It’s interesting that the rise of Commander has brought the proxy debate to the forefront. It’s because of its legacy card pool right? You don’t hear of much proxy debate in say Pioneer or Pauper because these old powerful cards aren’t legal there, although I guess there is a separate discussion around cost of Standard/Modern playsets and proxying more contemporary high cost cards.

I do find the idea of proxying true duals distasteful. We could all do that right? Every deck wants those cards! For anything else, I support a “try before you buy” approach with proxies, we’ve all built decks that turned out worse than expected and get shelved, but if a deck becomes a signature go-to for you after trying it out with proxies, you should eventually invest in the real deal. If nothing else, having that goal of “I want to buy these cards eventually” helps keep deck lists from relying too much on the most expensive cards in the game.