Magic: the Gathering has had, over the years, a debate over the use of what they call proxy cards, or the use of stand-in cards to represent more expensive, harder to find cards. Often times, these proxy cards are little more than writing the words ‘Black Lotus’ over a worthless land card, but in today’s day of low-cost color printers, many players attempt to make more ‘perfect’ ones, by downloading the art and pasting it to the back of a cheap common.

The Proxy Wars are interesting to me in that they are, in many ways, the reverse of the classic RMT problem in MMOs. The players who use proxies argue that they cannot afford to compete with Mr. Suitcase, who buys a new booster box or two every time an expansion comes out. The people that DO go to the trouble and expense to acquire these rare cards are relatively incensed by this end-around on how things are supposed to be. THe people who have more money than time don’t want the other guys in their playpen.

The last time I checked, Wizards of the Coast had a zero tolerance policy on the use of proxies in any official tournament, even down to the sponsored ‘Friday Night Magic’ nights they sponsor weekly nationwide. This, of course, makes perfect sense – Xeroxing cards is a direct assault on MTG’s core business model. Say that Xeroxing cards is all right, and suddenly booster sales dry up.

But their stance appears to be weakening. MtG now has a ‘Vintage’ tournament bracket, which allows the players to play with any cards from any era of Magic’s existence. In these tournaments, MtG allows for a small, select number of proxy cards to be declared and used. Similar to WoW’s Arena Tournament, the rules have been changed in one part of their magic circle to accomodate special needs.

Much like RMT policy, the shift in policy reflects the will of the incumbency. 10 years ago, a larger share of Magic players would have had access to the Power Nine (the nine most broken cards in existence), and would have felt it was only fair that their investment in playing the ‘collectable’ part of the game be rewarded. Now, the incumbent market has changed, and is full of people who never had, and likely never will have, a Black Lotus or a Time Walk. They are more than willing to see a gameplay format open up that lets them play with these lost wonders. However, the game is still, most assuredly, a money game.