It is our understanding that Fantasy Flight Games will not be reprinting the out-of-print and highly in-demand sets, Opening Moves and Future Proof, for at least a few months. We understand that many newer players trying to break in to the competitive Netrunner scene are severely limited in their ability to do so because they don’t have access to extremely important cards, such as Midseasons Replacements, Eli 1.0, and Jackson Howard.
Because our goal, first and foremost, is to expand competitive organized play, we have decided that until the reprints of these sets are widely available, all ANRPC events will allow proxying of cards from the “Future Proof” and “Opening Moves” data packs in an attempt to stem the damage done to the growth of Netrunner by the absence of new copies of these cards. We understand it is not the fault of new players if they cannot obtain real copies of these cards, and we don’t want to punish players who are unwilling to pay huge sums of money on the secondary market to get them. We feel this is the only way to maintain the level playing field that is in the spirit of the LCG format. Proxies of cards from sets other than “Future Proof” and “Opening Moves” will remain illegal for tournament play.
While we understand that it is against official the tournament rules, we encourage all tournament organizers to follow suit and allow players to proxy cards from these sets for the time being.
For those of you who wish to proxy cards from these sets for ANRPC events, please use the following protocol to best maintain the integrity of your deck:
Use sleeved, face-forward ID cards of the same side (corp/runner) of the card you are proxying, (as you can see the backs of cards slightly through a lot of types of sleeves).
Use a piece of paper with the card name clearly written on it or a print-out of the card and place it in the sleeve in front of the card in such a way that the paper does not protrude from the sleeve, or sharpie the name of the proxied card directly on the face of the card.
Before the tournament begins, notify the tournament organizer of any cards you will be proxying and allow them to examine the proxies to ensure that they are not considered marked for the purposes of randomization and that they are cards from either Future Proof or Opening Moves.
Good move, the absence of Our Lord And Savior definitely seems to have put a damper on many newer players’ entrance into the competitive scene. I didn’t realize Future Proof was as important but if it lets more people play competitively, I’m all for it.
Thank you for this announcement. The visibility of this big problem is very important and I heard this many times from newer players (I guess FFG wants newer players to start AGoT 2nd instead anyway). I would be tempted to allow proxying even in FFG premier events I am hosting but I fear it would cause some problems from FFG.
While I agree with the idea I think a black and white print with the full card text readable should be the absolute minimum - if I access a card in my opponent’s R&D I’d like to be able to check the exact wording without calling the TO.
While we encourage players to print out copies of the cards they want to proxy, we don’t believe it is necessary as the vast majority of the time people will know what these cards do, not everyone has easy access to a printer, and printed-out cards are actually more likely to be differentiable from the side of a deck because the print out is often as large or close to as large as an actual card.
After many years playing vintage magic with proxies, we have found a few things work better than others.
Don’t use paper in front of the cards unless your whole deck is going to be proxied that way. The slightest bump could send the paper sticking out the top, signaling where the card is.
do not use ball point pens or other writing implements with hard tips to write the information on the card. These will indent in the card, marking it from the back.
The best way is to get some acetone and blank the face of an unneeded card. Then you can sharpie or use a laser printer to print right on the card.
When I play Midori, no-one seems to know the trash cost off the top of their head. If you have to ask the opponent who is proxying it, it kind of gives the game away what you just accessed!
I should add that I have used (and we allow in local league play) photocopies or printouts of cards in opaque sleeves for a long time with no problems whatsoever. So many photocopies of Jackson’s smug mug :).
A bunch of our local store crew have put together some “drill decks” that are likely to appear at our Regionals for practice, and believe me, there’s plenty of printed Jacksons and NAPDs! I certainly wouldn’t begrudge a newbie some black ‘n’ white J. Hows, since FFG has decided to start the rotation early…
I wonder how much it would cost FFG to produce those two data packs in-house? They have the capability, they could sell them as a web store exclusive if nothing else, and they wouldn’t even need to be in a fancy clam pack or anything… Just shrink-wrapped in a plain white cardboard box that says “Opening Moves” or whatever, like the Netrunner equivalent of porn.
Let’s encourage each ANRPC event’s organizers to print out a stack of picture proxies to hand out, to avoid the information issue of “multiaccess R&D… judge, what does this card do?”.
I certainly wouldn’t begrudge a newbie some black ‘n’ white J. Hows, since FFG has decided to start the rotation early…
