Proxies in Commander

Do you like proxies in commander?

Yes
26
31%
No
22
26%
Depends if they are used reasonably or not
37
44%
 
Total votes: 85

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Post by Syb » 4 years ago

I want to hang out with my friends, sling spells, and pay rent.

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Post by DirkGently » 4 years ago

I usually don't play them, but I also don't mind them when used responsibly

They mostly act as an annoyance multiplyer - if you're playing a cool original deck, then they don't bother me at all. If you're using a netdecked cEDH deck and don't tell me about it in advance, then it's going to annoy me even more if you're proxying it.
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Post by Outcryqq » 4 years ago

Like others have said, I don't have a problem if they own one copy of the card and use a proxy for it in other decks. Also, I don't have a problem with someone playtesting a card using a proxy if they plan on getting the card in the near future.

Edit: the reason why I limit my acceptance of proxies to these two scenarios is that there is such a large pool of cards to use, that most cards have alternatives, albeit not always as effective, and that in most cases the difference between playing one card versus another similar one is minimal.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

BounceBurnBuff wrote:
4 years ago
Something I've noticed about the demographic here is that there are a lot more of who I consider the "old-guard" who will have established collections/greater income to afford being able to turn their nose at the idea of fakes. I will predict with great certainty that the more commander grows, the more proxying will become an issue you'll have to either accept or gradually shelter yourselves away from.
I am definitely noticing this. I frequent here and Reddit, and on Reddit the mantra is pretty much "do whatever the hell you want and %$#% the magic card police!" Here it seems split with a pretty hard lean toward no proxies at all.

I wonder if it's just an age thing; I do see a lot of younger kids over on the reddits.

I look at card prices nowadays and I don't know if I would get into the game if it were this expensive. All my stuff was crazy cheap. Only stuff I paid real money for was zendikar fetches and I even got most of those at the lull during the MM reprint. Nowadays you're looking at every decent commander staple costing serious money if it has any scarcity at all and sometimes even not then (looking at you Cyclonic Rift).

When I was building decks by buying most of the cards, I'd spend 2-300 bucks on a deck tops and some of those decks are now 4-5x that worth of cards now. And this was 10 years ago.

My fervent hope is that wizards will get the memo and:
1) figure out a solution to the RL (because duals really help EDH mana bases not be so annoying)
2) figure out a way to print commander cards until they are generally available at reasonable prices

Cards like Oracle of Mul Daya and Cabal Coffers have no business being 30-50 bucks.

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Post by Airi » 4 years ago

Impossible wrote:
4 years ago
If I can tell what all the cards are at a glance, and the deck they're in is fun, I have literally zero problem with proxies.
Airi wrote:
4 years ago
I personally could care less.
Are you sure you didn't mean that you couldn't care less? Sorry, personal pet peeve of mine. I am compelled to correct it any time I see it.
I may have, but I think I'll stick with my version. ;P

I agree with Pokken though, current pricing on a lot of key cards is a huge problem, and as the secondary market continues to be insane, especially with all of the spectating and buyouts that have been happening in recent months, I really would rather see people proxy up a deck rather than have to feel like they need to either overspend to get the deck they want to use, or compromise and run what are often strictly worse and less effective cards.

My personal view really boils down to the fact that the value of my collection, such as Underground Sea is not invalidated by someone using a proxy, because my card still holds the value for trading purposes (bragging rights, in that aspect, are irrelevant to me personally, and tbh, so is trading as I don't trade for cards). But my gameplay is definitely improved by being able to feel like I'm on an even playing field and don't get some cutesy advantage just because I happened to have the bigger wallet. More so than winning, my favorite thing in EDH is watching people play decks that they've built and absolutely love. I want the people I sit down with to feel as pleased with their play experience as I do when I get to pull out Marath, budget be damned. Especially in cases like the reserved list, where literally no single card on that list deserves to be the price it currently sits at.

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Post by Lucifer, Sapere Aude » 4 years ago

Favor for 100% proxied decks in EDH. Reasons:
1) I'm in favor for a "play to win" and not "pay to win" games in general. With no proxies, the richest player is just the one with more advantage regardless of the players skills. That's no fun for nobody.
2) In casual kitchen table environments where there are no awards nor money to spend to entry tournaments, there's no need to prove to have the rarest collection or the better cards over somebody. With only proxies, where everybody have the same resources, skills and experience is the only thing matter, Definitely a more meritocratic system.
3) Many cards are just too rare or too expensive no matter how much goodwill and efforts you put to gain them. Being unable to build the strategies of your dreams because of these problems, it's again, no fun for nobody.
4) I don't morally feel a thief against WotC for the simple reason I did supported her economically for years and with thousands of euro, mainly for tournament and collectible reasons, which I'm not interested anymore. Not to mention all that cool cards EDH playable in the Reserved List which WotC wouldn't gain anymore a single cent since they will never reprint them again. Now I play only as a casual player with a couple of friends, and not only I don't regret my choice, but I would never turn back.
5) Oh, also, in my LGS I was the only playing commander and back in times when I where playing with the real cards I always provide my decks to people. They stole me a lot of very valuable cards this way for years. Another reasons I went full proxies.

I do high quality printed proxies anyway, not back of cards written with a pen, so the experience and quality of the game is basically the same.

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Post by Hermes_ » 4 years ago

I currently run a gold border card and my group is okay with it. None of us are likely to go full on try hard with proxies, but everyone knows that in my case i'm on a very limited budget and so no one really bats an eye if i run gold border cards. There's also the fact that I rarely win lol.
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Post by onering » 4 years ago

I no longer use proxies myself often as my paper collection has grown, but I have no issues so long people aren't proxying $200 cards. I've actually proxies cards i own because I don't like changing them out of decks, or because I don't want to take them out of a binder (that's my exception to the $200 card thing, by all means proxy your mint condition underground sea), or because I was too lazy to search my common pile. I've had no problem playing against a fully proxies Nath deck, like literally this lady just straight up printed the deck except basic lands in black and white and stuck everything over a couple standard decks in sleeves.

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Post by folding_music » 4 years ago

used to play with people who'd proxy certain things, sometimes to test them, sometimes on a permanent basis and i never had an issue with that. i definitely used to have a Goblin King with SWAMP written on it to make fun of all the proxies, in a light-hearted way. frankly that was a silly and relaxed playgroup anyway where we'd play formats we made up on the spot, or bring deliberately illegal decks or ones that couldn't win and pass them about; proxies were the least of our issues.

then again if i was going to play with a new group i wouldn't take any proxies until I knew the players since I've seen people flip out at conventions and go on big libertarian rants about earning fun.

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

On the one hand, I wouldn't mind it in my own group; most of the people I roll with respect that it's a collectible game, but I can understand wanting to playtest some expensive reserved list card before committing to its purchase. Most of the people I roll with, I think, have a pride of ownership.

On the other, with randoms, *every single time* someone has proxies, they end up being power-mismatched (usually a cEDH player who can't afford Mana Crypt and similar), or have proxies of such poor quality that we can't tell what they're playing.

So, it's a pretty resounding 'no' from me, unless there was some very good reason for it. I think I'd be okay with someone who just didn't want to move their Underground Sea between a bunch of decks, I suppose.

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Post by umtiger » 4 years ago

For the people who have posted about proxies leveling the playing field for EDH games, I find that play-skill is heavily underrated in EDH for some reason. And deck-building is a significant part of play-skill.

Sure, a strong players is going to get destroyed using only pre-cons. But a strong, experienced players who builds decks with constraints (budget, no fast mana, etc.) are still going to win a lot of games vs players with proxies.
cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
I'm actually in the process of getting proxies for my cube, but it is for the expensive cards like Mana Crypt, Gaea's Cradle, Library of Alexandria, and Timetwister that are stupid expensive and I only own one copy. I would rather have the real cards in real decks, and I have a moment of panic every time I draft it, even among trusted friends.

But for real decks, I never proxy. If I don't have a physical copy of a card it doesn't go in the deck. It's just that simple. At my LGS we have a no proxy rule so it isn't a problem. And if someone has proxies I don't care, mostly for the same reason Airi mentioned. I find it more annoying when someone has bad proxies or their entire deck proxies, but I'm here to play, not compare wallets.
Man, you getting proxies for your cube is really not a parallel for proxies in EDH. For cube, you are literally providing the cards for everyone. And cube is effectively egalitarian in that everyone has the exact same cards. And with the risk of theft, I don't see anyway to play cube but to proxy.
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Post by Atraxian » 4 years ago

When playing with my friends, of course, anything can be proxied.
We generally have the money to complete 1 or 2 decks at best. Using proxies for the more expensive cards to spice up the games by playing something different is a welcome addition.
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Post by Lucifer, Sapere Aude » 4 years ago

umtiger wrote:
4 years ago
For the people who have posted about proxies leveling the playing field for EDH games, I find that play-skill is heavily underrated in EDH for some reason. And deck-building is a significant part of play-skill.
Play-skill heavily depends on how you deckbuilded your deck. And deckbuilding totally depends on your budget, so on money. All comes to who got more money in the ends.
It's irrelevant that a budget deck could theoretically win a % of times against non-budget deck, because that just means that, if the budget player would be without the budget constraint, would win even more % of times. So, having more money, always gives you more advantage on the other players with not so much money to spend, that's just a truth and it's just a sophism trying to prove otherwise.

If two or more players have very similar skills and experience, but one or more got all the money they want to build the ideal and optimized decks against the one that play tapped lands, slow mana rocks, slow counters, etc., is the one guy with the optimized deckbuild to have the highest chances to win always, in every game, period. And this, sounds like the antithesis of fun for me.

I know this, because I always play optimized decks in Cockatrice and I always win against the players that want to test their real-life-budget-decks against me, even in multiplayer. So, those are the facts that I witnesses with my own eyes for years. The rest are fairy tales.

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Post by umtiger » 4 years ago

Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
Play-skill heavily depends on how you deckbuilded your deck. And deckbuilding totally depends on your budget, so on money. All comes to who got more money in the ends.
It's irrelevant that a budget deck could theoretically win a % of times against non-budget deck, because that just means that, if the budget player would be without the budget constraint, would win even more % of times. So, having more money, always gives you more advantage on the other players with not so much money to spend, that's just a truth and it's just a sophism trying to prove otherwise.

If two or more players have very similar skills and experience, but one or more got all the money they want to build the ideal and optimized decks against the one that play tapped lands, slow mana rocks, slow counters, etc., is the one guy with the optimized deckbuild to have the highest chances to win always, in every game, period. And this, sounds like the antithesis of fun for me.

I know this, because I always play optimized decks in Cockatrice and I always win against the players that want to test their real-life-budget-decks against me, even in multiplayer. So, those are the facts that I witnesses with my own eyes for years. The rest are fairy tales.
Play skill doesn't depend on the deck-building. It's the other way around. A strong player on a reasonable enough budget will beat weak players with limitless budgets. I don't think you can buy wins in EDH or at least enough for them to matter. There are so many game-ending combos available and enough of them are cheap enough for budget to not be the deciding matter in most games.

EDH isn't a sanctioned format with enough deck uniformity (i.e. an established tier metagame) and it's multiplayer. These factors contribute to increase the variance of the format. So much so that I don't think it's accurate to suggest that the most expensive deck is likeliest to win at the beginning of the game.

Also, your assumption that budget = wins also requires money and power-level to be perfectly correlated. And it's not. Decks are expensive for reasons beyond power-level. Who's winning more games, an all-foil Sultai goodstuff.dec or a highly combo-focused Maru Neha deck? I mean Maru Neha + Ghostly Flicker is ~$2.

Deck-building has constraints beyond budget. For example, some people arbitrarily don't play Sol Ring. And some players even push deck-building to an extreme where Sol Ring isn't even worth playing in their decks. Once again, budget is entirely over-rated. You can have a plenty powerful deck without certain staples. This isn't a Grand Prix. You don't need every marginal %-tage point to go your way in order to win a multiplayer game.

Absolute win-rate is also not a good indicator of whether or not a deck is competitive. In a 4-player playgroup, three players each may have overwhelmingly a much larger card pool than the 4th player who's a budget player by choice. Even if that 4th player doesn't win the most games, let's say his decks are a big factor in each and every game and never a non-factor. I'd say his decks were successful.

And why is it always assumed that a lower budget deck is going to be put together worse? You don't have to put lots of money into your manabase to avoid tapped lands. Just because you're not playing Force of Will, you don't have play 1UU Cancels. That's just a weak assumption.

By the way, I know this because, like you, I play and win many games as well. But unlike you, I don't always play optimized decks.

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Post by Lucifer, Sapere Aude » 4 years ago

You are completely ignoring the main point of what I'm saying, and I sincerely have no interest on discussing on somebody trying to climb mirrors just to prove his point against reality.

If two players have same budget and same experience, they will roughly have the same chances of winning. If one of the two don't have a high budget but has to play the tapped duals, the cmc 3 mana rocks, the 4+ tutors, the 3+ mana counters and so on...it will always lose to the player gaining fast mana with optimal alpha duals / fetchlands, vampiric tutur, force of will cards and such. It's a simple matter of speed, the fastest deck wins. That's true in all formats and EDH makes no exception, especially if you build a combo deck.

That's of course, if we just talk about the chances of winning. The self-regulations of social contracts are a completely different beasts and different topic that doesn't negate what I'm saying.
umtiger wrote:
4 years ago
By the way, I know this because, like you, I play and win many games as well. But unlike you, I don't always play optimized decks.
Did you spent your last 10 years of your life testing every single day, at least a couple of hours of day, against thousands and thousands of players all over the world and being able to tell how an optimized EDH deck play against casual, budget decks of all kind and skill (and of course against tuned and competitive decks too)? Because I do that in Cockatrice, and if you don't, I'm sorry, but your word is worthless for my data and experience.

In fact, in Cockatrice several rooms often even FORBID players to play decks with decks or cards that let's say, cost more than 100 bucks or even less . That, once again, just confirm (if we need confirms) what I'm saying all the time. Budget is the ultimate thing that makes the difference. You can be the best player of this world, but if you are playing Grizzly Bears tribal against Tarmogoyf and the rest of the Jund package, is the tarmo player that will win, no matter your skills unless the opponent is a truly utter idiot that never played a game before in his life.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 4 years ago

Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
Budget is the ultimate thing that makes the difference.
It really isn't. I won't deny that budget is a critical factor, but Random_Magic_Noob_37 piloting a $5000 deck he has no idea how to play isn't likely to win against a competent budget player who knows their deck inside and out. Play skill and deckbuilding skill are just as vital, if not moreso. You contradict your own point so many times throughout your posts ("unless the opponent is a truly utter idiot that never played a game before in his life") and make such ridiculous comparisons (Grizzly Bears vs. Tarmogoyf) that it's hard to take you seriously.
Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
Did you spent your last 10 years of your life testing every single day, at least a couple of hours of day, against thousands and thousands of players all over the world and being able to tell how an optimized EDH deck play against casual, budget decks of all kind and skill (and of course against tuned and competitive decks too)? Because I do that in Cockatrice, and if you don't, I'm sorry, but your word is worthless for my data and experience.
What decks are you piloting? Honestly, it comes across as though you're mostly pubstomping and using that as the basis for your argument. You could strip the fast mana, perfect manabase, and expensive interaction from any given cEDH combo deck and still beat casuals with regularity because the typical casual deck doesn't run enough interaction to meaningfully stop you. Would you lose more games due to not playing those cards? Sure. Again, budget is a critical factor, and I fully support using proxies to narrow that gap, but to suggest it's the be-all end-all of Magic demonstrates a lack of understanding of the finer nuances of the game.

On the other hand, I do have to admit that in a technical sense, budget is the primary factor if all you can afford is basic lands and the least expensive commander. :thinking:

This is why philosophers should be drowned at birth.

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Post by Lucifer, Sapere Aude » 4 years ago

GloriousGoose wrote:
4 years ago
piloting a $5000 deck he has no idea how to play isn't likely to win against a competent budget player who knows their deck inside and out.
That's not realistically what will happens in game, Who got the resources to invest thousands of money in cardboard has also the time to learn how to play decently. Only in cockatrice I found players completely unable to piloting netdecked perfect decks for obvious reasons, never in real life.
GloriousGoose wrote:
4 years ago
You contradict your own point so many times throughout your posts ("unless the opponent is a truly utter idiot that never played a game before in his life")
There's no contradiction. In fact my extreme case just proves my point exactly because it out of reality and statistics. Normally won't happend. Is the famous exception that just confirm the rule. In 99% of games, if both players have the same experience, is budget that makes difference. And if both have the same budget, is experience to make difference.
I'm sorry if with proxying I prefer a world where is skill, and not budget, to make a real difference in games.

GloriousGoose wrote:
4 years ago
What decks are you piloting?
Narset is my favorite one, for example. I run the best mana rocks and counters to cast her as early as possible and obviously winning through the extra turns chains. Budget, slow decks has extreme difficult to interact with her in time.
Lately, I run also a superfriends Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, slower control/midrange, that likes to grindr games, but ultimately he will dominate against casual decks, and that's again because multiple planeswalkers are hard to answer, especially when you ramp thank to the best rocks of 6+ mana on turn 2, also thank to the best and cheapest tutors tutoring them. I tipically use Temporal Cascade to lock the hands and graves of everybody in early game or stuff like Jokulhaups to end the game with a bunch of walkers in board.
If I'm the fastest player to pull this stuff, I simply got the best chance to win, and that's because I play the fastest and most efficent resources to do so. And the efficent ramp, lands, tutors, etc are pretty expensive, money wise.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
In 99% of games, if both players have the same experience, is budget that makes difference.
Nah. The highest determinant is deck strength, which does not fully correlate with budget. My 2014 Purphoros, God of the Forge deck which I tossed together for about 50 euro or so would absolutely obliterate my current Daxos the Returned list, which I've spent years fussing over and have cut no financial corners on. I'll agree that if players are working with commanders/deck ideas with similar potential, budget and experience come into play, but this is the main factor.
 
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Post by Lucifer, Sapere Aude » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Nah. The highest determinant is deck strength, which does not fully correlate with budget. My 2014 Purphoros, God of the Forge deck which I tossed together for about 50 euro or so would absolutely obliterate my current Daxos the Returned list,
I'm sorry to ruin your dreams but Daxos is not a competitive general, no matter how much resources you spend to improve him. It's not a valid comparison. There are decks that wins no matter who is the general (like Hermit Druid decks but usually you need to have available all 5 colors), but this is not the case.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
I'm sorry to ruin your dreams but Daxos is not a competitive general
You didn't ruin anything, you've proven my point. There's a bit more to this format than just pure pursuit of power, and that was the gist of my post. So yeah, in your scenario, budget and experience will matter a lot more.
 
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Post by Lucifer, Sapere Aude » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
You didn't ruin anything, you've proven my point.
I didnt prove your point, you are confusing the things. Daxos is not a 100 dollars (or more) card. Is cheap exactly because it not competitively viable, among other things. Are the cards that makes results in tournaments the ones that cost money and Daxos is not one of them.

So, as I said, a deck can win even without the commander, but you need to have the right competitive cards, for (example : Flash + Protean Hulk combo doesn't need any commander in particular, only the right cards and colors) and you will win if you use the best and most efficent lands, ramps, tutors and counters to do that.

But if you build purposelly around a weak general, the deck will be weak because it's in fact half budget and not optimized because of your poor choices. It's like to waste an Imperial Seal to search a Grizzly Bears. Even if you run some expensive and pretty good cards, your deck is still weak, casual and budget (compared to the true optimized CEDH lists) overall.


Anyway, my point is that any optimized CEDH lists will always win over the cheap or slightly improved pre-cons, if both players got the same luck and experience.. And who, in real life, can afford the optimized CEDH deck? Obviously, the richest one. Is running CEDH lists over casual lists fair? Probably not, but it's not the point of the topic. The point of the topic is to prove that the most efficent lists trumps the inefficent choices, and that's why I advocate proxies on casual play.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
I'm sorry to ruin your dreams but Daxos is not a competitive general, no matter how much resources you spend to improve him. It's not a valid comparison. There are decks that wins no matter who is the general (like Hermit Druid decks but usually you need to have available all 5 colors), but this is not the case.
Somewhat off topic but can I ask you why you felt the need to phrase this response like this? It feels like you're trying to pick a fight and doesn't really serve to do anything except distract from your message.

He was talking about the *price* of the decks; his Daxos deck is vastly more expensive, but not as competitive as his cheaper Purphoros deck. Point being deck price does not 100% correlate with power. I would say that in EDH that it is probably not even a very strong correlation, because plenty of weaker decks run very expensive cards (case in point my Ephara deck is >2500 bucks in nonfoil, and it's not very strong).

Your point I believe was more along the lines that all things considered when trying to win a game of EDH budget makes a big difference, which is a subtly different point than "budget correlates with power" it's that "budget constrains power." Which is mostly true but only to a point.

There are many CEDH decks that will seriously struggle to beat other cheaper focused CEDH decks, so player experience will often trump budget; CEDH games have more complex dynamics than "everyone should play $8500 flash hulk."

A good example of that is that Gitrog has a pretty good game against a table full of flash hulks trying to stop each other from comboing; I can tell you this from experience, I've beat tables with Gitrog where I was the cheapest deck at the table even with my Bazaar because everyone else had Timetwisters and suites of duals pushing their budget up.


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tstorm823
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Obviously, in a competitive setting, proxies are handled by the competitive rules and aren't really subject to personal preference.

In a casual setting, just playing for fun, everyone has a responsibility to manage how their decks line up with others. Proxies can be used to advance that goal, allowing those without collections to expand their options. Proxies can also be used to rip that goal to shreds by someone who has no sense of restraint and no interest in managing a level playing field. I've never refused to play against proxies, but even the "I have a copy, just not in the deck" doesn't get a blanket exemption from my condescending rendition of the classic Police song, "Proxanne" (you don't have to play any real cards), when it's the person playing all optimized mana bases against fresh opponents because they have one of each dual in a binder in their closet at home.

It's just always a matter of how people are using them, and if given the option, I'd prefer everyone use real cards as the difficulty in acquiring them is sort of a naturally imposed restraint to keep most people from getting out of hand, and hopefully those with the monetary investment in magic to play decks worth more than their weight in gold will also have the understanding of the game not to blow up their playgroup.
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."

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Post by umtiger » 4 years ago

Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
You are completely ignoring the main point of what I'm saying, and I sincerely have no interest on discussing on somebody trying to climb mirrors just to prove his point against reality.
I didn't ignore your main point. I disagree with you and then made several counter-points of my own.

I didn't ignore how incorrect some of your points are. Your response re-states your previous post without replying to any of my counter-arguments. Namely, power&budget aren't correlated in a linear way and that lower budget does not equal a poorly built deck.

And then you end it by saying that you think that you're better than everyone else.
Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
Did you spent your last 10 years of your life testing every single day[...]Because I do that in Cockatrice, and if you don't, I'm sorry, but your word is worthless for my data and experience.
It's a good time to remind people to remain skeptical of what people claim on the internet. If true, I say that's an incredible amount of dedication. But since you're so obvious intent on improving your game, how come you're so quick to dismiss what someone else has to say simply because put in more hours? I'm sure that your experience will point out the diminishing returns of playing so many hours. After all, did you really come up with something groundbreaking after your 9th year of playing that you weren't smart enough to already find out after playing 8 years?

And if your data is indeed great, could you please share some of it?
Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
If two players have same budget and same experience, they will roughly have the same chances of winning. If one of the two don't have a high budget but has to play the tapped duals, the cmc 3 mana rocks, the 4+ tutors, the 3+ mana counters and so on...it will always lose to the player gaining fast mana with optimal alpha duals / fetchlands, vampiric tutur, force of will cards and such. It's a simple matter of speed, the fastest deck wins. That's true in all formats and EDH makes no exception, especially if you build a combo deck.
You keep saying "experience." Are you equating that with skill? Because you don't need more experience to have more skill. If you are using them to mean that same thing, that's fine. Semantics aren't really the point here.

In other posts, you also go on assume that someone with more cards has likely just played more and is therefore also likely a better player. As if it's some accomplishment to have a stronger deck and be a stronger player.

You lack imagination if you think each game is only worth playing if you start out with every single staple and that winning dictates that you can only play one sort of deck. Besides combo is cheap in EDH. Like I said, cheap Naru Meha can wipe out tables of more expensive decks. You don't address that cost doesn't equal power. And people, regardless of budget, aren't tuning strictly for power. Is any deck stronger with a few more bucks? Of course, no one is disagreeing with that. A simple person can make that simple remark. The point is that a stronger deck isn't going to matter than just being a stronger player, within reason.

And here is where you are completely unreasonable. Why is your default budget player playing Firemind's Vessel and Cancel and Diabolic Tutor and come into play tapped lands? You don't have to put a lot of money into new deck to get something vastly better than that? I made that point and others have followed, but instead of addressing it, you just repeat that budget=bad cards, when that's just not the case.

People don't graduate from playing Cancel to playing Counterspell. Lower budget players aren't stuck playing with crap. Your entire stance is actually kind of dismissive towards budget players.
Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
In fact, in Cockatrice several rooms often even FORBID players to play decks with decks or cards that let's say, cost more than 100 bucks or even less . That, once again, just confirm (if we need confirms) what I'm saying all the time. Budget is the ultimate thing that makes the difference. You can be the best player of this world, but if you are playing Grizzly Bears tribal against Tarmogoyf and the rest of the Jund package, is the tarmo player that will win, no matter your skills unless the opponent is a truly utter idiot that never played a game before in his life.
Budget isn't the ultimate thing. It's part of it sure. I'm not saying that it isn't. But how you play determines much more in a multiplayer EDH game.

Give me +200 horsepower on the exact same car and I'm sure a professional racing driver stills beats me in anything but a drag race. Your counter-response to this truth is.....well, if umtiger has 201 horsepower, and a race car driver has 1 horsepower of course umtiger will win everything. How ridiculous?

You insist on dragging out a false equivalence of strong, budget less player using Tarmgoyf versus a weaker, budget player using Grizzly Bear. Once again, that's a wholly unreasonable point to make. No one is bringing Grizzly Bear to competitive game. Why don't you use reasonable examples?

And your poorly constructed example demonstrates my main reason why I don't like proxies. People aren't using proxies to "try something new" before purchasing. They're really just trying to put staples into their decks rather than innovating something that would actually bring more enjoyment in the games they play. Proxies just encourage every deck to start looking the same and that actually hurts budget players.

People aren't using proxies to put together and try out something extraordinary before pulling a trigger on buying. If that's what they were truly doing, people would cheer on proxies. Because when your budget is a thing, you really want to be sure before you pull the trigger on a purchase. However, proxies just puts incentives on an arms-race type scenario. And if you ask me, that arms-race which was started with proxies begets more proxies begets more proxies...and then everyone is priced out without proxies. How ironic?

When people ask, "Are proxies okay?" How often do you just go with it knowing that the guy just built his list off EDHrec? Proxies encourage play patterns I don't like (i.e. homogenized deck-lists) and in the end, I think it limits how much newer or weaker players can improve. Because players just see the same stuff instead of learning how to improvise on new, unique board-states. They also get limited view on the cardpool and miss out on some hidden gems. And they think that putting in "x" staple from looking at EDHrec data to build a deck means that they'll win more, whereas it was other factors as well.
Lucifer, Sapere Aude wrote:
4 years ago
That's of course, if we just talk about the chances of winning. The self-regulations of social contracts are a completely different beasts and different topic that doesn't negate what I'm saying.
I don't think it's useful at all to disregard these when talking about EDH. Since this in large part separates EDH from other formats.

You are intent on saying that budget determines most of winning and proxies are therefore good. When others disagree with you and bring up other factors that also determine winning, you don't just get to brush those aside and say, "Oh, social contract, that's another topic." It's not, especially because proxies factor into the social contract. Those factors play an important role in winning and diminish budget as the factor in winning.


Budget sure does up a deck's %-tage. But win-rate depends on much more than a deck's win %-tage. If you want to optimize all of the time, great, then put more money into your deck and continue to grow as a player. But you don't have to optimize to win in EDH.

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