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Tournament Operations » Post: Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

Sept. 26, 2015 02:02:43 PM

Sebastian Braune
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

German-speaking countries

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

At our local german Prerelease we've had a whole series of prerelease packs with bad rarity mixup. The average booster had 1-2 uncommons, the missing cards were commons instead.

Has anyone else experienced that problem, or is this a very local problem that just happened to hit us?

Sept. 26, 2015 02:28:19 PM

Tomasz Ludkiewicz
Judge (Level 2 (International Judge Program)), Tournament Organizer

Europe - Central

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

I had some prerelease packages without promo cards
26 wrz 2015 18:58 “Sebastian Braune” <forum-21541-fdaf@apps.magicjudges.org>
napisał(a):

Sept. 26, 2015 03:38:34 PM

Adam Hubble
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy)), Scorekeeper

USA - South Central

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

I have had prerelease packs with only 5 boosters in them, and no spin downs. I haven't seen any kind of rarity distribution issues though, more just contents of sealed pre release boxes

Thanks,
Adam

(Sent from my iPhone, excuse any spelling errors)

Sept. 26, 2015 03:56:09 PM

A.J. Reimann
Judge (Uncertified), Scorekeeper, Tournament Organizer

USA - Midatlantic

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

All but two so far have had origins spin downs instead of bfz. And a couple have had two promos.

A.J. Reimann
Hobby Invasion
919-963-1336
Hobbyinvasion.com

Sept. 26, 2015 07:03:06 PM

Tomas Joska
Judge (Level 2 (International Judge Program)), Tournament Organizer

Europe - Central

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

one player had two promos, otherwise everything fine

Sept. 27, 2015 02:43:20 AM

John Brian McCarthy
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 5 (Judge Foundry))

USA - Midatlantic

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

Dispensing with the roll call, I like to announce that if players open irregular product (which has been known to happen at Limited events of all shapes and sizes), they should alert a judge and we'll fix it.

Except for the spindown problems (which don't really affect tournament integrity, and seem like an issue for Wizards Customer Service), these seem solvable by asking players to put the irregular packs in their bags, not using them, and replacing the bad packs with spares from other kits or from prize support. Talk to your TO about how he or she wants to handle it at your store, but I'd imagine that most will want you to fix the problem, keep the event moving, and they'll speak with their WPN rep about bad product later.

Sept. 27, 2015 05:24:02 AM

Sebastian Braune
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

German-speaking countries

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

Originally posted by John Brian McCarthy:

Dispensing with the roll call, I like to announce that if players open irregular product (which has been known to happen at Limited events of all shapes and sizes), they should alert a judge and we'll fix it.

Except for the spindown problems (which don't really affect tournament integrity, and seem like an issue for Wizards Customer Service), these seem solvable by asking players to put the irregular packs in their bags, not using them, and replacing the bad packs with spares from other kits or from prize support. Talk to your TO about how he or she wants to handle it at your store, but I'd imagine that most will want you to fix the problem, keep the event moving, and they'll speak with their WPN rep about bad product later.

That does sound like really solid advice, except that in my particular case literally 2/3rd of the prerelease packs having 6 bad boosters, my TO couldn't really substitute that many packs, so I had to do the unfortunate decision that players had to play with the pool they opened, regardless of whether they had gotten 6-11 or 18 uncommons.
So me and my TO had been wondering if we were just unlucky or if there was a more widespread problem. So thank you for everyone who replied to show us that it was really just us.

Sept. 28, 2015 06:06:37 AM

Gabriel Schlittenhardt
Judge (Uncertified)

German-speaking countries

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

We had exactly the same problems in Heidelberg, Germany, and I know, that the problem also occured in Tübingen, Germany. Daniel Levy and I have both contacted wotc support about it, although I doubt, that they can do a lot.

Sept. 28, 2015 07:12:24 AM

Philipp Hary
Judge (Uncertified)

German-speaking countries

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

Everything was fine at our prerelease (dresden, Germany) or, at last, i wasnt called because of any problems with the packs

Edited Philipp Hary (Sept. 28, 2015 07:12:40 AM)

Sept. 28, 2015 07:35:50 AM

Markus Juelich
Judge (Level 1 (Judge Academy))

German-speaking countries

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

I've been to the mentioned Prerelease in Tübingen and experienced the problems firsthand. I asked a friend that was playing in Reutlingen, Germany (just a few towns over) if they had the same problem and only after my inquiry they realized that indeed, their product had the same rarity issues. This tells me that there are a lot more problems than we can see, because not every store and player base will be aware of the problem (even if it sounds unlikey, most players are not aware of the rarity of the cards they open at a prerelease)

Sept. 28, 2015 01:20:06 PM

Gregory Titov
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Canada - Eastern Provinces

Problems with Prerelease Battle for Zendikar Boosters

We had one pack that had two promos in it. Besides that, no reported issues.