I have a qustion!!

[backforgood2007]

Since I haven't played in a long time I have a good question:

What do YOU think about proxies in tournament play

Me for one think its destroying the feel of owning the actual power nine cards.

And in that destroying the format

whats your opinion

[oneofchaos]

Power actually saw an increase in price with proxies.  Proxies = more players = more demand for power.  Logically proxies should detract from the value but they don't.  Also without Proxies, your largest tournaments would rarely exceed 30.  Proxies keeps the format fresh with new faces, new decks, and insures the format won't die from lack of staples (or cost prohibitive staples).

[Moxlotus]

As was said, proxies increase the value of power cards.  They allow people to enter the format, which allows the format to grow, which increases the value of power.  There would be no type 1 in the midwest without proxies.  There woudl be no SCG events without proxies.  I doubt Waterbury would get more than 30 people without proxies.

I know how many people use proxies--I type up the decklists for SCG.  Pretty much everybody does.  Many people who have made huge strides in Vintage deck innovation use proxies.  Without proxies, the format would be a few years behind what it is right now.

[Disburden]

Vintage would take a huge hit to the head without proxies. The whole reason the format has evolved so much lately is due to most US tournaments allowing proxying to some extent. Without Proxies the format would just become what it was back in 2002 where there was nothing but jank decks at most tournaments.

[forests failed you]

Proxies are important to Vintage, without a doubt.  In an enviorment without proxies one of three things will ultimately end up happening.

1. A mixture of powered and unpowered decks.  ie. a mixture of real decks and budget hate decks.  If this happens you have a skewed metagame where even the players with power can't play 'optimal tournament' decks, because their opposition will be decks that are all hate.  In this scenerio nobody actually gets better at playing Vintage or learning the format. 

2. A random assortment of unpowered jank decks.  If nobody owns power you will end up with a bunch of legacy decks that have Sol Ring and Mana Vault.  Simply a casual player's saturday morning format.  This isn't what 'real' Vintage is all about, rather, it is more of a kitchen table type of format.

3. Only a small fraction of players with real decks will end up playing because nobody else can compete.  If this happens it seriously restricts how good your local metagame can be... Since it will be limited to only a handful of players.  Those players personal preferences and deck selections will greatly influence what the metagame in your local area will look like and players will metagame/hate on specific players' stratagies.  Although this is technically Vintage, it leaves players with very little room for personal improvement, and extremely ill prepared to play at larger events, SCG, Vintage Worlds, et cetera.

Proxies even the playing field (cliche), and help to garner new interest in the format by offering players without 1000's of dollars the opportunity to play the format. 

I can honestly say that when the proxy tournaments started was the real turning point when I became a much better Vintage player, and I started enjoying playing Vintage a lot more.  Imagine this:  Have you ever gone to a Friday Night Magic event and played against a 12 year old kid with a preconstructed deck with your real tournament deck?  Most Magic players share this common experience, and it isn't fun for either party to Dragon Storm for 5 on the third turn against their board of Grizzly Bear and Hilll Giant.  That is what Vintage was like before proxies.  Tournaments were a joke, because only a fraction of the players could actually afford to build a real deck, because cards were so expensive. 

[gamecastle]

hello all

long time lurker first time poster.

I own a game store and after seeing the sucess proxies have brought to type 1 I started allowing proxies in other formats. I lost two or three players to the "if you dont have the cards you should't be able to play them" complaint but my magic crowd (and magic sales) have almost doubled since then. Proxies let new players compete without feeling out classed by players with more expensive cards, and any game needs new players to survive.


matthew

[Bubbydan]

  I have to say that there is a different feel between a proxie and a non proxie tournament. We have a local store that holds a non-proxy tournament every week and you tend to find more aggro based decks than you do in a proxie tourn. You have to go into each with a different mindset.
  We don't get more than 20 people at this tournament, but I think that is more the fact that it is a small payout and it is a weekly event, but it is a place that we know we can play for hours.
  The weirdest thing though is the fact that about 25% of the people that play here are fully powered, and about half have some power, but that really makes no difference. There is an unpowered fish deck that almost always ends up in the finals. We also have a good showing of the top teir decks that you see in all of these tournament reports. Gifts, Long, Stax, Fish, and Slaver.
  On the other side with proxie tournaments it is nice when you sit across from your apponent with no proxies and you start dropping your power and they ask if that is real.It does make owning the power nine worth it. It also means that you don't ever have to worry about using proxies for some of the most commonly played cards, and you can proxie up something that you want to add but don't have just yet....like that extra empty the warrens for your sideboard.

Dan

[backforgood2007]

OK heres my view of it I called down to my old shop where i used to play and the store basically clears out when the proxy tournament starts. Only players there no one to watch but the non proxie tournies is the store full of spectators I do not know if thats good or bad but i say its bad really bad.

The standard tournies is sure fun to watch but the format demands a lot more time and money to play then the store is full to the fire escape limit every time.

But like you say its gotta be fun to sit and drop that lotus and say: 

I know what you think and yes its real.

( I think I'm going to have a T-shirt printed with the text "YES MY POWER NINE IS REAL THANK YOU VERY MUCH"  )

happy Kowal???? and it is NOT disrespectful to English its a typing error that is so common I did not see it when i read the post sorry if you feel disrespected that is not my intent thank you.

[dawgie]

Actually, proxies are good. It levels out the playing field and kicks out the mentality of "You only won because you have power" which is a sucky mentality.

However, here in our country, proxy tournies has not received such good turnouts because we don't get support from lots of people. We can't have a good prize structure because the cards are expensive and some of our players don't like the un-sanctioned part of it. And we don't get support from our major retail store of Magic.

ffy hit the spot especially with number 3. And since lots are on budget, Oath and Fish is the metagame in these places which is sometimes quite degrading.