Basically none in practice, but there are some hybrid collector-players who like the idea of building decks from their collection as opposed from all decks, and bristle at the idea of someone else not doing that. (And of course the collectors and WoTC themselves like to push for it because it makes them money: WoTC officially pretends that the secondary market doesn't exist but their actions make no sense if they aren't crafting their ~~loot boxes~~ booster sets with the idea of rare and valuable cards driving a lot of the demand).

(I personally think that if you want to force everyone to pay for product, play sealed or draft. Then everyone's on an even playing field budget wise, and it's more interesting than just net-decking. I'm sympathetic to the fact that WoTC needs to make money, I'm not sympathetic to their approach of chasing whales and making large chunks of the game basically inaccessible by their definition of 'legitimate play')

Isn't mtg basically pay to win because of this?

If you're playing constructed tournaments, yeah. Depends on the format, but the price of entry can range from $$$ to $$$$$$.

No there's usually a wide variety of viable strategies, which have different costs associated with them. There's a price of entry but once everyone is on that level you still have to play well.

Colloquially, I think people call this 'pay to win'. If there's not one single price of entry that delineates someone playing vs not playing, i.e. if money spent results in any power level difference between players, that's pay to win, even if there's a ceiling to how much paying more than just buying a starter deck will get you.

Some formats, but you can always play sealed which removes the ability to bring in outside cards at all. You either get your own pool of cards or draft from a shared pool so it's more down to your skill in building a deck (or luck pulling the right card from a pack you opened or it getting passed to you because the player before you didn't need it and wasn't drafting for value).

There's cheaper strategies in most formats though that you can still get wins with, Red Aggro decks are usually pretty cheap to build and have a decent win rate. You'll rarely place highly in tournaments with it but that's true for most people and most decks.

Organized Play official events require authentic cards, but nobody is stopping people from using a printer for kitchen-table style games.

Personally, having used printed paper inserted over top of a real card, I'd rather stick with real cards. Otherwise, I'd just go digital in this day and age.

You can buy mid-quality proxies on Chinese sites for about $0.30/card that feel accurate and typically are only distinguishable from real ones on fairly close inspection.

That is not true. Try playing a $0.30 Underground Sea at Eternal Weekend and see how many rounds it takes before you get caught. Old cards have specific hues, imperfections, etc, that are not replicable in modern proxies. I have some Legacy proxies for local events that are proxy-friendly, and literally the first game I played someone noticed as soon as I put the card down that it was fake because it was printed way too well.

Your example doesn't invalidate the comment you were replying to.

(And I can also vouch at the quality of proxies that I bought for dirt cheap, so that I could keep my real cards at home. I bought from a few different companies, and some are very good, some not so much.)

Are judges at tournaments pulling out loupes and inspecting cards?

Not really but the official line is you can't use proxies. Practically the only reason a judge would have to inspect your deck is if they suspected you were cheating by registering an incorrect list or pre-sideboarding or something, but most judges aren't going to care about proxies.

When it comes to playing the game between friends outside official tournaments, you are basically correct (though some use cost as a power level limiter).

When it comes to trading, you don’t want to accidentally pay a premium for something you won’t be able to resell. Lots of players view trading as, more or less, leasing cards. Valuable cards typically have fairly stable prices (though there are notable exceptions). Buy for a dollar sell for somewhere between 0.75 and 1.25.

I believe official tournaments don't allow any form of proxy?

you don't want it causing a complication with prize money or etc if you try to play in a regional tournament and get dqed by this I assume

> I believe official tournaments don't allow any form of proxy?

It doesn't solve the problem, but I thought I saw something about tournaments allowing proxies for a card that's present but in unplayable condition.

The few annual tournaments in Vintage typically do allow players to show up and register their deck is present, then put it away in a travel safe and play with proxies. That's for decks that can easily be worth 50-100k.

MTG cards are among the best investments of the past 20 years. I think it beats out everything except bitcoin.

I know of no tournament that is run this way - can you name an example?

Would an example of that be something like "This is my pretend black lotus, and here's my actual black lotus in this graded plastic box"?

If this is authoritative, I don't think so. It's really for the card got damaged in the current tournament so it's a marked card in a deck, or the card is valid, but only available as a foil which would feel different than other cards unless you were playing a foils only deck.

https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/mtr3-4/

Originally the rule was specifically for cards damaged during the tournament. If a card was in acceptable condition at the start of the tournament but became marked during play you'd be required to substitute it for a proxy, and then acquire a real replacement before the next tournament.

There are unsanctioned events that allow proxies but it can put a store's wpn status at risk. For most competitive tournaments you need real cards, but a lot of competition for legacy and vintage are on mtgo (the old online magic client) now which is much cheaper and has rental services.

Imagine governments allowing money for gold that's present but locked away. And later for gold they don't have!

Bridge tournaments don't require the players to bring their own royal court to hold. Everyone gets to use cards proxying the various kings, provided by the tournament.

MTG tournaments become a test of playing skill, deck building skill, and the skill to have enough money to buy important limited production cards. It is what it is, but sometimes it feels gross.

> I believe official tournaments don't allow any form of proxy?

Is there a legitimate reason not to, or is it just a money grab?

"official" means run by wizards of the Coast, so essentially the money grab. I suppose it has some benefits in terms of not getting anyone who's swapping cards there overpaying for a reproduction too.

Basically two things are driving after market value. Use in tournaments and collectability. And after market value drives the demand for sealed product(one directly from Hasbro via distributors and then stores).

I really don't understand why no legislation is targeting this market that is exactly like loot boxes.

Where do you think prize support for tournaments would come from if no one had to buy the cards?

Entry fees?

And sponsorships, and vendors and etc.

There's tournaments for _all kinds_ of games that don't require loot-box purchases to compete, it's not exactly an unknown problem.

The Mtg Pro Tour is free of entry and has a $500,000 prize pool. Tournaments encourage people to buy cards.

And all it requires is a gross, exploitative business model and lots of grief.

Is there a legitimate reason for collectors to value an authentic card more than a counterfeit card?

well if you're collecting something, it's age kinda matters?

maybe a counterfeit that's also from the 90s would have a similarly interesting story, but one from last week is much less interesting than the possibility of a beta card from the first set of a game inherently, and so less collectible.

There's no reason not to allow them. You might legitimately prohibit them if unsleeved, but in sleeves there's no difference. Tournaments that aren't run by WotC do allow proxies, though I think Star City Games limits you to 5 proxies, which isn't enough to solve any budget problems. Again, obviously, there's no reason as far as gameplay goes. SCG does traffic in used cards.

The guys who run tourneys are also often guys that participate in the secondary market heavily. Having an 'open to any proxy' tournament would screw their bottom line. The whole point of them running tourneys is to keep excitement in the game and sell more cards on the secondary market.

You wouldn't want to pay a premium for a reproduction.

Indeed - proxy cards have their place, but everyone involved should know that’s what they are.

Original print runs will score higher resale values, especially for something rare like unreleased Pokemon trading cards made during play testing.

Reproductions can be fine, but anyone can do them on the cheap.