Common Ways of Fabrication
Some players create their own proxy cards by editing original cards. Ideally, they take a cheap original card that shares as many characteristics as possible with the card that should be proxied. Editing includes
- partially erasing the original print using a rubber or chemicals (acetone). However, this will most likely carve and damage the material, and thus affect the stiffness, balance and transparency characteristics.
- writing, painting or printing on the surface, preferably using a thin fine-liner.
- Adhesive labels (stickers) attached to the front of the original card. However, this will most likely create a relief that can be read like braille. It will also affect the stiffness and balance characteristics (distribution of mass).
Cards can also be created from scratch, using an imaging software or specialized program (like Magic Set Editor for Magic: The Gathering, or TradingCardMaker.NET), printer and scissors. Special attention needs to be paid on the choice of paper (for weight and stiffness) and the accuracy of the cut. Usually, a card back can not be printed in a way that would be indistinguishable from the original, however.
In some cases, proxy cards can be acquired from third-party manufacturers. For copyrighted card games, however, these will usually not be allowed to reprint original artwork - so the back side will not look like the original cards.
Difficulties with the back side are often dealt with by using card sleeves with an opaque back. This also allows to put more than one piece of paper in one sleeve.
Another possibility is to completely play with proxies, and thus get around most of the problems described above. In this case, the cards no longer need to look and feel like originals, only the proxies need to be equal to each other in the above characteristics.
Some players prefer to avoid any such pain of handcrafting, and instead use a legend - a table that maps some of the physical cards in that player's deck to other cards that he or she would like to have instead. This method doesn't need any physical manipulation on the original cards, and it does not conflict with any of the above described physical restrictions. However, in actual play it can be rather confusing always having to look into the legend.
Read more about this topic: Proxy Card
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