How did Proxy Tournaments start in USA?

[Malhavoc]

This is a questione aimed at all the USA players. Among you, proxy tournaments are very common, if not the norm. On the other hand, here in Italy, proxy tournaments are a rarity; this of course leads to a very different metagame, but that's not the point of my topic.

I was interested in how proxy tournaments borned and developed among you.

1) What did make proxy tournament needed, and when?
2) Weren't a lot of players against this? Mainly those with big collections, fearing a drop in values of their cards?
3) How did you manage to handle this outside WotC's organization? In particular:
- Did you have problems finding certified judges to handled these tournaments?
- Did WotC do anything to try and stop (or not-support) proxy tournaments?
- Being outside of an organization probably forced you to build certain structures which were now missing; which ones exactly?
4) After some time, did you experienced some noticeable changes in the number/quality of players?
5) In the end, if you could, would you come back or do you find proxy tournaments a very good thing?

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

[Gort32]

1) What is easy: we Vintage players like to play and the supply players willing to drop a couple thousand on pieces of cardboard were more limited than we liked.  So, in an effort to attract more players to the format, the cost of entering the format - the major barrier to new players - was lowered.  A new player isn't going to commit that kind of cash (and time) to start in a format that he isn't certain to enjoy and this gives players a means to join the format without going all-out.
2) I know that there were a lot of players in my area - myself included - that were initially opposed to this.  At this point I know of no one at my store that is opposed to the current 10-proxy system and several are looking at recommending that the limit be increased to 15.  I have not  noticed any significant drop in prices in any of the key Vintage cards since proxy tournaments have become popular.
3) Once again, we Vintage players like to play! 
  3a) If WotC doesn't like the idea of us playing with fake cards in their tournaments, then we just hold our own tournaments!  Basically, our store doesn't have a certified judge - the tournaments are non-sanctioned (as I believe all proxy tournaments are - someone correct me?) and do not count towards or Eternal rating. 
  3b) I have heard stories from way back when involving WotC not being very fond of proxy tournaments and they have always held a strong stance against them in sanctioned tournaments, but I haven't heard anything in quite some time on the subject.  I guess they realize that we are only proxying cards that we can't purchase from them anymore and still buying the new ones.
  3c) There really isn't much of a structure in place for Vintage tournaments.  THe tournaments are generally unrelated to each other, so standings in previous tournaments have no bearing on the next one.  There is nothing like an informal Grand Prix in the Vintage community.
4) Yes to both.  There are a lot more players in my local tournaments and they are playing better decks than they did back before proxies.  Of course, the majority of the new players are sadly still scrubs, but at least now they are scrubs with half of a fighting chance running a decent deck.  There is also, however, an additional influx of quality players who just dind't want to slap down that much cash for a hobby that can play without buying a full set of power.  Generally, afte rthe first two rounds of a tournament, the different skill levels are separated pretty well and players are paired with other players of the same relative skill level.
5) I believe that proxy tournaments are a good thing.  Vintage is a format that is played for the raw fun of the game - we have no truly professional players like in the other formats that are there simply to win money and unsanctioned proxy tournaments simply further promote this attitude.

Note: I am a player who is very nearly fully-powered and could comfortably and competitively play in a non-proxy environment

[Harlequin]

I want to preface my post with something that is not dirrectly on-topic, but I assure you it will be realevent to my post...

The Biggest benefit of proxies is to prevent stagnation.  It prevents stagnation on two fronts.  Firstly, as mentioned above, it allows newer players and players of other formats to enter the metagame.  Attracting other competative players from other formats its easier when they don't need to drop $2000+  to bring even a legacy deck up to competative vintage standards.  The second way it helps prevent stagnation is by opening up the ability for players to change decks from week to week.  Take a look at a deck transfer from Fully Powered Gifts to Fully powered Slaver.  Those decks are very similar ... but still making that transfer could cost well over $100.  (4 thirst, 3 welders, 1-2 volcs, 1-2 slavers, trike, possible pithing needles or chalices, maybe even LoA).  Sure $100 is not very much if you own 5 mox, lotus, 4 drains ... but still it may not be worth $100 just to test the deck at a tournement.  And Gifts->Slaver is probably most 'low impact' change you could make.  Slaver->Bomberman, or W/U Fish -> Oath ... these type of "lateral" deck changes could cost up to $500 in $10 to $20 cards.

1) So the "need" to change, is based on the simple reason that playing the same people with the same decks week after week, month after month is - boring!

2) I would imagine that if you have a small meta of 'fully powered' players - you would certainly get alot of flack from "most" of the current players.  Here's a non-magic example: I play World of Warcraft, and I have spent months accumulating Honor Points (pvp credits) and have nearly bought every item that I want to buy.  Now in the next week or so, they are lowering the honor point cost on everything .... sure I'm miffed because I spent alot of time getting my gear and now future players will only have to commit a fraction of that time - but do I plan to quit?  Heck no!

3) Judges are Judges, Businesses are Businesses, and Rules are Rules...  Just because a person is DCI qualified, doesn't mean they can only judge DCI events, the store generally gives thier non-playing judges some sort of trival compensation.  But mostly even DCI judges will embrace a chance to get more tournements (even unsanctioned ones) under their belt.  WoTC may not promote proxy events, but they make no money on secondary markets anyhow - for them proxy events are just free promotion.  Lastly, many un-sanctioned events still use the REL's set up by DCI.  They even use DCI reporting softwere to track the swiss standings. 

4) I think that is the biggest reason to hold the events.  The only time I experianced a change in a meta was going from a store changing from 5 to 10 (then to 15).  I would say that decks/player quality increased at first - then attendance followed.  The most immediate change was in deck diversity.  This change in diversity made player on a whole better because it broadened the horizon of what architypes you had to prepair for.

5) Personally, I love proxy tournements because I love testing new decks in tournement settings.  This last thursday I had a proxy of a Mana Vault next to a real jet and a real emerald... why?  because I didn't want to sift through 1,000s of card looking for a stupid vault.  Proxies let me seamlessly move from deck X to deck Y.  (in this case mono-red shop to Ray's staxless stax). 

[Zherbus]

While Proxying and probably proxy tournaments as an idea existed forever, here's how I remember it.

Early in the TMD days/late in the BD days, in order to get my local card shop to host Type 1 tournaments I had the idea to allow proxies of the P10 cards. It was a hit! Then talking about it with some folks that attended from Neutral Ground NYC, the next one was 5 of any card (I think). Hadley attended THAT tournament, and then they started holding their own proxy events. Between those two New England events, we set a precedent for Type 1 tournaments in the area - noone wanted to attend a tournament where either they were at a disadvantage or they would just run over extended decks. With reports going up on TMD, other regions started advertising theirs as proxy which eventually took over and grew the format because it was suddenly more accessable.

Some short answers:

This was in 2001. Yes, there was a few naysayers, but not many. Especially in Hadley's case, there was plenty of volunteer Judges. WotC never did anything to stop it. The events always ran as if they were DCI sanction (using DCI reporter, etc).

At first, proxy-people had no clue. That usually lasted 1-2 tournaments before they were on the cutting edge. Vintage quickly developed it's metagames to be closer to global whereever proxies were allowed.

I know proxies were good for Vintage. New England was a place with MAYBE 1 event per month. When Hadley and I got things rollin', it was a 1/week events with attendance being WAY high. Also, we have Waterbury which is gigantic by Vintage standards.

[Malhavoc]

Lately we've been having a little decreasing in the number of players here in Italy.. it could be just a transitional period, or the fact that summer's approaching, however things like these tend to bring out the usual discussions about proxy tournaments. Personally, looking at the USA experience, I think it's plain that's healthy for the format. We are experiencing  less and less new players, and that' because while old ones may stop playing, there are no new ones joining, especially no youth ones. The reason is obvious: you can play unpowered and try to win anyway, and you can, but obviously you start with a plain handicap. Some proxy tournament are been held in Rome, and seem to get quite well, but for the rest of Italy, they are almost non-existent.

The problem is that there are MANY players against this: mostly the ones owning power: they both feel "unjust" to see someone with power without having spent a penny for it, and feel like their own power can decrease in value due to less demand.

On the other hand, from a quick look around, seems like many judges are not even interested in holding proxy tournament.. it's not clear if that's because of their own believes or even because of the WotC's policy.

After all, the official Vintage chart gives very little to the players, apart from the Invitational, so even the non-sanctioned issue shouldn't be such a big issue after all.

Personally, I think many players (with all respect) are quite blind in this regard here: they don't see that in the long run, without new blood easily joining Vintage, vintage could even disappear here one day. That day, their hard gained power will value much much less than they had feared.

I think after all proxys are just a "Damocle's Sword" here in Italy: if/when there won't be enough people playing, proxy tournaments will become the only way to keep the format alive here. The only question is IF and WHEN that will happen here. In your case, did you experience some lack of players before starting with the proxy tournaments?

[Zherbus]

The problem is that there are MANY players against this: mostly the ones owning power: they both feel "unjust" to see someone with power without having spent a penny for it, and feel like their own power can decrease in value due to less demand.

I was always fully powered, and I felt the opposite. I want to be able to play against top competition with the cards I spent money on. I don't want to run over someone who can't drop $3000 on power just because they can't afford it. I want to run over someone because I built and played better than they did.

[Moxlotus]

The problem is that there are MANY players against this: mostly the ones owning power: they both feel "unjust" to see someone with power without having spent a penny for it, and feel like their own power can decrease in value due to less demand.

I was always fully powered, and I felt the opposite. I want to be able to play against top competition with the cards I spent money on. I don't want to run over someone who can't drop $3000 on power just because they can't afford it. I want to run over someone because I built and played better than they did.

Exactly.  Do people go to tournaments to make a profit, or do they go to play Magic for competition with the benefit of maybe making some money?  If they want to make a profit, they should just go to work.

If they feel that proxies will make their collection go down--point to when power rose drastically in price and when proxy tournaments in the US started.  Yeah, they happened at the same time.

If you run a proxy tournament, are people with power NOT going to show up?  I doubt it. 

[Zherbus]

If they feel that proxies will make their collection go down--point to when power rose drastically in price and when proxy tournaments in the US started.  Yeah, they happened at the same time.

That's a GREAT point I had forgotten about. Via making Vintage exponentially more popular, chase-cards (Power 9, Mana Drains, Workshops, Bazaars, etc) rose in prices on a ridiculous scale. Those P9 cards that I didn't win (so my Lotus, Emerald, and Library) I bought for respectively $200 (albeit a GREAT deal), $80, and $65. I bought my first playset of Workshops for $25, $20, $25, and $35 in 2001. The prices didn't change much until Vintage took off. Try even TOUCHING those prices now. For those who spent money on Vintage early on, you can thank proxy events for paying for your kids education!

[LotusHead]

I first proxied my Mox Emerald in 1997 because I didn't play with sleeves and the Emerald was so tore up, I could easily identify it anywhere in my deck.

I first heard about proxies as a Meta consideration in 2002 when I first starting browsing TMD.

My first Vintage tourney experiences were Sactioned weekly Thursday Night Arena Magic at C&J's Collectibles which had 25ish players each week, and with my Power 7 and 2 Drains I built an early build of Bomberman.

I made my own proxies for "Meandeck Oath", "PTW Gay/r Fish" and Purple Hat's "Crushing Chamber" soley for the purpose of training the locals to play T1, and having competetive decks to test with.  Crushing Chamber had mostly t2 Affinity cards and eventually all but Shops and Power became real in the deck.  I spent time making the proxies look nice so that the locals would take them more seriously.

Later, PROXY TOURNIES IN THE META STARTED!!!

With 10 proxies, and the help of a friend with lots of Dual Lands and FOW, I could now support say, 2-3 decks/players to join the meta.

Some of these new faces to vintage either went out of their way to acquire all of the budget cards to almost within 10 proxy limit, or have no cards of their own (other than T2 cards), but still know the Vintage Metagame and do well at these tournies.

I have gotten at least 6 people to attend sanctioned tournies who otherwise would never have been able to compete/enjoy these tournies. 3 of them won a piece of power (or split). That's 6 more people in my meta. sweet!

I can't speak highly enough about proxy tourney benefits.

As to WOTC/DCI involvement with proxies: They randomly errata Time Vault, and we obey. They restrict Trinisphere in Vintage and we obey.  We go by DCI rules to give ourselves legitimacy.  I think Wizards respects that, but can't resolve the proxy thing because they are a business moving cardboard crack.  They can't make money off the secondary market.  That doesn't mean they don't care about Vintage (example: Gifts Ungiven), they just can't be involved in anything other than "Official" in rare sanctioned tournies.

As to European concerns about Proxies hurting their financial feelings; Don't worry.  The hardest concept I learned was that Fake Black Lotus proxies made Black Lotus prices triple in a few short years.  Fake Mishra's Workshop proxies made real Mishra's Workshops octuple in prices in a few short years.

[Eddie]

We've been trying out proxy events here in Belgium, and the result is not that good. We get 15-ish people, with around 8 from our own crew to our events. Compare this to another vintage tournament with same prize structure and higher entrance cost without proxies: they get 40-ish people.

I'm not sure what causes this. We are all full powered, but none of us mind proxies. Maybe 3 people out of 15 actually use proxies. We just can't seem to get other people to try it out. Now even the bigger Legacy crowd.

[LotusHead]

We are all full powered, but none of us mind proxies. Maybe 3 people out of 15 actually use proxies. We just can't seem to get other people to try it out. Now even the bigger Legacy crowd.

Does your potential new crowd think of T1 Vintage as purely first turn combo gg?

If that is so, then one has to re-educate them.

Make the proxy decks, have them humor you, show them how fun, thoughtful, strategic, heartpumping Vintage is (This isn't directed at Eddie alone)

As Proxies are the norm here in America, we don't have to get over the hurdle of the Proxy Stigma.  Who wouldn't want to play a deck built around Sundering Titans, Mindslavers and such?  We only have to overcome the Vintage Stigma.  The first turn kill myth.

Out here, (I'm 35 now), I've had to train the 13-18 year olds in the way of Vintage.  Hyping "Team Meandeck Oath" or PTW's Gay/r Fish got them almost interested in learning about it.  And as I said before, Crushing Chamber used moslty T2 cards they they understood.

Good luck and great thread.

[Eandori]

I've played since 1997 and have a vast collection for all formats, including...

Unlimited Power 9 (most are NM)
4 Drains
3 Mishra's Workshops
1 Library of Alexandria
full set of 40 dual lands (revised)
Beta Sol Ring
Alpha Demonic Tutor
full set of 20 search lands
2 Moat
1 Mirror Universe
1 Berserk (unlimited)
etc etc.

My overall collection surpasses 13,000 cards with no repeats more then 4 of anything.  I use electronic databasing of my collection and have the value estimated well over $15k.  Hopefully, that estabilishes my financial investment into Magic the Gathering.

I am a home owner, got a wife and kid on the way, I'm an Engineer and I work for Intel in California.  If I had no financial sense, I would be very very broke.  I spend large amounts of time yearly reviewing my investments and making sure I move savings from one spot to another based on markets.  I take large amounts of time to make decisions about home purchasing, 401k investment, stocks, etc.  Hopefully that establishes my sense of finances and the time I spend on them.

Having said all that, I am 100% in full support of Proxy tournaments for Vintage.  For years I have observed how it brings new players into the format, keeps the metagame healthy, levels the playing field for good competitive play, and INCREASES the value of staple Vintage cards.  Simply put, people like to collect, they like to play with real cards.  After slapping down that marked Island that says "Sapphire" 1,000 times you start wishing it was a real Mox Sapphire.

[Titanium Dragon]

A more general view on proxies, though, might be telling. Why are power prices so high? Is it really the popularity of vintage?

Its worth noting that the price of power and proxy tournaments went up around the same time. However, there's another thing a lot of people are forgotting - what happened in the early 2000s? A few things; the dollar devalued massively, that's for sure, so that 1000 lotus is worth only about 600 in 2000 dollars. But something else happened too: the initial group of Magic players grew up. Magic was targeted towards 13+, and if you add 8 to that you're getting a bunch of college graduates with a lot more disposable income that year who play Magic. Its well worth taking "proxies increase the value of the real thing" with a grain of salt, because a massive increase in disposable income means that luxuries such as power are likely to increase in price - which is what happened. Is this why? I don't know. But I'm not sure if there are more than the 15,000 or so theoretical maximum of Vintage players, though I suspect the actual maximum is much lower than that.

[LotusHead]

A more general view on proxies, though, might be telling. Why are power prices so high? Is it really the popularity of vintage?

With proxies (and the borkeness of Fetchlands/Mirroden making T1 fun again), about 10 times as many players can compete in Vintage.  Even if the players are content with the proxy Black Lotus, 10 times as many people WANT a real Black Lotus.

Without proxies, only oldschool players and players willing to sink $2000 into ebay will even care about a Black Lotus.

With proxies, more people care.

I can think of several people in my own Meta who are now semi-powered, even if they don't ever ever ever NEED real power, they just WANT real power (so they can free up PROXY SLOTS! Whoot!)

It's weird, but true.

[Harlequin]

Also, Scratches and bends will decrease a collections value much faster than a few more proxy tournements.  I know some people that own power (in very nice condition) that choose to proxy it anyway beacause they don't want risk it being damaged or stolen.

For this reason, you may have some die-hard collectors actualy want proxy events so they arn't forced to depreciate thier collection. 

If you play with sleaves, you may not be able to tell the differance between a lotus that has been played 50 times vrs 55 times ... but 50 vrs 200 is usually pritty noticable even with sleeves and careful shuffling.  Those little white blemishes on the edge can cost big $.

[Eandori]

A more general view on proxies, though, might be telling. Why are power prices so high? Is it really the popularity of vintage?

Its worth noting that the price of power and proxy tournaments went up around the same time. However, there's another thing a lot of people are forgotting - what happened in the early 2000s? A few things; the dollar devalued massively, that's for sure, so that 1000 lotus is worth only about 600 in 2000 dollars. But something else happened too: the initial group of Magic players grew up. Magic was targeted towards 13+, and if you add 8 to that you're getting a bunch of college graduates with a lot more disposable income that year who play Magic. Its well worth taking "proxies increase the value of the real thing" with a grain of salt, because a massive increase in disposable income means that luxuries such as power are likely to increase in price - which is what happened. Is this why? I don't know. But I'm not sure if there are more than the 15,000 or so theoretical maximum of Vintage players, though I suspect the actual maximum is much lower than that.

This was a good point, and well worth considering.  However I was 21 when I started playing magic and most of the people who also played around me were 18-35.  A LARGE portion of that magic community already had access to more disposable income.

$1000 US-2000 is only worth $600 US-2007 from a certain perspective.  If you had $3000 sitting in the bank then, and didn't touch it,  you have about $3060 in the bank now.  Looking at America from a closed community perspective that price increase IS a value increase.  You can't always judge the value of American dollar by how it translates to other countries, because trade is often restricted to other countries to dampen the volatile world markets.

[Toad]

The problem is that there are MANY players against this: mostly the ones owning power: they both feel "unjust" to see someone with power without having spent a penny for it

The real reason a lot of Powered players are against Proxies is that they want to keep their advantage over the opponent because of card availability instead of playskills.

[LotusHead]

The problem is that there are MANY players against this: mostly the ones owning power: they both feel "unjust" to see someone with power without having spent a penny for it

The real reason a lot of Powered players are against Proxies is that they want to keep their advantage over the opponent because of card availability instead of playskills.

Does this mean that if a proxy tourney were to be held in a European town, powered players wouldn't show up for dislike of proxies? 

I'm assuming Malhavoc's post was to try and see how to get a Vintage scene started/growing and he sees Proxies as a solution, looking the U.S. experience as inspiration.

I remember going to my first 10 proxy tourney, proxying 2 drains.  I lost 2/5 matches because I forgot I had drain mana.  After that, I left the proxies in my deck so I would train myself to think my proxies were real. (then Eudemonia started their series, yay!)