We are looking for judges who have extensive experience with card alter approval. We would like insight based on real world experience in tournaments and grounded in policy. Judges who do alters and are familiar with the rules, play with alters, or ones who frequently Head Judge formats with a high number of alters would provide valuable insight. We want to start creating precedents to help standardize the player experience. While we may not be able to change or fix policy 100%, educating judges is a great starting place.

Goals:

Bring together judges and artists with strong policy knowledge to create a consencus and establish a precedent for tournament legal alterations.
Create a public Facebook group allowing individuals to submit alters for discussion.
Create a blog sharing insight into the legality of a variety of selected alters.
Potentially re-survey the judge community bi-annually to look for improved understanding/agreement.
Make these articles visible and transparent to interested individuals by updating the Facebook group.
Eliminate common misconceptions about alter legality.

Edited Jessica Livingston (April 22, 2017 08:40:08 AM)

Hi!
I'm really interested in this project! I'm doing a similar research in Italy, because I'm aware of the differences we have in our community when it comes to accept artwork in a tournament. I do artwork and I read everything I could find about this topic. That said, it would be amazing to be part of this project. Thanks for the great idea!

Do you plan to also include text based reminders or play advice as part of this project?

Taken right from the philosophy of OA:

“Visual modifications to cards, including brief text, that provide minor strategic information or hints are acceptable and not considered notes. Detailed instructions or complex strategic advice may not be written on cards. The Head Judge is the final arbiter on what cards and notes are acceptable for a tournament. Spectators who commit this infraction may be asked to leave the venue if they are not enrolled in the tournament.”

Please note this is not a discussion forum, but a forum for requesting help for projects. Please direct any questions to the thread creator.

Hello, I don't have much available free time at this point, but I can help as advisor and for sanity checks.

I am well connected with artists of both Magic and freelance alterers on
Facebook. I feel I amy be of help here.

I manage pages and can offer some time to aid as an admin.

On Apr 21, 2017 4:43 PM, “Jessica Livingston” <

I do alters myself, play with them casually and sometimes at events, and also run FNM at my LGS during which I've told people yay / nay regarding them using their alters at FNM and other COMP REL events.

My guidelines are fairly simple. These apply to everything but basic lands, usually I'm fine with basic lands as long as they are made from an actual basic land and the name is intact and it is clearly the land it's supposed to be ( IE not a mountain made to look like an island )

All alters must be sleeved and the paint should not effect the thickness of the card ( if you look at the top of the deck where the sleeves open you should not be able to see it ). Transparency / printed paper / other cards / etc. cannot be glued to the card.

Extended borders / full-arting a card needs to use the original art of the card so that the card is still recognizable. ( IE not replacing the art / borders of a Hazoret the Fervent to be Hades from Disney's Hercules ).

All text boxes must be intact ( except for basic lands, though the name box should be intact ) especially the name and type bar. This is the biggest deal breaker for me, and most alters I've nay'ed have been because of this.

Your altered full art Torrential Gearhulk may be awesome, but you covered up the type bar and therefore it cannot be used. That's a pretty sweet altered full art extended border Mountain, but since you covered up the name ( and the entire card ) it can't be used.

TL:DR
o Don't cover the name / type bar ( basic lands don't cover the name bar )
o The card needs to be recognizable at a glance

Repeating, since once wasn't enough?

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

Please note this is not a discussion forum, but a forum for requesting help for projects. Please direct any questions to the thread creator.

d:^D

Closing this thread. If you want to offer help please contact Jessica