Posted: 05 November 2007 at 4:49am | IP Logged

The only issue that I've got with using proxies for any game is making sure that the card wording on the proxy is exact.

But then again, I've always preferred the game as a game, the whole collector aspect didn't hold much appeal.

I like seeing the creativity of what people come up with for decks. Being crippled by your card base hinders that whole process.

It is one of the reasons why I believe that if the game is going to be brought back, it should be a computer game with access to all cards as a basic part of the game.

The biggest reason I think GE failed to catch on in a large scale was the concentration of almost all the good cards as rares and very rares... it ruled out everyone who wasn't willing to invest the cash to become Mr. Suitcase.

I know that Mike likes to use the example of when he showed Walter the game and got the whole megadraw accelerated timeline ubercombo off on turn 3. It wasn't the combo that turned Walter off... it was the answer to the question "How much would it cost to get the cards to make a deck like that?" Which was, at the time, thousands of dollars. Most gamers couldn't afford that, especially if they were into another CCG as well.

Posted: 05 November 2007 at 7:35am | IP Logged

Mike, think about what you just said. :P

There is a fundamental difference between buying GE and MtG cards. You were a LOT less interested in playing GE when your available card base was highly limited.

MtG has a lot more going for it as well... including:

1) that out of the thousands of cards printed there are very very few that are so bad that you can't get use out of them in a deck.

2) there is a quite lively secondary market in singles so you are not forced to buy boatloads of extra card boosters just to try to get the few cards you want.

3) You can build a quite functional MtG deck by buying 4 copies of any MtG preconstructed and combining those cards to your choice. Total cost of admission to get a single decently competitive deck? $40-50.

Now lets look at getting cards for GE. Not everything you'd want to use is in Universe. Ok, so you can buy a case for $80. You're still talking about dropping a serious load of cash to build what was considered a tournament quality GE deck in the old days. Remember the recent experiences we've had opening up booster boxes and sorting the cards by usability and only getting a few useful cards out of each box? You're not going to be able to build a deck to compete against one of our first line decks from a case of Universe. Given statistical odds, my guesstimate is probably over $500 to build a single high quality deck at today's prices. That's a lot of cash to drop for what is basically a dead game with a very very limited player base.

You yourself didn't have to buy any new cards to get to your current position, you basically had the luck to get the second or third largest private collection existing dropped in your lap for the price of a couple of phone calls and the gas to go up and visit Vince. I know that you've got some sort of side deal with Vince about that as his agent for reselling the cards but as a practical matter that's what it has cost you so far.

As one of the people who had to drop literally tens of thousands of dollars real money down to get to my position as a card lord I'm more interested in actually having players to use those cards in games with than trying to say that you can't play unless you actually have the cards.

Otherwise all those cards might as well be coasters gathering dust... just like they have been over the past 10 years.

Posted: 05 November 2007 at 2:56pm | IP Logged

The term “proxy” includes counterfeit cards or any card that is not a genuine game card. Counterfeiters will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.