Ideas for Mass Production of Proxies

Diakonov

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Ideas for Mass Production of Proxies

« on: December 14, 2011, 11:16:35 am »

This discussion was sparked within Nick Coss' proxy system thread and was beginning to branch off, and I thought it was important enough to deserve its own thread.

I'll begin by quoting what I thought were two notable segments from that thread:

Quote from: Norm4eva on December 08, 2011, 06:07:09 pm

75 Proxy decks becoming commonplace would represent a low point for Eternal Magic.

Maybe it's not fair, but this is how the Reprint Policy directly affects this format and others; not only do people not want to pay for expensive cards, but they don't want to scribble on Plains to have playable analogs. Maybe people expect too much out of a collectible card game in wanting all their cards to be 'real' cards.

Plastic chess sets go for under 5 bucks. A polished stone set like the kind I got my Dad, about $100. Others go for much more. Magic has no officially recognized "Plastic set", and as entertaining as proxies are, some people have been threatened with C&Ds from Wizards for distributing them. If there were a functional analog to the plastic Chess set - playable cards in Eternal formats that could not be used outside those formats in spite of their legality or potential for reprint in Standard (say, I dunno, 'plastic' Wastelands or Forces for example), that would go a long way towards making the formats more attractive and accessible without succumbing to the icky prospect of non-real proxy decks.

Quote from: DubDub on December 09, 2011, 09:59:36 am

At the first level of analysis, in my opinion, Magic is a card game. It's not a pen&paper game or a game like poker where regular playing cards can be used. It has specific pieces. So it's not unreasonable, in my opinion, to expect people to actually own the cards they want to play with. If someone says to me "hey, do you want to play chess?" And then dumps out checkers pieces I'm going to give them a funny look.

However, stepping back a level, WoTC is correspondingly a 'card game company.' Except that they don't make the cards people want (speaking specifically in this context of Power/Shops/Bazaars/Drains etc.), not anymore. I've argued elsewhere that it's in their best interests not to support eternal formats for fear of cannibalizing their market for the rotating formats, which are inevitably more profitable. But the point stands that from the Vintage player's perspective WoTC is a card company that (overstating the case a bit for effect) doesn't make cards. At that point, I think it's completely reasonable for players to want to play the game without shelling out for collectibles.

If all chess sets cost thousands of dollars and my same friend wanted to use checkers pieces to play a game of chess I'm absolutely not going to object. I wouldn't even think twice about using substitute pieces. The point is to play the game, for which you need the pieces, not to own the pieces in- and of- themselves.

I mean, we've gotten so far from the vision of Garfield, who wanted the most expensive and rare cards to be ~$20 it's not even funny. There would be more Vintage players if you could construct, from scratch, fully powered decks of any type for less than the cost of a set of Tropical Islands and Tarmogoyfs today. That can't be denied and WoTC should be ashamed for being so self serving as to prevent that from being reality.

My advice to someone who doesn't like proxies is: don't fight the symptom, fight the root cause. The Reserve List is THE barrier to Vintage's growth. Though I make them often enough myself, a part of me feels that claims about the Vintage metagame are by necessity guesswork, since the size of tournaments is so limited compared to what Vintage could be. What's the point of complaining about how good Dredge is (for example only) when two players in a room of twenty are playing it? Get back to me when an archetype/deck is dominant week in and week out in fields of 80-100+ all over the place.

Edit starts here.

Quote from: Commandant on December 08, 2011, 06:08:56 pm

I see the European meta game and I wonder if their diverse meta is a direct result of individuals being unable to proxy cards. I often find myself wondering if innovation comes faster and better when a fire is lit under someones ass. Necessity is the mother of all creation and when you can't go herp derp derp here's 4 Mishra's Workshops your meta game reflects that and instead of 50% Workshop decks at Traviscon you have 13% and maybe just maybe we'd actually end up with a diverse and innovative meta game that isn't a stagnant piece of trash dominated by inbred Big U lists and the same Dredge list for the past year.

That's ridiculous and backward. It shouldn't be the case that in order to have a diverse meta we have to have some people playing decks they don't actually want to play. If people want to play 4xWorkshop because it gives them the best chance to win (or because they like locking people out) there shouldn't be some artificial reason like unreasonable cost why they can't do it. If you want to light a fire under Vintage players' collective ass your primary goal should be larger tournaments with larger prizes. It's incentive and reward that drives innovation, not restrained deck choice.

Diversity should arise from format balance, and format balance should be addressed once people have the tools to play.

I will begin by saying that I firmly believe in fair competition over anything else. I do not want to put time and effort into a game in which I can defeat my more skilled opponent because he could not afford strong enough cards.

That said, we have seen the dark side of this perspective in a terrible monsoon of 5th Edition Plains. Magic is also a game about collectibility, and to many the aesthetics are crucial to the experience of the game. So where and how do we draw the line?

The closest thing to a reasonable compromise would be to have a mass print run of standardized proxies. ELD had a really great run and, as far as I could tell, everybody was completely satisfied with their aesthetics. Though, as we anticipated, WotC quashed it.

I would like to discuss what people think of mass produced proxies, what ideas we might have for them, and the legal details behind what WotC are allowed to point to and say, "these are infringing on our copyrights."

To begin, I have two possible ideas:

1. Print cards which have a similar layout to standard or textless MtG cards with images that clearly identify specific cards. NO TEXT would be printed on the card. Space could be provided for players to write whatever they please. Wink

2. Print blank proxies which simply have a basic frame, and allow players to write text and/or draw pictures themselves.

Sell for $1 each, give out 10 per tournament entry, or distribute through whichever means is most appropriate. This would allow for the implementation of a more rigorous set of rules on proxies, and would improve the aesthetic quality of the game without financial discrimination.

Can anyone comment on the legality of this?


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