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Well, the wait was shorter!
This isn’t a big update. Some minor tweaks and a little cleanup.
Hordes Can Be Sneaky, Too
When we released the new definition of an authorized card with the last update, we were all fairly confident that there’s be a bunch of weird corner things we’d have to patch up in the next update. After all, there’ve been a ton of strange product releases in the last 30 years; surely we missed something.
Amazingly, only one thing! Back in the original Theros block, there were “Challenge the Gods” Horde decks. The cards in them have a different back, and couldn’t actually be played because they have no mana costs, but met the new definition for legality. So they get a callout alongside the Heroes of the Realm cards.
The other change was previewed in the last article. I mentioned that we didn’t specifically call out side, under the assumption that things that were over- or under-sized weren’t Magic cards, but there was enough confusion about that that we now include “regulation-sized” in the definition. The regulation also includes thickness, so no sneaking the extra-strength Commander cards into your decks!
Quick Hits
* In April 2022, Judge Academy published a statement on intentional misgendering as Unsporting Conduct – Major. Nothing in the USC-Major rules needed to be updated to accommodate it, but we’ve added it as an example
* Companions weren’t currently part of the pregame procedure. They got added in with a little more guidance around when a companion should and shouldn’t be considered presented. Basically, once you present one, you’re good for the match unless you want to change that.
* Speaking of Companions, er, Companion, the End of Match description now includes a reminder to players that they are required to submit results before they leave the table. Non-submission of results has been a problem recently, but we’re going to start conservatively in addressing this. The text here will give judges more explicit things to point at when the players forget. Also, 2.4 and 2.5 got swapped to make things flow a little more cleanly.
* There was a little confusion over the wording in the new fix to a Deck Problem where the opponent gets to choose when to apply the fix, so the sentence got rephrased to make the order of operation clearer.
And That’s It
Hope everyone had fun at the LCI prerelease. Thanks to Charles Featherer, David Larrea Baeza and Bryan Prillaman for their contributions!
The Theros “Challenge Decks” made me think of a related set of cards, the “Hero’s Path” cards; this turned into a closer look at all the different card-shaped objects WotC has released over the years and how they are handled by MTR 3.3. After a Scryfall search of all cards not legal in Vintage, the following things stand out to me:
Theros block Hero’s Path: these cards seem to fall in the same category as the Challenge Decks and thus should be called out explicitly.
Unstable Contraptions: these cards pass the general requirements (regulation-sized, genuine, and publicly released) and don’t have a silver border; they should be called out explicitly.
Title cards, art cards, minigame cards, helper cards (City’s Blessing, Monarch, etc.): these cards pass the general requirements (regulation-sized, genuine, and publicly released), so for the sake of argument, what prevents me from including these cards in my deck? Is this covered by the term “Authorized Game Card,” meaning that the card has to have at least some kind of “game text”?
On a related note: Does the addition of “regulation-sized” forbid the use of oversized, nontraditional cards like planes, schemes, and vanguards in casual events?
Hi Toby!
About MTR 2.3: in a post-sideboard game, if I used my Companion in G1, what is the last moment in which I must announce to my opponent that I’m NOT gonna use it for this game?
I’m assuming it’s still in step 4 of the pre-game procedures, but could you confirm it please?
Thanks!
I believe Appendix D MKM section must be updated to “Play Booster”.
Adding intentionally misgendering your opponent as an example in USC-Major was a good move. It would have been improved if the statement of the offense had also been updated slightly to: “This may include insults based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Just a thought.