I know, cards are stupidly expensive. But let's say the cards magically reduced in price by 75% overnight. Why would you buy them (other than assuming it was a blip and they'd jump 150% back overnight)? You'd have nowhere to play them and the times you could use them you'd be paying big entry fees for low EV.

Nobody will host big events with huge prizes because they'd lose money as not many would show up. Most won't buy in because it's too expensive for the EV since there's not many sanctioned tourneys with any decent prize to play in. It's the chicken and the egg, except the chicken is cooked and the egg won't crack in this catch-22.

@thewhitedragon69 well, we can see how attendance would not go up if cards were cheap either. MTGO proves that. Vintage is cheaper than Modern there and we have just a few players. I think it has a lot to do with what I said before (did I say it here or elsewhere?) of we having a bunch of formats and people not willing to dedicate to another one. So yeah, I don't think even full proxy saves us without other factors.

IF Wizard could launch gold border power or whatever, that were only allowed to a max of 10-15 in each deck, something like "official proxyes" to reduce price and still have "official cards", then maybe. But that won't happen.

@megantic said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

If the goal was to increase access to vintage and attendance, why not allow the latest batch of counterfeit cards, appropriately marked, to be used as in local non-sanctioned tournament play

because this encourages the production of realistic fakes by being the demand for them. if you want legible proxies takes a color printer and print out your 75, sleeve them up in front of basics, and play.

@megantic said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

If the goal was to increase access to vintage and attendance, why not allow the latest batch of counterfeit cards, appropriately marked, to be used as in local non-sanctioned tournament play? I guess we can either keep our memberships to the exclusive vintage country club or open the course to the masses. Any vintage deck would be available for less than $200 USD, which last time I checked was about the same amount of money as my putter. Proxies can make the board annoyingly confusing- is that a mox jet or mox ruby? is that an underground sea or a volcanic- oh wait, it was a fetchland? I see a easy way to open the format, the cards are distinguishable, and actually makes play easier. Solves the proxy issues Brassman pointed out- legibility and damage, as well as the video coverage, and COST all in one fell swoop.

we shouldn't support counterfeiters. just make nice proxies instead.

legibility isn't just a proxy thing either for what it's worth, I can't tell the difference between most of the expedition lands.

If the format actually took off because of proxies, I suspect it would still encourage counterfeiters to make cards, if only because WOTC would never allow proxies at an event. The prices on these cards are not being sustained by the player base but by scarcity, which is what attracts the counterfeit market. More players could only make that demand go up.

As long as the reserve list is a thing and as long as the only viable decks in the format require a few specific subsets of cards, there is no getting away from the counterfeit issue.

I'm sure most of you are aware, but Modern Horizons has "art cards" which are essentially just full art cards with a blank back for artists to doodle on. I see some noise already that people are going to use these as proxys for the high-dollar cards for playtesting purposes or in casual games for the more expensive cards. Wizards could easily do this for Vintage cards and sell as "art" cards.

I still think at the end of the day, players want a supported format, and a healthy format (however that is defined by the masses), so not sure having more proxies will grow the player base.

Isn’t MTGO kind of already a test case for “how popular Vintage would be if the cards were cheap?”

Obviously there are differences in paper and digital, but I don’t see how much more theoretically accurate you can get than this.

@joshuabrooks I dunno about how accurate that is. I own a shitload of cards...probably north of $50K worth. I don't play MtGO, even though I could buy my collection digitally 100x over plus all the cards I'm missing. But I waste enough of my life on the computer, so I'll pass on MtGO and deal in cardboard.

What if instead of counterfeit, I said "high quality proxies"? It seems to solve a lot of the issues mentioned. I understand reluctance, but there are not enough vintage players out there to start with to really make it an issue where we are 'encouraging' the counterfeit operations. They already exist, and the focus is not about vintage.

@megantic said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

What if instead of counterfeit, I said "high quality proxies"? It seems to solve a lot of the issues mentioned. I understand reluctance, but there are not enough vintage players out there to start with to really make it an issue where we are 'encouraging' the counterfeit operations. They already exist, and the focus is not about vintage.

Like I said in another post - if you want high quality, just make sure its EASILY distinguishable from a real card. Having to bust out a jewelers loup, do the light test, etc is not easily distinguishable. Basically, if a cursory look makes somebody think for even a second, "hey, thats a nice looking black lotus", its a counterfeit. Distinguish it somehow. Make it an alternate art, full art, put it thru a foiling process etc. There are any number of things you can do to make a high quality proxy that leaves no doubt to even the most casual player that its not real.

Just chiming in to point out that allowing 10-15 proxies in events is helpful not only to players who don't own power, but to those who prefer to travel without a $30,000 mark. I know several players with vast collections who prefer to travel to events without taking an enormous risk. Additionally, allowing proxies incentivizes grading (which renders cards physically unplayable), which is an aspect many seem to appreciate & enjoy.

I'm all for it, simply because I prefer to play with proxies than to not play.

We had plenty of tournaments 10 years ago, and even a provincial Vintage championship with invitations during the golden age of Vintage.

Then the prices started to rise, most older players in my community decided to cash out and get a down payment on a house instead.

Very few younger players were able to afford competitive decks, even in a 10 proxy event. It ended up being the players who kept their cards crushing the younger players, who just never came back, and I don't blame them. I wouldn't play a format where I get blown out just because I don't have money to be competitive.

Within 2 years, all the tournaments stopped and now I can't play competitive Vintage at all, even if I still have all my card.

@wagner I really appreciate this story because it is my story. My friends that have not cashed out mostly play Old School now and while I do love Old School, I love Vintage more. I really just want more paper events. Events where we get at least 20 people.

@khahan said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

@megantic said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

What if instead of counterfeit, I said "high quality proxies"? It seems to solve a lot of the issues mentioned. I understand reluctance, but there are not enough vintage players out there to start with to really make it an issue where we are 'encouraging' the counterfeit operations. They already exist, and the focus is not about vintage.

Like I said in another post - if you want high quality, just make sure its EASILY distinguishable from a real card. Having to bust out a jewelers loup, do the light test, etc is not easily distinguishable. Basically, if a cursory look makes somebody think for even a second, "hey, thats a nice looking black lotus", its a counterfeit. Distinguish it somehow. Make it an alternate art, full art, put it thru a foiling process etc. There are any number of things you can do to make a high quality proxy that leaves no doubt to even the most casual player that its not real.

I would write "Proxy" on the card. Issue solved.

@megantic said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

I would write "Proxy" on the card. Issue solved.

Aren't proxies like really bad at LGS though? There is also a well know piece of power that has "fake" written on it, -It's real.

@john-cox said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

@megantic said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

I would write "Proxy" on the card. Issue solved.

Aren't proxies like really bad at LGS though? There is also a well know piece of power that has "fake" written on it, -It's real.

I have no idea why that is important to this. I am advocating for proxies, and more liberal use of good quality counterfeits since they already exist and are being used in tournaments.

If a store is found to have proxies on their premise the can loose their ability to sell WoTC products. So cards with "proxy" on them is bad. "Playtest Cards" would work, the issue is that there is no way of guaranteeing that it is a playtest card and not a real card with words written on it.
You could show up to a 15 proxy event and with 20 cards with "playtest card" written on them and say that 5 of them are real and just have "playtest card" written on them.

@john-cox said in Should all Vintage be 100% proxy?:

If a store is found to have proxies on their premise the can loose their ability to sell WoTC products. So cards with "proxy" on them is bad. "Playtest Cards" would work, the issue is that there is no way of guaranteeing that it is a playtest card and not a real card with words written on it.
You could show up to a 15 proxy event and with 20 cards with "playtest card" written on them and say that 5 of them are real and just have "playtest card" written on them.

I don’t care if they have 20 proxies or 60 proxies as long as I can read and understand them from my side of the table. That is not always the case, and some are god awful. Hence why I advocate for counterfeits allowed as proxies to make it easier to distinguish and read them. Some people will hate that, and I understand why. I respect the store policy and follow it. If I’m lucky, I get to play once a quarter if ELD is hosting a tourney and I don’t have family responsibilities. It’s always fun and I get to reconnect with a few vintage players I’ve known for a long time. The more participants the merrier. There are decks I’m priced out of I’d like to play, but until the policy changes I will play what is legal under the stores policy. I recognize this opinion may be in the minority, and counterfeit cards are distasteful and wrong, but the pricing of cards has made this hobby unreachable for too many.