In General: Disqualification, Grand Prix Attendence, Holiday Cube, and Fate Reforged

Hello and welcome to In General! This article is going to live up to the column's namesake. This week are going to cover multiple topics that touch all parts of the Magic world, including something that we don't often discuss here on the blog: Tournaments.

Caleb Durward's Disqualification Story

This story broke last weekend. First on Twitter and then followed up by a full reporting of the events in question on Channelfireball.com. You can find Caleb's article here: Getting DQ'd In Ohio. I urge you to read the entire article. It will leave you scratching your head, I promise. I still don't quite understand everything myself and I have been following this story from the beginning. For the purpose of this article I am going to assume that you have clicked the link above and read the article.

Caleb is one of my favorite authors and content creators in the online Magic Community. He is a consummate grinder and skilled deck builder. He has a sterling reputation and, as far as I know, has never been on the receiving end of a judgment before. It is my firm opinion that he did not deserve a disqualification. What happened to him was both unfair and unwarranted. He won't be able to get his Top 8 back, he won't be able to get his Pro Tour invite back (assuming he would've won one), but Wizard's Organized Play and the DCI should make every attempt to indemnify him for the losses he sustained.

There are two issues that are at the core of this story:

• Player's lack a solid understanding of the rules about collusion. This is not a big surprise. The rules are vague and, in my opinion, unnecessarily complex. Before reading Caleb's article, my understanding was that you could NEVER concede in exchange for a split, but that INTENTIONALLY DRAWING was completely acceptable. As it turns out that is just flat out wrong. I am not claiming to be a rules expert, but if a casual player, a professional tournament player, and a level 4 judge don't understand the rules...well maybe they are just too damn confusing.
• Judges lack a uniform interpretation and implementation of the rule. In his article, Caleb described a situation in which he was trying to explain to the head judge that these types of prize splits were fairly common, a sentiment that I agree with. I see them at almost every tournament I attend (which, admittedly is very few). It is startling to me that Caleb approached TWO judges before committing collusion to ask if what he was doing was acceptable. Those judges gave him vague answers and actually encouraged him to skirt around the rules. BUT THEN, the head judge had a completely different application of the rules and ruled that even the implication of a split-for-concession scenario was proof that one existed and that a DQ was AUTOMATIC. 

I am not offering a solution. I am just letting everyone know that this gives me a weirdy feeling.

The Number of People Going to Grand Prix is Too Damn High!

#GPShizouka is happening this weekend. An event with so many people playing in it that the tournament organizer had to cap attendance A WEEK before the event. Check out this announcement from Wizards: Shizouka Main Event Sold Out.

Is it just me or are Grand Prix getting a little too big for their britches? Two years ago Wizard's Organized Play committed to doubling quadrupling down on the Grand Prix schedule with two goals in mind. First, to have more high-profile tournaments in under-serviced parts of the Magic world like Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America. That worked out great and Magic is thriving in those parts of the world now.

The second goal was to make it so that Grand Prix didn't have 2500 players and take 16+ hours to complete day one. Well...that didn't work out. Grand Prix attendance has continued to grow unchecked despite the fact that there are literally too many for a single person to go to. The prize structure, as far as planeswalker points and pro points are concerned, is just to attractive to pass up for many players. GP's are just like larger PTQ's nowadays because qualifying for the Pro Tour based on your Grand Prix finishes has become a very realistic goal for some.

With Modern Masters II debuting at Grand Prix Las Vegas 2015, player attendance is expected to reach or exceed 10,000. I don't know where they are going to put all those people, but quite frankly, this kind of thing seems bad. Don't get me wrong, it is a great sign for the health of the game, but I don't want to play in an FNM with fifty people, much less a GP with TEN THOUSAND people.

Holiday Cube 2014

The sunset of last year's holiday cube season is upon us. It was a great year for the holiday cube, which has only gotten better since its first appearance three years ago. The new addition of Vintage Masters to the Magic Online client has made powered cube on MTGO a more realistic experience. We now have staple cards like Oath of Druids and Time Vault, which should have been in the holiday cube from the very beginning in my opinion. Playing the cube now is just so much more fun. Everybody is doing something broken. Games are highly entertaining and often resolve in unpredictable and fantastic ways.

In short: I love it.

Fate Reforged

Spoiler season for Fate Reforged has come to an end. The entire set has been spoiled on the mothership. Check it out: HERE.

Next week we will begin full coverage of the set with our regular review articles by Uncle Landdrops and myself. After that I will be talking about some of my favorite Pauper cards and what I am doing to update my Cube for Fate Reforged. In the meantime here is my favorite card so far:



See you then Zoners.

-GG