When trying to motivate a quite sizable fnm to attend a Vintage tournament, with many players that have never played the format before, but a good chunk of legacy players and a small handfull of Vintage players among them, what kind of Proxy amount would you see as optimal?

Overall playtest cards seem to kind of delegitimise a torunament in the eyes of many of the fnm regulars, so i dont want to allow 100% playtest cards. We have a local legacy League that, with the latest season, startet to allow all reserved List cards to be proxied.

If you want to draw Legacy players, 10/15 proxies should definitely cover it, since they should already have duals. The most expensive cards outside of that and besides power ought to be Mana Crypt, Jace, and Force, and 2 of those are the kinds of things i'd expect legacy players to have already.

10 proxies can you you p9+library (and call p9 either twister or vault, most decks don't run both except thieves anyway).
10 Proxies gets you 5 moxes, Lotus, 4 Workshop and the most expensive card to shops outside that is mana vault.

I try to get people to play any% proxies and it's difficult. Good luck!

Unlimited. Once you’re willing to accept proxies in the first place, it feels arbitrary to say “your $1000 Library can be fake, but your $500 Underground Seas need to be real.”

I like some cap, so that people aren't proxying commons on top of other commons.

@stuart said in Proxy Rules:

Unlimited. Once you’re willing to accept proxies in the first place, it feels arbitrary to say “your $1000 Library can be fake, but your $500 Underground Seas need to be real.”

Seconded. Seems real weird that this wasn't an option.

@spook said in Proxy Rules:

I like some cap, so that people aren't proxying commons on top of other commons.

I pretty frequently proxy random cheap cards that I just don't happen to have while playing lots of cards that cost way more. I'd hate to not be allowed to play just because I don't play Preordain in any of my Legacy decks.

I like to have unlimited proxies, but with printouts or drawn art that's easily recognizable, even if this is just a land sharpied with Blue and black boxes to represent underground seas - SOMETHING to make the board state easily recognizable.

Proxies with sharpies are awful.

@thecravenone said in Proxy Rules:

@stuart said in Proxy Rules:

Unlimited. Once you’re willing to accept proxies in the first place, it feels arbitrary to say “your $1000 Library can be fake, but your $500 Underground Seas need to be real.”

Seconded. Seems real weird that this wasn't an option.

@spook said in Proxy Rules:

I like some cap, so that people aren't proxying commons on top of other commons.

I pretty frequently proxy random cheap cards that I just don't happen to have while playing lots of cards that cost way more. I'd hate to not be allowed to play just because I don't play Preordain in any of my Legacy decks.

It is more about the game state being clear, so as Nova said, 100% proxy is fine if printed well. But getting blown out by a plains that is partially underneath another proxy, and has "tabernacle" scribbled on it is not a good experience.

In my experience, the majority of players in proxy scenes want to own the real cards, and if they cant, they want their proxies to look good. You'll get a few dudes who are happy with sharpied basics, black & white, or half-sized printouts, but for the most part it's not really a different experience than sanctioned Magic.

@Stuart As someone who uses proxies this is true for me. I wish I could own the cards, but being too young for a job and to have played magic when these cards were cheap, I likely will not be able to for a long time. I print my proxies using their regular art, but smaller so that they can easily fit in sleeves. If I try to make them the same size as regular cards, I have found it much harder to fit them in double sleeves.

Reserved List. For reference, here's a list from Scryfall of the non-reserved cards from most to least expensive:

https://scryfall.com/search?q=-is%3Areserved&order=usd&as=checklist

It's safe to say that Grim Tutor (#2) in unplayable in the current metagame (Dark Petition being a reasonable upgrade) despite having prior pedigree, so the most expensive 4-of a player could reasonably want to play is Mox Opal (#8), which happens to be MODERN playable. The next I'd say is Jace, the Mind Sculptor (#10), which may not be a 4-of ever but still gets played in multiples. It's an easy proxy rule that is based on an easily verified information (the reserved list) that doesn't fluctuate (price) or corner players who need "one more proxy" (fixed quantity).

@spook said in Proxy Rules:

It is more about the game state being clear, so as Nova said, 100% proxy is fine if printed well. But getting blown out by a plains that is partially underneath another proxy, and has "tabernacle" scribbled on it is not a good experience.

So the problem is not the quantity of the proxies, but the quality? In that case, make a rule about the quality of the proxies.

Our proxy rule is "don't make us make a proxy rule" and in two years of running tournaments, we've never had a proxy that anyone had a problem with.

I voted for "X" and I'm going to set X=75 (Battle of Wits players are on their own). I understand no-proxy tournaments but I don't really understand "some but not all" proxy tournaments. It's kind of a bummer because I'd love to try to get a group of friends together (who no longer play competitive Magic regularly) to attend a local tournament, but it definitely isn't going to happen with the expense involved even at the fifteen-proxy level. Although maybe part of the purpose is to keep the scrubs out, in which case mission accomplished.

@craw_advantage said in Proxy Rules:

I voted for "X" and I'm going to set X=75 (Battle of Wits players are on their own).

This situation is why our tournaments are called "100% Proxy" rather than "75 Proxy"

@craw_advantage said in Proxy Rules:

I voted for "X" and I'm going to set X=75 (Battle of Wits players are on their own). I understand no-proxy tournaments but I don't really understand "some but not all" proxy tournaments. It's kind of a bummer because I'd love to try to get a group of friends together (who no longer play competitive Magic regularly) to attend a local tournament, but it definitely isn't going to happen with the expense involved even at the fifteen-proxy level. Although maybe part of the purpose is to keep the scrubs out, in which case mission accomplished.

I think part of the rationale for partial proxy tournaments, at least historically, has been that most events are held at stores trying are trying to sell Magic cards to players. I doubt in most cases there's any "keep the scrubs out" motivation behind it.