Let’s start with a history lesson. Everyone loves history lessons, right? Back in the mists of 2006, the IPG had an infraction named Failure to Reveal. It existed to deal with situations where a player failed to reveal a card, like with, say, (who didn’t exist in 2006, but run with it…) It also happened […]
Category: Policy
Tweaking the new DEC Rules
With the Battle for Zendikar update, we made some changes to the Drawing Extra Cards infraction, and having seen it in action for a couple weeks, it’s clear that the change isn’t as clear as we’d hoped it would be, and that lack of clarity is causing confusion. More problematically, that confusion is getting in […]
The Forbidden Look
We have a new mulligan rule. It’s sweet! There does come with it one downside, though. Historically, some players take a mulligan by pulling cards off the top of their library to “see what they would have drawn,” and that’s not compatible with the new mulligan system. I used to joke with players “Don’t take […]
BFZ Policy Changes
The Battle for Zendikar has been unleashed on us, and that means it’s time for an Eldrazi-sized policy update! Just kidding; it’s not as big as the last one, but there are still a few things to… process. Ahem. When we released the Origins update, we had the big change to Drawing Extra Cards policy. […]
Magic Origins Policy Changes
There’s a lot of changes in this IPG. It’s not as scary as it looks. Heck, if we can survive Vegas/Utrecht/Chiba, this should be cake. There’s one major policy change, a reflowing of the whole guide to focus on infraction identification, and then the usual miscellaneous tweaks and clarifications. Don’t panic! Rethinking Drawing Extra Cards […]
Lay of the Land
There seems to be a little confusion about the new on-camera layout rules for PTs and GPs, and a bunch of it is coming because of misunderstanding over what it means to be a rule. While these are “rules”, they aren’t rules in the same sense as the contents of the Comprehensive Rules. They set […]
DTK Policy Changes – For Players
We’re making a small change to the rules for missed triggers and how they are acknowledged in order to make them flow a little better. Right now, the requirement is that the trigger be acknowledged some time between it triggering and having impact on the game state. That works well most of the time, but […]
DTK Policy Changes – For Judges
There are a few changes to the IPG today that are worth highlighting, including a small change to missed triggers. Yikes! In some rare corner cases, our default fixes produce unintuitive results. For example, I have an effect that tells me to draw and discard. I draw into an empty hand and play a land. […]
L2 Maintenance Requirements
I’m thrilled to present a guest post from Spanish judge extraordinaire with an explanation of the annual L2 maintenance requirements. Take it away Alfonso! Hello! A few months ago, the L2 definition changed. This change happened to ensure that L2 judges are capable of Head Judging a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier (PPTQ) to the standard […]
FTR Policy Changes
Apologies for the delay in getting this out. I came down with a nasty flu yesterday and that kept me off the internets. Happily it waited until after the prereleases to, um, manifest. The good news is that there’s not a lot in the new documents that needs explaining. A few tweaks for clarity here […]