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Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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