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I recently bought a "deck builders" kit that included, among other things, a Dark Ascension booster with Scorned Villager (a double-sided card) in it. It did not include a checklist card for me to use.

If I wanted to use this in tournament play, I realize I'd have to buy sleeves or acquire more checklists, but for now I'm mostly playing casual games. Are there any alternatives that would be "generally accepted" among M:TG players for using these cards? e.g. marking up the face of some land card to indicate that it's really my Scorned Villager?

Alternatively, is there a good place to get checklist cards that won't also result in getting more double-sided cards to go along with them?

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  • I always thought this was the reason for all the superfluous land cards one gets - spare backs.
    – Forget I was ever here
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 3:12
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    Sleeves are a good idea either way.
    – ikegami
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 3:25
  • I just dread going through my entire collection and putting sleeves on all of them. I already have clear plastic sleeves for the few dozen valuable ones (that I rarely use in play) but those obviously don't help with double-sided cards :)
    – KutuluMike
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 14:22
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    You don't have to sleeve up your entire collection, and in fact I wouldn't recommend following that practice, as sleeves will tend to wear more quickly than the cards themselves, so you'd be playing with marked cards as soon as you played a few games and then switched out some cards. No, instead you'd sleeve up a deck or decks, and swap the cards out by desleeving the cards out and resleeving the new cards - this means that it will be more of a hassle to swap out dozens of cards at a time, but it will save your cards wear, and is the best method for solving this dilemma.
    – LJ2
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 14:26

3 Answers 3

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A checklist card is simply a tournament-sanctioned proxy with a specialized purpose. In casual play, you could make a proxy more-or-less any way you want. Writing with a marker on a basic land is probably the most common custom.

I recommend including the mana cost as well as the card's name, so you can quickly tell whether you are able to cast it without having to look over at your double-faced cards outside of play.

If you wish to get some more of the official checklist cards, you can buy them online for about 10 cents each through a major singles dealer like Star City Games or Channel Fireball (since they resell the token cards that come in boosters).

Note that Innistrad and Dark Ascension have their own separate checklist cards.

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  • Big support for using a basic land. I usually use a land that I don't already have in my deck. I don't usually use mountains, because unless my deck contains red, I use mountains to represent shock lands :-)
    – corsiKa
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 20:59
  • To mention explicitly what this answer hints at - using any kind of substitute for a checklist card is not tournament-legal. The only exception is if it's been issued by the head judge - for example because your checklist card got damaged; however, player-created proxies aren't allowed for several reasons, so please don't appear to a tournament with a proxy and ask the head judge whether it's okay to use it - just bring a proper checklist card, or use completely opaque sleeves.
    – TheThirdMan
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 22:05
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Use a different card from your collection as a proxy (whether you mark it or not is up to you). This should be fine in a casual setting.

Make sure to let your opponent know before hand and pick a card that wouldn't normally be playable in your deck (eg off-color) to avoid confusion.

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I Have a Wolves/werewolves deck, and I only had one marking card from Eldritch Moon since I traded it for the other werewolves I had. I used my marking card for my Smoldering Werewolf//Erupting Dreadwolf, and then took some plains basic lands and jotted down the name and mana cost. Everyone I played so far has accepted this, so I would probably do this.

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