MTG Proxies are a helpful tool to the modern Local Game Store (LGS). They can bring more people in to play games, casual in house tournaments can be open to all without a stiff barrier of entry, and it opens up powerful cards to the more casual player. MTG Proxies are an increasingly more important to the everyday casual play space of the casual player. A LGS might wonder why they should allow MTG proxies into their store, “They aren’t selling singles. They just print them to play.” The Store owner could wonder. I would argue that the usage of MTG proxies in an LGS can be very helpful in bringing more people into play other format types that they could not afford.

The Benefits of MTG Proxies and why you should allow them

My LGS (Before the pandemic) used to allow for casual modern tournaments with a prize pool with MTG proxied cards, because they understood the barrier to entry for certain formats was very cost prohibiting for the average casual player, but with MTG proxied cards that barrier to entry is nonexistent, the same is true for legacy vintage and even commander (The most popular format at the time of writing).

Now in your mind you must be wondering, how can MTG proxied cards be helpful to a game shop, the answer is that it is more important to get a person into a seat then it is to worrying about the selling of singles, or Magic the Gathering product.

If you can get a customer into the store to play cards, then they will incidentally purchase other product, from refreshment, to Dungeons and Dragon manuals, to miniatures, to other board games. These are just incidental purchases or interests that could evolve for a greater ability to come to the store for other events besides MTG.

They could also buy other MTG product, now you may be asking, how could this be? The answer is that MTG isn’t just about singles, it has Standard format which is made of the most recent sets with a lower bar for the casual player to enter, as well as preconstructed products like the always amazing Commander Preconstructed Decks, which offer great singles for a relatively consistent price, as well as draft product.

No one can feasibly play the same format for many weeks or months without desiring a change of pace, it is why standard players move to commander, modern or other formats, it creates a fatigue, and of course one of the most popular ways to play magic is the draft format, where players buy draft boosters or packs to build decks with in an on the fly way.

Another method of play that the store can employ and that is always fun is the always fun sealed league, which is profitable to the store since they are selling packs as part of the league. This can all be advertised by the store and it encourages people to spend money in the store and get involved with store tournaments or official tournaments that don’t require proxies.

What a store should focus on before selling product is getting buts into seats. Allowing the usage of MTG or other card Proxies in their more casual games is that more people will come, even friends of others who haven’t tried magic before, they could brew up a casual deck to try and see if they like it with MTG proxies, and if they want to build the deck (Minus some of their super pricy cards) They could then try to build the deck with cards provided for by the store, or buy another preconstructed deck if they like the look of it.

They could branch out from their roots within the store and go to other games that catch their eye, and just like that you have another customer. This new customer came about from allowing the usage of MTG proxies in their casual games so they could move on to other things within the store to catch their fancy.

How MTG Proxies can move singles!

Allowing proxies can also encourage competitive play, how, because if a player of one of the formats that you allow proxies for (modern for example) they could try to go into the competitive scene, they’ll buy pricy singles from you to go to official tournaments.

Allowing proxies offers many great advantages and it isn’t just in magic that this is the case, but other games like Pokemon, Yugioh, and so on. The usage of MTG proxies can only really be a benefit for game stores since it gets people into your store to buy other product, there is virtually no downside to the LGS to allow MTG proxied cards in their store’s casual games.

Now for the Consumer!

Now I know players might wonder, “Why should I proxy cards instead of buying it?”to which I answer with, do you know the price of a Blightsteel Colossus? I do, it is easily 67 dollars, which is pretty high and their isn’t a lot of them going around since it has only seen printing once following its initial printing in Mirrodin Besieged in 2011 over 11 years ago as of the time of writing this, and the set that it was reprinted in is Double Masters, well it like all masters sets only gets a one print run which means that there will not be a lot of them going around, and the problem is that the card is bonkers good in all formats it appears in and sees play everywhere since, in magic it can go in any deck.

It is even worse for a special kind of card. Have you heard of Gaea’s Cradle, I have, you may have heard it in reference to Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun, which flips from Growing Rights of Itlimoc. A magic player in the commander format will tell you how good this card is, now imagine a version of Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun you didn’t have to flip, that is Gaea’s Cradle and it is amongst the holy grails of cards in commander since it is so good, the problem?

It is a card worth over 1,000 U.S. Dollars, which is insane, a card worth that much you figure that WoTC would have to reprint it! They can’t. Gaea’s Cradle is a part of a special set of cards that is on what is called the Reserved list, which prevents WoTC from ever reprinting the card again no matter what, which is horrible, especially for those who play five color decks, because amongst those cards on the list is the Dual Lands.

Dual Lands are a special land that is searchable by fetch lands, similar to shock lands that can come into play untapped, the Dual Lands are not restricted by this, they come into play untapped without you having to fork over more life, decks that run these card have a massive advantage over those that don’t and you will probably never get one! That’s right you will never get one, due to their price starting from 300 dollars and up, and they are played in formats where you need multiple copies! That is 4 each, and let’s not get into the all-powerful Power 9 of magic which is also on the reserve list and will never get reprinted. How can you the average player get one of these cards? Using a lovely little website called mtgproxy.com.

The Power of mtgproxy.com

Mtgproxy.com is a website that will print physical card like proxies that you can use for your decks, it isn’t counterfeiting since the backs are going to be different, and it will not have the holomark that denotes a real card.

An Mtg Proxy is a great solution to putting power into your deck, it will let you, for an affordable price try out the full breath of magic’s powerful formats like Legacy, and Vintage without having to put thousands of dollars into building a deck. You can put power into your other decks to like Commander or Modern as well to give you a fun time.

It is easy to use and what’s more lets you choose printings from all over the history of magic. In addition, let’s say that you like a certain legacy character like Sorin Markov, a very popular MTG character, but what if you have alternate artwork done of him by an artist.

With tools available you can create your own custom cards at the website cardconjurer.com, then upload it to the website and then when it arrives at that custom alternate art MTG Proxy to your deck for fun. Or what if you are like me, and have no creative skills at all, you can browse the gallery of other contributions which includes rather funny alternate arts to use for yourself. So what are you waiting for when it comes time to play with power in mtg?