not EVERY game, because the expensive deck has upgraded versions of many cards the cheaper deck runs (like a Path to Exile vs a Condemn, Hallowed Fountain and Flooded Strand vs Meandering River and Evolving Wilds, or Rhystic Study vs Divination) but a $900 deck and a $500 deck are going to be roughly equal in power because usually the difference in those deck prices is a couple $100+ cards like the OG dual lands or a single expensive card in the 99 like Guantlet of Might. Now a lot of people don't play with $500 decks and seeing someone proxy a deck that would normally cost $750 and winning a lot would be frustrating. Not that you can't beat them as long as you have a solid game plan (I occasionally have won games with my ~$175 Tatyova deck vs a $1200 Ur-Dragon and a $600 Thrasios/Partner deck) but card value is still a factor. Many cards are expensive for a reason beyond their age and potentially being on reserved list.
Yeah, that whole answer was... pretty bad, imo. Even from body language and even cadence, they seemed kind of like they were a bit tilted over the idea, for lack of a better term. Especially finishing what's more or less a rant about how his collection is great but someone else has a _better_ one therefore... something? It doesn't really justify anything and just kind of makes their dislike of proxies come off as irrational. Especially when that followed to a justification of, "just don't play with that person". That in and of itself is just toxic. Imo, as with most "should X be allowed" questions: discuss it with your playgroup. Like you pointed out about their contradictory logic - you can outplay them even if they're proxying the best cards. Maybe _they_ want to play with Cassius but don't have enough to drop on a $500 deck to reach that "point of diminishing returns"? Proxy it up, may the better _player_ win. Plus, well made personal proxies can be great - if you put some effort into it it can be a fun and personalized novelty. I saw someone on Reddit make a _full_ proxy deck (including things like basic lands) with sharpied art and card frames and it was fantastic. I'd love to see someone do that on a deck of blank-face Bicycle cards and play unsleeved - it would be hilarious. And no, if someone makes a Sharpie reproduction of a Tabernacle on a Bicycle backed card, that is not "counterfeit". The only thing I'd say to the proxier is to be clear about what it is they're doing - this goes for, well, any game. Don't bring an ultra powered top tier proxy deck to a low tier game, same as you shouldn't bring a legit top tier deck to low tier game. It's just a jerk move either way. Bring two decks - have your proxy deck and a real budget deck and ask the group which they'd prefer to play against. If they have strong decks and want good gameplay, they'll allow the proxies. If not, you have a backup. But for Urza's sake, if someone has a proxy deck because they can't afford a deck at the same power level as your group, don't _shun them_ for it, help them out. Point them towards Mitch's content. Give them some cards. Let them borrow your deck. Don't exclude people from this great game just because they can't afford the toppest tier of luxury cardboard rectangles.
I've in the last two months began proxy/counterfeiting a lot of cards. Originally I just wanted to make a really nice proxy Vintage Cube. Once the Cube stopped firing, I began moving the cards into my commander decks. Financially, I would pretty much never be able to play with duals/fetches/shocks + Expensive wheels/Counterspells/Planeswalkers etc. My proxies look really nice; they don't aesthetically diminish the quality of the game for people at the table and have been a huge breath of fresh air for me to be able to actually build new flavorful commander decks that I never would have gotten to play. I will admit that the decks I have built have been on the higher end of power levels, but I would say that it's through my deck building prowess and understanding of card intention that allows the decks to overcome obstacles and that the proxies just enable the strategies with consistency. I do 100% purposefully build my decks with cards that are flavorful > powerful. For example, I built a Wizards only Inalla, Archmage Ritualist deck, and a Ultra Political Queen Marchese deck. I really don't want to feel pressured to disassemble these decks but without the proxies, I wouldnt be able to play with even budget versions of these decks. I've also offered making proxies for the people in my playground to help them have the same opportunities I'm giving myself. And of course, these are only for casual use. I'll talk to anyone about this subject if they want, I just feel like it's more sensitive a subject than just something that makes some people feel bad so don't do it.
@@cjsfriend2 Yeah they misused the word counterfeit, which is the intention to produce a fake product to maliciously sell to other people for monetary gain.
I think you nailed it when you said it was a sensitive topic (probably worth a whole CZ episode, but i dont think jimmy and josh are equipped for that discussion). I appreciate the long post and wish i was more verbose atm, since it's a topic worth a lot of discussion. The little i can manage to say atm is that there is likely a big difference between what you are doing and what some other proxy players are doing. I'd say that what you do might bother me if i were in your playgroup, but if you were in my playgroup, we would have probably had a longer discussion about it, and from the little i can tell from your post, i think we would come to common ground. That's the heart of it though, discussion and common ground. Not all players do it responsibly (loose term, not sold on this line of thought yet), and seeing responsible players do it encourages the irresponsible to misbehave. We have one player that saw a few checklisted cards played by others, who then sold his collection down to only one copy of each card and played all checklists, literally all checklists, and would just select a decklist and assemble the correct cards for it. The same player later printed a dozen fully proxied decks to 'test'. I think the best longterm solution is to have wotc reprint (and devalue) most commander cards, but even saying that makes me cringe at its drawbacks. Also, that's not in the player's hands... although i think wotc is thinking along those lines with the release of draftable 'commander legends'.
@Seth E @@ecos889 It's tricky because both words aren't perfect. Counterfeit means intentionally making the fake to look as close to real as possible to trick other people which mine do but only so they don't aesthetically take away from the visual of the game. And a version of the word Proxy is used to define cards given by judges at events to replace cards you physically have but have some physical flaw which makes them stand out in your deck (ie nexus of fate). In my honest opinion, I think the intention of the word proxy at it's core stems from the idea that you are using it in replacement of something you either have (say a mana crypt you only have one copy of) or are intending to get and at which case mine aren't (of course if I suddenly became very wealthy, this would be different). And even if I don't intend to sell them as fakes, I do think at their core, they are intended as counterfeits but for social gain over economic. It's unfortunate because counterfeit has a much lesser connotation. Currently, WotC has explained that this basically coincides with what they've stated. "Wizards is trying to establish their internal definition of the word "proxy," a/k/a, a "term of art," as the definition of the common English word. This is the logical fallacy of equivocation -- conflating two related but distinct meanings of a word in order to make a claim about one meaning that actually is only true of the other." - Cliffy73. So the question is, do we respect the intentions of WotC and understand that fake cards even without intention to be sold, if look too similar to real cards are indeed counterfeits, or do we ignore them on this issue, essentially making our own rules as the consumer of the product.
@@suikodin2501 100% there is an issue with the cost of commander cards or even really cards in general, and also an issue with the economy/minimum wage in Kansas atm which both are factors. One thing WotC could do is print out more gold bordered cards that aren't tournament legal for pennies on the dollar of their legal counterparts so people could have access to powerful magic cards for their casual play groups. That being said, the issue then becomes a power-level discrepancy and where card intention becomes the most important aspect. Why are you using cards; are you trying to have answers for the board/opponents, perhaps you're trying to create a political campaign with which your deck will reap the benefits, are you trying to build advantages; how are you trying to win the game. Before I started proxying, I kind of had 3 decks: A Simic Primespeaker Zegana Ramp deck that ran few answers but could go really big really fast and win from advantage, synergies, and potential combos A Dimir Grimgrin Zombie deck that ran several answers but looked to play aggressively and kill you with commander damage or combos An Azorius Raff Capashen permissions deck that ran lots of answers and looked to slowly win through attrition (and lots of take 3 commander damage) These three decks had very specific intentions with the cards they played. A lot of the reason behind this was because my card pool was limited financially and this became out of necessity. So does a less expensive deck have the right to want to win by-any-means more than an expensive deck? Imo, I think all decks should be brought to the table with intention. So what has this meant now that my decks can be super-charged with proxies? For me, I've mostly just been able to build lots of new decks: A 5-Color Morophon Tribal tribal aggro deck with few answers and lots of raw attack potency A 5-Color Golos Lands-Matter/Maze's End deck with some answers to fend off combat and removal while looking to aggressive piece together the gates for a alternate win A Selesnya Dr. Julius Jumblemorph Unset Deck that runs hosts/augments w/ etb/triggered-abilities-matter cards and eventually overrun effects A Mardu Queen Marchese combat-matters deck which looks build slow advantages while diverting attention, using political cards, curses, and the Monarchy mechanic to enrich the game experience while using tutors/Sunforger to answer threats and look to win through Helm of the Host and Aurelia or Godo for infinite combat steps So what's changed? First, I've been having a lot of fun and had the chance to brew decks I would never have been able to do. And with this freedom, I've been able to rework decks much faster than most anyone else in my playgroup. I consider my decks casually competitive. They don't look to tutor win cons and pub stomp. They look to fulfill roles in the game, using unique mechanics and flavor to win in ways that only their commander/colors can. And if I had money, I'd build them the same way
Re: Proxies, I generally will have some greater or lesser leniency depending on stuff like peoples' finances and the power of other decks in the group, because if you don't allow proxies when there's a vast gulf in finances, one side or the other is going to be majorly unhappy, depending on whether the group decides to allow the high priced decks in their group or not. And I know that price and power-level aren't interchangable, but they are correlated, so even if the gap in power-level isn't that much, if it's there it can lead to bad feelings. I don't know exactly what it'd entail to make it seem fair to everyone, but something maybe like a group-consensus budget for decks where each proxy has a flat (to incentivize buying and using non-proxies over proxies for low or mid-price cards) and percentage (to incentizise not just crafting a deck to the limit of the budget and proxying the top-cost cards) surcharge towards that budget. So that way, the player on a tight budget doesn't feel like they can't play in the group, just because they can't afford it, and the player with a big budget might hit the budget ceiling some, but they also know that the tight budget player isn't getting a better deck than they are, all without spending any money to do so.
There are just some cards that really don't need to be as expensive as they are, especially in a casual (i.e. non-tournament) format. Frankly, as long as your inclusions make sense and fit within the general power level of the table, as far as I'm concerned you can play your proxies. If someone's running 5 color tribal and has a full suite of ABU duals and Shocks and Fetches to make the MOST POWERFUL MANABASE, that's a bit much; there are cheaper duals you can run. On the other hand, that same deck running a single fake Cavern of Souls wont get a peep out of me, because it is an objectively great card for that specific kind of deck, and it's 50+ dollars.
GroundThing your logic has a huge fallacy. You state that if budget players should only get major improvements to their decks if they can afford it. Ask yourself would you rather play against the player or their wallet. Power level differences makes games unfun not proxies. Expecting people to invest thousands of dollars in cardboard is stupid.
@@Thejodad234 amen to that! Especially when the price of the cardboard is artificially inflated by the secondary market because wotc refuse to reprint some cards!
I agree, my play group is pretty spicy, and almost entirely casual, when my gf wanted to build a deck and play, i wasnt going to make her go out and buy 7-900 dollars worth of cards to play with. The amount of cards that cost over 40 bucks for no reason other than scarcity is incredibly annoying.
@@Thejodad234 I'm not really saying that. Ideally, IMO, cost shouldn't really be a factor, but it's hard to rate power level unbiasedly. Since (even by the podcast hosts' metric, at least up to a point), power level is correlated with deck cost, setting a group budget seems like the best solution to the issue. But I also recognize the issue that if you've invested a lot into your deck, and someone in your group is playing with mostly proxies, it can feel like you wasted your money. Especially if the player with proxies is proxying more expensive cards than yours (and so, by not proxying, you're not only behind them, but paying more to do so, because you don't proxy). This is why I proposed what I did: I see the best way to balance these tensions being to discourage proxies, if you can afford it, but not ban them outright or prevent a new or budget player from using a mostly proxy deck, and set a standard to make sure that everybody is mostly on the same page. It's not perfect, I will certainly admit that, but I intended the solution to be more of a compromise, and compromise solutions don't have to be (and probably can't really ever be) perfect, just trying to be something of an acceptable consensus option.
15:41 “I have a certain number of fetch lands” Shows fetches on screen. “I have a certain number of old-school duals” Shows duals on screen. “I have a certain number of shocks” Shows lifelands on screen.
I proxy for variety and I don't want to invest that much into a "stock market" price gauge; it's too risky for me. I have 9 decks, 7 are 100% proxy and my play group does the same thing. We agreed to print around the $500 mark. The two real decks I have are there in case someone doesn't like proxies which is understandable. I just don't want to buy $4,000 worth of cards with no garuntee that I'll get my money back.
My only cavaat to this is a question. What does your playgroup do to patronage WotC? Sure, buying singles for commander doesn't directly pay wizards, but it does support the demand for magic cards in general and keep a healthy demand for new cards from WotC. I imagine with your playgroup that this accomplished through the other two legit decks. I just want to make sure that when we are having this discussion, that people remember that there needs to be some sort of kickback to the creators of this game if we want to see new cards. If we all only played with proxies, then the game would suffer.
@@suikodin2501 valid concern. When I play at the lgs I buy a lot of packs. I still build real ones but at a much slower pace. I'll buy the new precons too.
I don't agree with their statement on proxies. I have a large play group and we come from all walks of life. Some of us make more money than others, and some live paycheck to paycheck. What is in their bank account is their business. This great game should be playable for everyone, not just the rich. If you can't afford a scalding tarn, that's okay, I too would rather buy food or life necessities over a small piece of cardboard. I want to play commander with people, not their wallets. This video made me lose a lot of respect for the command zone, because they praise casual commander yet they clearly feel that if you don't have the money, you shouldn't play the game. That's not friendly or fair in my opinion, people shouldn't have to limit deck builds because they can't afford a $40 doubling season. It breaks my heart when people say "I'd love to play mtg, but I can't afford it." And just so I don't get any bite back, I'm talking about casually playing, not tournaments. I understand that you have to own the cards to compete and I won't argue with that. But sitting down at a table with 3 other people in an environment where no prizes are involved should be about the players and not how much they spent.
About proxies: I was surprised to find that you guys were so against them. I get that your not against them entirely, but even the caveats provided of "testing and check list cards" seems very narrow. The big thing that I think with proxies is that everyone needs to be on the same page. This is difficult at events, but just in local playgroups it should be easy enough to establish what is and is not acceptable. If one person is proxying an incredibly powerful deck with a perfect mana base, then everyone else should be allowed to as well. It doesn't matter if everyone is happy. As someone wiser than me said on the subject - "I want to play the opponent, not their wallet". Without the use of proxies, it is very possible for certain play groups / environments to become pay to win, and that's not fun for anyone. I agree with the sentiments of aesthetic though. They should look decent. Not necessarily that they have to look like the card in question per se, just something nicer to look at than a scribbled on plains. We have a house rule of "Proxies are fine, but you have to make them yourself". We all suck at art but the end results are hilarious and a great conversation point. They kind of end up more like terrible alters. We say that you have to invest in your cards. If you're not doing it financially, you have to do it with time and effort. Even though they look terrible, it's a really fun way of handling the situation.
The whole tangent of "yeah well I have a great collection but someone else has a _better_ collection therefore poor people should be happy with what they have" was just embarrassing. Especially when their conclusion was, "if someone is using proxies just don't play with them". Like, wtf? No, make MTG inclusive, none of this toxic gatekeeping bullshit. The real issue in the question was the guy's proxy deck was way above the group's power curve. It would be no better if it was a legit $10,000 deck stomping them instead. Tell the guy he needs to play to the group's power level, it's not about the proxies.
Calling proxies counterfeits is just wrong, counterfeits are made to make others believe that they are real. Just because you spend too much in something, don't try to make others spend that money if they don't want. People that use proxies normally just want to play the game and not collect the cards.
Your guys' take on proxies is almost entirely off topic. First off, bling doesn't count. Bling is where people should be spending their money if they care about that kind of thing and have disposable income. YOU CAN'T PROXY BLING. Next, if someone is using proxies to pubstomp, they could be doing the same thing with real cards and it would be the same amount of feel bads. Proxies shouldn't replace Rule 0, just because you can proxy anything doesn't mean you should make your decks more powerful than your playgroups, but money should not stop someone from playing A CASUAL FORMAT. I find it baffling that casual players are usually against proxies while high power (9 or 10 aka cedh) players are almost always ok with proxies.
I 100% agree with you, but understand that they basically HAVE to say this. It is against the interests of their sponsors to be pro-proxies in really any fashion, regardless of how they actually feel about the topic.
@@submortimer I completely agree actually, I would have been surprised to see them be pro-proxy when being sponsored by CK. But hey you still gotta sleeve proxies so Ultra Pro is good to go! 😂
Comming from a third world country, some cards are really hard for me to to get. Being a student with an unpaid internship, it makes many of them impossible. I still try to get as many cards I can and actually enjoy building decks based on what I have, but when not LGSs near me have a single copy of Sol Ring and it costs so much I can't help but just proxy sometimes some basic cards. That being said, one of my friends had some very powerful decks and stomped us usually, and by no coincidence it was one full of proxies. It's not even about the amount of proxies but more about having the decks being the same level. I can run some 4 colour commanders just fine without all kinds of fetches and shocklands so, even if Karona is a fun commander, perhaps you shouldn'd be proxying all those kinds of things.
I made a Goreclaw Deck for my loved one. And... She loves this little Bear! It works great for new players. Just play big beasts, it's satisfying and fun. ^^
Same here, I have a blast with my Goreclaw deck, but it's easily the first deck I loan out to new players too, because it is pretty simple, but has enough stuff synergizing and going on that they don't feel left out (just remembering all the stuff Goreclaw does is enough for a lot of new players)
30:20 RE Proxies: slippery slope? Bad thing? Disrespectful? I think pay to win is disrespectful! So the poor asian kid that's really smart has to stick to chess because it cannot afford the 300 bucks standard, 1k pioneer, 2k modern, 6k commander, 12k legacy or 120k vintage deck? Honestly, f*** that! THAT IS AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF THE FORMAT, IF ANYTHING IS! Commander should be an inclusive, fun, casual format where you do crazy stuff! If the powerlevel of the group goes up, deckbuilding and play skill should make the difference, NOT THE WALLET. Test your deck with 100% proxies, go to fnm drafts as often as you can and try to trade the cards you win to replace your proxies. Slowly. If you never get that Wheel of Fortune, so be it! Come at me with the best deck your SKILL can build, not your wallet! Also, the mitch example with 50$ decks might apply to you, but you guys (*sorry to be so blunt*) aren't pros. Neither am I; point being, if you cannot mulligan(which you guys really can't) you will lose more games than money could buy. P.s.: When talking about proxies, we mean mtgpress.com . High definition printouts sleeved up together with a basic. That doesn't hurt optics at all!
I'm new to magic the gathering. However I highly agree about this. I'm a yugioh player and alot of us have to used proxy. Either because of pricing, testing to see if the card is good, learning the how to play the card and most differently however importantly, language. Yugioh has a large player pool and the cards are usually come in different languages depending on where your living. However for competitive players, having proxies are a blessing since you don't have to buy the card again for that specific language during tournaments. Idk what kind of players magic the gathering have outside of united states buy this could honestly benefit them.
People that earn money to get their cards just feel like people using fake cards are taking the easy way out. I don’t think jimmy and josh are trying to be rude to new players.
@@Lag-Lord people who earn the money to get the cards then own cards with that value. They can resell them, exchange them, and so on. People use proxies literally only to play with those cards because they do not own them. They have nothing of value with the proxies. They simply can play. And in a game, a card's value has no meaning. A foiled out commander deck works in the same way as the non-foil version, or as the proxy version.
Part of the reason I switched to playing CEDH from Casual is that even when people are all playing optimized Decks that are around 7 - 8 they tended to complain whenever they see an OG Dual, a Mana Crypt or a Gaea’s Cradle meanwhile they are using Flash Hulk and/or Demonic Consultation with Thassa’s Oracle. Just because your winning combo cost less than 1 card that was used price wise that doesn’t mean it’s less powerful. Casual Commander players (some not all) seem to think what a card’s cost financially is directly correlated to its power. Not all expensive cards are powerful and vice versa. CEDH players could care less if they see cards or combos like those and the community on the whole cares about skill level and interaction as opposed to your wallet. I know a CEDH player who refuses to pay more than 50 for any card so he either purchased suitable substitutes ie. World Championship Deck cards or just bought solid proxies that from the front in a sleeve you wouldn’t be able to tell. It really only seems to be non CEDH players who think you need to break the bank and/or play with cards you actually own or you don’t get to play with them at all. This is really stupid because only pub stompers who want to use really OP stuff to beat lower powered stuff will do that kind of thing and those are people you shouldn’t play with anyway as they are generally toxic individuals. If everyone is on the same power level it shouldn’t matter what cards are in your Deck it should be about how you use them. Casual Commander had way more feel bads, saltiness, people not paying attention and not being engaged in the game and those things ruin the experience. CEDH I have not encountered any of that and I don’t ever have to hear “Ugh why are you using that card it’s not fair to the rest of us” or “OG Duals/Fetch Lands/Tutors why are you such a tryhard optimizing you’re Deck like that?” and my personal fav “Must be nice to be old and have cards from decades ago.” Having a job, budgeting for a hobby I enjoy and acquiring things that are powerful and useful is not something I should EVER have to feel bad about or apologize for. 99% of EDH problems stem from a lack of EFFECTIVE communication. Being confrontational and abrasive is a good way to alienate players and if you do not have a big group of Commander players or even Magic Players in general in your area you’re gonna find yourself not enjoying the game and very quickly looking for another hobby. Proxies aren’t the problem as opposed to not communicating, not paying attention to the game and attitudes in general are the problem. To be fair these are problems I feel you encounter most when you’re playing 7.5 - 8 Power Decks and are trying to find a Pod to play with (if you don’t have a go to group to play with) Usually if your Deck is “weak” and/or not fully optimised you won’t have trouble finding people to play with but the quality of games may not be good since players may not run much interaction and games tend to drag on. Really though all players involved have an obligation to speak up and communicate with the whole group to see what’s best for everyone to have a satisfying game experience. Whether you choose to use blue core or black core cards should be the least of your problems
I mean in my group we have a pretty high powerlevel and a lot of guys have like chains of mephistopheles duals etc. from collecting them/buying them when they were cheaper. They even encourage the newer players to use proxies, if they want to play with them, so everyone can have fun and play on the same powerlevel. As an example my Izoni deck started out with like 70 proxies and after a year and a half i was able to get most cards, like the only ones missing are craterhoof and cabal coffers and one or two others which aren't as expensive. But i don't think i'll buy craterhoof and cabal coffers anytime soon, because i'm not ready to pay that amount of money for two cards on a students budget.
Organizing my advice: Put EVERYTHING on deckbox. So you'll always know what cards you have. Then split your cards into piles of each color, pile for lands, pile for special lands, pile for colorless and pile for no-color. And those piles sort each alphabetically. Then you will always know which cards you have and it will be easy to find them! 😋 Took me 5 hours to organize my collection which became pretty big (above 2,000 cards). And I couldn't be happier. This will save you money and a TON of time in the future. Give it a try 😉
When I proxy its cuz I already own a copy. The only exception to this is dual lands, i owned a playset when they were 50 to 100some and sold them for a car replacement when I crashed and I refuse to buy them back at 800 for 1. Like Josh said duals dont really affect wins much anyways. That being said I always ask new groups if its cool and dont really mind other proxies as long as people still have the power level discussion. I always would rather "play against a player than play against their wallet". That said if you really wanna play tabernacle, the void, mishras, stuff like that just tell people before hand so they dont have the feel bad when you drop it on the table unexpectedly
@@AndrewWoodford Never thought to call them that but I like it. Also, yes please, if your going to do any kinda of proxy make it legible and color. Like Josh said I dont want random scribbled on lands that I constantly have to ask what it is and trust that what you wrote is what it does. Plus I have a better picture memory than name so I see a card and mostly recognize it from memory of what it does.
Me too! I bought mana crypt, mox opal, chrome mox, mana drain, force of will and force of negation, I just made extra copies for my extra decks, I'm not going to buy 6 mana crypts, the prices are INSANE!
the biggest problem i have with temples is that although they are in the flavor of theros, they cant be fetched by spells that would care about temples. they could have had a subtype "temple" like deserts have the subtype "desert"
30:54 How is playing with proxies disrespectful to other players? If you feel that insecure in your purchases you should re-evaluate why you're spending so much money on cards. Let people play how they want to play. If the cards were reasonably priced and Wizards weren't playing games with artifical-scarcity this wouldn't be an issue...
I know it's a year late, but I agree. Proxying is great... I want OG duals but there's no way I could ever afford them at this point. Gaea's cradle like he says - I can't afford that. Fuck it ima proxy it.
As long as proxies are being used outside of organized play and aren't used in conjunction with being obnoxious, I am not going to complain about them. Examples include: All proxy, cEDH stax in a casual pod, proxy Tabernacle & 'forgetting' their own triggers, gloating over wins with a powerful proxied deck, etc.
Re: Phones at Table. There is actually one very good Magic-related use for phones - looking up card text. I am a fairly new player and even if someone shows me card text it is sometimes difficult to remember since all of the cards are effectively new. However, I tell the table I am using my phone for this purpose and not for texting or cat videos, haha.
Exhalted is a good example of being able to look things up on the fly. The rule as it reads on the card is very vague and does not truly demonstrate this abilities true power. I've actually seen people get into fights on tables about it, and use their phones to look up the official rule. And for those that aren't sure about what I'm talking about, "If you declare exactly one creature as an attacker, each exalted ability on each permanent you control (including, perhaps, the attacking creature itself) will trigger. The bonuses are given to the attacking creature, not to the permanent with exalted. Ultimately, the attacking creature will wind up with +1/+1 for each of your exalted abilities." The card just states "if it attacks alone it gets +1/+1." There is no mention of other creatures not attacking with this ability.
I started playing MTG with Kaladesh, commander in 2017, first deck was the precon Cat deck. (which I proceeded to upgrade to the point it was worse than the vanilla deck, buying cards) Since then I've made single card investments in some of the more high priced commander staples. I have exactly 1 copy of each fetch land, 1 mana crypt, 1 Jace , 1 snapcaster etc. Each of those cards are double sleeved and put into a hard plastic top loader I have with me at all times. Then I find some etsy shops and get awesome proxies with cool art to put into my decks that need them. I have yet to find anyone who really gets salty with this setup. I can present the real card to them at anytime. You can also go to Mythic Black Core and print your own proxies using the original artwork, but without the correct set symbols, I just prefer the etsy shops!
An important to thing to mention about proxies and people at the extreme end of things because their are some people with addictive personalities that love to and feel the need to compete in a play group where every deck has a force of will and rhystic study it could also result of that person to go in serious debt to keep up with the Jones's and with hobbies like mtg having higher cases of people with learning disabilities and mental health issues I fear they would potentially take that route if pressured into it so proxies I believe also act as a good failsafe to prevent that. As you see similar things happening with stuff like loot boxes and it's a good way to circumvent said behavior. So I think proxies should be encouraged more than discouraged as I don't want people to go into financial straights because of their mental health issues over a hobby. That is the most important reason why I dislike people hating on proxies as I don't want that demographic people to have something fun to turn into something toxic that is destroying their finances.
If you playgroup has like a force of will in every other deck, that is just miles above counterspell. I think in my opinion the idea to own one of every expensive card you use is wrong because now, its like this huge monetary burden on them to even play if the difference is that big. A lot of people are poor, broke, and stressed. If someone needed to proxy to get up to the tabels level then hell I'd help them do it honestly. I could understand this opinion 8 years ago when to get to %85 would cost you $100 but in this day and age, almost all %85 are +$500 or at least all my decks are. I wish I could sell my magic collection and run 100% proxies so that I could finally afford to buy a car, but I can't because then I would lose the last hobby I have left in my life
This is pretty much my opinion too, I want people to be able to express themselves as best they can and not have budget limit them from trying out their neat. mishra deck just because one of the cards needed to play him optimally costs 600 or so bucks or just for a person to have a stable mana base so they do not have to pay an arm and a leg just to be able consistently have their decks work.
I think the advice given in the podcast is good *general* advice. Yours is more a case by case. If I have a friend who cannot afford to keep up with the play group, I'm 100% okay with them running a bunch of proxies. But when its someone who *can* afford to keep up with the group and is using proxies to stay ahead, then I do not like it.
@@ladycthuwu I disagree with that sentiment even if they could afford it considering some singles cost the same as a video game they could have otherwise enjoyed or a payment towards a badass holiday. If printing out "fake cards" leads them to have more money to do more things they love to do and even if buying that card does not take them into debt I do not care whether or not the person chooses to buy a card or not. If you as an individual feel happy from paying fifty bucks for a piece of cardboard then great! You do you but I want my friends to do more fun things outside of the hobby and still have the freedom to make whatever badass decknthey want and get as much enjoyment they can out of their life. That is what matters to me not the secondary market of cards and big rich sellers getting richer out of another's hobby. As a person who cares about the enjoyment of others I believe this to be the best approach.
@@ladycthuwu Plus by discouraging proxies in general is going to have a negative impact towards people with spending issues and anxiety issues. Combined together like I did I was too shy to ask about proxies and almost got into debt because proxies where looked down upon because of it until I near broke down an explained and proxies where from then on allowed regardless of an individual's circumstances. So if I can afford anxiety issues by saying yes everyone can proxy and that's ok and create a safer environment for those with such problems it's a win for me a prevention of an issue is better than someone breaking down into debt to keep hold of one of the few social groups they may have .
i think i understand your situation, and imo proxies are completely fine if you're communicating. there are also other options. the playgroup could make a few budget decks to make the decks more even, and certainly if they like playing with each other they would mind making a few 50 $ or lower cost decks. it's just a matter of what is the easiest route to take, or what ppl are willing to do. imo the budget deck option is what i could go for bcs not all playgroups are fine with proxies, so if someone goes into their lgs with their only deck that happens to have proxies in it, that player could run into some problems.
It's not about the General, but about making the deck kind of "self-playing". So no tutors, not a lot of very situational cards, decent amount of draw and other small spells that always have a target. Just decks where emptying your hand is more or less always the right thing to do. The Anje-deck from C19 is such a deck. Understand what Madness does and you're ready to have some fun regardless of whether or not you understand what is going on on the table.
I'm on a fixed income due to my disability so I can't afford to buy a lot of cards. I recently received the original dual lands in proxies. I don't think that it is wrong to play them at my LGS. I could never afford these cards but I like to play them. I don't consider them counterfeit as long as I let people know that I am using a few proxies in my deck.
Theres nothing wrong with having proxies especially for cards that go for 300$ on the low side. I hope your enjoying them and domt let people get ya down.
I don't see the need for proxy original duals unless it is cedh. Just use shocks. If you can't afford shocks then maybe proxy shocks, but if my deck has real shocks and I am playing someone with fake og duals I would be slightly annoyed, they have given themselves an advantage over others through the use of proxies.
I see your point Ben, however I don't have any fetch lands or proxies of them. I just happened to get these dual lands sent to me in the mail and I don't even remember entering a contest for them. Mind you I have a poor memory due to my disability.
@@jimmay8282 The fact that you have fake duals doesn't mean you have to use them. Use shocks, not got shocks? Use tap lands or extra basics. Having limited income and a disability sucks and i feel for you but you shouldn't use it to justify using fake cards that give you an unfair advantage, albeit only a slight one over the people who have maybe saved up to buy real shock lands. Unless all of your playgroup are high rollers and have their own real og duals? If you are playing cEdh then please disregard this entirely and use proxies, i see no issue with it there as the point is to push power level to the absolute max, but am unconvinced it is needed in casual whatever the circumstances, especially for something like og duals where shocks are almost as good. Even Gaea's cradle, you have alternatives now with growing rites of itlamoc or you could use a gold border cradle.
@@bantcm yeah no im also on disability and im not allowed to make more money or i work for free, i dont have the ability to save more. you can work an extra shift, i cant. because i was injured by someone else i can never play magic beyond pauper? screw that. if its not an event with prizes or a ranking its for fun and a handful of proxies mean little.
My playgroup's deals rules are that you can cancel a deal but you have to give the person a fill turn cycle of warning (so basically you need to break it on your end step and cannot actually do anything against them until your next turn). It makes you consider whether breaking it is really worth it as they will "get the first hit"
My own playgroup allows proxies as long as they're used reasonably and they still have to be actual physical cards, whether it's an etsy thing or gold border. We also have a points list similar to Canadian Highlander and a set limit for deck inclusions, on top of other agreed house rules for the group. Maintaining the meta of the group is most important for us, and naturally when we go out to public events we have non-proxied decks or swaps for proxies when it's needed.
I've always been conflicted about purchasing a good mana base. It's a great investment for the future because those lands will be useful forever (barring some crazy messed up world in which WotC goes nuts and makes better lands than the shocks/fetches). However, playing lands is just not as satisfying as resolving cool spells, or activating abilities. To use a Starcraft analogy: your SCVs are SO essential and you should protect them, but it's the Siege Tanks, Battlecruisers, Goliaths, and Medic/Marines that give you the satisfaction of blowing away your opponent.
Well even if you are correct about having a good mentality about others haveing more expensive cards, people do tend to win the more expensive cards they have in their decks. MTG is and always will be pay2win. I mean i would really like to see someone "outsmart" someone else with a Serra angel vs a Lyra Dawnbringer.
I'm definitely more partial to proxies, myself owning some pretty customs of Power Nine and more expensive cards that I use in my Cube, but in Commander, I apply the social contract and say that if you're using proxies as an excuse to bring a much more powerful deck to a lower-powered table that's probably not too cool. If the proxies are pretty enough to pass as custom magic cards and you play Commander in a socially responsible manner, I'd love to see the sort of customs you dredged up from the corners of the Internet and/or from your own printer.
Im very OCD. so if my cards dont all have the same style and frame i get anxious and then even get a headache. so i proxy my cards so my old ones match newer styles. I also will test out a deck in proxy form before getting cards for it. right now i can afford to make a 50 dollar deck maybe once every 2 months. so im not wasting money on a deck ill hate. and im not making anything more expensive then like 6 dollars unless its a commander.
i think that when your arguing about proxies, you need to know that some people just don't make that much money or are still in school, does that mean that they need to play less powerful magic or needto put magic on the first place? after all, mtg is just a game and you can play it without needing to spent that much money, just use your money for the important things first, and after that for your hobby.
@@pascalmj I just print them out with mtgpress.com or something. But I also have the luck of having an uncle that plays mtg and I can use all of his cards, so yeah a lot of luck
Well when you buy a card you’re paying the people who are making this awesome game. In my opinion if you don’t want to spend money just find janky counterparts. It’s fun to actually find weird/original cards and show them at the table, rather than just printing out the most optimal cards.
@@johndelaney5173 When you buy a reserved list card, or even just a card that's out of print (REPRINT FETCHLANDS YOU COWARDS), you won't pay WotC in the process. In fact, unless you're buying Secret Lairs or sealed product then your money is going into the pockets of the secondary market! That money may eventually make its way to Wizards in the form of buying sealed product to crack and sell as singles, but in a lot of cases that's not the case. (Cardmarket is a somewhat closed ecosystem at times, for example.)
Exactly, having elsha and tatyova, i care way less about the mana of fetchlands, but MUCH more about the extra landdrop/shuffle (and graveyard for underworld breach). It is *insane* how much value fetchlands give in a lot of decks. (think of korvold, gitrog, titania, any deck with brainstorm really...)
Question about proxies, what about proxying cards that has no buisness being pricey like forest bear, a common front kingdom 3 portal that's 35 bucks and only that price cause of 1 deck?
I mention this in a comment earlier about the fact that cards prices are out of our control and are based solely on the fact that WOTC doesn't give us the reprints we want and need. Looking down on someone or making them feel bad about the fact that they can't justify to themselves spending above a certain about of money on a piece of cardboard when they have bills to pay is wrong. If using a proxy is going to ensure that everyone at the table is having fun and being a relevant player in the match, it should be allowed.
I have a clone deck. All about copying my opponents stuff. It has a few proxies. Copy artifact ($40). Copy enchantment ($10). Stuff like that. These aren’t power 9 cards. I’m not doing broken combos with them. They just fit my theme but are too expensive for me. Not fault that copy artifact is on the reserved list.
RE: Proxies Literally boils down to 1 thing. HOUSE RULES - if your house allows it, cool (ex. my house rule - max of 3 proxies per deck, no lands [doesn't include "proxies" of a card you already own]) - if your friend's house doesn't allow it, cool - if your LGS allows it, cool - if your LGS doesn't allow it, cool - if you don't like where it is/isn't allowed, find somewhere else, or make your own house rules and host Commander and MTG in general is a casual game that some people like to take seriously sometimes. This is only an issue because of the nature of TCGs. You can't proxy in MTGO or MTGA. Be cool, have fun. If it's not fun, don't play, or communicate and compromise so it's fun again. //rant
@@blaze556922 Agree. This is coming from a yugioh player. Sometimes cards can get expensive most of the players don't really have a budget for it. It also good idea to ask for the house rules since that's what's really boils down to.
Totally agreeing on the proxy point! We have kinda of a "rule" in our playgroup, which is, if you already have ordered the card or you know that you are going to trade it in (you have already made plans with someone to trade), its fine to proxy the card.
I play with proxies in all of my decks. Every card I proxy is a card I own. I just want to have 10+ decks without having to own 10 sol rings, 10 sets of shocklands, etc...
It's kind of weird hearing them argue that Pay-To-Win is a good thing. Just because someone paid more money than me doesn't mean they deserve to win. In a casual setting they're just choosing to invest more in paper. I've had people with 100% legit decks bring power 8 decks to power 6 tables. Were they in the right because their deck was proxieless? Fuck no. The problem isn't proxying it'self, it's a-holes who choose to make decks, proxies or no, of a high power-level and then choose to stomp on lower power tables when they know that's not how the table wants to play.
Jimmy: Proxies are okay so long as you're just testing 1-2 cards. Me: my 100% necessary $650 mana base for my Marchesa the Black Rose My friends: yep, that makes sense.
The biggest fallacy of the command zone is that you only deserve to play certain cards if you can afford them. They love to often equate a proxied deck to an unfair over powered deck. The issue is never the proxies but the difference in power level. If I bring a cedh deck proxied or all legit and stomp over casual decks its not a fun environment. Play the player and not their wallet. The investment side of MTG turns a card game into making money which makes the paywall into building 7-8 level decks challenging.
I think the comment at 34:26 is a bit disingenuous. A card's value is typically directly related to how powerful it is as a game piece. Obviously, this is not always true as there are other reasons for a card to be expensive and/or they could be misevaluated. Additionally, the more expensive deck doesn't always win, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be playing with what are perceived as better cards.
I proxy cards for my playgroup and I have some rules I think are good guidelines 1) only proxy what you already own and don’t want to buy again. Eg Eldrazi Titans, teferi’s protection, etc. things that are expensive that you don’t want to keep spending money on. the exception to this rule is cEDH where you can proxy whatever for testing. 2) don’t trade them passing them off as real. I mitigate this already by having the backs say PROXY THE GATHERING on them 3) while proxies are OK in our group, ask any new players if they’re ok with you using proxies. If they’re not, then don’t play that deck or don’t play with them (the player) Overall it’s led to a lot more deck building (we’ve even got a legacy pod now because we proxies 4 legacy decks) and more fun playing commander because we’ve eliminated the price gap. 100% necessary for the commander format as a whole
i did really like how the editing was done in the edhrec podcast, it was the first time i saw it and it looked wonderful, and have now watched some of their backlog :} good job all of you :D
I have to disagree with the proxies sentiment. Reserved list cards will never go down in value and supply will forever be decreasing unless they go around it and clone an og dual but it only works if you have a commander. Same with power 9 but again noone would buy a 5k black lotus for a "casual" format. They ban those cards based on their cost prohibitiveness more than anything. Unless you are playing in an official event for money, why not let people play with those cards. Just look at sol ring being available for everyone; it never hurt the format and gives everyone a good feeling of playing with real power.
@@CartoreAOS valid point. however, a person can choose to put sol ring or not because its available; if everyone had og duals like command tower then they will slot it in any deck and it doesnt make sense not to for the sake of being unique. regardless the point i am making is that people who love playing edh will spend money to a reasonable amount. they can splurge on good looking proxies instead. they even made a point that they only own one copy and proxy the rest because of the price so even whales have limits. people just have sunk cost fallacy for tcgs and its a dangerous trap; dont pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a piece of cardboard
If someone breaks a deal, he better win on the spot or I will use all my resources to bring him down, no matter if I lose, he will lose before I do : P
I like to make deals with the scariest player at the table... he will protect me and kill my enemies while I build up the resources for his downfall...
Kenrith is a good deal maker commander whenever you are running low on advantage and his red ability is ridiculous on the table because it basically reads,. prevent all damage o you kill target player that threatens you most if you politic it well. ;)
I can’t ever bring myself to take apart my decks because there are always so many cards unique to that deck that I know I wouldn’t use anywhere else, so it feels highly wasteful to buy they key unique pieces for a deck and then disassemble it for the staples it contains
In regard to proxies, ask your playgroup/LGS if it's okay. Personally, I support any Wizards made product being allowed in commander as long as it respects the ban list and typical legal formality. Have a gold bordered card? Use it. Have specialty artist blanks? Use it. Additionally if you commission custom artwork of your favorite card, use it. My friend knows a local artist, and asked them to design a full set of tokens, and custom full art basics that themed into his Teysa deathharmonicon/token deck. Technically not legal, but our LGS allows it, and they are cool to see.
JLK and Jimmy saying that anyone can be on GameKnights regardless of followers, subscribers, etc. reminds me of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber when he gleefully exclaims "So I have a chance!!!!!!"
Dude then get in touch with them if you wanna and suggest a cEDH game knighs episode or something unique that they might want to give a try. :) I love your deck brews and if it's something you wanna try getting in contact with them is your best chance Would suggest by letter along with an email possibly though because I imagine they get a tonne of emails about game knights stuff. :P
@@ecos889 Thanks for the support! I'll definitely test my luck and contact them when I live closer to LA than I do now. Traveling there from here is quite the expense. So I want to make it as likely as possible. Who knows? Maybe The Commander Tavern will be large enough by then :P
Hey guys, fun fact about what you spoke about in the End Step, Hunters - I got to hang around on the set! The Synagogue scenes in the first three episodes were filmed in my synagogue so I just walked over, tried not to get in anyone's way, and watched the filming. It was pretty incredible to get a glimpse at film-making behind the scenes. I couldn't believe how much tech and people were involved. Josh, I'm glad you're enjoying the show!
About 6 months ago I did a deck purge, I figured out my favorite 5 decks and tore apart my other 9. This was hard at first but extremely useful! I was able to gain access to tons of cards I never wanted to buy 2nd copies of and build new commanders that I strayed away from because of things like, "I already have 2 simic decks"
I'm a warehouse worker. I can't afford most of the more powerful cards, especially more expensive cards. I'm also part time male model, so I have to keep fit and that's pretty expensive too. Proxies let me enjoy what I love on my limited budget. Some of my decks are heavier in proxies (like Golos), others like Kethis just have 3 OG Dual proxies. It's a matter of personal income. I always write down everything to do with the card on paper, I make art for my proxies, sometimes its original interpretations of the card, like a few of my Mana Crypts, other times its parody or joke art, like my Karn Liberated who is saying he's too large for the card frame.
I get what your saying but at a magic fest or a LGS playing a card that you don't own and don't have intentions of buying is flat out counterfeits imo but if your just playing with your playgroup have fun
@@williamcarswell3012 I play with my "counterfeit" decks constantly at my LGS and everyone accepts them. I'd buy the cards if I could but again, struggling model. Fitness is expensive too.
Not sure if Jimmy and Josh will see this. Hi BTW! With regards to proxies. Own an original copy. You can proxy them in a sleeve (I typically print my proxy to be full art, photo paper quality, and try to make them feel similar to a sleeved card with some paper backing when they are sleeved), and take out the original to be placed on the field over it when needed (these cards are usually in ultra pro top loaders. Typically I use them for permanents. Spell wise, if needed I will ensure all my deck uses the same sleeves, and I mark my inner sleeves with stickers (small dots of different colours) and sort them out at the end of each game to be place into a common pile and rebuilding a deck just involve me finding cards of i.e. Red sticker colour and slap them into deck A, etc. With regards to expensive proxies There are always (almost) alternatives for cards that are way lower in the budget. Magic after all isn't pay to win. Budget decks can own expensive decks too. Therefore, only proxy when you have the original and just don't want to have too many copies cause they are too expensive. Anyone having other views on this? Cheers.
I do the what I call "MTGO style" proxies a lot. I own a copy of all the cards I proxy but I usually don't own more than 1 or enough for all the decks I want to use them in. I'll do this all the way down to Sol Rings. I own maybe 5 or 6 Sol Rings but I have something like 15 or 16 decks put together even though I don't really play them all. I really enjoy working on new decks all the time. The thing I've been thinking about working on now is trying to get away from doing sharpie on a basic land. I need to set up my printer and figure out how to print some quality proxies.
Our LGS follows our leader Brian. His opinion is that if you're trying to buy the card. ie:If you're not willing to buy an original dual, then you can't proxy it. Some reasons for not being able to buy a card include being poor (like me) or unable to find a copy available.
RE: when to play boundless realms. I love landfall so i would never make a Tatyova deck without landfall. Doesn't the player who asks the question mean when to play it with a landfall deck? Do i just play it do draw and ramp a lot or do i wait for my Roil Elemental or Avanger of Zendikar? Because ramping and draw will give me a lot of resources but then i barely have any lands in my deck for my landfall triggers. My own awnser would be, your way to win is landfall so wait for a good landfall trigger which sticks (not the until end of turn effects)
It was my question, yes and no. I wanted to see what's the community's opinion is about it with two parameters: Should I wait and get more lands? Should I wait and get more value from those lands?
i would say that playing it straight away (if the board state allows it) would be better. not only will you have more chances to play 2 7 mana spells but also you will probably have more mana. 7 lands with 4 more turns to play means 28 mana. while 10 with only 2 turns means 20. the only reason why i wouldn't play it is if i dont have anything to use the mana on. then i would make sure Tatyova was out@@גליורמן
@@SteveWacken but what about other staff with landfall? Usually, I will first cast roil elemental, Avenger of Zendikar or another big landfalls payoffs. But should I wait a turn to play Retreat to Coralhelm or another smaller landfall payoff?
I think that your shouldn't wait for the smaller effects. Those are not gonna win you the game. If you just love some effect, ofcourse play that first. The only exection on that which I can think of would be lotus cobra because that will make boundless realms basically free
no be honest i had no idea boundless realms even existed before watching this episode so i havent had all the time to think about it. but this logic is what i use on rampant growth effects
20:15 I have an opinion on this point, Magic is an interesting and engaging game, but the moment that someone feels they lose that engagement is when the phones come out. This isn't necessarily a callout to stax or control, (mostly because those decks end their turns fast), but more for decks that can become dominant quickly but can't get the finish quickly. Decks like Muldrotha, Edgar Markov, or Korvold can be imposing enough to be dominant but not powerful enough to end the game for several turns and oftentimes have tons of options and lines available to them, making that player's turn take several times longer than the turns of the players around them. Part of the fun of the game is being able to work around and with other players to stop problems from warping the game, but if a voltron commander gets locked out by a Meren, (for example), it's not hard to see why the player would take out their phone and start up their app of choice. The easy solution is don't play those commanders, but that's a bad answer and should never be your goto. The "git gud" argument is also just as bad; some decks and strategies just have bad matchups. I personally like to put "I win" cards into the deck that don't do much on their own unless I'm in a pretty advantageous position. Being able to end a game rather than durdle for an hour is worth the efficiency, in my opinion.
"Mitch doesn't feel that his decks perform differently because of cost" Then why does he make content that advocates for the banning of expensive cards? He makes all kinds of videos about haves and have nots in edh, even going so far as to create a fictitious character "maxillion" who plays cards because they're expensive and denegrates that character. If he doesn't feel that way, then why does he continually go after expensive cards for being a bad thing.
@Milkshake Of Death yeah, I agree that he does pander to his audience on this topic. The primary driver of his stance on duals is cost. 'let's ban 10 Commander cards', timestamp 38:50. Now, one can make the argument that keeping cost down is good for the format, but I would argue that if your decks are balanced and you feel they're balanced, then it doesn't matter whether other decks have expensive cards. I think it's a hard thing to ban stuff in Commander. I really like that there is a format where you can play almost any card.
I like the "how often do you take apart your decks" question. I have a handful of decks (Ur Dragon, Teysa Orzhov Scion, Animar, Raff Capashen) that are basically constantly improving towards being that 2% better. Whereas i've been screwing around with Kazarov, Torbran, Niv Mizzet, Yarok, and a couple other decks for my friend group that's usually lower power. (I currently have 10 commander decks sleeved and ready to play)
I had a cool idea for a R/W commander: [Cardname] ---- 1RRW Legendary Creature - Goblin Warrior Afflict X where X is the number of attacking creatures you control. Whenever [Cardname] deals combat damage to a player, if you have less than 6 cards in hand, draw cards equal to the difference, then discard a card at random. 2/4
@@TheVargaszm I like the idea. My only hesitation with that is that it would possibly be a bit pushed. Also, at 4 toughness it's not going to die to a Bolt or something. Another thing to consider is that you would ideally be making a Boros token deck, so running white enchantments that give all creatures +1/+1 would be a good thing, so his base power/toughness isn't as big a deal. But ya, Haste would be a good include for sure.
I proxy in two ways. A.) I am working on getting the card, but my deck needs it, I.E. my mana crypt is in the mail or I am waiting until next paycheck. B.) I proxy EVERY card in a deck all at once, and play with that for a month before I even attempt to buy any card for it. Magic is expensive, and I am willing to put in the money to play decks I enjoy. I own 99% of the fast mana, every fetch shock and dual, i bought and play a Bazaar of Baghdad in my deck, as well as mishra's workshop and all the cards for my janky mono white rebel deck. But if I want to build a deck that makes me buy a 300$ card, or a lot of 100$ cards, I am not buying those if they don't go into multiple decks unless I KNOW FOR A FACT that I am going to play and keep that deck.
I like, how the editor showed us who "The rock" is) As if he's a magic card, mentioned. Would be funny to see his stats though, and to know what he's cooking
Odric, Lunarch Marshal is a good first commander. It's only one color so organizing mana is not confusing, you learn a lot of terms based on the cards you play, it helps show the effect each card you play has on the rest of your battlefield, it has a lot of life gain, and attacking is a big thing so it's a lot of fun for younger players. Add in creatures like Danitha, Zetalpa, Gingerbrute, and Seraph of the Dawn to get access to all of those abilities, add planeswalkers like Teyo, The Wanderer, and Ajani to show how planeswalkers work, add in instants like Increasing Devotion to explain tokens (who then get all of the abilities via Odric). You can also add equipment like Basilisk Collar, Mace of the Valiant, And Swiftfoot Boots to give all of your creatures those abilities and teach about equipment. It's a really fun and reliable deck to play :)
My playgroup let me play out my Anje Falkenrath infinite combo. We sat there for a solid 15 minutes as a discarded, drew and untapped looking for the second to last card.
On Proxies: A couple for playtesting sure, but I expect you to buy/trade the card if you keep playing that deck. The MTG/TCG hobby is collect the cards, not print the cards. There are allot of other options of building a Commander deck (Commander's Quarters had great examples) that don't require you to spend loads of money on a fun deck. Build your collection, borrow a deck, and proxie only with intend to buy or rotate it out if it doesn't work for you. I also see this in some comments: people running close to whole decks of proxies. Imho, and where my gripe with proxies stems from: Never play (close to) a full deck of proxies, and this is a real life example (non-commander): playgroup started from scratch, almost no cards abouve $10 in any decks, and then a newcommer wants to join with a World Championship Deck (not allot of fun was had those games, mostly everyone was annoyed by the power of the deck, the person playing the deck didn't understand the fuss). Someone just ruined the game with a $25 dollar deck, while others invested $100's on barely working decks (yes we where beginners back then).
When it comes to proxies I say use whatever you want, just match the power of the table. You should always do that proxies or not. For example I have two CEDH decks that are not proxied at all. If I sit down at a table and see my openers pull out precons I’m not gonna play those so I proxied out two mid tier and one low tier deck that I can use to play with others. You match the power level so everyone can enjoy the game. How much money you have, or don’t have, should never effect your ability to play with friends. At its core EDH is a social event.
Couldn't have said it better
Yes. When I hear people complaining about proxy, they are usually actually complaining about a power mismatch. Proxy cards play the exact same as real cards and the power mismatch is bad regardless if they are proxy or not. The problem has nothing to do with proxy cards. In fact, proxy cards may actually fix a power mismatch. You have to work with your play group and find the power balance that is most fun for all.
Very well said sir!
Exactly, not everyone has hundreds of dollars, just match powerlevel
For hand written proxies, I insist that they have hand drawn illustrations as well.
I like to do my hand drawings similar to the play-test cards from mystery booster convention edition.
Agreed, I have all of mine in theme with the deck.
I draw a mean stick figure. We're talking Da Vinci level stick figures boys and girls. Even CGP Grey wants a body like the stick figure bodies I scrawl on my proxies.
I've started making proxies with my only rule being that I own the card, I just don't want to buy 4-5 copies of a $50 card to put in several decks
I bought blank cards and I put the name, mana cost, type, and effect on each card, complete with hilariously awful drawings all made from sharpie lmao
You're lucky if my hand written proxies have full words on it.
There is only one time when I thought breaking a deal was an acceptable thing to do: my friend was playing a pirate deck.
I was of course salty at first, but then he looked right at me and said "Never trust a pirate."
I immediately realized my own foolish mistake. And now I silently laugh to myself every time he makes a deal with anyone else while using that deck, because I know what's about to happen.
Jimmy: "Shocks are down in price"
Meanwhile Breeding Pool.
Literally got mine for 12$ sold them for 23$ a piece feels good
I remember I opened one for Christmas and was like "Sweet, now I can add this and my Stomping Ground to my Animar deck. Just gotta buy a Steam vents. Thats gunna hurt cause vents is the most expensive shock.
A week later I made a Vannifar deck and got slapped in the face when I saw the cost of a breeding pool. So turns out Steam Vents aint so bad...
Breeding pool is the one shock I dont have
Just got a $25 deck box for my Animar and then realized that one card in the deck now costs the same lol
A disgusting lack of attention to such a fundamental aspect of the game since rosewater was hired and pain lands replaced og duals... a true and profound disgust
My playgroup plays with fully proxied decks due to life circumstances. We want to play and have fun, we have played with "power" and thats our style and we just cant afford it with our monthly bills that we each have. For us it works, we still buy magic to have fun drafts, however our choice for commander is proxies. I think that just depends on the playgroup though because we all are fine doing it since we can play whatever we want and enjoy it, yet we don't try to bring our decks to LGS's because we don't want to offend others that did spend the money. We welcome others to play with us with the warning that almost all of our decks are between $1000 - $10,000+, and they tend to have fun as well since it creates games they likely never played before.
I’m pretty much at the tip top of collections... I welcome Proxies so much! Just play magic with me!
Straight up. It's weird how people ignore the class implications of people being addicted to magic, with pay to win elements, because players are priced out of the game. Turns out more people are interested in challenging peoples' wallets than their minds than I thought.
On your comments on Proxies and negative emotions can't the same thing be said about your feelings when someone is using proxies? "Oh they just use proxies and are "pub stomping"? I think if they are pub-stomping that is the problem, not the proxies. Whatever someone needs to do to afford to play the game imho. Personally I enjoy collecting and spend my money accordingly. But if someone is deciding between using proxies and not playing at all, why are we locking them out of a casual format?
Thats less an issue with the proxies and more an issue with a difference in powerlevels. You can proxy your dual lands and your tutors and your fast mana, its just the only fair decks I have to play against those are monoblue and slivers...so ima play slivers.
I've never seen proxies 'unlocking' the format for someone. You'll probably never see anyone proxy a
@@suikodin2501 Yes, Budget decks can compete. But you have to spent a lot more time on budget decks. And some people neither have time nor money. In my playgroup, people use proxies to get to the same levels as the other people who spent a lot of money. Or just to do silly stuff. I have a medium sized collection, but I love it to bring new silly decks as often as possible. And simply using proxies makes that a lot easier. I have a Adun Oakenshield Reanimator Deck, that uses about 70 % proxies, because my idea was to only use old border cards and I don't have much of those.
I think we should actually be pissed off more at the rich bitches that go out and spend tons of money on uber powerful cards and throw them all in their decks to completely stomp all over their playgroup, which ultimately promotes people who can't afford those cards to go buy proxies to be competitive and not look pathetic at the table the next time!
@@coryledwitch6492 yes exactly! Rich people stomping everyone with overpowered decks is fine? But poor people proxying the same overpowered deck and stomping everyone is somehow not fine?
It's not fine in both cases, and it's because the problem are not the proxies, but the power level.
Let people proxy whatever they want, and just discuss about power level, like you would do with decks using "real" cards.
How to optimise land base:
Play mono coloured commander
😂
i still put plenty of colorless lands in mono colored decks
play more basics!
But snow basics are expensive
@@michaelogara9056 I just bought 30 snow forests for $0.20 on tcg player
I'm fine with people using proxies regardless of their status as counterfeit or not. I hold myself to the same standard as what Josh and Jimmy are saying, I only have proxies of cards that I own. I'm guessing that for Josh and Jimmy to maintain their relationship with Wizards, advocating for wanton proxy creation wouldn't be a good thing. So if that's the case, of course their position is understandable and necessary.
However, not letting people play with proxies for monetary reasons is inherently classist. Magic the Gathering is a business, but from a gaming point of view, money shouldn't determine access to cards.
Well said!
It's a casual format, let people just play and enjoy the game with whatever card or proxy they want!
Exactly. Which is why my playgroup will start counterfeiting cards.
@@fandomewhisper this.
The only time I don't like proxies is if the only reason you use proxies is to make the deck competitive as my play group only plays casual
@@fandomewhisper - I'm all for proxies and imo the issue they're complaining about has to do with the power level of the decks they're mis-attributing to the use of proxies, but counterfeiting is another topic entirely, and one they _also_ botched horribly in the video.
If you print a Taiga on your ink jet on standard printer paper with no back and slot it into a sleeve in front of a token or basic, that's a proxy, full stop. If you never intend to replace it, it's still a proxy, despite what they're saying in the video. If you're getting it from someone advertising as "tournament playable" who prints the original art and back on as similar cardstock as possible who is trying make it indistinguishable? That's counterfeit.
Again, I don't have any issues with proxying, but trying to pass it off as real - especially when it comes to trading - I definitely take issue with. And unfortunately, buying these from the sellers that make them with the intent to use as proxies only props up the actual counterfeit market :/
I like how your argument against proxies is, "Even though we have large expansive collections someone else has even larger ones."
That’s not a very good argument against proxies though.
@@senuah yeah its piss poor
That was ridiculous by Josh. He made zero point with that argument and it ended with "Let's not compare to others
Let's be happy" koombayah 🤣
I see he gets a lot of product from Wizards and Ultra Pro. They have clearly built their studio and channel up from the ground. I doubt they’re saying what they normally would off camera. If they spoke their mind, it could potentially ruin their channel and relationship with Wizards and Ultra Pro.
@Repeat Aftermeme This is why I don't even look at their reviews because I know they are not allowed to speak a single bad word so they're untrustworthy.
I would suggest these for reprints:
1. Battlebond lands & include missing combinations
2. Mana Rocks that are 0-2 cmc and good (signets/talismans)
3. Win Cons: Craterhoof/Expropiate/Lab Maniac/Rise of the Dark Realms
4. Powerful Draw spells: Rhystic Study/ Consecrated Sphinx/Remora
5. Powerful Commanders: Urza/Yawgmoth/Atraxa/Meren/etc
I believe these are what most people would appreciate as they represent the best of the best, and the battlebond stuff had some amazing ideas for commander, I wonder whywe haven't seen more of that. Hopefully we will in Commander Legends
A lot of these cards and other commander staples are getting reprinted in the wpn (lgs) exclusive mystery boosters.
IMO every single shock and fetch land should be reprinted constantly.
Every 3rd set should be one of the 2 so they are always in rotation for standard.
As a couple other comments have pointed out, choosing to oust proxy players just favors the idea of pay to win. It might not matter in every playgroup, but it certainly matters in some, and if you know people who like to bring higher power decks to lower power tables and happen to have a rather luxurious amount of finances enabling them to do so (I know people like this), the idea that they get to play powerhouse decks and everyone else has to suffer because of budget is just ridiculous.
The object of the game is to have fun. As long as people aren't abusing proxies to be the deck that pubstomps, and are instead using those proxies to keep parity with their playgroup, barring them from using proxies just inherently devalues the proxy players because of their personal budget. That seems very wrong to me, especially when they could have a whole gamut of life issues that prevents them from justifying dropping money into buying what amounts to painted paper.
I couldn't agree harder with this.
I agree.
i agree, but one thing to take into account is that it can go both ways. the person with a lot of money could make a 50$ deck to play with the person with not a lot of money to spend on cards.
i think - like you said - that the object of the game is to have fun, and thus if you're communicating with your playgroup proxies are fine. but if the person is a player you're playing with often, they probably don't mind making a few budget decks to level the playing field.
but it's just a matter of what the player determine to be the best course of action, and for some people it might be proxies, but imo that shouldn't be the first option.
@@kuru9157 If the rest of the group are willing to pare down to a budget deck, I agree. That hasn't been my experience with most players though.
@@xLeechcraftx yeah, i've only played in group, so that's probably true : /
The Command Zone: don't buy cards, go buy a mattress.
Also the Command Zone: proxies aren't ok
Basic rule of thumb I heard once and now practice: Don't skimp on anything that comes between you and the ground: mattress, shoes, desk chair (especially if you work in an office), tires, etc.
@@cyruseli they aren't
The '7 or 8 hours' part made me laugh XDD
I tap soul ring and play my Mattress onto the field in defense mode. Your move, Ash Ketchum.
Literally, my group is ok with proxies as long as they look nice, because not everyone has money. Piont blank. I've met two people who have pub stomped, both of which owned all their cards. One was expensive, the other was midrange cost. That elitist attitude of "its disrespectful " to be poor? Like, it's a card game. They are like $0.20 per card to make. They shouldn't be hundreds of dollars for 100 cards.
Agreed. You need disposable income to play this game. If you live paycheck to paycheck, it's brutal getting a real deck together.
Yeah, i think part of the issue is when people go over board with it. Like you can make a pretty reasonable deck for 100-200 bucks. There are some very good budget decks for
@@MikeJones-we8pb How would it be any better if I sat down with a deck that was way above the power level of the rest of the table but I owned all of them and none of them were proxied? What difference does it make whether the cards are real or not? That is a powerlevel issue not a proxy issue. Proxies even have the edge here because you can swap them out for other cards with minimal monetary loss and less feel bads.
@@MikeJones-we8pb Like if proxy guy with OG duals, timetwister, mana drain etc won the lottery and bought all of the cards for his proxy deck would that suddenly make it okay? No, the problem is still the same.
@@liamfoote7164 So that was part of my poi t. Unless you play group is running decks that average 3 grand each, have no reason to proxy that much value. A big part of commander is being able to use old cards from your collection that you cant use in other formats. Alot of those cards have value due to age. Pick a expensive card and there is a budget alternative. You are choosing to save money not by building on a budget but by using a bunch of fake cards. If I own a expensive card I opened 10 years ago and get to have some fun with it and get the small reward of playing with it after holding onto it why wouldnt it be annoying if someone else prints off a copy of it I stead of just running a cheaper card.
Your just looking at it from a overall power level perspective but really you can achieve similar results with budget cards. Mana drain is great. Counterspell does a very similar job at a fraction of the price. If you dont have or cant afford a mana drain just run counter spell.
You dont have to have the best version of every card to have fun or do well.
About proxies: most guys at my team need them if we wanna test out cEDH Decks.
Outside of that, i got only one player that play full Proxies and he do well with that, cause it helps our group to see some Cards we dont have and he tryes to balance them in the power our group can play.
I prefer playing with someone that has full proxies and is on the groups powerlvl then someone that outpowers everyone, cause he had the luck to start earlyer so he hasnt to pay that much money then we do, to reach his power^^. Luckyly my Group is nice to each and we manage to find ways to play out our different powerhouse-decks.
That is one of the biggest discrepancies between cEDH and casual EDH. Most cEDH players don't care about proxies: they want to see skill, not bling. It also doesn't help that many of the staples of the subformat are bankbreaking. They want to see what you're made of, and that a wallet shouldn't prevent you from having fun.
Casual EDH players are more sensitive about that, but answers vary wildly: Some don't care at all, some don't care about others using them but they will never use them themselves, some allow a limited number or certain proxies - establishing boundaries -, and some are a hard no.
My playgroup is very comfortable with proxies, probably because of me. I was also able to get my roommates to proxy cards when they previously were in the "you can but I won't" group.
The two rules that Josh mentioned are actually my personal rules on proxies, and have been for three years, and I have yet to meet anyone who reasonably opposes them. I believe they are solid enough for most groups. They're permissive but also restrictive. Also, regarding Jimmy's comment on respect, these rules do not necessarily show disrespect. Some people are higher on the job food chain and can therefore dish out more for cards. Yes, it's a product that must be purchased, but most of the time one is buying singles. WotC already profited from the sale of whatever card you're looking for, so it's not disrespectful to the makers, either. Again, the wallet should not be a barrier to fun. This isn't a microtransaction game.
@@PaoloSilverInzaghi A casual EDH-player myself, I'd say it depends. There are players at my LGS who frequently print out new decks to try the idea, then slowly collect into them if they want to keep the deck. I'm not a fan of printer Magic, but I can live with that kind of attitude. Or the people who proxy cards they have as one-ofs, just so they don't have to take one deck apart to play another, that's okay with me.
On the other hand, there are players who just don't want to pay for expensive cards, but nevertheless play decks that half the time wouldn't even work without them, or that unnecessarily push the powerlevel of their decks above that of the group. Expensive fast mana and color fixing are on top of that list. And with that kind of behaviour I have a problem. If you're a freakin' casual, there's no need to crank up your deck's power like that, especially since it de-values the deckbuilding-skills of the people who come up with pretty efficient decks at much lower prices.
Pretty much, this. In our playgroup, cEDH pods don't care, you can proxy the entire 100 if you really want to play, and that's fine. In more causal pods, there's a limit to what you could proxy. If it's a new deck or something you want to test out, go ahead. We don't want you spending a lot on cards you might not even like. If it's a vital part of your strategy and *you are planning* to buy that card in the near future, go ahead.
The only time we say no is when you have something like dual lands, or Mana Crypt/Mox D in a casual table. No one needs that in their casual decks. That being said, the whole "if you own it, you can proxy them in every deck" still applies, regardless of the card and power level. If they own a Crypt and every dual, they have the right to play it in their more casual decks, it's fine.
I agree. Jimmy and Josh don't really seem to click with the fact that in cedh, Twister, Bazaar, Tabernacle are going to seriously power your decks up or down and I'd rather play against the real version of a deck than not. Please proxy those 3. Spending 5 Grand on 3 cards is stupid. Also, I'm not even sure that if people had the cash there would be enough copies. It limits that format.
With that said, I think $300-500 threshold is a good place to put the cap. Proxy that dual lands or cradle. Don't proxy shocklands. Don't be that guy... Also, that stats episode does not capture the value of those above cards - they were never played in those episodes.
Yeah this is my policy for all EDH. I want to play with all the cool cards available to everyone regardless of whatever nonsense the secondary market is up to. Personally I like to collect those old cards, but most of my other friends aren't as insane as I am and spending $200 on one goddamn card doesn't sound fun to them. Plus, even if they utterly blow me out in the game, that just means I get to spend more time deck building for next time.
Reguarding your stance on proxies, I still believe your situation is still very different than (probably) most players. While it may be true that you have players in your playgroup with a bigger and more expensive collection than you, you guys probably still have no issue buying a Doubling Season or a Rhystic Study. But for many people spending 15+ dollars on a single card is not always something they can do, and sometimes that prevents them from playing cards that they want to play.
Let's say someone plays Pir and Toothy, and they want to play Doubling Season because it synergies very well in their deck, but it's way outside their budget.allowing them to proxy the card allows them still to participate and enjoy a wonderful game.
And I feel that the argument that proxies will cause players to bring super expensive cards and stomp everyone else is ridiculous. Because that's a power level issue, not a proxy issue. If the guy stomping everyone else with a Gaia's Gradle proxy and a proxy Tabernacle suddenly bought the cards, it doesn't make him stomping everyone else ok.
Yeah that is called being an asshole, I have decks to suit all power levels and still use proxies to fill out specific staples and would only use stuff like the tabernacle proxy on a cEDH table but targeting a casual player just to stomp on them is not fun.
Also the fact that Josh and Jimmy earn income from their Commander content makes it easier to splurge on $20/$30/$60 cards, since the hobby directly fuels this channel and Patreon, etc. For most everyone else that sort of a purchase isn't as easy since this is just a hobby for the rest of us. Proxies remove the exorbitant entry fee for some of these awesome cards. Do we really want to say that only those people willing to blow $200+ on a single small piece of cardboard are allowed to play an Angus Mackenzie deck?
Thing is, we're talking about essentially fake versions of the card. How would you feel if you saved and bought a Mana Crypt, and then came across someone with a 2 dollar proxy and that proxy was regarded in the same way as your real Mana Crypt? They make people feel their legitimate cards are invalidated. And at the end of the day, we're playing a trading card game that has existed for decades. This is a game made of collectibles. Value will vary.
I have no problem with proxies in commander if you own the card, and I think everyone agrees there. There is no reason to own 3 Rhystic studies if you only play a singleton format. But again, if you don't own the card, you're circumventing the collectible aspect of Magic. And more often than not there is another option for the expensive card that is just less effective. I.e. Diabolic vs. Demonic Tutor. The "pay to play" argument is very weak when, as I mentioned earlier, we are playing a TRADING CARD game.
@@FantabulousMe100 if you buy the real copy of a card, it has actual value, and you can resell that card if you want to. That proxy is not worth anything.
And I think that the argument that it'd be a feelsbad to spend money on a card while someone else just proxied the card is a bit ridiculous. You have the real thing, he doesn't. Your card is worth something while theirs is worth nothing.
I think Magic is, first and foremost, a game, and that the trading aspect comes second. I don't see why the amount of money the guys sitting besides you should matter to you, as long as he's not trying to sell you that proxy.
@@FantabulousMe100 Sorry, that doesn't hold any water for a lot of folks - myself included. The fact that *you* value the collectible aspect of the game is awesome for you, and me using fake cards (for cards that are exorbitantly overpriced due to asinine reprint policies from WOTC) doesn't devalue your legitimate cards. Remember, mine are *fake* so they don't affect the limited availability of your authentic ones. Maybe wayyyyy down the road it could affect the market/price if tons of people proxied one card, but I'm not aware of anything in that realm for now - or even close.
If you find intrinsic value in owning the authentic version of a card, like a $50 Scroll Rack, that's great. But it's ridiculously expensive 'cause Wizards won't reprint it. I disagree that you should feel bad about your legit copy when someone has a proxied one - you have the real deal! And if you still feel bad about it, is it because you genuinely feel like it was pointless for you to buy the authentic copy, orrrrrr is it because you don't get the exclusivity of being the only person running the card 'cause you're the only one willing to blow a lot of money on it and the rest of the players didn't want to spend money on such overpriced cardboard?
Main topic 5:21.
You're the man of the day
We are not worthy
The hero we need, but not the one we deserve
hero
Thank you
Talking about needed reprints: Thought vessel is like $9.00 at the moment for a pretty simple mana rock.
Yesssss! LOL. I literally proxied that card the other day because I only had one and didn't want to take it out of that deck since I would be using that deck in the same day at my LGS. I refused to spend the money on that card for a deck I had just built.
A lot of mana rocks have risen a lot in price. These and lands are the first things that should be printed because they form the base of every single deck in the format.
Like 0.90 cents now my man
@@boydder7802 i started proxying months ago, thanks though.
Syr Carah the Bold is Impulsive Draw without having to attack. She has to deal damage but she has the tap ability to get it in. She's mono red, though.
I feel like the idea of Syr Carah is the right way to make aggro/burn “more viable” in the sense that you get rewarded for playing burn spells or swinging with Syr Carah by gaining that card acceleration, even if it’s only temporary. That’s basically the thesis of mono red aggro. It’s quite unfortunate that they are costed at 3RR.
R. Alexander Catabay she’d go great with fire song and sun singer since you can also get dawn of hope
At a rather steep cost, though. 5 mana for a 3/3 that doesn't do anything by itself the turn it's played. Imo, we have Anje and Daretti. Daretti may not draw, but he gives you access to cards, and Anje, while she is just looting, she definitely helps to dig.
Guys, 5 CMC isn't a thing in mono red at all. If they made her any cheaper to cast she'd be busted.
I've been tinkering with a Syr Carah list for some time now, and it's going to be big mana + big spells.
Red has serious ramp at its disposal. Between Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Might, Seething Song, Geosurge, Irencrag Feat, Mana Geyser, Jaya Ballard, Koth of the Hammer and every decent mana rock ever printed (preferably those that draw me some cards if sac'ed), plenty of burnination will be had. >:-D
I have this deck and it’s very strong. I made it Impulsive Draw tribal. Has around 5 different chandras. Once I get 2 on the field with chandras regulator, I’m drowning the table in card advantage. If I have the Chandra that adds loyalty to other red planeswalkers, I’m ultimating the other ones very fast. Last game I ulted Torch of defiance and copied the ult. Got 2 emblems. The game ended very fast
For proxies/personal preferences:
I think it is important to be aware of how others, especially in your play group, CAN feel about decks/cultural norms. Asking if proxies are okay or just feeling out how phones or distractions effect the groups attitude and enjoyment. For the group I host (of which I am the newest player) my goal for the group is the level of fun and replay/return value. If a player wants to proxy cards in order to participate and enjoy the game, then by all means. Most all my play group just wants to have fun and usually rotate decks within our play time. If our decks do what we want, then we are all winners even if we lose.
damn it command zone, i was just about to get some work done
@Dank Buds why didnt I think of that! ;p
@@matt9591 their faces were so wizardy they should've said please
I personally wouldn’t recommend Chulane for a beginner. For many people, they will see it across the board and assume that they are a combo player.
Yeah thats what i always assume. Never trust a Chulane player! :p
Lol *sees an 8 year old kid playing chulane* “hmmm a combo player...”
@@bryanphilips5182 😂😂😂
You might not assume they're playing combo if they say "Hey I'm new and just upgraded my precon a little"
Bryan Philips I wouldn’t discount a younger kid. I’ve played with plenty of younger kids at my LGS that are easily more skilled than the adults in the room.
@33:07 You make the argument against proxies, saying a player with proxies will win purely because they own more expensive and powerful cards, yet immediately after you say Cassius uses cards way more expensive and powerful than yours but you don't feel he wins because of it, completely contradicting your first point.
You need to see their proxy stance in light of their relationship with sponsors who sell real cards. Do you think they woud be happy with video that is proxy-friendly?
What they say is not contradiction. Pay2Win: You are allowed to win with real cards exactly same way because you paid for them. So you should be striving to fork over cash for stronger cards. So of couse the loophole of being able to proxy is evil because it allows you to bypass singles market.
In any case, CZ is not budget minded at all. You do not come here for ideas how to make commander decks cheaper.
They said after a certain threshold (about $500 in value) the price tag of a deck doesn't increase win rate as much as it did before. A $400 deck will often stomp all over $150 decks, they will win many but not EVERY game, because the expensive deck has upgraded versions of many cards the cheaper deck runs (like a Path to Exile vs a Condemn, Hallowed Fountain and Flooded Strand vs Meandering River and Evolving Wilds, or Rhystic Study vs Divination) but a $900 deck and a $500 deck are going to be roughly equal in power because usually the difference in those deck prices is a couple $100+ cards like the OG dual lands or a single expensive card in the 99 like Guantlet of Might.
Now a lot of people don't play with $500 decks and seeing someone proxy a deck that would normally cost $750 and winning a lot would be frustrating. Not that you can't beat them as long as you have a solid game plan (I occasionally have won games with my ~$175 Tatyova deck vs a $1200 Ur-Dragon and a $600 Thrasios/Partner deck) but card value is still a factor. Many cards are expensive for a reason beyond their age and potentially being on reserved list.
Yeah, that whole answer was... pretty bad, imo. Even from body language and even cadence, they seemed kind of like they were a bit tilted over the idea, for lack of a better term. Especially finishing what's more or less a rant about how his collection is great but someone else has a _better_ one therefore... something? It doesn't really justify anything and just kind of makes their dislike of proxies come off as irrational. Especially when that followed to a justification of, "just don't play with that person". That in and of itself is just toxic.
Imo, as with most "should X be allowed" questions: discuss it with your playgroup. Like you pointed out about their contradictory logic - you can outplay them even if they're proxying the best cards. Maybe _they_ want to play with Cassius but don't have enough to drop on a $500 deck to reach that "point of diminishing returns"? Proxy it up, may the better _player_ win. Plus, well made personal proxies can be great - if you put some effort into it it can be a fun and personalized novelty. I saw someone on Reddit make a _full_ proxy deck (including things like basic lands) with sharpied art and card frames and it was fantastic. I'd love to see someone do that on a deck of blank-face Bicycle cards and play unsleeved - it would be hilarious. And no, if someone makes a Sharpie reproduction of a Tabernacle on a Bicycle backed card, that is not "counterfeit".
The only thing I'd say to the proxier is to be clear about what it is they're doing - this goes for, well, any game. Don't bring an ultra powered top tier proxy deck to a low tier game, same as you shouldn't bring a legit top tier deck to low tier game. It's just a jerk move either way. Bring two decks - have your proxy deck and a real budget deck and ask the group which they'd prefer to play against. If they have strong decks and want good gameplay, they'll allow the proxies. If not, you have a backup.
But for Urza's sake, if someone has a proxy deck because they can't afford a deck at the same power level as your group, don't _shun them_ for it, help them out. Point them towards Mitch's content. Give them some cards. Let them borrow your deck. Don't exclude people from this great game just because they can't afford the toppest tier of luxury cardboard rectangles.
I've in the last two months began proxy/counterfeiting a lot of cards. Originally I just wanted to make a really nice proxy Vintage Cube. Once the Cube stopped firing, I began moving the cards into my commander decks. Financially, I would pretty much never be able to play with duals/fetches/shocks + Expensive wheels/Counterspells/Planeswalkers etc. My proxies look really nice; they don't aesthetically diminish the quality of the game for people at the table and have been a huge breath of fresh air for me to be able to actually build new flavorful commander decks that I never would have gotten to play. I will admit that the decks I have built have been on the higher end of power levels, but I would say that it's through my deck building prowess and understanding of card intention that allows the decks to overcome obstacles and that the proxies just enable the strategies with consistency. I do 100% purposefully build my decks with cards that are flavorful > powerful. For example, I built a Wizards only Inalla, Archmage Ritualist deck, and a Ultra Political Queen Marchese deck. I really don't want to feel pressured to disassemble these decks but without the proxies, I wouldnt be able to play with even budget versions of these decks. I've also offered making proxies for the people in my playground to help them have the same opportunities I'm giving myself. And of course, these are only for casual use. I'll talk to anyone about this subject if they want, I just feel like it's more sensitive a subject than just something that makes some people feel bad so don't do it.
I personally don't think that counts as counterfeiting as long as you mark them as proxies and don't try to trade/sell them as a real card.
@@cjsfriend2 Yeah they misused the word counterfeit, which is the intention to produce a fake product to maliciously sell to other people for monetary gain.
I think you nailed it when you said it was a sensitive topic (probably worth a whole CZ episode, but i dont think jimmy and josh are equipped for that discussion).
I appreciate the long post and wish i was more verbose atm, since it's a topic worth a lot of discussion.
The little i can manage to say atm is that there is likely a big difference between what you are doing and what some other proxy players are doing.
I'd say that what you do might bother me if i were in your playgroup, but if you were in my playgroup, we would have probably had a longer discussion about it, and from the little i can tell from your post, i think we would come to common ground. That's the heart of it though, discussion and common ground.
Not all players do it responsibly (loose term, not sold on this line of thought yet), and seeing responsible players do it encourages the irresponsible to misbehave.
We have one player that saw a few checklisted cards played by others, who then sold his collection down to only one copy of each card and played all checklists, literally all checklists, and would just select a decklist and assemble the correct cards for it. The same player later printed a dozen fully proxied decks to 'test'.
I think the best longterm solution is to have wotc reprint (and devalue) most commander cards, but even saying that makes me cringe at its drawbacks. Also, that's not in the player's hands... although i think wotc is thinking along those lines with the release of draftable 'commander legends'.
@Seth E @@ecos889 It's tricky because both words aren't perfect. Counterfeit means intentionally making the fake to look as close to real as possible to trick other people which mine do but only so they don't aesthetically take away from the visual of the game. And a version of the word Proxy is used to define cards given by judges at events to replace cards you physically have but have some physical flaw which makes them stand out in your deck (ie nexus of fate). In my honest opinion, I think the intention of the word proxy at it's core stems from the idea that you are using it in replacement of something you either have (say a mana crypt you only have one copy of) or are intending to get and at which case mine aren't (of course if I suddenly became very wealthy, this would be different). And even if I don't intend to sell them as fakes, I do think at their core, they are intended as counterfeits but for social gain over economic. It's unfortunate because counterfeit has a much lesser connotation.
Currently, WotC has explained that this basically coincides with what they've stated. "Wizards is trying to establish their internal definition of the word "proxy," a/k/a, a "term of art," as the definition of the common English word. This is the logical fallacy of equivocation -- conflating two related but distinct meanings of a word in order to make a claim about one meaning that actually is only true of the other." - Cliffy73.
So the question is, do we respect the intentions of WotC and understand that fake cards even without intention to be sold, if look too similar to real cards are indeed counterfeits, or do we ignore them on this issue, essentially making our own rules as the consumer of the product.
@@suikodin2501 100% there is an issue with the cost of commander cards or even really cards in general, and also an issue with the economy/minimum wage in Kansas atm which both are factors. One thing WotC could do is print out more gold bordered cards that aren't tournament legal for pennies on the dollar of their legal counterparts so people could have access to powerful magic cards for their casual play groups.
That being said, the issue then becomes a power-level discrepancy and where card intention becomes the most important aspect. Why are you using cards; are you trying to have answers for the board/opponents, perhaps you're trying to create a political campaign with which your deck will reap the benefits, are you trying to build advantages; how are you trying to win the game. Before I started proxying, I kind of had 3 decks:
A Simic Primespeaker Zegana Ramp deck that ran few answers but could go really big really fast and win from advantage, synergies, and potential combos
A Dimir Grimgrin Zombie deck that ran several answers but looked to play aggressively and kill you with commander damage or combos
An Azorius Raff Capashen permissions deck that ran lots of answers and looked to slowly win through attrition (and lots of take 3 commander damage)
These three decks had very specific intentions with the cards they played. A lot of the reason behind this was because my card pool was limited financially and this became out of necessity. So does a less expensive deck have the right to want to win by-any-means more than an expensive deck? Imo, I think all decks should be brought to the table with intention. So what has this meant now that my decks can be super-charged with proxies? For me, I've mostly just been able to build lots of new decks:
A 5-Color Morophon Tribal tribal aggro deck with few answers and lots of raw attack potency
A 5-Color Golos Lands-Matter/Maze's End deck with some answers to fend off combat and removal while looking to aggressive piece together the gates for a alternate win
A Selesnya Dr. Julius Jumblemorph Unset Deck that runs hosts/augments w/ etb/triggered-abilities-matter cards and eventually overrun effects
A Mardu Queen Marchese combat-matters deck which looks build slow advantages while diverting attention, using political cards, curses, and the Monarchy mechanic to enrich the game experience while using tutors/Sunforger to answer threats and look to win through Helm of the Host and Aurelia or Godo for infinite combat steps
So what's changed? First, I've been having a lot of fun and had the chance to brew decks I would never have been able to do. And with this freedom, I've been able to rework decks much faster than most anyone else in my playgroup. I consider my decks casually competitive. They don't look to tutor win cons and pub stomp. They look to fulfill roles in the game, using unique mechanics and flavor to win in ways that only their commander/colors can.
And if I had money, I'd build them the same way
Re: Proxies, I generally will have some greater or lesser leniency depending on stuff like peoples' finances and the power of other decks in the group, because if you don't allow proxies when there's a vast gulf in finances, one side or the other is going to be majorly unhappy, depending on whether the group decides to allow the high priced decks in their group or not. And I know that price and power-level aren't interchangable, but they are correlated, so even if the gap in power-level isn't that much, if it's there it can lead to bad feelings. I don't know exactly what it'd entail to make it seem fair to everyone, but something maybe like a group-consensus budget for decks where each proxy has a flat (to incentivize buying and using non-proxies over proxies for low or mid-price cards) and percentage (to incentizise not just crafting a deck to the limit of the budget and proxying the top-cost cards) surcharge towards that budget. So that way, the player on a tight budget doesn't feel like they can't play in the group, just because they can't afford it, and the player with a big budget might hit the budget ceiling some, but they also know that the tight budget player isn't getting a better deck than they are, all without spending any money to do so.
There are just some cards that really don't need to be as expensive as they are, especially in a casual (i.e. non-tournament) format. Frankly, as long as your inclusions make sense and fit within the general power level of the table, as far as I'm concerned you can play your proxies.
If someone's running 5 color tribal and has a full suite of ABU duals and Shocks and Fetches to make the MOST POWERFUL MANABASE, that's a bit much; there are cheaper duals you can run. On the other hand, that same deck running a single fake Cavern of Souls wont get a peep out of me, because it is an objectively great card for that specific kind of deck, and it's 50+ dollars.
GroundThing your logic has a huge fallacy. You state that if budget players should only get major improvements to their decks if they can afford it. Ask yourself would you rather play against the player or their wallet. Power level differences makes games unfun not proxies. Expecting people to invest thousands of dollars in cardboard is stupid.
@@Thejodad234 amen to that! Especially when the price of the cardboard is artificially inflated by the secondary market because wotc refuse to reprint some cards!
I agree, my play group is pretty spicy, and almost entirely casual, when my gf wanted to build a deck and play, i wasnt going to make her go out and buy 7-900 dollars worth of cards to play with. The amount of cards that cost over 40 bucks for no reason other than scarcity is incredibly annoying.
@@Thejodad234 I'm not really saying that. Ideally, IMO, cost shouldn't really be a factor, but it's hard to rate power level unbiasedly. Since (even by the podcast hosts' metric, at least up to a point), power level is correlated with deck cost, setting a group budget seems like the best solution to the issue. But I also recognize the issue that if you've invested a lot into your deck, and someone in your group is playing with mostly proxies, it can feel like you wasted your money. Especially if the player with proxies is proxying more expensive cards than yours (and so, by not proxying, you're not only behind them, but paying more to do so, because you don't proxy). This is why I proposed what I did: I see the best way to balance these tensions being to discourage proxies, if you can afford it, but not ban them outright or prevent a new or budget player from using a mostly proxy deck, and set a standard to make sure that everybody is mostly on the same page. It's not perfect, I will certainly admit that, but I intended the solution to be more of a compromise, and compromise solutions don't have to be (and probably can't really ever be) perfect, just trying to be something of an acceptable consensus option.
15:41
“I have a certain number of fetch lands”
Shows fetches on screen.
“I have a certain number of old-school duals”
Shows duals on screen.
“I have a certain number of shocks”
Shows lifelands on screen.
I proxy for variety and I don't want to invest that much into a "stock market" price gauge; it's too risky for me. I have 9 decks, 7 are 100% proxy and my play group does the same thing. We agreed to print around the $500 mark. The two real decks I have are there in case someone doesn't like proxies which is understandable. I just don't want to buy $4,000 worth of cards with no garuntee that I'll get my money back.
My only cavaat to this is a question. What does your playgroup do to patronage WotC? Sure, buying singles for commander doesn't directly pay wizards, but it does support the demand for magic cards in general and keep a healthy demand for new cards from WotC. I imagine with your playgroup that this accomplished through the other two legit decks.
I just want to make sure that when we are having this discussion, that people remember that there needs to be some sort of kickback to the creators of this game if we want to see new cards. If we all only played with proxies, then the game would suffer.
@@suikodin2501 valid concern. When I play at the lgs I buy a lot of packs. I still build real ones but at a much slower pace. I'll buy the new precons too.
I don't agree with their statement on proxies. I have a large play group and we come from all walks of life. Some of us make more money than others, and some live paycheck to paycheck. What is in their bank account is their business. This great game should be playable for everyone, not just the rich. If you can't afford a scalding tarn, that's okay, I too would rather buy food or life necessities over a small piece of cardboard. I want to play commander with people, not their wallets.
This video made me lose a lot of respect for the command zone, because they praise casual commander yet they clearly feel that if you don't have the money, you shouldn't play the game. That's not friendly or fair in my opinion, people shouldn't have to limit deck builds because they can't afford a $40 doubling season. It breaks my heart when people say "I'd love to play mtg, but I can't afford it."
And just so I don't get any bite back, I'm talking about casually playing, not tournaments. I understand that you have to own the cards to compete and I won't argue with that. But sitting down at a table with 3 other people in an environment where no prizes are involved should be about the players and not how much they spent.
I agree fully, if you own the cards great, if not no worries!!
About proxies: I was surprised to find that you guys were so against them. I get that your not against them entirely, but even the caveats provided of "testing and check list cards" seems very narrow. The big thing that I think with proxies is that everyone needs to be on the same page. This is difficult at events, but just in local playgroups it should be easy enough to establish what is and is not acceptable. If one person is proxying an incredibly powerful deck with a perfect mana base, then everyone else should be allowed to as well. It doesn't matter if everyone is happy. As someone wiser than me said on the subject - "I want to play the opponent, not their wallet". Without the use of proxies, it is very possible for certain play groups / environments to become pay to win, and that's not fun for anyone.
I agree with the sentiments of aesthetic though. They should look decent. Not necessarily that they have to look like the card in question per se, just something nicer to look at than a scribbled on plains. We have a house rule of "Proxies are fine, but you have to make them yourself". We all suck at art but the end results are hilarious and a great conversation point. They kind of end up more like terrible alters. We say that you have to invest in your cards. If you're not doing it financially, you have to do it with time and effort. Even though they look terrible, it's a really fun way of handling the situation.
These guys are sponsored shills, its no suprise.
Can't endorse something that cuts Into the sponsors income.
The whole tangent of "yeah well I have a great collection but someone else has a _better_ collection therefore poor people should be happy with what they have" was just embarrassing. Especially when their conclusion was, "if someone is using proxies just don't play with them". Like, wtf? No, make MTG inclusive, none of this toxic gatekeeping bullshit.
The real issue in the question was the guy's proxy deck was way above the group's power curve. It would be no better if it was a legit $10,000 deck stomping them instead. Tell the guy he needs to play to the group's power level, it's not about the proxies.
Calling proxies counterfeits is just wrong, counterfeits are made to make others believe that they are real. Just because you spend too much in something, don't try to make others spend that money if they don't want. People that use proxies normally just want to play the game and not collect the cards.
Your guys' take on proxies is almost entirely off topic. First off, bling doesn't count. Bling is where people should be spending their money if they care about that kind of thing and have disposable income. YOU CAN'T PROXY BLING. Next, if someone is using proxies to pubstomp, they could be doing the same thing with real cards and it would be the same amount of feel bads. Proxies shouldn't replace Rule 0, just because you can proxy anything doesn't mean you should make your decks more powerful than your playgroups, but money should not stop someone from playing A CASUAL FORMAT. I find it baffling that casual players are usually against proxies while high power (9 or 10 aka cedh) players are almost always ok with proxies.
I 100% agree with you, but understand that they basically HAVE to say this. It is against the interests of their sponsors to be pro-proxies in really any fashion, regardless of how they actually feel about the topic.
@@submortimer I completely agree actually, I would have been surprised to see them be pro-proxy when being sponsored by CK. But hey you still gotta sleeve proxies so Ultra Pro is good to go! 😂
Comming from a third world country, some cards are really hard for me to to get. Being a student with an unpaid internship, it makes many of them impossible. I still try to get as many cards I can and actually enjoy building decks based on what I have, but when not LGSs near me have a single copy of Sol Ring and it costs so much I can't help but just proxy sometimes some basic cards.
That being said, one of my friends had some very powerful decks and stomped us usually, and by no coincidence it was one full of proxies. It's not even about the amount of proxies but more about having the decks being the same level. I can run some 4 colour commanders just fine without all kinds of fetches and shocklands so, even if Karona is a fun commander, perhaps you shouldn'd be proxying all those kinds of things.
I made a Goreclaw Deck for my loved one. And... She loves this little Bear! It works great for new players. Just play big beasts, it's satisfying and fun. ^^
Same here, I have a blast with my Goreclaw deck, but it's easily the first deck I loan out to new players too, because it is pretty simple, but has enough stuff synergizing and going on that they don't feel left out (just remembering all the stuff Goreclaw does is enough for a lot of new players)
I just built a goreclaw deck too and I love it! Stompy has always been my favorite theme and goreclaw fits perfectly and can be good on a budget
I have been playing for years and still just built Goreclaw. Stompy fun will always be stompy fun
@@blaze556922 définitivement. 😂❤️
30:20 RE Proxies: slippery slope? Bad thing? Disrespectful? I think pay to win is disrespectful! So the poor asian kid that's really smart has to stick to chess because it cannot afford the 300 bucks standard, 1k pioneer, 2k modern, 6k commander, 12k legacy or 120k vintage deck? Honestly, f*** that! THAT IS AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF THE FORMAT, IF ANYTHING IS! Commander should be an inclusive, fun, casual format where you do crazy stuff! If the powerlevel of the group goes up, deckbuilding and play skill should make the difference, NOT THE WALLET.
Test your deck with 100% proxies, go to fnm drafts as often as you can and try to trade the cards you win to replace your proxies. Slowly. If you never get that Wheel of Fortune, so be it! Come at me with the best deck your SKILL can build, not your wallet!
Also, the mitch example with 50$ decks might apply to you, but you guys (*sorry to be so blunt*) aren't pros. Neither am I; point being, if you cannot mulligan(which you guys really can't) you will lose more games than money could buy.
P.s.: When talking about proxies, we mean mtgpress.com . High definition printouts sleeved up together with a basic. That doesn't hurt optics at all!
I'm new to magic the gathering. However I highly agree about this. I'm a yugioh player and alot of us have to used proxy. Either because of pricing, testing to see if the card is good, learning the how to play the card and most differently however importantly, language. Yugioh has a large player pool and the cards are usually come in different languages depending on where your living. However for competitive players, having proxies are a blessing since you don't have to buy the card again for that specific language during tournaments. Idk what kind of players magic the gathering have outside of united states buy this could honestly benefit them.
I agree with you here
I agree with everything you have said.
Cutting poor people to only using a restricted card pool when deck building is classist as hell.
People that earn money to get their cards just feel like people using fake cards are taking the easy way out. I don’t think jimmy and josh are trying to be rude to new players.
@@Lag-Lord people who earn the money to get the cards then own cards with that value. They can resell them, exchange them, and so on.
People use proxies literally only to play with those cards because they do not own them. They have nothing of value with the proxies. They simply can play.
And in a game, a card's value has no meaning.
A foiled out commander deck works in the same way as the non-foil version, or as the proxy version.
Part of the reason I switched to playing CEDH from Casual is that even when people are all playing optimized Decks that are around 7 - 8 they tended to complain whenever they see an OG Dual, a Mana Crypt or a Gaea’s Cradle meanwhile they are using Flash Hulk and/or Demonic Consultation with Thassa’s Oracle. Just because your winning combo cost less than 1 card that was used price wise that doesn’t mean it’s less powerful. Casual Commander players (some not all) seem to think what a card’s cost financially is directly correlated to its power. Not all expensive cards are powerful and vice versa.
CEDH players could care less if they see cards or combos like those and the community on the whole cares about skill level and interaction as opposed to your wallet. I know a CEDH player who refuses to pay more than 50 for any card so he either purchased suitable substitutes ie. World Championship Deck cards or just bought solid proxies that from the front in a sleeve you wouldn’t be able to tell. It really only seems to be non CEDH players who think you need to break the bank and/or play with cards you actually own or you don’t get to play with them at all. This is really stupid because only pub stompers who want to use really OP stuff to beat lower powered stuff will do that kind of thing and those are people you shouldn’t play with anyway as they are generally toxic individuals.
If everyone is on the same power level it shouldn’t matter what cards are in your Deck it should be about how you use them. Casual Commander had way more feel bads, saltiness, people not paying attention and not being engaged in the game and those things ruin the experience. CEDH I have not encountered any of that and I don’t ever have to hear “Ugh why are you using that card it’s not fair to the rest of us” or “OG Duals/Fetch Lands/Tutors why are you such a tryhard optimizing you’re Deck like that?” and my personal fav “Must be nice to be old and have cards from decades ago.”
Having a job, budgeting for a hobby I enjoy and acquiring things that are powerful and useful is not something I should EVER have to feel bad about or apologize for. 99% of EDH problems stem from a lack of EFFECTIVE communication. Being confrontational and abrasive is a good way to alienate players and if you do not have a big group of Commander players or even Magic Players in general in your area you’re gonna find yourself not enjoying the game and very quickly looking for another hobby.
Proxies aren’t the problem as opposed to not communicating, not paying attention to the game and attitudes in general are the problem. To be fair these are problems I feel you encounter most when you’re playing 7.5 - 8 Power Decks and are trying to find a Pod to play with (if you don’t have a go to group to play with) Usually if your Deck is “weak” and/or not fully optimised you won’t have trouble finding people to play with but the quality of games may not be good since players may not run much interaction and games tend to drag on.
Really though all players involved have an obligation to speak up and communicate with the whole group to see what’s best for everyone to have a satisfying game experience. Whether you choose to use blue core or black core cards should be the least of your problems
Thank you! Been saying this for years, but my playgroup refuse to see reason.
I mean in my group we have a pretty high powerlevel and a lot of guys have like chains of mephistopheles duals etc. from collecting them/buying them when they were cheaper. They even encourage the newer players to use proxies, if they want to play with them, so everyone can have fun and play on the same powerlevel. As an example my Izoni deck started out with like 70 proxies and after a year and a half i was able to get most cards, like the only ones missing are craterhoof and cabal coffers and one or two others which aren't as expensive. But i don't think i'll buy craterhoof and cabal coffers anytime soon, because i'm not ready to pay that amount of money for two cards on a students budget.
Organizing my advice: Put EVERYTHING on deckbox. So you'll always know what cards you have.
Then split your cards into piles of each color, pile for lands, pile for special lands, pile for colorless and pile for no-color. And those piles sort each alphabetically.
Then you will always know which cards you have and it will be easy to find them! 😋
Took me 5 hours to organize my collection which became pretty big (above 2,000 cards). And I couldn't be happier.
This will save you money and a TON of time in the future.
Give it a try 😉
When they start taking 14 turns in a row, the phone comes out.
When I proxy its cuz I already own a copy. The only exception to this is dual lands, i owned a playset when they were 50 to 100some and sold them for a car replacement when I crashed and I refuse to buy them back at 800 for 1. Like Josh said duals dont really affect wins much anyways.
That being said I always ask new groups if its cool and dont really mind other proxies as long as people still have the power level discussion. I always would rather "play against a player than play against their wallet". That said if you really wanna play tabernacle, the void, mishras, stuff like that just tell people before hand so they dont have the feel bad when you drop it on the table unexpectedly
Our playgroup calls them placeholders, not proxies. I don’t play any but a few in our group print off color copies and it’s easy peasy.
@@AndrewWoodford Never thought to call them that but I like it. Also, yes please, if your going to do any kinda of proxy make it legible and color. Like Josh said I dont want random scribbled on lands that I constantly have to ask what it is and trust that what you wrote is what it does. Plus I have a better picture memory than name so I see a card and mostly recognize it from memory of what it does.
I know one guy in my playgroup who proxies OG duals as placeholders for shock lands, absolute madman.
Me too! I bought mana crypt, mox opal, chrome mox, mana drain, force of will and force of negation, I just made extra copies for my extra decks, I'm not going to buy 6 mana crypts, the prices are INSANE!
If they don't make a difference, then why do you insist on using fake ones?
the biggest problem i have with temples is that although they are in the flavor of theros, they cant be fetched by spells that would care about temples. they could have had a subtype "temple" like deserts have the subtype "desert"
Mind blown: temples lands are only good for control... THERE ARE NO lands only GOOD for AGRO
@@seankuhn6633 Painlands
@@seankuhn6633 Manlands?
30:54
How is playing with proxies disrespectful to other players? If you feel that insecure in your purchases you should re-evaluate why you're spending so much money on cards. Let people play how they want to play.
If the cards were reasonably priced and Wizards weren't playing games with artifical-scarcity this wouldn't be an issue...
I know it's a year late, but I agree. Proxying is great... I want OG duals but there's no way I could ever afford them at this point. Gaea's cradle like he says - I can't afford that. Fuck it ima proxy it.
Completely agree. Somebody's broader life situation shouldn't restrict what they can play in Magic
Josh: "You're on your bed more than in your car"
Well unless you commute in LA / I405.
Truth
They need to make a jund -1/-1 counter commander. Why would they print hapatra and scorpion god in the same block and not give us that?!
100% agree. I just use like the shattergang brothers since it is versatile but I yearn for something that really fits
As long as proxies are being used outside of organized play and aren't used in conjunction with being obnoxious, I am not going to complain about them. Examples include: All proxy, cEDH stax in a casual pod, proxy Tabernacle & 'forgetting' their own triggers, gloating over wins with a powerful proxied deck, etc.
I play with proxies all the time. The only cards I proxy and don't own are manabases. I don't proxy non-land cards unless I own that card.
Re: Phones at Table. There is actually one very good Magic-related use for phones - looking up card text. I am a fairly new player and even if someone shows me card text it is sometimes difficult to remember since all of the cards are effectively new. However, I tell the table I am using my phone for this purpose and not for texting or cat videos, haha.
I play with a lot of non English cards so I always have my phone out since just because I know what a card does doesn’t mean my opponents do.
Exhalted is a good example of being able to look things up on the fly. The rule as it reads on the card is very vague and does not truly demonstrate this abilities true power. I've actually seen people get into fights on tables about it, and use their phones to look up the official rule.
And for those that aren't sure about what I'm talking about, "If you declare exactly one creature as an attacker, each exalted ability on each permanent you control (including, perhaps, the attacking creature itself) will trigger. The bonuses are given to the attacking creature, not to the permanent with exalted. Ultimately, the attacking creature will wind up with +1/+1 for each of your exalted abilities."
The card just states "if it attacks alone it gets +1/+1." There is no mention of other creatures not attacking with this ability.
Not to mention incredibly specific card interactions and any oracle text you're unsure of.
@@mr.batsquatch967 add in a second combat step and you re apply exalted bonus aswell.
I started playing MTG with Kaladesh, commander in 2017, first deck was the precon Cat deck. (which I proceeded to upgrade to the point it was worse than the vanilla deck, buying cards) Since then I've made single card investments in some of the more high priced commander staples. I have exactly 1 copy of each fetch land, 1 mana crypt, 1 Jace , 1 snapcaster etc. Each of those cards are double sleeved and put into a hard plastic top loader I have with me at all times. Then I find some etsy shops and get awesome proxies with cool art to put into my decks that need them. I have yet to find anyone who really gets salty with this setup. I can present the real card to them at anytime. You can also go to Mythic Black Core and print your own proxies using the original artwork, but without the correct set symbols, I just prefer the etsy shops!
I should add that I do not use proxies unless I own the card. Just a personal rule I apply.
I don’t know why some innovative deck box commercial popped up for the first time ever before this video but it has impeccable timing 😂😂
Tef's Protection definitely needs a reprint damn it.
An important to thing to mention about proxies and people at the extreme end of things because their are some people with addictive personalities that love to and feel the need to compete in a play group where every deck has a force of will and rhystic study it could also result of that person to go in serious debt to keep up with the Jones's and with hobbies like mtg having higher cases of people with learning disabilities and mental health issues I fear they would potentially take that route if pressured into it so proxies I believe also act as a good failsafe to prevent that. As you see similar things happening with stuff like loot boxes and it's a good way to circumvent said behavior. So I think proxies should be encouraged more than discouraged as I don't want people to go into financial straights because of their mental health issues over a hobby.
That is the most important reason why I dislike people hating on proxies as I don't want that demographic people to have something fun to turn into something toxic that is destroying their finances.
If you playgroup has like a force of will in every other deck, that is just miles above counterspell. I think in my opinion the idea to own one of every expensive card you use is wrong because now, its like this huge monetary burden on them to even play if the difference is that big. A lot of people are poor, broke, and stressed. If someone needed to proxy to get up to the tabels level then hell I'd help them do it honestly. I could understand this opinion 8 years ago when to get to %85 would cost you $100 but in this day and age, almost all %85 are +$500 or at least all my decks are. I wish I could sell my magic collection and run 100% proxies so that I could finally afford to buy a car, but I can't because then I would lose the last hobby I have left in my life
This is pretty much my opinion too, I want people to be able to express themselves as best they can and not have budget limit them from trying out their neat. mishra deck just because one of the cards needed to play him optimally costs 600 or so bucks or just for a person to have a stable mana base so they do not have to pay an arm and a leg just to be able consistently have their decks work.
I think the advice given in the podcast is good *general* advice. Yours is more a case by case. If I have a friend who cannot afford to keep up with the play group, I'm 100% okay with them running a bunch of proxies. But when its someone who *can* afford to keep up with the group and is using proxies to stay ahead, then I do not like it.
@@ladycthuwu I disagree with that sentiment even if they could afford it considering some singles cost the same as a video game they could have otherwise enjoyed or a payment towards a badass holiday. If printing out "fake cards" leads them to have more money to do more things they love to do and even if buying that card does not take them into debt I do not care whether or not the person chooses to buy a card or not. If you as an individual feel happy from paying fifty bucks for a piece of cardboard then great! You do you but I want my friends to do more fun things outside of the hobby and still have the freedom to make whatever badass decknthey want and get as much enjoyment they can out of their life. That is what matters to me not the secondary market of cards and big rich sellers getting richer out of another's hobby.
As a person who cares about the enjoyment of others I believe this to be the best approach.
@@ladycthuwu Plus by discouraging proxies in general is going to have a negative impact towards people with spending issues and anxiety issues. Combined together like I did I was too shy to ask about proxies and almost got into debt because proxies where looked down upon because of it until I near broke down an explained and proxies where from then on allowed regardless of an individual's circumstances.
So if I can afford anxiety issues by saying yes everyone can proxy and that's ok and create a safer environment for those with such problems it's a win for me a prevention of an issue is better than someone breaking down into debt to keep hold of one of the few social groups they may have .
i think i understand your situation, and imo proxies are completely fine if you're communicating. there are also other options. the playgroup could make a few budget decks to make the decks more even, and certainly if they like playing with each other they would mind making a few 50 $ or lower cost decks.
it's just a matter of what is the easiest route to take, or what ppl are willing to do. imo the budget deck option is what i could go for bcs not all playgroups are fine with proxies, so if someone goes into their lgs with their only deck that happens to have proxies in it, that player could run into some problems.
I think Arcades the Strategist would be great for young/new players.
It's not about the General, but about making the deck kind of "self-playing". So no tutors, not a lot of very situational cards, decent amount of draw and other small spells that always have a target. Just decks where emptying your hand is more or less always the right thing to do. The Anje-deck from C19 is such a deck. Understand what Madness does and you're ready to have some fun regardless of whether or not you understand what is going on on the table.
Agreed, I usually let my begginer friends play it but god is it hard to beat...
I disagree. Arcades essentially changes the rules of how creatures deal damage. That could be confusing to new players.
I'm on a fixed income due to my disability so I can't afford to buy a lot of cards. I recently received the original dual lands in proxies. I don't think that it is wrong to play them at my LGS. I could never afford these cards but I like to play them. I don't consider them counterfeit as long as I let people know that I am using a few proxies in my deck.
Theres nothing wrong with having proxies especially for cards that go for 300$ on the low side. I hope your enjoying them and domt let people get ya down.
I don't see the need for proxy original duals unless it is cedh. Just use shocks. If you can't afford shocks then maybe proxy shocks, but if my deck has real shocks and I am playing someone with fake og duals I would be slightly annoyed, they have given themselves an advantage over others through the use of proxies.
I see your point Ben, however I don't have any fetch lands or proxies of them. I just happened to get these dual lands sent to me in the mail and I don't even remember entering a contest for them. Mind you I have a poor memory due to my disability.
@@jimmay8282 The fact that you have fake duals doesn't mean you have to use them. Use shocks, not got shocks? Use tap lands or extra basics. Having limited income and a disability sucks and i feel for you but you shouldn't use it to justify using fake cards that give you an unfair advantage, albeit only a slight one over the people who have maybe saved up to buy real shock lands. Unless all of your playgroup are high rollers and have their own real og duals?
If you are playing cEdh then please disregard this entirely and use proxies, i see no issue with it there as the point is to push power level to the absolute max, but am unconvinced it is needed in casual whatever the circumstances, especially for something like og duals where shocks are almost as good. Even Gaea's cradle, you have alternatives now with growing rites of itlamoc or you could use a gold border cradle.
@@bantcm yeah no im also on disability and im not allowed to make more money or i work for free, i dont have the ability to save more. you can work an extra shift, i cant. because i was injured by someone else i can never play magic beyond pauper? screw that. if its not an event with prizes or a ranking its for fun and a handful of proxies mean little.
My playgroup's deals rules are that you can cancel a deal but you have to give the person a fill turn cycle of warning (so basically you need to break it on your end step and cannot actually do anything against them until your next turn). It makes you consider whether breaking it is really worth it as they will "get the first hit"
Josh: "I am very bad at organizing my cards"
Jimmy: *nods empathetically*
My own playgroup allows proxies as long as they're used reasonably and they still have to be actual physical cards, whether it's an etsy thing or gold border. We also have a points list similar to Canadian Highlander and a set limit for deck inclusions, on top of other agreed house rules for the group.
Maintaining the meta of the group is most important for us, and naturally when we go out to public events we have non-proxied decks or swaps for proxies when it's needed.
I've always been conflicted about purchasing a good mana base. It's a great investment for the future because those lands will be useful forever (barring some crazy messed up world in which WotC goes nuts and makes better lands than the shocks/fetches). However, playing lands is just not as satisfying as resolving cool spells, or activating abilities. To use a Starcraft analogy: your SCVs are SO essential and you should protect them, but it's the Siege Tanks, Battlecruisers, Goliaths, and Medic/Marines that give you the satisfaction of blowing away your opponent.
When someone breaks an in game deal I just defeat them first
What?
Oh never mind:)
Well even if you are correct about having a good mentality about others haveing more expensive cards, people do tend to win the more expensive cards they have in their decks. MTG is and always will be pay2win. I mean i would really like to see someone "outsmart" someone else with a Serra angel vs a Lyra Dawnbringer.
Simple solution: draft a cube of cards and play those amongst friends.
I'm definitely more partial to proxies, myself owning some pretty customs of Power Nine and more expensive cards that I use in my Cube, but in Commander, I apply the social contract and say that if you're using proxies as an excuse to bring a much more powerful deck to a lower-powered table that's probably not too cool.
If the proxies are pretty enough to pass as custom magic cards and you play Commander in a socially responsible manner, I'd love to see the sort of customs you dredged up from the corners of the Internet and/or from your own printer.
Im very OCD. so if my cards dont all have the same style and frame i get anxious and then even get a headache. so i proxy my cards so my old ones match newer styles.
I also will test out a deck in proxy form before getting cards for it. right now i can afford to make a 50 dollar deck maybe once every 2 months. so im not wasting money on a deck ill hate. and im not making anything more expensive then like 6 dollars unless its a commander.
Plz have EDHRECast on Game Knights playing secret partners 🙏
I second this!!!!!!
What’s secret partner?
Listening on my way to work and super hyped to hear you answer my email!!! Literally made my day! You guys rock!!! I will try Chulane. Thanks again.
i think that when your arguing about proxies, you need to know that some people just don't make that much money or are still in school, does that mean that they need to play less powerful magic or needto put magic on the first place? after all, mtg is just a game and you can play it without needing to spent that much money, just use your money for the important things first, and after that for your hobby.
@Sam Ver Eecke Also my opinion,
But what degree of proxie would you play, papercutouts, counterfeit, selfmade ?
@@pascalmj I just print them out with mtgpress.com or something. But I also have the luck of having an uncle that plays mtg and I can use all of his cards, so yeah a lot of luck
Well when you buy a card you’re paying the people who are making this awesome game. In my opinion if you don’t want to spend money just find janky counterparts. It’s fun to actually find weird/original cards and show them at the table, rather than just printing out the most optimal cards.
@@johndelaney5173 When you buy a reserved list card, or even just a card that's out of print (REPRINT FETCHLANDS YOU COWARDS), you won't pay WotC in the process. In fact, unless you're buying Secret Lairs or sealed product then your money is going into the pockets of the secondary market! That money may eventually make its way to Wizards in the form of buying sealed product to crack and sell as singles, but in a lot of cases that's not the case. (Cardmarket is a somewhat closed ecosystem at times, for example.)
John Delaney not when you buy off the secondary market
I like to at least own a card when I proxy it.
Fetch lands have other utility other than being Mana. It's always important to have them just for library shuffle.
also some commanders care about lands in graveyards, Klothys, Titania and windgrace for example.
Exactly, having elsha and tatyova, i care way less about the mana of fetchlands, but MUCH more about the extra landdrop/shuffle (and graveyard for underworld breach).
It is *insane* how much value fetchlands give in a lot of decks. (think of korvold, gitrog, titania, any deck with brainstorm really...)
@@kidcharlemagne8717 I didn't forget, mainly trying to block the memory of those decks! Lol
Question about proxies, what about proxying cards that has no buisness being pricey like forest bear, a common front kingdom 3 portal that's 35 bucks and only that price cause of 1 deck?
"Just to warn you guys, I run proxies."
"Oh thats fine dude..."
*later*
"I play a forest" [drops a mountain with forest written on it.]
I mention this in a comment earlier about the fact that cards prices are out of our control and are based solely on the fact that WOTC doesn't give us the reprints we want and need. Looking down on someone or making them feel bad about the fact that they can't justify to themselves spending above a certain about of money on a piece of cardboard when they have bills to pay is wrong. If using a proxy is going to ensure that everyone at the table is having fun and being a relevant player in the match, it should be allowed.
I have a clone deck. All about copying my opponents stuff. It has a few proxies. Copy artifact ($40). Copy enchantment ($10). Stuff like that. These aren’t power 9 cards. I’m not doing broken combos with them. They just fit my theme but are too expensive for me. Not fault that copy artifact is on the reserved list.
RE: Proxies
Literally boils down to 1 thing.
HOUSE RULES
- if your house allows it, cool (ex. my house rule - max of 3 proxies per deck, no lands [doesn't include "proxies" of a card you already own])
- if your friend's house doesn't allow it, cool
- if your LGS allows it, cool
- if your LGS doesn't allow it, cool
- if you don't like where it is/isn't allowed, find somewhere else, or make your own house rules and host
Commander and MTG in general is a casual game that some people like to take seriously sometimes. This is only an issue because of the nature of TCGs. You can't proxy in MTGO or MTGA. Be cool, have fun. If it's not fun, don't play, or communicate and compromise so it's fun again.
//rant
Yes!
@@blaze556922 Agree. This is coming from a yugioh player. Sometimes cards can get expensive most of the players don't really have a budget for it. It also good idea to ask for the house rules since that's what's really boils down to.
Totally agreeing on the proxy point! We have kinda of a "rule" in our playgroup, which is, if you already have ordered the card or you know that you are going to trade it in (you have already made plans with someone to trade), its fine to proxy the card.
Proxies are totally OK the Day WotC decided to print singles. WotC prints singles; I can print singles, too.
#dontTrustWotC
I play with proxies in all of my decks. Every card I proxy is a card I own. I just want to have 10+ decks without having to own 10 sol rings, 10 sets of shocklands, etc...
It's kind of weird hearing them argue that Pay-To-Win is a good thing. Just because someone paid more money than me doesn't mean they deserve to win. In a casual setting they're just choosing to invest more in paper.
I've had people with 100% legit decks bring power 8 decks to power 6 tables. Were they in the right because their deck was proxieless? Fuck no. The problem isn't proxying it'self, it's a-holes who choose to make decks, proxies or no, of a high power-level and then choose to stomp on lower power tables when they know that's not how the table wants to play.
Jimmy: Proxies are okay so long as you're just testing 1-2 cards.
Me: my 100% necessary $650 mana base for my Marchesa the Black Rose
My friends: yep, that makes sense.
The biggest fallacy of the command zone is that you only deserve to play certain cards if you can afford them. They love to often equate a proxied deck to an unfair over powered deck. The issue is never the proxies but the difference in power level. If I bring a cedh deck proxied or all legit and stomp over casual decks its not a fun environment. Play the player and not their wallet. The investment side of MTG turns a card game into making money which makes the paywall into building 7-8 level decks challenging.
I'm exactly like Matthew. I have a huge collection of cards and love brewing decks as well as rebrewing old decks
I think the comment at 34:26 is a bit disingenuous. A card's value is typically directly related to how powerful it is as a game piece. Obviously, this is not always true as there are other reasons for a card to be expensive and/or they could be misevaluated. Additionally, the more expensive deck doesn't always win, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be playing with what are perceived as better cards.
I proxy cards for my playgroup and I have some rules I think are good guidelines
1) only proxy what you already own and don’t want to buy again. Eg Eldrazi Titans, teferi’s protection, etc. things that are expensive that you don’t want to keep spending money on. the exception to this rule is cEDH where you can proxy whatever for testing.
2) don’t trade them passing them off as real. I mitigate this already by having the backs say PROXY THE GATHERING on them
3) while proxies are OK in our group, ask any new players if they’re ok with you using proxies. If they’re not, then don’t play that deck or don’t play with them (the player)
Overall it’s led to a lot more deck building (we’ve even got a legacy pod now because we proxies 4 legacy decks) and more fun playing commander because we’ve eliminated the price gap. 100% necessary for the commander format as a whole
i did really like how the editing was done in the edhrec podcast, it was the first time i saw it and it looked wonderful, and have now watched some of their backlog :} good job all of you :D
I too love the work done on the EDHrec cast stuff! It's so cool to see new things come about!
I have to disagree with the proxies sentiment. Reserved list cards will never go down in value and supply will forever be decreasing unless they go around it and clone an og dual but it only works if you have a commander. Same with power 9 but again noone would buy a 5k black lotus for a "casual" format. They ban those cards based on their cost prohibitiveness more than anything. Unless you are playing in an official event for money, why not let people play with those cards. Just look at sol ring being available for everyone; it never hurt the format and gives everyone a good feeling of playing with real power.
@@CartoreAOS valid point. however, a person can choose to put sol ring or not because its available; if everyone had og duals like command tower then they will slot it in any deck and it doesnt make sense not to for the sake of being unique. regardless the point i am making is that people who love playing edh will spend money to a reasonable amount. they can splurge on good looking proxies instead. they even made a point that they only own one copy and proxy the rest because of the price so even whales have limits. people just have sunk cost fallacy for tcgs and its a dangerous trap; dont pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a piece of cardboard
If someone breaks a deal, he better win on the spot or I will use all my resources to bring him down, no matter if I lose, he will lose before I do : P
If someone breaks a deal I suicide kamikaze them for the next three weeks every game
blood feud. immediate blood feud.
~~kill them irl~~ jk
Death before dishonor!
@@AnonYmous-mc5zx I read this with the voice of Work from star trek tng xD
"Sure, we have and can afford expensive cards, but like our friend has even MORE expensive cards!"
I like to make deals with the scariest player at the table... he will protect me and kill my enemies while I build up the resources for his downfall...
I like bring that player, holding a nuke in my hand and hoping I can pull a game ending play.
Typically that is also the most untrustworthy player
Kenrith is a good deal maker commander whenever you are running low on advantage and his red ability is ridiculous on the table because it basically reads,. prevent all damage o you kill target player that threatens you most if you politic it well. ;)
You guys should take the cameras over to Cassius' house and do a cribs like episode where he shows off his collection lol!
I can’t ever bring myself to take apart my decks because there are always so many cards unique to that deck that I know I wouldn’t use anywhere else, so it feels highly wasteful to buy they key unique pieces for a deck and then disassemble it for the staples it contains
In regard to proxies, ask your playgroup/LGS if it's okay. Personally, I support any Wizards made product being allowed in commander as long as it respects the ban list and typical legal formality. Have a gold bordered card? Use it. Have specialty artist blanks? Use it. Additionally if you commission custom artwork of your favorite card, use it. My friend knows a local artist, and asked them to design a full set of tokens, and custom full art basics that themed into his Teysa deathharmonicon/token deck. Technically not legal, but our LGS allows it, and they are cool to see.
JLK and Jimmy saying that anyone can be on GameKnights regardless of followers, subscribers, etc. reminds me of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber when he gleefully exclaims "So I have a chance!!!!!!"
I'd love to see you on Game Knights with your Sidisi, Brood Tyrant build :D
Dude then get in touch with them if you wanna and suggest a cEDH game knighs episode or something unique that they might want to give a try. :) I love your deck brews and if it's something you wanna try getting in contact with them is your best chance Would suggest by letter along with an email possibly though because I imagine they get a tonne of emails about game knights stuff. :P
@@KitsuLeif Oof! That would be the dream! Sidisi is the deck that I've spent most time optimizing so that would definitely be awesome :D
@@ecos889 Thanks for the support!
I'll definitely test my luck and contact them when I live closer to LA than I do now. Traveling there from here is quite the expense. So I want to make it as likely as possible. Who knows? Maybe The Commander Tavern will be large enough by then :P
Hey guys, fun fact about what you spoke about in the End Step, Hunters - I got to hang around on the set! The Synagogue scenes in the first three episodes were filmed in my synagogue so I just walked over, tried not to get in anyone's way, and watched the filming. It was pretty incredible to get a glimpse at film-making behind the scenes. I couldn't believe how much tech and people were involved. Josh, I'm glad you're enjoying the show!
Sponsored by a site selling cards
"PrOxIeS ArE DiSrEsPeCtFuL"
About 6 months ago I did a deck purge, I figured out my favorite 5 decks and tore apart my other 9. This was hard at first but extremely useful! I was able to gain access to tons of cards I never wanted to buy 2nd copies of and build new commanders that I strayed away from because of things like, "I already have 2 simic decks"
I'm a warehouse worker. I can't afford most of the more powerful cards, especially more expensive cards. I'm also part time male model, so I have to keep fit and that's pretty expensive too. Proxies let me enjoy what I love on my limited budget. Some of my decks are heavier in proxies (like Golos), others like Kethis just have 3 OG Dual proxies.
It's a matter of personal income.
I always write down everything to do with the card on paper, I make art for my proxies, sometimes its original interpretations of the card, like a few of my Mana Crypts, other times its parody or joke art, like my Karn Liberated who is saying he's too large for the card frame.
I get what your saying but at a magic fest or a LGS playing a card that you don't own and don't have intentions of buying is flat out counterfeits imo but if your just playing with your playgroup have fun
But why male models?
@@williamcarswell3012 I play with my "counterfeit" decks constantly at my LGS and everyone accepts them. I'd buy the cards if I could but again, struggling model. Fitness is expensive too.
@@myztik5716 uh because its my chosen career path?
@@DAsrada if the people you play with accept it then have fun and enjoy yourself
Not sure if Jimmy and Josh will see this. Hi BTW!
With regards to proxies. Own an original copy. You can proxy them in a sleeve (I typically print my proxy to be full art, photo paper quality, and try to make them feel similar to a sleeved card with some paper backing when they are sleeved), and take out the original to be placed on the field over it when needed (these cards are usually in ultra pro top loaders. Typically I use them for permanents.
Spell wise, if needed I will ensure all my deck uses the same sleeves, and I mark my inner sleeves with stickers (small dots of different colours) and sort them out at the end of each game to be place into a common pile and rebuilding a deck just involve me finding cards of i.e. Red sticker colour and slap them into deck A, etc.
With regards to expensive proxies
There are always (almost) alternatives for cards that are way lower in the budget. Magic after all isn't pay to win. Budget decks can own expensive decks too.
Therefore, only proxy when you have the original and just don't want to have too many copies cause they are too expensive.
Anyone having other views on this? Cheers.
I do the what I call "MTGO style" proxies a lot. I own a copy of all the cards I proxy but I usually don't own more than 1 or enough for all the decks I want to use them in. I'll do this all the way down to Sol Rings. I own maybe 5 or 6 Sol Rings but I have something like 15 or 16 decks put together even though I don't really play them all. I really enjoy working on new decks all the time. The thing I've been thinking about working on now is trying to get away from doing sharpie on a basic land. I need to set up my printer and figure out how to print some quality proxies.
Kris try mtgpress.net
What he said. It's nice. I do the same thing you do and mtgpress helped a lot
@@ianoneill8392 That looks pretty awesome. Thanks.
Our LGS follows our leader Brian. His opinion is that if you're trying to buy the card. ie:If you're not willing to buy an original dual, then you can't proxy it. Some reasons for not being able to buy a card include being poor (like me) or unable to find a copy available.
RE: when to play boundless realms.
I love landfall so i would never make a Tatyova deck without landfall.
Doesn't the player who asks the question mean when to play it with a landfall deck?
Do i just play it do draw and ramp a lot or do i wait for my Roil Elemental or Avanger of Zendikar?
Because ramping and draw will give me a lot of resources but then i barely have any lands in my deck for my landfall triggers.
My own awnser would be, your way to win is landfall so wait for a good landfall trigger which sticks (not the until end of turn effects)
It was my question, yes and no. I wanted to see what's the community's opinion is about it with two parameters:
Should I wait and get more lands?
Should I wait and get more value from those lands?
i would say that playing it straight away (if the board state allows it) would be better.
not only will you have more chances to play 2 7 mana spells but also you will probably have more mana.
7 lands with 4 more turns to play means 28 mana. while 10 with only 2 turns means 20.
the only reason why i wouldn't play it is if i dont have anything to use the mana on.
then i would make sure Tatyova was out@@גליורמן
@@SteveWacken but what about other staff with landfall? Usually, I will first cast roil elemental, Avenger of Zendikar or another big landfalls payoffs. But should I wait a turn to play Retreat to Coralhelm or another smaller landfall payoff?
I think that your shouldn't wait for the smaller effects. Those are not gonna win you the game. If you just love some effect, ofcourse play that first. The only exection on that which I can think of would be lotus cobra because that will make boundless realms basically free
no be honest i had no idea boundless realms even existed before watching this episode so i havent had all the time to think about it. but this logic is what i use on rampant growth effects
20:15 I have an opinion on this point,
Magic is an interesting and engaging game, but the moment that someone feels they lose that engagement is when the phones come out. This isn't necessarily a callout to stax or control, (mostly because those decks end their turns fast), but more for decks that can become dominant quickly but can't get the finish quickly.
Decks like Muldrotha, Edgar Markov, or Korvold can be imposing enough to be dominant but not powerful enough to end the game for several turns and oftentimes have tons of options and lines available to them, making that player's turn take several times longer than the turns of the players around them.
Part of the fun of the game is being able to work around and with other players to stop problems from warping the game, but if a voltron commander gets locked out by a Meren, (for example), it's not hard to see why the player would take out their phone and start up their app of choice.
The easy solution is don't play those commanders, but that's a bad answer and should never be your goto. The "git gud" argument is also just as bad; some decks and strategies just have bad matchups.
I personally like to put "I win" cards into the deck that don't do much on their own unless I'm in a pretty advantageous position. Being able to end a game rather than durdle for an hour is worth the efficiency, in my opinion.
"Mitch doesn't feel that his decks perform differently because of cost"
Then why does he make content that advocates for the banning of expensive cards? He makes all kinds of videos about haves and have nots in edh, even going so far as to create a fictitious character "maxillion" who plays cards because they're expensive and denegrates that character. If he doesn't feel that way, then why does he continually go after expensive cards for being a bad thing.
@Milkshake Of Death yeah, I agree that he does pander to his audience on this topic. The primary driver of his stance on duals is cost. 'let's ban 10 Commander cards', timestamp 38:50. Now, one can make the argument that keeping cost down is good for the format, but I would argue that if your decks are balanced and you feel they're balanced, then it doesn't matter whether other decks have expensive cards. I think it's a hard thing to ban stuff in Commander. I really like that there is a format where you can play almost any card.
@Milkshake Of Death Which cards has Mitch said should be banned? I think he went out of his way to say he isn't doing that in the podcast.
@Milkshake Of Death Seriously this is the most deluded comment I have seen all year.
I like the "how often do you take apart your decks" question.
I have a handful of decks (Ur Dragon, Teysa Orzhov Scion, Animar, Raff Capashen) that are basically constantly improving towards being that 2% better.
Whereas i've been screwing around with Kazarov, Torbran, Niv Mizzet, Yarok, and a couple other decks for my friend group that's usually lower power.
(I currently have 10 commander decks sleeved and ready to play)
I had a cool idea for a R/W commander:
[Cardname] ---- 1RRW
Legendary Creature - Goblin Warrior
Afflict X where X is the number of attacking creatures you control.
Whenever [Cardname] deals combat damage to a player, if you have less than 6 cards in hand, draw cards equal to the difference, then discard a card at random.
2/4
I like it but at 2/5. Also hastey
@@TheVargaszm I like the idea. My only hesitation with that is that it would possibly be a bit pushed. Also, at 4 toughness it's not going to die to a Bolt or something. Another thing to consider is that you would ideally be making a Boros token deck, so running white enchantments that give all creatures +1/+1 would be a good thing, so his base power/toughness isn't as big a deal. But ya, Haste would be a good include for sure.
I proxy in two ways. A.) I am working on getting the card, but my deck needs it, I.E. my mana crypt is in the mail or I am waiting until next paycheck. B.) I proxy EVERY card in a deck all at once, and play with that for a month before I even attempt to buy any card for it. Magic is expensive, and I am willing to put in the money to play decks I enjoy. I own 99% of the fast mana, every fetch shock and dual, i bought and play a Bazaar of Baghdad in my deck, as well as mishra's workshop and all the cards for my janky mono white rebel deck. But if I want to build a deck that makes me buy a 300$ card, or a lot of 100$ cards, I am not buying those if they don't go into multiple decks unless I KNOW FOR A FACT that I am going to play and keep that deck.
I like, how the editor showed us who "The rock" is) As if he's a magic card, mentioned. Would be funny to see his stats though, and to know what he's cooking
Odric, Lunarch Marshal is a good first commander. It's only one color so organizing mana is not confusing, you learn a lot of terms based on the cards you play, it helps show the effect each card you play has on the rest of your battlefield, it has a lot of life gain, and attacking is a big thing so it's a lot of fun for younger players. Add in creatures like Danitha, Zetalpa, Gingerbrute, and Seraph of the Dawn to get access to all of those abilities, add planeswalkers like Teyo, The Wanderer, and Ajani to show how planeswalkers work, add in instants like Increasing Devotion to explain tokens (who then get all of the abilities via Odric). You can also add equipment like Basilisk Collar, Mace of the Valiant, And Swiftfoot Boots to give all of your creatures those abilities and teach about equipment. It's a really fun and reliable deck to play :)
When they started talking about 20-minute turns, I, a Lord Windgrace stan, felt very *seen*.
My playgroup let me play out my Anje Falkenrath infinite combo. We sat there for a solid 15 minutes as a discarded, drew and untapped looking for the second to last card.
On Proxies: A couple for playtesting sure, but I expect you to buy/trade the card if you keep playing that deck. The MTG/TCG hobby is collect the cards, not print the cards. There are allot of other options of building a Commander deck (Commander's Quarters had great examples) that don't require you to spend loads of money on a fun deck. Build your collection, borrow a deck, and proxie only with intend to buy or rotate it out if it doesn't work for you.
I also see this in some comments: people running close to whole decks of proxies. Imho, and where my gripe with proxies stems from:
Never play (close to) a full deck of proxies, and this is a real life example (non-commander): playgroup started from scratch, almost no cards abouve $10 in any decks, and then a newcommer wants to join with a World Championship Deck (not allot of fun was had those games, mostly everyone was annoyed by the power of the deck, the person playing the deck didn't understand the fuss). Someone just ruined the game with a $25 dollar deck, while others invested $100's on barely working decks (yes we where beginners back then).