The entire point of the format is to actively make it so you are no longer pressured to proxy cuz you need thousands of dollars in cards to function at the table.

This is with the intent to make players want to actually go to their lgs and buy actual real cards, instead of ordering proxies from random companies in China.

Trying to pretend that players feeling compelled to proxy their deck isn’t inherently unhealthy for the local game ecosystem is silly.

The #1 thing LGSs want is bodies in the door. So if players are getting back into stores to buy a bunch of 50 cent cards, they probably are also supporting the LGS in other ways inherently.

The current casual meta of 5 people sitting down and all of them pulling out proxied decks directly means 5 less instances of people actively walking into their LGS to shop.

You can say what you want but as someone friends with LGS owners, I can definitely say the chilling effect of proxying on the casual economy has been very noticeable. The market for casual cards has heavily dried up.

Tonnes of people take the next step of “well if I am proxying 10 cards why not proxy all 100 who cares”

Shops demand for cheap staples dries up.

Shops stop buying cheap staples bulk cuz they arent selling.

Non proxy’ing players can’t find their cards that need… so they guve up and turn to proxying too

You can see how that feedback loop is unhealthy, right? Thus here I am, promoting a format that aims to counter this feedback loop and try and inject health back into the local casual tabletop ecosystem

So yeah, if you proxy in the aforementioned format, you are not playing in the “spirit” of it.