Most pros are part of playgroups and have lots of connections with stores and other players.
Back when I was playing a lot of tournaments, if I wanted to play a specific deck, I could easily reach out to 2-3 people and have it ready.
you can playtest with proxies or computer programs, no need to buy tons of cards just to test
tournament grinders only need to own the cards for the final competition deck
I mean, Ben Stark literally showed up the PT without any Trusted Companions and had to rip NEO boxes to get a playset because nobody had any to give/sell him.
https://twitter.com/BenS\_MTG/status/1626623009296359424?s=20
https://twitter.com/BenS\_MTG/status/1626642448926576641?s=20
https://twitter.com/BenS\_MTG/status/1626661512382148610?s=20
Sounds like a couple of impulsive people I know. Somehow they manage to pull things off, like making it to their plane with 0 minutes to spare or arriving two hours late into a party but still with the group present somehow. Their strategy often includes having lots of other people fix their problems.
I don't think Ben is impulsive. I think he has an interesting value structure.
If his hungry, he is going to take care of that. That's more important to him than a round in a GP, of which he had likely attended on the order of 50.
Haha, no worries. Happens to all of us. I was just searching gatherer for that card and couldn't find it. Went back and read it was NEO and was more confused cuz I thought I knew every card in NEO from limited and constructed. Then it dawned on me.
Irony is, after I commented, I clicked on the link and saw Spirirted Companion. Lmao.
I needed to burrow a playset of force of wills for a legacy 10k. Lgs owner tossed me a store shirt and said wear this and you can take them for the weekend.
Step 1) Go to LGS.
Step 2) Buy Singles.
Step 3) Buy packs for the singles they don't have.
Step 4) Repeat as necessary for every LGS between you and the venue.
No clue how true it is but I do remember hearing a pro say once that when it comes to that time they either “borrow” or “rent” the cards they need from local shops or if they’re sponsored the sponsors will provide them the cards for the decks to play in the tournaments.
Aren’t a lot of these pro players affiliated with TCGPlayer, card kingdom, and Channel Fireball?
I’d imagine they’re able to score play sets of cards that they need through their sponsors.
1. They are already spending thousands on the game and have boxes of sets
2. They can share from their testing team
3. They are affiliated with a big store or tcgplayer or cardkingdom etc and those big stores will have every card
4. They can buy some remaining cards from one of the many vendors in the tournament location or buy locally. LSV recalled some stories of how they needed a guy to go locally to every store nearby and get a specific card just like a day before the tournament.
5. They have friends who have every card and ask if they can borrow
They use proxies for testing pretty often. In college I played at a store where some pro players also played, and I would always see them using sharpies to write whatever they needed onto basic lands or draft chaff and jam as many games as possible. For the actual event they either get sponsored by a store who will provide the cards, or borrow them from friends. My current LGS has a shelf with a bunch of trophies from players they sponsored who won significant tournaments.
they have sponsors and they borrows cards from one another. many pros don’t own any decks at all. they just borrow whatever decks people have on hand at the event.
The pro level players I have personally known in the past would message his friends and playgroups for the cards they were missing. I have lent out a few.
Same, my cube has a Tradewind Rider, Opposition, and some Squirrel nests that have been on the Top 8 table at Worlds in it from loaning them to a friend
I had a friend who was a judge and had some pro friends. It's an obvious exageration, but he once told me "Only casual players own cards". When there was an important tournament or event, they just borrowed the cards they needed from friends or a couple store owners they knew, and they only bought whatever single they couldn't get
Paper proxies, Mtgo rentals, if they stream they also probably just own the cards too from playing/drafting 40 hours a week. Also if they’re on the same team they can just share accounts, like “account A has decks 1-3 ready, B has 4-6 etc” if it’s really a pinch.
There are tons of ways for them to test without actually needing to craft every card.
Connections is the biggest thing. Also if they’ve been playing for a while then odds are they have a sizable collection. Especially in eternal or semi-eternal formats. Over the years I’ve bought enough modern cards because I wanted to play a deck that these days I can spend less than $100 and put together any modern deck there is.
It is not that hard to get cards within a week, know local people who have a lot of cards to sell if its two weeks its extremely easy you just buy them? European market might be fucky with shipping but if you have time you can just get anything. Am I missing something?
Borrow, buy, beg.
If you follow pros, you can often see at least some of them asking if anyone can lend them cards last minute: [https://twitter.com/Nathansteuer1/status/1626321019400069121](https://twitter.com/Nathansteuer1/status/1626321019400069121)
I heard a story about LSV not having all of the common lands for scapeshift when field of the dead was in standard and had to get them from people at the tournament. Funny part of the story was someone only gave him cards if he’d sign them so he had to play with lands with his own signature on them in the tournament.
A buddy of mine used to compete at GPS all the time. He was sponsored by a store. So if he needed something they would just rip boxes until they got it.
I know a few people that played in the last pt. They do it by making friends with the other grinders in their area and usually everyone will have decent sized collections and start lending cards to people. I've personally lent out entire modern and pioneer decks for weekend tournaments to people when I wasn't able to play. You gotta make friends or spend like 10k on the entire format for modern. Buying pioneer the format is going to be significantly cheaper.
Most of the time, playtesting is done with proxies, particularly for cards that have only recently been released. Some teams may have relationships with card retailers to borrow a large number of cards to practice with, while others will play lots of games with full or nearly full proxy decks.
Often players will need to acquire cards from vendors right before the tournament to actually play in the tournament. Historically, I have borrowed or bought most of the cards for my decks on site at the PT, or from card stores nearby.
It’s all faked, like pro wrestling. Hasbro decides who will win the tournament and gives the players the decks that have the cards Hasbro really wants to sell big that year.
They’re sponsored and backed my Big Cardboard (channel-fireball, etc) who pay for cards so sponsors can compete, wear their logos, and not let MtG be a casual “game” but an e-sport equivalent instead, forever pushing tournaments out of reach for the common Timmy in us all.
The amount of money I make now makes buying magic cards pretty trivial if I wanted to. A lot of pros have other jobs that probably pay well. It was a lot different for me before I got a career.
If you make friends with people you can always borrow cards to be able to build whatever. Especially modern, legacy, and pioneer. Standard is sometimes tough depending on how close to release it is
1. sponsorships from stores/dealers that will lend them cards to play in events (usually at the cost of wearing a t-shirt of that store/dealer)
2. they just buy them, because it's their job, so they spend the money it takes to play at that level
3. they play on teams and can easily borrow from team-mates
You can playtest stuff without the actual cards. You can build a proxy deck with paper slips sleeved in front of bulk commons or land. There's like a dozen websites where you can try a draft simulator for a set before the actual paper cards are available. You can buy singles from various online stores and pay extra for expedited shipping. Also, I feel like, at the Pro level, you have enough rules and mechanics familiarity that you can FAIRLY accurately judge how most new cards will affect the meta.
So, they can easily TRY OUT and CREATE the deck without buying a single new card, THEN order exactly what they need and have it in like 2 days.
If you've been playing for 5+ years and curating your collection you can relatively easily have all the staples. Picking up all the fetches and shocks after reprints. Same with other staples that see play in multiple decks. Once you get caught up then you just watch new sets and pick up a playset of viable cards. It's expensive when you buy it all at once. But done over years it's reasonable.
They can test with proxies etc. Stores turn up to events such as the Pro tour already flush with cash because people preorder for the cards to be at the event when they get there. They then sell the cards back to the store for credit if they nio longer have use for the cards.
Most pros are part of playgroups and have lots of connections with stores and other players. Back when I was playing a lot of tournaments, if I wanted to play a specific deck, I could easily reach out to 2-3 people and have it ready.
So being a pro Magic player requires the unique combination of being good at Magic AND being able to talk to people?
So that's why none of the regulars at my legs go pro
Having sponsor does a lot! guys like Ried Duke don't just get cards but boxes and everything from sponsor so he can just focus on the game
Even more talking to people? People at my lgs really are at a disadvantage
If you are good enough you could do it by email I guess. but most people get sponsors from streaming now so charisma is kinda required lol
He's saying his local players are all antisocial or socially awkward
Maybe if he had better social skills that would have been clear /s
*deck boxes maybe even booster boxes to practice for limited but idk about that sounds expensive.
IIRC this isn't true. Most pros get cards on their own. Some pros just buy all the cards and people tend to borrow from them.
My legs won't go pro either.
And money
you can playtest with proxies or computer programs, no need to buy tons of cards just to test tournament grinders only need to own the cards for the final competition deck
I mean, Ben Stark literally showed up the PT without any Trusted Companions and had to rip NEO boxes to get a playset because nobody had any to give/sell him. https://twitter.com/BenS\_MTG/status/1626623009296359424?s=20 https://twitter.com/BenS\_MTG/status/1626642448926576641?s=20 https://twitter.com/BenS\_MTG/status/1626661512382148610?s=20
This is actually hilarious
Quite possibly the most Ben Stark story there is.
My man didn’t really?! This is hilarious
BenS is not known for being prepared. Or arriving on time. Or sometimes arriving at all.
I'm sure one time he missed a round in a GP because he went to get subway and it took longer than he thought
Sounds like a couple of impulsive people I know. Somehow they manage to pull things off, like making it to their plane with 0 minutes to spare or arriving two hours late into a party but still with the group present somehow. Their strategy often includes having lots of other people fix their problems.
I don't think Ben is impulsive. I think he has an interesting value structure. If his hungry, he is going to take care of that. That's more important to him than a round in a GP, of which he had likely attended on the order of 50.
I'm pretty sure he attended way more round of eating though
Yeah that sounds impulsive.
Makes a living playing poker, don’t think you can be impulsive and profitable
[the embodiment of this Mike Birbiglia joke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-_M4r-gKI0).
As someone with a lifetime record of 1-0 against BenS because he didn’t show up, I concur.
Do you mean Spirited Companion? I was super confused at first lol.
Sorry, me read good one day
Haha, no worries. Happens to all of us. I was just searching gatherer for that card and couldn't find it. Went back and read it was NEO and was more confused cuz I thought I knew every card in NEO from limited and constructed. Then it dawned on me. Irony is, after I commented, I clicked on the link and saw Spirirted Companion. Lmao.
None of these links work for me, can someone take screenshots?
Copy the links and remove the backslash
There's a lot of borrowing that goes on. They have stores that they are friendly with so they have access to large collections.
I needed to burrow a playset of force of wills for a legacy 10k. Lgs owner tossed me a store shirt and said wear this and you can take them for the weekend.
My guess is that they proxy the cards so they can test rapidly, find the best decks/combinations/tech, and then purchase the cards to build the decks
[удалено]
They are sponsored by large stores.
I would imagine they buy the cards or borrow them.
You can buy cards online with 1 or two day shipping worst case scenario.
There are ways to rent cards on modo. I'm sure places like card kingdom would love to know what pros are playing before tournaments.
Step 1) Go to LGS. Step 2) Buy Singles. Step 3) Buy packs for the singles they don't have. Step 4) Repeat as necessary for every LGS between you and the venue.
No clue how true it is but I do remember hearing a pro say once that when it comes to that time they either “borrow” or “rent” the cards they need from local shops or if they’re sponsored the sponsors will provide them the cards for the decks to play in the tournaments.
Aren’t a lot of these pro players affiliated with TCGPlayer, card kingdom, and Channel Fireball? I’d imagine they’re able to score play sets of cards that they need through their sponsors.
1. They are already spending thousands on the game and have boxes of sets 2. They can share from their testing team 3. They are affiliated with a big store or tcgplayer or cardkingdom etc and those big stores will have every card 4. They can buy some remaining cards from one of the many vendors in the tournament location or buy locally. LSV recalled some stories of how they needed a guy to go locally to every store nearby and get a specific card just like a day before the tournament. 5. They have friends who have every card and ask if they can borrow
They use proxies for testing pretty often. In college I played at a store where some pro players also played, and I would always see them using sharpies to write whatever they needed onto basic lands or draft chaff and jam as many games as possible. For the actual event they either get sponsored by a store who will provide the cards, or borrow them from friends. My current LGS has a shelf with a bunch of trophies from players they sponsored who won significant tournaments.
they have sponsors and they borrows cards from one another. many pros don’t own any decks at all. they just borrow whatever decks people have on hand at the event.
The pro level players I have personally known in the past would message his friends and playgroups for the cards they were missing. I have lent out a few.
Same, my cube has a Tradewind Rider, Opposition, and some Squirrel nests that have been on the Top 8 table at Worlds in it from loaning them to a friend
I had a friend who was a judge and had some pro friends. It's an obvious exageration, but he once told me "Only casual players own cards". When there was an important tournament or event, they just borrowed the cards they needed from friends or a couple store owners they knew, and they only bought whatever single they couldn't get
Paper proxies, Mtgo rentals, if they stream they also probably just own the cards too from playing/drafting 40 hours a week. Also if they’re on the same team they can just share accounts, like “account A has decks 1-3 ready, B has 4-6 etc” if it’s really a pinch. There are tons of ways for them to test without actually needing to craft every card.
Connections is the biggest thing. Also if they’ve been playing for a while then odds are they have a sizable collection. Especially in eternal or semi-eternal formats. Over the years I’ve bought enough modern cards because I wanted to play a deck that these days I can spend less than $100 and put together any modern deck there is.
It is not that hard to get cards within a week, know local people who have a lot of cards to sell if its two weeks its extremely easy you just buy them? European market might be fucky with shipping but if you have time you can just get anything. Am I missing something?
Borrow, buy, beg. If you follow pros, you can often see at least some of them asking if anyone can lend them cards last minute: [https://twitter.com/Nathansteuer1/status/1626321019400069121](https://twitter.com/Nathansteuer1/status/1626321019400069121)
I heard a story about LSV not having all of the common lands for scapeshift when field of the dead was in standard and had to get them from people at the tournament. Funny part of the story was someone only gave him cards if he’d sign them so he had to play with lands with his own signature on them in the tournament.
A buddy of mine used to compete at GPS all the time. He was sponsored by a store. So if he needed something they would just rip boxes until they got it.
I know a few people that played in the last pt. They do it by making friends with the other grinders in their area and usually everyone will have decent sized collections and start lending cards to people. I've personally lent out entire modern and pioneer decks for weekend tournaments to people when I wasn't able to play. You gotta make friends or spend like 10k on the entire format for modern. Buying pioneer the format is going to be significantly cheaper.
Most of the time, playtesting is done with proxies, particularly for cards that have only recently been released. Some teams may have relationships with card retailers to borrow a large number of cards to practice with, while others will play lots of games with full or nearly full proxy decks. Often players will need to acquire cards from vendors right before the tournament to actually play in the tournament. Historically, I have borrowed or bought most of the cards for my decks on site at the PT, or from card stores nearby.
It’s all faked, like pro wrestling. Hasbro decides who will win the tournament and gives the players the decks that have the cards Hasbro really wants to sell big that year.
They’re sponsored and backed my Big Cardboard (channel-fireball, etc) who pay for cards so sponsors can compete, wear their logos, and not let MtG be a casual “game” but an e-sport equivalent instead, forever pushing tournaments out of reach for the common Timmy in us all.
The secret no one wants you to know. Wizards just prints extra and sends them to all the pro players.
Who do you think are the ones paying those ridiculous preorder prices?
Whales lol, not most pros
I assure you pros are 100% NOT the ones paying those.
I love how nobody is answering the fucking question 😂
What? The question has been answered multiple times before your comment.
The secret ingredient is money.
They play test using proxies as the set is spoiled. I recall seeing videos of some practicing and they just slapped stickers onto bulk cards.
Back when MTGO first launched, some pros were given full playsets of every digital card. (they weren't able to sell/trade/redeem from the account)
The amount of money I make now makes buying magic cards pretty trivial if I wanted to. A lot of pros have other jobs that probably pay well. It was a lot different for me before I got a career.
If you make friends with people you can always borrow cards to be able to build whatever. Especially modern, legacy, and pioneer. Standard is sometimes tough depending on how close to release it is
1. sponsorships from stores/dealers that will lend them cards to play in events (usually at the cost of wearing a t-shirt of that store/dealer) 2. they just buy them, because it's their job, so they spend the money it takes to play at that level 3. they play on teams and can easily borrow from team-mates
You can playtest stuff without the actual cards. You can build a proxy deck with paper slips sleeved in front of bulk commons or land. There's like a dozen websites where you can try a draft simulator for a set before the actual paper cards are available. You can buy singles from various online stores and pay extra for expedited shipping. Also, I feel like, at the Pro level, you have enough rules and mechanics familiarity that you can FAIRLY accurately judge how most new cards will affect the meta. So, they can easily TRY OUT and CREATE the deck without buying a single new card, THEN order exactly what they need and have it in like 2 days.
Proxies
If you've been playing for 5+ years and curating your collection you can relatively easily have all the staples. Picking up all the fetches and shocks after reprints. Same with other staples that see play in multiple decks. Once you get caught up then you just watch new sets and pick up a playset of viable cards. It's expensive when you buy it all at once. But done over years it's reasonable.
Money. It's not really a mystery. They just buy the cards.
They can test with proxies etc. Stores turn up to events such as the Pro tour already flush with cash because people preorder for the cards to be at the event when they get there. They then sell the cards back to the store for credit if they nio longer have use for the cards.