Proxygen

I’m starting to see the benefits of having a full-proxy tournament.

You can’t have a sanctioned tournament with proxies, right? But you can’t have a respectable Vintage tournament without a field of the best available tech. That means having decks with four copies of Mana Drain or four copies of Mishra’s Workshop plus five moxes, a Black Lotus, and whatever blue power, Library of Alexandria or Bazaar of Baghdad you need to make them actual good decks rather than decent decks.

It’s a conundrum.

Why sanction a tournament if no one will be able to compete with the few people who own a piece of power?

Proxies do a lot to even out the field, especially with a suitable number available to players. A suitable number is more than five.

Figuring that most players, especially most beginning Vintage players, don’t own any power and may not own a dual land, five is enough for, what? One of each mox? Four Mana Drains or Shops plus one random other thing? You still need a lot more for most decks.

Let’s take a look at the deck that split the Mox Ruby at Alter Reality last weekend and the approximate market values of the most expensive cards:

Burning Slaver by Brian DeMars

1 Black Lotus ($800)
1 Mox Sapphire ($400)
1 Mox Jet ($400)
1 Mox Ruby ($350)
1 Mox Emerald ($300)
1 Mox Pearl ($300)
1 Ancestral Recall ($500)
1 Time Walk ($400)
1 Library of Alexandria ($120)
4 Mana Drain ($100 each)
1 Mana Crypt ($30)
2 Underground Sea ($30 each)
2 Polluted Delta ($25 each)
3 Volcanic Island ($25 each)
3 Flooded Strand ($22 each)
4 Force of Will ($20 each)
1 Tolarian Academy ($20)
3 Goblin Welder ($15 each)

Okay, after that, who really cares. The lands alone are worth more than $300 and that’s twelve cards, which is…yes, that’s more than can be covered by five proxies.

For note, the rest of DeMars’s deck is here (he credits Duress in the sideboard as the MVP):

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Tinker
1 Echoing Truth
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mindslaver
1 Duplicant
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sundering Titan
1 Burning Wish
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Snow-covered Island
2 Island

Sideboard

3 Duress
1 Red elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Fire/Ice
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Tormods Crypt
1 Stifle
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Deep Analysis
1 Echoing Ruin

So for this deck, 32 cards are worth close to $4,000. Four-thousand dollars for 32 pieces of cardboard. If your deck uses Mishra’s Workshop, they run at least $250 each, so put up another $700 to the deck figuring you’re taking out Mana Drains.

Personally, I think it’s worth it. I think of Magic cards as an investment, so I’m glad to pay for ones that I think will go up in value. Three years ago, if I’d had the money, I’d have bought a Lotus and sat on it until now. It’s like playing the stock market only the stock certificates can smash face.

Now, I’m still not able to afford Magic cards like that, and I have a job and everything. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get some Mana Drains or a Library of Alexandria, but the only Power I’ll be thumbing though are those I’ll win.

And Power begets Power. Get it?

Tournaments that have Power as prizes require Power to win. It’s practically a rule.

Having a quality Vintage field, one worth playing against, means allowing the entire field to have access to the Vintage staples, whatever they need. Stores and their tournament organizers are often loath to offer more proxies, I’m sure, because they think it will reduce their sales. Why would someone buy the cards, if they can just proxy them and not worry about it. Figuring that everyone who plays will have some Magic cards and will probably be on their way to making a deck, the difference between 20 proxies and 75 becomes negligible.

By opening the tournament to proxies, you open the tournament to everyone who wants to play. That means you increase your tournament turnout greatly; with an average $20 entry fee, even with five more players you’ve earned an extra $100. Plus, when people see how certain cards are working in their decks, they’re more likely to buy them. Or share the tech with their friends, who will be more likely to buy them.

Plus, even if you have the most commonly proxied cards in stock, how many people go to a tournament prepared to drop a wad of C-notes on a Time Walk so they can meet their proxy requirement?

If you want to play Vintage, talk to your local tournament organizer about having a full-proxy tournament. Then tell your friends. And have them tell their friends. As long as a tournament venue is making more money by holding a tournament (and collecting entry fees and selling concessions and cards) than they spend on the prizes (which should go to a proportional number of participants, at least the top eight for a 32 member tourney) they’ll be more than happy to hold more tournaments in the future.

Trust me. Money is like gold to tournament organizers.

Or something.

Anyway, proxies are awesome, especially when you decorate them yourself.

Until next time, proxy it up!