We Asked You: Should Proxies Be Legal in EDH? [Commander MTG Discussion]

In this video, Jake and Joel discuss proxies in commander. We asked you on the channel, "Should Proxies Be Legal in EDH?" We hear your feedback, and now we are giving you our reaction in this Commander MTG discussion. The game is expensive. We know it is, and when cards like Gaea's Cradle (a hugely powerful EDH staple for green creature decks) are starting to spike, we have to ask ourselves if proxies should be legal, simply so people can play the game. Or more clearly, for unsanctioned play, it might make sense for people to be more open to proxies in their playgroups; that way we are beating the opponent and not the opponent's wallet. We talk about all of that in this episode of We Asked You. Thanks, as always, for spending your time with us!

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Jake and Joel are comedians living in Los Angeles and Boston, respectively, with a passion for Magic: the Gathering and all things Standard, EDH, Finance, & MTG Arena.

We post new videos every week, covering all things Magic the Gathering, MTG Arena Gameplay, Standard, Commander, and MTG Finance!

-Title Song provided by The Passion HiFi
Song: Keep Fallin

Executive Producers: Jennifer Moseley & Annie Bond

*This video and all videos on this channel are in no way intended for children (kids) nor do they intend to target children as an audience in any way, shape, or form.*

[unthinkable]

My stance has changed on this. Me in my 20s-30s pre-children would say own the cards or don't play them. Now with a family and other bills, I can't justify $40+ on cards anymore. The secondary market is also getting so out of hand I've considered selling ALL of my cards and buy a proxy set.

[corymachlan]

I think we forget some times but wotc just created a booster pack for a hundred dollars and loaded the mythic/rare pool with a bunch of commons and uncommons and then told us we had a chance of getting 4 rares. They dont give 2 craps about us. Why should we care?

[timothyvandenberg]

YES: Owning one REAL copy & proxying it for all your decks is VERY OK, as long as it's not a sanctioned event.

[nicolascicero]

As a broke student, with other broke student friends, we just kinda don’t give a shit what cards people proxy. I proxied most of my Omnath Locus of the Roil deck and honestly it’s been a ton of fun. Easy for me to play the decks I want. At the end of the day, EDH is a casual format. If we don’t own the card because they’re expensive asl, why shouldn’t we be allowed to play them?

[jackmarino]

I say, Forget waiting for Wotc to reprint good cards. Etsy makes phenomenal proxies that look ten times better than the original. Go buy all ten fetches for $30.00.

[bananajoe]

Once card prices hit a high point this year, my friends finally decided to allow proxies at the table. I don't make much money so I was saving money on the side to get an EDH deck that was a suitable power level. I would get dunked on, and I would always think, "my bank account is my biggest flaw here". Now that proxies are allowed, I am making it to the final 2-3 people instead of being the first or second person out at a 6 man table. My enjoyment of the game, and my friends, has gone WAY up and I find myself wanting to play more instead of dreading it.

[jish]

I mean if you're not in a tournament and there are no prizes on the line, yes, why not? I mean as long as you're not a douche about it and don't go over the top in terms of power, where you use cards more along the lines of the playgroup, there should never be a problem with proxying. Hell, in commander, there's even more of a reason to proxy if you already own a legal copy of the card since it's a singleton format, to where if your friends ask why you proxy, you can just tell them that you either have a proxy of a card you own, or they wait for you to take the cards out of one deck and slide them into another.

[CrosswaIk]

Even if you don't own it I could give a shit if you proxy or not. Any kitchen table format is strictly for fun and the more cards the more creativity and the more fun

[mrcatchingup]

I want to play my expensive cards. I don't want people complaining that they cannot compete, so I encourage people to proxy whenever it is not a sanctioned tournament. While I don't mind too much buying 8 counter spells or 12 lightning bolts so I can have them in multiple decks, I am very adverse to buying 8 of the same exact fetch land to have them in 2 decks. I also don't want to pull a deck apart to make a different one. At a certain point, I don't want to pay an extra $4 for lightning bolts 13-16 for another deck, especially after I had a deck stolen with 4 black boarder foreign language versions. I do expect decent printing of the proxy, I should be able to easily tell what it is from across the table, even upside down, like I can with real cards.

[benjaminkaye]

There’s nothing like playing the actual card, and it diversifies your decks. I have 20 decks, and all built fully.

[tidus]

It’s cardboard, most expensive cards I own are demonic tutor and the biolante foil. I was okay spending 30$ on demonic because it can go in all of my decks save for one and bio is more personal sentiment. If someone comes to the table with 100 proxies I could care less, especially when WotC straight up ignores its customers and refuses to reprint these cards. Not many of us has kaiba money to drop on a game.

[whatwayzup]

I don't use double sided tape, I just put the proxy in front of a basic land in a prefect fit inner sleeve. If you printed out the proxy at the right size there is no wiggle room. I use MTGPress at 103% size, and dragonshield inner sleeves, does the trick.

[Fighting_irish]

I’m fine if you proxy a card you own but I am not a fan of people who proxy like 30 cards in your deck and it’s a hyper strong cards that you don’t even own otherwise I just feel like what’s the point in shuffling up to play when you combo out on turn two because no one wants to waste their time

[Tehstampede]

The way I see it, if you're going to play CEDH you'd have to allow proxies. If you're not playing a deck at the most optimal level, you're not playing CEDH and a lot of the cards required to make a deck run at the highest possible level are several hundred if not thousands of dollars each.

[ethank]

The ones I buy have proxy on the back big and bold, still want em to look nice and clean, my take is mtg, especially edh is all about creativity and imagination in building your deck the way you want, so if the price of a card is the only barrier to me using it then I'll proxy it

[wolfstridergaming]

Yay you said my name. Lol. I need to make a logo for my Channel. Also i made jake laugh when joel said my name. Hahah. The best

[evansomeone]

Okay, so here is the thing. I am 14, I don't have a job, or exposable income to spend on magic, it took me 4 months to make a 200$ deck for pioneer. I can't afford a expensive EDH deck, I proxy a few cards in a niv mizzet commander, but as soon as I can I am buying them

[Naustrawarlock]

I really like how Joel can pass from funny/laughing at something back to the topic and be serious.

[gavincurtin]

I've spent thousands of dollars on my collection, while most of my friends haven't. When I'm hosting our weekly pod, I wanna play the game with them, not their wallets. LGS pods filled with mutual strangers I feel should at least have sanctioned cardboard behind the plays.

[salfazlucario]

heres the thing, in cEDH, if you don't run your force of will or your mana drain, everyone else at the table will be so you're deck is already weaker. in cEDH everyone allows proxies (unless you're playing against that one dushbag), the only requirement is to make your card look like a card, so don't just get a couple of sticky notes and write them onto the card as it leads to weird situations like if someone has a lavinia out and you cast a FOW with not though lands, it's hard to notice that it is an illegal move.

TLDR: Proxies are fine, just make them look like real cards