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Can we just bootleg magic cards and play the game? Or is MTG not fun enough on its own without the collecting part?
Yes. They're called proxies. Some people are fine with it, some aren't. It's not legal in tournaments obviously but some communities/syles like CEDH are fine with it.
obviously
It doesn't seem obvious to me how that gives a competitive edge to anyone unless the skills involved are browisng ebay with a lot of money
It’s obvious if you consider TCG companies literally thrive on selling pieces of paper for far more what they actually cost them. If everyone could just print their own deck no one would buy packs anymore.
I use chinaprinting4u.com to print my TCG cards, and you can design your tcg card with photoshop or use canva.com
Where can I print up my own proxies?
I use proxy.griselbrand.com which works really well IMO
makeplayingcards.com is a good option. And you can get the images from mpcfill.com
Aren't you supposed to own the card to use a proxy? That's like the whole meaning of the word right, substituting for something. Not just making a fake.
Proxy doesn't mean substituting for something you already own, it means something standing in place of or representing something else. In the case of mtg, people use proxy cards to stand in for cards that they don't want to spend hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars on but want to play with casually
I've been to game stores that allowed proxy play as long as you had the original card. (For FnM)
They usually had the same rule for foreign language cards.
Presumably the store wants you to buy cards that you don't have from them, yeah. But luckily that isn't a universal rule.
It's a way to drive business for sure.
I did love the foreign language card rule though because all the game stores near me don't have that rule and there's assholes that run full kanji decks so you end up having to sit there with your phone pulling up each card they play if you can't remember each mechanic on the card etc. And since the matches have a time limit they use it to win by default.
Foreign language cards are entirely legal in official competition. I bought many of my dual colour lands on eBay from a German dude. Always passed deck inspection. Granted that's literally over 20 years ago and I never placed higher than 17th in qualifiers, but I can't imagine they changed that rule.
Considering the whole CCCG design is lootboxes but for card games, requiring proxy holders to actually own the cards gives legitimacy to WotCs use of dark patterns to take advantage of cognitive biases and whales (people susceptible to gambling-related dark patterns).
So asserting one has to have an original is to condone the abusive marketing practices used in the game.
Which, as a sober MtG addict, I do not.
I thought the entire point of a card game was partially collecting rare/hard to get cards. Not really my thing tho.
There are some communities that are all about deckbuilding and allow participants to just make proxies of anything they don't have.
Typically in such games cards like Black Lotus are too far outside the power curve and are pre-disqualified. Most MtG tournaments only allow cards from the current basic set, the last major expansion and whatever minor expansions have been released since. And Black Lotus is no longer in print.
In fact, the lesser Lotus Petal was restricted then banned for being still outside the power curve.
Some people play competitively and will buy only the cards they need off the second hand market.
Netdeckers do the same thing.
Oh boy, don't ask a mormon about baptisms for the dead then.
Or magic underwear or race relations or gender relations etc..
In fact, maybe don't ask a Mormon about anything.
The only games in which Black Lotus is legal is so that those who own an original have a place to play it.
It (and all the big Type A Tourney Guns) gives a considerable edge to whoever draws it, so games are better served by both players just agreeing not to play it.
There are periods in the game's history where various formats were well designed and balanced and thus had a wide degree of viable decks, making the game generally enjoyable to actually play at both a casual and serious level.
Unfortunately practically nobody can agree on when those times actually are.
Draft and seald formats have also been consistenly popular and they completely exclude the collection aspect.
Game itself is a ton of fun. If you and your friends just want to learn the game you can just print out the cards, no problem. Or if you want realTM cards you can get a starter kit with 2*60 card decks for about 10-15$ from your local game store. (Or amazon if you are in a remote area with no Game Stores.) They are not the best decks, but they are balanced to each other and the cards are simple enough for new players to navigate.
Better Magic Cards do mostly 2 or 3 things at once and can combo with others or are just great by themselves. Not that worse Magic Cards can't combo or anything, they just need more setup or can be a bit niche in their usefulness.
That's how I played with my friends who didn't want to buy their own decks. I was only ever interested in the game part, not the collecting part. The game is fun. It's still my favorite card game.
When I still actively played and wanted to try new decks easily 10 of my cards were proxies. No point in spending €20 on a rare if it won't make your deck better. The people I tested with did the same. We didn't even bother printing them though. We just wrote the name down and the properties if we didn't know them by heart.
And like others stated there's many formats including ones that even prohibit rare cards.
And before WotC came out with a decent online way to play we also had an online client in which you could import all the cards ever, though I doubt it was superlegal.