tl;dr -- if you're under 18, need signed parental or guardian consent form to register. If under 14, need consent form and must be accompanied by parent/guardian.
What I wonder is if the cards will be Modern legal or not.
Modern and Standard are defined in terms of core sets and expansion sets. Other products, including the yearly summer multiplayer products, the Commander decks, etc., never introduce new cards into Modern or Standard.
So if you want to play cards from Conspiracy in those formats, they need to be reprints of cards that are already legal. New non-reprint cards from Conspiracy, like the other multiplayer products, will be legal for tournament play only in Legacy and Vintage (which have a card pool defined as "every black- or white-bordered card officially released by Wizards of the Coast", rather than being defined in terms of specific sets).
Experience a Magic format where the intrigues begin long before the first spells are cast! Revolutionary new abilities impact every part of the play experience, starting with the draft itself.
Cogwork Librarian—One of the sixty new Magic cards in Conspiracy.
The first-ever multiplayer-focused booster set has new Magic cards with new mechanics that enhance multiplayer play. Returning favorites from throughout Magic's history round out the set and cultivate an environment of deception and treachery. The Magic: The Gathering–Conspiracy set is designed to be drafted with six to eight players who then split into groups of three or four players for free-for-all multiplayer games.
Number of Cards: 210
Release Date: June 6, 2014
Three-letter abbreviation: CNS
Twitter Hashtag: #MTGCNS
Initial Concept and Game Design: Shawn Main (lead), Dan Helland, David Humpherys, Kenneth Nagle, and Matt Tabak
Final Game Design and Development: David Humpherys (lead), Dan Emmons, K. Joseph Huber, Sam Stoddard, and Gavin Verhey, with contributions from Matt Tabak
Languages: English, Japanese, Chinese Simplified
Available in: Booster Packs
Key Points:
Multiplayer Booster Draft Format
15 Card Booster Packs (MSRP $3.99) 36 Packs per Display
Black-Bordered Cards
Release event promo card at participating WPN locations.
This is not a monoalphabetic substitution cipher -- i.e., it is not a Caesar cipher or rot13 a simple mapping where the same letter of original text always produces the same letter of output. This much is clear from the fact that the bold five-letter word which is almost certainly "Magic" is different each time it appears, and from the fact that "Release Date" and "Number of Cards" in the product information cannot be monoalphabetic, since both 't' and 'e' would have to map to 'k' to make that.
Thus it is at the very least some sort of polyalphabetic and possibly rotating cipher.
Is that what she did? That seems incredibly confusing. I'm not sure how people avoid getting hit with misrepresenting the gamestate violations if they do that.
There's no such thing as a "misrepresenting the game state" violation.
So long as the players understand what's going on, judges won't intervene. And when they don't understand, our job is to clarify and solve; we only issue penalties when an actual infraction has been committed.
So I guess no one here has recorded a game or been to an SCG event and noticed their set up?
I have. In fact, I know one of their production guys.
For the price of their full kit (frames, mounts, cameras, tricaster, etc.), you could either get yourself a bunch of Legacy decks, or a rather nice car. I suspect that's a bit more than what you want to be doing.
If you use TCGplayer, you will occasionally get a real stinker of a card, especially if you order them in MP condition. I bought a Submerge from them that was utterly unplayable. SCG's cards, even the beat-up ones, will survive a deck check at competitive REL.
Mentioned this in one of the Legacy forum threads -- SCG's "NM" is stricter than other vendors', in my experience.
Also, I've seen them refuse to sell MP except in person, requiring the customer to actually see the card and approve of its condition before going through with the sale. Card condition seems to matter to them a lot, which accounts for much of the premium on Eternal/EDH staples.
Wow no kidding. Channel fireball has nm at 200.00. The guys at scg are smoking crack.
A while back I did an unscientific experiment, wandering around the floor at a GP and asking different dealers how they'd grade a set of Scrublands.
Everybody except SCG and F2F called them NM. My subjective opinion -- matched by SCG and F2F -- was SP.
And that matches up with my experience dealing in other Legacy staples. SCG in particular is extremely picky about what they'll call NM, and I have no problem with them charging a premium based on that.
Lots of good art wasted on crap cards. Worst set since Kamigawa block.
A couple people compared this to Innistrad block, suggesting that Innistrad had better cards.
Dark Ascension (second set) had 171 cards. Quick glance over a set list and my memories of Standard turn up 21 non-reprint cards in DKA which saw tournament play in Standard, including both staples and more niche/sideboard cards. Or, about 12.28% of cards in DKA were good enough for constructed Standard play.
Born of the Gods has 165 cards. Quick glance over the full list and discussions suggests that people are expecting around 20 of them (depending on exactly whose opinions you accept -- not everyone agrees on which 20, but 20 is the number I keep coming up with) to see tournament play. If that pans out, about 12.12% of cards in BNG will be good enough for constructed Standard play.
So... yeah, this set seems to be right on par with DKA in terms of constructed Standard playability. And it even has a random two-drop white card that will probably shake up Legacy.
Counters every non-Mutavault creature in the two top devotion decks, and counters Underworld Connections (against black) and counters Domestication (in the blue mirror). Is only truly dead against U/W and Esper control.
But apparently not playable even as a sideboard card... ? It's possible that it doesn't make the cut if there are enough cards that are better, but just dismissing it out of hand seems unwise.
"Two rule changes introduced with the Magic 2014 core set impact how cards in the Born of the Gods set function."
In other words, this is how it's been since July. But because the set contains some legendary stuff, and a planeswalker, and the block now contains both a planeswalker and a legendary Xenagos, they keep reminding people about it.
The reporting software used for GPs does not automatically upload or process. The main event and side events have to be manually exported and sent to WotC, where they have to be manually processed. This means it can take a few days after the GP is over for the points to post.
There is no guarantee of how quickly this will happen, and be wary of relying on points from a GP this weekend for a GP next weekend.
So long as you perform sufficient shuffles to ensure you don't know the location or order of cards in the deck, and do so without taking an unreasonable amount of time, it's 100% legal and not an infraction in any way whatsoever. That's really all there is to it, and I don't really care if people are superstitious so long as they get the shuffling done without holding up my tournament.
So is it confirmed that all the former SCG guys will be writing for CFB and not SCG now, or is it just a "CFB is sponsoring us and SCG isnt, so we went to CFB." ?
Chapin's said on Twitter that he'll still be writing for SCG. Huey, Reid and Zvi will apparently start writing for CFB.
So it appears there is no universal change other than "these guys all test with each other for the PT now". Writing staff shakeup seems to be a bunch of individual choices.
I was not trying to be insulting to anyone. It's just that the player who I had this argument with allegedly got this ruling from someone certified, and probably won't even listen to me, unless I hear it from someone who is equally or more certified. So I wanted to get the answer from someone at least as certified as the guy he allegedly got this ruling of his from.
I meant no offense, I think you're overthinking this a little.
Without getting too off-topic, both you and your friend are falling into the trap of thinking that a person is authoritative because of judge certification. Outside of a particular very-narrow case that only happens during a live tournament, it's simply not true. The Comprehensive Rules of Magic, as published by Wizards of the Coast, are authoritative. A certified judge has simply demonstrated sufficient familiarity with those rules (and with some form of tournament policy) to be trusted generally to get things right.
But the ultimate authority is still the rules document, which was correctly cited for you in the very first reply, by someone who makes no claims to being a certified judge, and doesn't need to -- now you can simply point out to your friend the relevant section of the game rules. And, even though you're not a judge, he won't be able to argue with that, because that's the truly authoritative answer.
tl;dr -- if you're under 18, need signed parental or guardian consent form to register. If under 14, need consent form and must be accompanied by parent/guardian.
Organizer info and consent form is here.
Modern and Standard are defined in terms of core sets and expansion sets. Other products, including the yearly summer multiplayer products, the Commander decks, etc., never introduce new cards into Modern or Standard.
So if you want to play cards from Conspiracy in those formats, they need to be reprints of cards that are already legal. New non-reprint cards from Conspiracy, like the other multiplayer products, will be legal for tournament play only in Legacy and Vintage (which have a card pool defined as "every black- or white-bordered card officially released by Wizards of the Coast", rather than being defined in terms of specific sets).
Got gibberish.
Going to poke at it some more.
Edit: actually, it is a Vigenere cipher. I just didn't think to use the encrypted "Conspiracy" in the header image as the key.
This reddit comment solved it:
http://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1xs0f1/announcing_gvyjthqxgr/cfe49oq
Thus it is at the very least some sort of polyalphabetic and possibly rotating cipher.
There's no such thing as a "misrepresenting the game state" violation.
So long as the players understand what's going on, judges won't intervene. And when they don't understand, our job is to clarify and solve; we only issue penalties when an actual infraction has been committed.
I have. In fact, I know one of their production guys.
For the price of their full kit (frames, mounts, cameras, tricaster, etc.), you could either get yourself a bunch of Legacy decks, or a rather nice car. I suspect that's a bit more than what you want to be doing.
Mentioned this in one of the Legacy forum threads -- SCG's "NM" is stricter than other vendors', in my experience.
Also, I've seen them refuse to sell MP except in person, requiring the customer to actually see the card and approve of its condition before going through with the sale. Card condition seems to matter to them a lot, which accounts for much of the premium on Eternal/EDH staples.
A while back I did an unscientific experiment, wandering around the floor at a GP and asking different dealers how they'd grade a set of Scrublands.
Everybody except SCG and F2F called them NM. My subjective opinion -- matched by SCG and F2F -- was SP.
And that matches up with my experience dealing in other Legacy staples. SCG in particular is extremely picky about what they'll call NM, and I have no problem with them charging a premium based on that.
A couple people compared this to Innistrad block, suggesting that Innistrad had better cards.
Dark Ascension (second set) had 171 cards. Quick glance over a set list and my memories of Standard turn up 21 non-reprint cards in DKA which saw tournament play in Standard, including both staples and more niche/sideboard cards. Or, about 12.28% of cards in DKA were good enough for constructed Standard play.
Born of the Gods has 165 cards. Quick glance over the full list and discussions suggests that people are expecting around 20 of them (depending on exactly whose opinions you accept -- not everyone agrees on which 20, but 20 is the number I keep coming up with) to see tournament play. If that pans out, about 12.12% of cards in BNG will be good enough for constructed Standard play.
So... yeah, this set seems to be right on par with DKA in terms of constructed Standard playability. And it even has a random two-drop white card that will probably shake up Legacy.
But apparently not playable even as a sideboard card... ? It's possible that it doesn't make the cut if there are enough cards that are better, but just dismissing it out of hand seems unwise.
In other words, this is how it's been since July. But because the set contains some legendary stuff, and a planeswalker, and the block now contains both a planeswalker and a legendary Xenagos, they keep reminding people about it.
The reporting software used for GPs does not automatically upload or process. The main event and side events have to be manually exported and sent to WotC, where they have to be manually processed. This means it can take a few days after the GP is over for the points to post.
There is no guarantee of how quickly this will happen, and be wary of relying on points from a GP this weekend for a GP next weekend.
Chapin's said on Twitter that he'll still be writing for SCG. Huey, Reid and Zvi will apparently start writing for CFB.
So it appears there is no universal change other than "these guys all test with each other for the PT now". Writing staff shakeup seems to be a bunch of individual choices.
Without getting too off-topic, both you and your friend are falling into the trap of thinking that a person is authoritative because of judge certification. Outside of a particular very-narrow case that only happens during a live tournament, it's simply not true. The Comprehensive Rules of Magic, as published by Wizards of the Coast, are authoritative. A certified judge has simply demonstrated sufficient familiarity with those rules (and with some form of tournament policy) to be trusted generally to get things right.
But the ultimate authority is still the rules document, which was correctly cited for you in the very first reply, by someone who makes no claims to being a certified judge, and doesn't need to -- now you can simply point out to your friend the relevant section of the game rules. And, even though you're not a judge, he won't be able to argue with that, because that's the truly authoritative answer.