Hi all,

I wanted to share a story from the Sunday afternoon/evening of GP Melbourne. I was on the PM sides shift and upon arriving, I was assigned to the Big Tix Chaos Sealed event, under Head Judge Laura Ellis. Without realising this was a big tix event (5-0 received almost enough prize tickets for 3 boxes of boosters) I thought it was going to be a fun and relaxing event, made more interesting by the addition of un-cards. When I saw the prize schedule, I knew there was going to be trouble.

During round 1, I heard a scream from one end of the hall. Not knowing what was going on, I rushed over to help. It turned out that it was simply the end step and a creature took damage from a Red-Hot Hottie. I would have found this funnier if the scream didn't cause distraction to the top 2 of the GP five metres away.

I also heard reports of a player tripping over the legs of a player in the middle of an Enter the Dungeon game. But let's get to our main story.



Round 2, I received a judge call from a player asking me if he could sneak in a Cheatyface by morphing it. I told him no, the ruling was appealed and overturned. From what I can gather, he also asked if he was able to sneak in Cheatyface from exile, from his graveyard and even from outside of his deck, and was told yes each time.

In round 4, the same player was simply holding Cheatyface in his other hand for the whole game, stopping every 3-4 seconds to blatantly place it on the table and disrupt his opponent. The language used was very polite, despite the obnoxious behaviour. Player was asking his opponent if he'd like to establish a shortcut for ‘catching’ him sneaking in Cheatyface, then proceeded to up the frequency of his behaviour. Laura stepped in to cool the situation down a bit, asking him to not use Cheatyface in that way and continue his game. The player argued that with such large prizes, he should be able to use his sealed pool optimally, in a way that was approved by a judge.

While this was going on, another player a few seats over told me about MaRo's FAQ(TIWDAWCC) article for the Un-cards. Basically an official unofficial un-set FAQ. Unfortunately, it required the use of Wayback Machine to find, which is a pain to navigate on your phone. Donald Sutherland and I worked together to find this ruling while Laura was continuing this argument with the Cheatyface player, which was starting to escalate to a point where we would have to get the TO's involved. We were able to find the ruling, appropriately titled ‘What the hell am I allowed to do with this card?’ and show it to the player. He was apologetic and quietly finished the match. I sat down with him to discuss the card in more detail, how he could and could not play it. He told me it simply wasn't worth the argument, tore it in half and dropped from the event. The torn up pieces are framed on my desk as a prized souvenier :)

The organisers ran the event at Regular REL to allow un-cards to be played and to create a more friendly atmosphere, but I feel that the higher prize schedule warranted Comp REL, and as such, the exclusion of the un-cards. A prize pool that large will bring out the competitive edge in players playing for big stakes, but the addition of un-cards and the unpredictable cards like Cheatyface can lead to very uncomfortable and obnoxious situations.

This simply should not be allowed to happen.

To save people the hassle if anything like this should happen at another GP, the ruling for Cheatyface can be found here. Cheatyface is fourth from the bottom. Bookmark it guys, it could save you a lot of hassle.

According to MTR 3.3 un-cards with silver borders are never tournament
legal. Not at any REL. Your story illustrates why.
On Mar 13, 2016 2:26 PM, “Jared Mallett” <

Quiet funny and sad story all together.

I wonder why the TO decided to do that kind of event next to a GP.

The article is also available on the normal site without using the wayback machine, here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/having-un-2004-11-22

Slight correction: Unhinged/Unglued cards can never be used in a *sanctioned* event. If it's casual, unsanctioned, you can do all sorts of things that aren't otherwise allowed.

Also, I believe the “Official” stance re: Unhinged cards and Judging was something like “have fun”. Notice the period at the end of that? Yep, that's it - “have fun”.

I recall the Unhinged prerelease. I planned ahead - I bought a little wind-up toy, a pair of shoes, in case (a) I opened more than one Shoe Tree - they're Common, after all! - and (b) I got two into play at the same time. Turns out both of those happened!

d:^D

Thank you for this wonderful sharing regard to your awesome (i hope that's not awful) experience.

I wish i could be there joining this game…. as a player… XD