Specifically, we should allow proxies if and only if the card has not been released in any product associated with the player's faction.
Right now, the affected cards would be:
Rebels:
- Barrage Rockets
- Maul
- Composure
- Agile Gunner
Empire:
- 0-0-0
- BT-1
- Composure
- Agile Gunner
Scum:
- Barrage Rockets
- Moldy Crow
Rationale:
We all know that FFG never said that they would release all cards for all factions at the same time, only at some point. However, they did state that one of their goals for second edition was, that you wouldn't need to buy outside of your faction anymore. Countless examples in 1.0 have shown that tournament players cannot wait for cards to show up in their faction eventually, most prominently Autothrusters. So right now, if a rebel player needs Barrage Rockets for their list, FFG are not achieving what they set out to do.
In the long term, FFG will not lose sales this way, since people have to buy them as soon as they show up in an expansion of their faction (unless you want to suggest that FFG wants players to buy outside their faction after all). However, this will also correct a perverse incentive that FFG has at the moment. If we don't allow proxies, FFG is incentivized to pre-release new upgrades in a single faction as often as possible, because some players will buy cross-faction to get them. If we do allow them otoh, FFG will be incentivized to release them across the board as soon as possible, so that players have to buy the expansion to get them instead of proxying.
So, I suggest that we allow these proxies in any unofficial tournaments and ask FFG to implement the same for official tournaments in keeping with their stated goals.
