Independent Organization Play and Proxy Absolutism for Paper Legacy
Written by Nathan Flachaire (a.k.a AronGomu)
The utilization of proxies comes up often in Legacy circles. The Reserve List (RL) is here to stay — Wizards of the Coast (WotC) won't dissolve it despite the financial potential of reprinting iconic cards. They are instead printing other intellectual properties (IP) into Magic to make money. I'll play against Spiderman soon, and you will, too.
While there is currently enough physical stock of RL cards to play paper Legacy to support a thriving community, however capped the size of sanctioned tournaments might be — Eternal Weekends continue to show growth year over year — the sad reality is that, eventually, without reprints, there won't be enough cards and/or the cost of those cards will be untenable. Not to mention cards destroyed or otherwise insufficient for sanctioned play due to entropy (e.g., wildfires, floods, dogs with bad eating habits, etc.).
Paper Legacy will follow the path of paper Vintage. I'd argue that physical paper Legacy is dying, even if it feels at a slow enough rate to not raise alarms. Perhaps the fall of sanctioned paper Legacy won't be in our lifetimes, but it's fall is inevitable. That's not the case for any non-RL format.
Arguments Against Proxies
The main problem is most competitive archetypes require RL cards — the most notable being dual lands. One might argue playing without RL cards. Indeed, Oops All Spells, 8-Cast, and Mono-White Death and Taxes are examples of playable strategies that don't require RL cards, but the overwhelming majority of competitive archetypes do.
Ban the Reserved List
Most competitive players with the goal of winning the tournaments they enter wouldn't accept being unable to play the best strategies. If RL cards were banned, that would likely remedy cost as a gatekeeper to the format, but would also overhaul what we have known the format to be.
What would Legacy be without dual lands, Gaea's Cradle, Grim Monolith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, City of Traitors, or Lion's Eye Diamond? We'd still have Brainstorm, Ponder, Eye of Ugin, and the Cloudpost manabase, but major features of the format would be absent.
I mostly play blue control. Banning RL cards would likely affect my personal winrate in positively but I would despise playing with what would effectively be a Modern manabase. While there may not be an intrinsic issue playing a more gluttinous Modern — or perhaps diet Modern considering Modern features Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Psychic Frog, Expressive Iteration, and Underworld Breach to Legacy's Wasteland, Daze, Ancient Tomb, and Up the Beanstalk — we would result in a Theseus Ship problem — a thought experiment that asks if an object is the same after all of its parts have been replaced.
Powercreep
Everyone, including WotC, is aware of the yearly powercreep that functionally rotate eternal formats. Assuming a steady trajectory since 2019, if we wait long enough, WotC will reprint better versions of everything eventually — dual lands that gain life, Grim Monolith that taps for 4 mana, City of Traitor with is lesser drawback.
While powercreep soft-banning RL cards is a future speculation to lean on, I'd argue the majority sentiment is the cons of Modern Horizons outweigh to pros. It's not Legacy if we all play modern/commander released cards. We end up in Theseus's Ship again.
Philosophy of Legacy
Matt Chow spoke about the need for a Legacy philosophy and what that might look like. I'm writing an article to be published soon about my vision of the format.
Regardless of what any of our philosophies for Legacy might be, they would all require WotC taking action. Empirically, WotC does not do enough to satisfy the Legacy's communities aims nor do they have financial incentive to do so in the future.
We could create break-off formats that fulfill our goals similar to how Premodern has a dedicated community who generate value around major events like Lobstercon and National Championships worldwide. Given that creating a new format would inherently mean abandoning Legacy as we know it, I rule out community formats as a solve and consider them more an alternative experience.
WotC must be the governing body defining the rules of the format, including the curation of the banlist.
Independant Organized Play
Independent Organized Play (IOP) should be subject to free market sensibilities and players should support the IOP that offers the best experience. Often, that translates into a national community banding together for once-a-year continental tournament similar to how European National events.
Not Relying on Wizards of the Coast
In ancient times, having WotC's support garnered huge upside. The relationship benefitted IOP via prize support and WotC via promotion. IOP is often operated by shop owners who want to host meaningful events as a means to make their inventory more desirable for purchase. However, this will be soon not be the case, if not already, for Legacy events.
To have WotC's support, tournament organizers (TO) need to to enforce WotC's rules for sanctioned play, which prohibits the use of proxies. Having real Magic cards for tournament play always gatekept players due to expensive cards that cannot be reprinted due to WotC's committment to the RL.
Allowing full proxies for any competitive Legacy event would increase player attendence. An unentrenched or prospective Magic player will not spend thousands of dollars to buy a competitively viable Legacy deck. While there are budget decks, revert to the above section about competitive viability. Money should not be the determining factor of who can reach the top tables.
It is in the best interests of Local Game Stores (LGS) running weekly events, and any TO, no matter the size, to allow proxies.
Arguments Against Proxy Absolutism
In the context of the market, a card legal in sanctioned play is an official WotC product. However, there isn't a uniformity to what Magic cards look like. If we play a tournament match, every single card could have production default, or have varying arts, or be miscut, or color-bleached, or altered, or foil, or have varying cardstock quality, and all are legal game pieces if approved by the head judge — they were produced by WotC and are not otherwise marked for competitive advantage.
A match next to us could feature cards that appear normal and the games are normal games. After the match, one player admits their cards are proxies. A judge disqualifies that player for not using official WotC product despite there not being any discernable advantage gained from using proxies nor any visual defection that suggested they were proxies until that player made it known.
The disqualified player explains that they couldn't afford real cards but wanted to play in the event, which supports the game store that organized it. Ultimately, they well-intentioned motives, both personal and for the community, are punished because of monetary blockades outside of their control.
I'd argue it is better practice for players to be allowed the use proxies so that they can have the experience they seek: playing in an event that they would be otherwise priced out of without being incenvized to skirt official tournament policy.
Some might argue that WotC, as a business, wants to make money through the sale of their products. However, given that they cannot make money from cards they refuse to reprint, that argument does not holds. The compromise would, at the very least, be to allow proxies of RL cards.
Deck Check Difficulties
Some might argue that deck-checking for proxies would be too challenging for judges. I would argue that allowing proxies would make judge's jobs easier. Currently, only official WotC product is allowed, meaning that judges are burdened with having to ensure decks match decklists, cards aren't marked and in playable condition, and are official WotC product.
If proxies were legal, the only requirement needed would be an official policy on how proxies need be made and appear. That could be through approved printing servies or something else, but would be known by players, judge staff, and tournament organizers.
Store Sales
How will LGS's profit from tournaments that allow proxies if players don't need to buy product? LGS's are not covering their overheads selling Legacy singles. The bulk of their money is made through board game sales and other product. Legacy singles are typically used as prizes for tournaments — monthly or bimonthly win-a-duel events are coveted.
LGS's that provide good service and quality experience to their players garner the support of that community.
Ecosystem Innovations
Quality proxies stand the opportunity to generate and wholly new market in the competitive scene. Sought-after artists could be commissioned for policy-accepted proxies. RL cards would hold their value as scarce, but desirable items.
LGS Losing WotC Support
This is the best argument against proxies. If WotC learns of an LGS allowing proxies in sanctioned play, they could withdraw their support organized play, which would be detrimental to the LGS and the players of other formats that don't have the burden of Reserved-List-legal cards.
Again, there is not enough financial incentive for LGS's to support Legacy absent their community requesting it. If there is enough demand for Legacy, there will always be a way to make it profitable for the LGS.
Wizards of the Coast Is Failing Us
If providing good OP absent financial gatekeeping is not in WotC's interest, I encourage a radical push towards proxies. LGS's shou