So today's FNM turns out to be Legacy. My store owner explains that too many "Jace and Elspeth decks" are turning up, and he wants to keep it fine. I enter my (Standard) deck anyways, just to see how I do.
Game 1 I steamroll a guy playing with an M11 Preconstruced deck. Interesting
Game 2 I get steamrolled buy a guy playing an actual legacy Mono U Draw-Go deck. It was to be expected, though I did get a bit frustrated when he started countering his own counterspells for fun.
Game 3 would determine whether I finish second (placing for prizes) or third. I lose to a guy playing a (terrible) Goblin deck. It was all Raging Goblins and other 1 drop 1/1s. He did however kill me with them, using what seemed to be the only good card in his deck: Goblin Recruiter. So I get home, and on a hunch check the Legacy ban list. Sure enough.
What should I do in this situation? The head judge was watching our match and never caught the illegal card. It's dissapointing since I could have just borrowed a couple Oath of Druids from a friend.
I'm pretty sure there isn't anything you can do now. Back then, you should've just said..."That's banned. Judge; that's banned." And that's the end of that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
xTrainx for those who know me on the Source.
Quote from Maxeel »
Get onboard. Join MTGO today. Play anytime you want. No pants required...
You should talk to Wizards. FNMs are not allowed to be any format other than standard, draft, sealed, or 2HG + any of the above formats. FNM is meant to get new players into the game, and having Legacy tournaments as FNM is not going to help.
Quote from Wizards FNM Description »
To make it easier to participate, Friday Night Magic events are open to anyone and feature the Standard Constructed, Sealed Deck or Booster Draft formats. Stores may also choose to run one Two-Headed Giant tournament (Standard or Sealed) each month. Running events in these formats makes it easier for new players to participate, and you only have to remember three things: Pack your Standard deck; remember where the tournament is happening, and what time it starts.
I don't understand how "too many Jace and Elspeth decks" is worse than decks packed with revised duals, etc. If the majority of the players were simply playing close to standard decks (due to cost), why not make it standard?
With regards to the banned card, you can't do much about it now except inform the judge. No penalties can be applied retroactively.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Power 9 Pro - A Magic Company by Magic players for Magic Players. Come check out the Dragon's Egg, the latest in deck storage technology.
You should talk to Wizards. FNMs are not allowed to be any format other than standard, draft, sealed, or 2HG + any of the above formats. FNM is meant to get new players into the game, and having Legacy tournaments as FNM is not going to help.
I don't understand how "too many Jace and Elspeth decks" is worse than decks packed with revised duals, etc. If the majority of the players were simply playing close to standard decks (due to cost), why not make it standard?
With regards to the banned card, you can't do much about it now except inform the judge. No penalties can be applied retroactively.
I agree 100% regarding the "Jace and Elspeth" part. The games I played tonight bastardized Legacy's good name.
Some people were talking about "awesome Legacy decks" they had seen before FNM started, and I mentioned that I wanted to build a 42 Land deck. This guy started laughing at me, saying that no deck ever needed more than 25. For about 5 minutes I tried to explain how a Land deck works. He shrugged it off.
And you might be right about reporting the store. As it turns out the store's owner likes to play in FNMs himself, and he made good use of his unlimited access to it's rare binder. Playsets of Force of Will, Revised dual lands... the works. And he also plans to move FNM to Monday nights.
What time is it when a Friday Night Magic is played on a Monday night?
Time to find a new store.
I agree 100% regarding the "Jace and Elspeth" part. The games I played tonight bastardized Legacy's good name.
Some people were talking about "awesome Legacy decks" they had seen before FNM started, and I mentioned that I wanted to build a 42 Land deck. This guy started laughing at me, saying that no deck ever needed more than 25. For about 5 minutes I tried to explain how a Land deck works. He shrugged it off.
And you might be right about reporting the store. As it turns out the store's owner likes to play in FNMs himself, and he made good use of his unlimited access to it's rare binder. Playsets of Force of Will, Revised dual lands... the works. And he also plans to move FNM to Monday nights.
What time is it when a Friday Night Magic is played on a Monday night?
Time to find a new store.
There comes a point where you have to put your foot down and say that this is the last straw. From the sound of your situation, the TO-also-being-store-owner pulling stuff like this on everyone else is just that.
I fully agree with getting in contact with Wizards right away and notifying them of this. A store run by an owner that runs Legacy FNMs and fails to acknowledge the ban lists deserves to have its sanctioning stripped.
You would be best served to have multiple people report the store if you can, it's so difficult to get a stores sanctioning stripped it's ridiculous. One of our area stores cracked eldrazi prerelease prize support boxes and sellng cards as singles the day before the prerelease. Several people reported this to wotc, sanctionng was stripped for two weeks.
i don't get why you'd want your store's sanctioning taken away. no sanctioning means even less attendance.
just ask the TO to print out the legacy banned list for everyone to review next time. oh, i'd also tell him theres no point in running legacy instead of standard when a good legacy deck is just as expensive as a good standard deck. if he really wants price to not be an issue just do drafts or pauper.
i don't get why you'd want your store's sanctioning taken away. no sanctioning means even less attendance.
However, the threat of losing sanctioning can serve as a wake-up call and get the TO to clean up his act.
And, of course, there's the broader aspect - allowing things to slip under the radar just because you want to see more attendance at your store is unethical, and not good even for you from a long-term perspective. In the short term he might miss a few FNMs at worst, but in the long term he's helping ensure the integrity of the DCI system (which helps ensure there are FNMs at all) and there are likely to be other local game stores that can pick up the extra players. Better that they should benefit than the one not playing by the rules.
However, the threat of losing sanctioning can serve as a wake-up call and get the TO to clean up his act.
And, of course, there's the broader aspect - allowing things to slip under the radar just because you want to see more attendance at your store is unethical, and not good even for you from a long-term perspective. In the short term he might miss a few FNMs at worst, but in the long term he's helping ensure the integrity of the DCI system (which helps ensure there are FNMs at all) and there are likely to be other local game stores that can pick up the extra players. Better that they should benefit than the one not playing by the rules.
while all of that might be true, continuing to run standard events just to maintain sanctioned status that no one wants to attend isn't really going to help either.
also the part about other local game stores that can pick up the extra players that don't want to attend events at that one... yeah not so much. a lot of people are stuck with 1 store within reasonable distance for their tournament fix which is why its important to find a format that will get the most attention.
People here are too uptight. Store owner wants to run Legacy on FNM, against the rules but not unethical in anyway, even if he is playing. Also sounds like plenty of people there enjoyed it as well.
Opponent was playing a horrible goblin deck with raging goblins, anyone who plays raging goblins probably had no idea that card was banned, and most people have no knowledge that card was banned either.
I don't think you were cheated. This guy was playing some casual goblins deck at an FNM level and you lost. It sounds like a pretty casual group based on everything you described. I just don't sympathize with your situation.
When someone is playing an illegal deck in an illegal FNM format and the TO/store owner allows it to happen, he should definitely be reported. This doesn't sound like the kind of store I'd be wanting to spend my money at. I don't think it's that the OP is upset because he lost to a casual deck at an FNM, it's because the TO is apparently allowing illegal decklists to be played at a Legacy FNM when Legacy isn't a supported format.
Store owner wants to run Legacy on FNM, against the rules but not unethical in anyway, even if he is playing
Actually, my store owner used to play in his FNMs until Wizards explicitly told him to cut it out or lose sanctioning.
I think it's unethical to attempt to circumvent the established rules that are put in place for the long-term health of the program in order to earn short-term gains.
Actually, my store owner used to play in his FNMs until Wizards explicitly told him to cut it out or lose sanctioning.
I think it's unethical to attempt to circumvent the established rules that are put in place for the long-term health of the program in order to earn short-term gains.
A thousand times this. It just adds fuel to the fire that the store owner is playing, especially since he has access to all the Legacy cards (like the OP mentioned) that apparently a lot of people at his store do not. I don't think he should be allowed to play in his own tournaments, especially when he's not using the proper formats for said tournies.
The issue isn't with the owner playing in his own tournament. This issue is being a Douche about it.
If he's concerned about the cost of cards play a limited event.
If he wants to run legacy he should notify the players ahead of time and ideally have it on a different night of the week.
Elspeth rotates in 3 weeks and Elspeth is mostly played in Soul Sisters right now. Talk about a budget deck.
Is he reporting this FNM as standard? Is he even reporting it?
To me it sounds like a couple kids came in and wanted to play thier homebrew decks, the store owner said.. hmm sounds good and went with it.
This is what happens when people who just want to play the game open card stores! When you open a store you have to quit caring about what you want all the time and start caring about what the players want.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Actually, my store owner used to play in his FNMs until Wizards explicitly told him to cut it out or lose sanctioning.
That must of been a while ago. Because, since October last year TOs and Judges have been allowed to play in all Regular REL events they are organizing/judging.
And you might be right about reporting the store. As it turns out the store's owner likes to play in FNMs himself, and he made good use of his unlimited access to it's rare binder. Playsets of Force of Will, Revised dual lands... the works.
I think it is fine for the TO or store owner to play in a tournament. Sometimes in our area, we just don't have enough people to play unless the TO joins in.
Also, you say he's using his rare cards like it's a bad thing. They're his cards, yes? Why shouldn't he use them?
And he also plans to move FNM to Monday nights.
Sounds to me like he should leave FNM as is - a draft or Standard tournament on Friday night - and then add a Monday night Legacy event. That gives the players and owner a choice and some variety.
As for your original complaint, yeah, it's sad you lost to an illegal deck, but I don't know what you could do about it now. Goblin Recruiter is one of those cards that's not obviously ban-worthy unless you have played with or against it when it's combined with Goblin Ringleader. I wouldn't be surprised if was just an honest mistake on everyone's part. I doubt the kid was maliciously trying to cheat. Print a copy of the banned list and take it in for next time.
I like the idea about printing the Legacy banned list, as I'm sure the cheating was not intentional. However, I think the store owner might need to be reminded of what FNM is supposed to be. If he wants to host a Legacy event on Monday that's great, but FNM is supposed to be Standard. Especially since (good) Standard is considerably cheaper than actual Legacy decks.
umm...wasn't there a rules change after m10 stating that a TO/head judge could play in the tournament if there were less than 16 players in attendance?
anyway, are you receiving fnm promo's? becouse if your not, then hes holding a reg 16k tournament that happens to be on friday, there are no rules against holding any kind of tournament on a friday, just as long as you don't qualify it as an "fnm" and give out the "fnm" promos.
as for bannings in legacy, the TO is human, and makes mistakes. either he didn't think about it, know about it, or didn't realy notice. its legacy, and with such a casual setting its bound to happen. what you should do, is know the ban list, so when you see a card that is banned, you can call it out.
personaly i would tell the TO and the player about this with a positive attitude so that it wont happen again.
umm...wasn't there a rules change after m10 stating that a TO/head judge could play in the tournament if there were less than 16 players in attendance?
anyway, are you receiving fnm promo's? becouse if your not, then hes holding a reg 16k tournament that happens to be on friday, there are no rules against holding any kind of tournament on a friday, just as long as you don't qualify it as an "fnm" and give out the "fnm" promos.
as for bannings in legacy, the TO is human, and makes mistakes. either he didn't think about it, know about it, or didn't realy notice. its legacy, and with such a casual setting its bound to happen. what you should do, is know the ban list, so when you see a card that is banned, you can call it out.
personaly i would tell the TO and the player about this with a positive attitude so that it wont happen again.
Yeah, we do get FNM promos
And honestly I think this situation goes beyond just having a 'casual metagame'. People at the shop seems to use the term 'Legacy' in a loose sense, so loose that it is no longer accurate in the slightest. The banned list exists for a reason. Now if he just called it 'casual' that would be one thing; I'd bring a bunch of Chaos Orbs and imprint Shahrazad on a Panoptic Mirror and everything would be tickety-boo. But once you start throwing conventions out the window Magic becomes absolutely terrifying
People here are too uptight. Store owner wants to run Legacy on FNM, against the rules but not unethical in anyway, even if he is playing. Also sounds like plenty of people there enjoyed it as well.
Opponent was playing a horrible goblin deck with raging goblins, anyone who plays raging goblins probably had no idea that card was banned, and most people have no knowledge that card was banned either.
I don't think you were cheated. This guy was playing some casual goblins deck at an FNM level and you lost. It sounds like a pretty casual group based on everything you described. I just don't sympathize with your situation.
Casual has no place in tournament play.
@OP: your store sounds like a huge fail. Report it.
Was the store owner runnig an actual FNM (with FNM cards, and DCI reporting as FNM) as Legacy, or just running a legacy tournament on a Friday night?
As for the banned card, it sucks, but as a player, you should be familiar with the banned cards in the format you are playing in. Reporting it to WoTC isn't going to do anything, and getting a store unsanciotned is one less store keeping the game going.
Casual has no place in tournament play.
Sure it does, casual rouge decks can dominate tournaments if they are focused on a particular archetype. I've won legacy tourney before with my BS casual mill deck, because who in the world plays mill competitvely in Legacy, and no had answers for it. One of the greatest weaknesses of competitve tournamanet players is that they are completely focused on whatever the internet tells them the tier 1 decks are, and they have no ability to adapt to decks other than those.
This thread is hilarity. You showed up expecting to play FNM, no one else wanted to play FNM, so the store owner held a Legacy tournament which you went along with (but somehow now want to claim he can't santion any kind of format he wants to - Friday night or any other) and then YOU don't know the Banned/Restricted list during a match and get cheated against and bring it up to no one's attention and now you're upset?!?!?!
Laughable. And all the "I are holier than though" postings in here are laughable. An organizer or store owner certainly is allowed to play in events, and they aren't required to give out FNM foils exclusively for FNM if no one shows up to play FNM - they can hand them out as door prizes for walking in the store if they want to.
If you report anything to the DCI - you're doing nothing but wasting people's time and drawing scrutany to a store owner who hasn't done anything wrong.
Game 1 I steamroll a guy playing with an M11 Preconstruced deck. Interesting
Game 2 I get steamrolled buy a guy playing an actual legacy Mono U Draw-Go deck. It was to be expected, though I did get a bit frustrated when he started countering his own counterspells for fun.
Game 3 would determine whether I finish second (placing for prizes) or third. I lose to a guy playing a (terrible) Goblin deck. It was all Raging Goblins and other 1 drop 1/1s. He did however kill me with them, using what seemed to be the only good card in his deck: Goblin Recruiter. So I get home, and on a hunch check the Legacy ban list. Sure enough.
What should I do in this situation? The head judge was watching our match and never caught the illegal card. It's dissapointing since I could have just borrowed a couple Oath of Druids from a friend.
I don't understand how "too many Jace and Elspeth decks" is worse than decks packed with revised duals, etc. If the majority of the players were simply playing close to standard decks (due to cost), why not make it standard?
With regards to the banned card, you can't do much about it now except inform the judge. No penalties can be applied retroactively.
i was under the impression that fnm could only be standard, sealed, or draft, so you may wanna report your store
I agree 100% regarding the "Jace and Elspeth" part. The games I played tonight bastardized Legacy's good name.
Some people were talking about "awesome Legacy decks" they had seen before FNM started, and I mentioned that I wanted to build a 42 Land deck. This guy started laughing at me, saying that no deck ever needed more than 25. For about 5 minutes I tried to explain how a Land deck works. He shrugged it off.
And you might be right about reporting the store. As it turns out the store's owner likes to play in FNMs himself, and he made good use of his unlimited access to it's rare binder. Playsets of Force of Will, Revised dual lands... the works. And he also plans to move FNM to Monday nights.
What time is it when a Friday Night Magic is played on a Monday night?
Time to find a new store.
So it would seem.
Trade thread // Twitter
There comes a point where you have to put your foot down and say that this is the last straw. From the sound of your situation, the TO-also-being-store-owner pulling stuff like this on everyone else is just that.
I fully agree with getting in contact with Wizards right away and notifying them of this. A store run by an owner that runs Legacy FNMs and fails to acknowledge the ban lists deserves to have its sanctioning stripped.
just ask the TO to print out the legacy banned list for everyone to review next time. oh, i'd also tell him theres no point in running legacy instead of standard when a good legacy deck is just as expensive as a good standard deck. if he really wants price to not be an issue just do drafts or pauper.
My YouTube. o:
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Member of [Limited]
EDH Decks <333
RG Radha, Heir to Keld
BGW Teneb, the Harvester
GBU Vorosh, the Hunter
GW Rhys the Redeemed
And, of course, there's the broader aspect - allowing things to slip under the radar just because you want to see more attendance at your store is unethical, and not good even for you from a long-term perspective. In the short term he might miss a few FNMs at worst, but in the long term he's helping ensure the integrity of the DCI system (which helps ensure there are FNMs at all) and there are likely to be other local game stores that can pick up the extra players. Better that they should benefit than the one not playing by the rules.
while all of that might be true, continuing to run standard events just to maintain sanctioned status that no one wants to attend isn't really going to help either.
also the part about other local game stores that can pick up the extra players that don't want to attend events at that one... yeah not so much. a lot of people are stuck with 1 store within reasonable distance for their tournament fix which is why its important to find a format that will get the most attention.
Opponent was playing a horrible goblin deck with raging goblins, anyone who plays raging goblins probably had no idea that card was banned, and most people have no knowledge that card was banned either.
I don't think you were cheated. This guy was playing some casual goblins deck at an FNM level and you lost. It sounds like a pretty casual group based on everything you described. I just don't sympathize with your situation.
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
Casual: Treefolk Tribal
Commander: Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
Actually, my store owner used to play in his FNMs until Wizards explicitly told him to cut it out or lose sanctioning.
I think it's unethical to attempt to circumvent the established rules that are put in place for the long-term health of the program in order to earn short-term gains.
A thousand times this. It just adds fuel to the fire that the store owner is playing, especially since he has access to all the Legacy cards (like the OP mentioned) that apparently a lot of people at his store do not. I don't think he should be allowed to play in his own tournaments, especially when he's not using the proper formats for said tournies.
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
Casual: Treefolk Tribal
Commander: Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
If he's concerned about the cost of cards play a limited event.
If he wants to run legacy he should notify the players ahead of time and ideally have it on a different night of the week.
Elspeth rotates in 3 weeks and Elspeth is mostly played in Soul Sisters right now. Talk about a budget deck.
Is he reporting this FNM as standard? Is he even reporting it?
To me it sounds like a couple kids came in and wanted to play thier homebrew decks, the store owner said.. hmm sounds good and went with it.
This is what happens when people who just want to play the game open card stores! When you open a store you have to quit caring about what you want all the time and start caring about what the players want.
That must of been a while ago. Because, since October last year TOs and Judges have been allowed to play in all Regular REL events they are organizing/judging.
I think it is fine for the TO or store owner to play in a tournament. Sometimes in our area, we just don't have enough people to play unless the TO joins in.
Also, you say he's using his rare cards like it's a bad thing. They're his cards, yes? Why shouldn't he use them?
Sounds to me like he should leave FNM as is - a draft or Standard tournament on Friday night - and then add a Monday night Legacy event. That gives the players and owner a choice and some variety.
As for your original complaint, yeah, it's sad you lost to an illegal deck, but I don't know what you could do about it now. Goblin Recruiter is one of those cards that's not obviously ban-worthy unless you have played with or against it when it's combined with Goblin Ringleader. I wouldn't be surprised if was just an honest mistake on everyone's part. I doubt the kid was maliciously trying to cheat. Print a copy of the banned list and take it in for next time.
anyway, are you receiving fnm promo's? becouse if your not, then hes holding a reg 16k tournament that happens to be on friday, there are no rules against holding any kind of tournament on a friday, just as long as you don't qualify it as an "fnm" and give out the "fnm" promos.
as for bannings in legacy, the TO is human, and makes mistakes. either he didn't think about it, know about it, or didn't realy notice. its legacy, and with such a casual setting its bound to happen. what you should do, is know the ban list, so when you see a card that is banned, you can call it out.
personaly i would tell the TO and the player about this with a positive attitude so that it wont happen again.
Yeah, we do get FNM promos
And honestly I think this situation goes beyond just having a 'casual metagame'. People at the shop seems to use the term 'Legacy' in a loose sense, so loose that it is no longer accurate in the slightest. The banned list exists for a reason. Now if he just called it 'casual' that would be one thing; I'd bring a bunch of Chaos Orbs and imprint Shahrazad on a Panoptic Mirror and everything would be tickety-boo. But once you start throwing conventions out the window Magic becomes absolutely terrifying
Casual has no place in tournament play.
@OP: your store sounds like a huge fail. Report it.
As for the banned card, it sucks, but as a player, you should be familiar with the banned cards in the format you are playing in. Reporting it to WoTC isn't going to do anything, and getting a store unsanciotned is one less store keeping the game going.
Sure it does, casual rouge decks can dominate tournaments if they are focused on a particular archetype. I've won legacy tourney before with my BS casual mill deck, because who in the world plays mill competitvely in Legacy, and no had answers for it. One of the greatest weaknesses of competitve tournamanet players is that they are completely focused on whatever the internet tells them the tier 1 decks are, and they have no ability to adapt to decks other than those.
Laughable. And all the "I are holier than though" postings in here are laughable. An organizer or store owner certainly is allowed to play in events, and they aren't required to give out FNM foils exclusively for FNM if no one shows up to play FNM - they can hand them out as door prizes for walking in the store if they want to.
If you report anything to the DCI - you're doing nothing but wasting people's time and drawing scrutany to a store owner who hasn't done anything wrong.