I was reminded of this story with the recent events. I will include it or link to it again if I ever finish my PWP history series on PTQs. This is about the one time I've had an "official proxy" card in my deck.
An official proxy is different than the common usage of the term proxy. This is when a card is damaged or otherwise unplayable and replaced with a different card designated by the Head Judge to stand-in for the card during a match or tournament. The proxy is just a basic land with the card name written on it. This most notably was common with Nexus of Fate in Standard 2018. This was because the card only came in foil versions, which were almost always warped due to the printing process in such a way that they would be identifiable when looking at the side of the deck. This would then be easy to cut to for an opportunistic or shady player. I believe the 25th Anniversary Pro Tour involved many teams with four basic Mountain in their deck that were actually Nexus of Fate.
The Setting
It's the first Modern PTQ in Texas. Modern premiered in September 2011 at Pro Tour Philadelphia. Between that PT and this PTQ, eight additional cards were banned. This was a brewers paradise with an extremely large card pool and very little data to use outside of previous Extended format decklists. The event was in Lubbock, which was something like a nine-hour drive from Houston. I was in between semesters, or maybe the semester had just started, I had plenty of free time. David Thomas and I made the drive through Friday night and into Saturday morning. On the drive, I put together this decklist in a notebook:
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Goblin Guide
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Figure of Destiny
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Plated Geopede
2 Ranger of Eos
1 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
3 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Boros Garrison
Sideboard:
2 Combust
3 Damping Matrix
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Wrath of God
Won't say much about this deck at this time, but it was fine. Good enough to win the first PTQ of the format. What is important is that I only owned one copy of Figure of Destiny and I really wanted to have two in the list. When we got to the store, I went to buy one but they only had the foil Prerelease promotional version. This version is notoriously warped, similar to the Nexus of Fate issue. This was at a time when I wasn't double sleeving all my decks, but I did think my sleeves were good enough that it didn't appear marked, especially with my shuffling technique. I would just shuffle and present, never cutting.
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| A typical copy of Figure of Desity |
The Incident
I'm in the top four playing against Carl Hendrix (RIP). He's on Affinity, which is a very good matchup as I have so much removal. I win game one easily but I think I lose game two when he has an early Etched Champion equipped with Cranial Plating before I can land Damping Matrix. Game three I'm hoping to avoid any explosive starts and make it to the long game. I start out strong with some removal on his early creatures, but his draw is also kind of clunky. A Grim Lavamancer is making it hard for him to do anything, but I think he finds a removal spell for it. The game the proceeds to stall out as we both draw a lot of land. Eventually I draw a fetchland and use it at the end of his turn to thin my deck. After I shuffle and present, he looks at my deck funny and just cuts it. I take my turn and draw the foil Figure of Destiny. I have something like eight or nine mana in play at the time, so this card represents a lethal attack the following turn. I play it and pass the turn, thinking I've at least forced him into chump-block mode with his Blinkmoth Nexus.
At this point, my opponent asks me if I drew the Figure this turn. I probably say something like "obviously" since I had no reason to hold it in my hand on prior turns. He then proceeds to call the judge and tell him that I have marked cards because he cut to my Figure. The judge is just as confused as I am as to why he would cut me to a specific card, but he does agree the card is marked. I think Carl was hoping for some type of Game Loss or Disqualification, but since I wasn't the one to cut to it, the only appropriate penalty was to just give a Warning and replace with the proxy version. Having a non-foil copy and explaining that the only copy I could find was the foil one also helped show I was not being nefarious. The judge, Kyle Edwards, found a Innistrad checklist card and wrote "Figure Of Destiny" in sharpie on it. This replaced the card on the battlefield. Carl drew his card for the turn and passed. I leveled up the Figure to the final form and before I could attack, he conceded the game.
The Aftermath
This wasn't the first controversial judge call I had been involved with on the day. More on that in the future. I don't think Carl was too upset about it though. I think he knew I wasn't trying anything shady was trying for a last minute Hail Mary to win the match. I'm not sure it was the best strategy since the board was at parity and the card immediately killed him, but perhaps he didn't know which card it was.
I ended up winning the Finals against a Splinter Twin deck, notably by drawing four Goblin Guide on the play in game one. Winning the PTQ on my first trip to Lubbock made me think the drive wasn't that bad, but the next time I went and didn't win I vowed to never make the trip again.
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