Idea for proxy cards

[elPatoPoderoso]

In regular paper ccgs, players can use proxies when playing with friends. This lets players try stuff out before committing to buying rare cards online or dumping tons of money into packs. What if there were a way to do that in digital cards games without breaking the business model? There totally is! (bet you weren’t expecting that) Proxy cards could be special credits (represented by a regular card named proxy and maybe with question marks or something where the numbers go and an explanation in the text space) randomly earned from opening orbs.

Say each orb has a 25-40% chance (obviously the exact percentage can be tweaked) of giving players a proxy credit in addition to the regular 5 cards. Now on the crafting screen, there would be the option to craft, disenchant, or create proxy. Proxies would be marked separately in the collection, and would have a limited number of uses. Let’s say 10 games. Now if you want to try adding a new legendary to your deck, you can use proxy credits to put a few in your decks. Proxies could even be locked to cards from the set you got it from.

Here’s an example scenario. Immortal vanguard just came out, I want to try building a deck around monolithic vision. But it seems like a risky card to craft. I open 50 orbs(bc obviously I preordered), I only got 1 copy of it. But I also got 10 immortal vanguard proxies. Now I can build a deck with 2 copies of monolithic vision that’ll last 100 games (my “real” copy + 10 proxies that last 10 games each). If I like the card, I can craft it, or buy more orbs in the hopes of getting it that way or just getting more proxies.

I think this is a great way to help players try new things without risking too much. It also encourages players to buy orbs and gets cpg some good pr. What do you all think? Keep in mind, the probability of getting a proxy in a pack and the number of games a proxy can last can be whatever. I chose the ones I did just for convenience. I’d much rather use this thread to discuss the idea of proxies than haggle over how common/durable they should be.

[halcyon98]

I really like this idea!

[alexx55]

I like it but not 10 tries. Seems too much.

[galaxydueler]

I like this idea

[elPatoPoderoso]

Like I said, the number of uses and frequency of getting one can be whatever. That’s not important to the core of the idea.

[saltystabwound]

In my (pretty stupid) opinion, there isn’t really a point in putting the proxy credit/token/chicken nugget in orbs. Using proxies (as far as I know) is only really useful for testing how good a card is before you actually buy/craft/sacrifice a child or two for it. You don’t just keep on proxying until you get higher up in life. So why would you need a (somewhat) steady stream of it?

If this function ever becomes a thing, it might be more appropriate to just throw a set amount of proxy fodder at every player every time an expansion drops or something like that. Enough for everyone to test how well each card they’d want to test.

[elPatoPoderoso]

That’s fair. I think the best system would be x amount for free or with the first orb you open from a given set, then a low chance of getting one in each pack after that. The players who play the most and want to test a bunch of weird decks can keep going until they have the full set, everyone else can use proxies to test a few decks until they find something solid.

But you kind of aren’t getting a steady stream of it. You’re getting a steady stream as long as you keep buying orbs, but most people are only going to buy orbs until they get what they want. I expect cpg would have to be ridiculously generous with proxies to make it more cost effective to proxy indefinitely, especially if proxies are set specific. This time next year, players aren’t going to still be buying immortal vanguard orbs so they can get more proxies for grapnel paradigm, they’ll have already crafted or got in orbs or decided to live without the however many copies they want. I expect the main consequence of giving too many proxies is they pile up after people have all the cards they want. But that really only affects the players who are already buying oodles of orbs to get complete collections. Everyone else would have some potential use for them, even if they don’t actually use all of them.

[beelakor]

There should be a maximum amount of proxies you can own. This way you can’t get too stacked on them and therefore makes it more likely that they stay appreciated. If you have oodles of them without a certain limit there might too many shenanigans possible with them. A maximum amount of 20-30 proxies sound right to me this way you have to fill up the deck with at least SOME cards you have to craft.

I also think it would be best to tick down the durability of proxys only if you actually play them out. Could be very frustrating if you don’t see any of a 3 of proxy in whole games when you are unlucky.