Slight Changes to Card Frame

[TheWhiteDragon]

...But if they're truly indistinguishable from the real thing then I'm having a hard time seeing damages done to players in the tournament.

It affects the game when I am honest and my opponent is not. If I play in a non-proxy event, or a limited proxy event, and can afford time walk, so I play an underpowered deck proxying my FoWs and Drains and library and sapphire (hitting my 10 proxy limit) with time walk and stony silences...but my opponent has 4x workshop, ALL the artifact acceleration, and anything else insanely pricey for the bargain price of $50 for his entire deck, not needing any proxies...then I am at a severe disadvantage.  If I have to compromise what I can play out of sheer honesty...if we play an identical deck, yet my opponent can "afford" imperial seal and bobs, while I have to settle for spoils of the vault and 4x night's whisper...then I am at a sever disadvantage.

Not everyone is okay with buying fakes...and it makes being a person of moral integrity disadventageous when a cheater can play superior decks for the cost of my single bayou.

[Norm4eva]

There is definitely an issue of integrity here, but I don't know that it's appropriate to tie it up with the cost of the game. It may not be fair that Jane paid $X for a dual land whereas Mike had to pay $Y (where Y > X). However, there are several reasons that this could in fact happen:

    • Jane bought her dual lands in 1998. Mike bought his in 2010.
    • Jane acquired her duals from someone who didn't know or care what they had. Caveat venditor. (if that's a thing. i don't know latin)
    • Mike failed to shop around and didn't get the best deal.
    • Mike opted to keep his money local, even if it meant paying more.

Invoking cost as a fairness tool will always be subject to more questions and the necessity for context. To that extent I don't think that it should be directly associated with the proxy/fake issue.

I *do* think we should be having a conversation about the nature of proxy or facsimile Magic cards, and it should involve the hows and whys of the producers and the owners of those products.

At a certain REL, or at an event of a certain nature, proxies are unacceptable; below that, strictly wherein the actual gameplay is concerned -- what is the realistic difference between a Plains Ed Ancestral Recall and a high-quality reproduction? I'm not talking about people trying to pass them off as real, or trading them as real, or selling them as real - I'm just talking about the execution of the game. See, this is where I think a lot of people have trouble getting over the notion that third-party product is apparently this unforgivable sin - there really are not very many games in real life where the game pieces are required to be 100% authentic. Monopoly pieces can be swapped for thimbles and refrigerator magnets; chess pieces can be replaced by familiar distinctive objects; a deck of playing cards need only have the same backing while the front can clearly indicate the deck was piece-mealed together. To outsiders and casuals, it's difficult to showcase why it matters so much that a player use a 100% authentic set of cards.

For my part -- I abhor proxies and fakes because I simply don't want to play with them. It's really a very baseless dislike; it's enough for me to know that my Ancestral Recall is just a modified Sea's Claim that drawing it in a proxy-friendly event still makes my heart hurt a little bit. It could never be passed off as the real deal -- to that end, however, if someone fell in love with it and wanted to trade some durdly EDH staple for it, I guess I have no compunction about doing so. It's a personal transaction, and the card still could never be sold or incorrectly recognized as the real thing, so who gives a shit?