A Magical Gathering

[Newbie]

Sometimes Good Gamery still has humour.

Oh my God

Alright, yeah, that's pretty good. I kept waiting for mechanics from other card games to show up, but I think "Protection from Grass Type" comes the closest.

[Mongrel]

Class-action suit against WotC seeking back pay for judges

For the lawyers here: Copy of the complaint

It seems like this is very bad for Wizards no matter how they slice it.

- The issue that Judges are employees of TOs probably won't hold, because it's Wizards that certifies Judges, provides the tools used by Judges, and issues compensation.
- They can argue that Judges are compensated, but that involves WotC entering into a legal judgment where they acknowledge cards can have a significant secondary market value, which seems like a massive no-go. Even if they did this, that doesn't get them off the hook and is maybe even WORSE, because they're now acknowledging they compensated Judges financially, which in effect acknowledges a huge corporate operation which has been skirting tax law for over 20 years.
- A better option is for them to re-frame the Judge program as community volunteers, but given the size of tournaments, working conditions, the normal legal treatment of staff working at gaming conventions (as in gambling cons, not nerd gaming cons), this seems like a tough sell, legally-speaking.

:popcorn:

[Büge]

Isn't it true that it's illegal to volunteer for a for-profit company?

What if Wizards disbands the Judge program to farm out employees, or re-frames Judges as "independent contractors"?

[Mongrel]

I suspect that if Judges are determined to be employees, there's a strong possibility they will cease to be directly employed by TOs or stores. Instead WotC will handle employment of Judges, and independent TOs or stores will essentially buy Judge services from WotC, and I would also suspect this contract service will probably be subsidized (i.e. the TO would pay less for the service than WotC's costs paying Judges & running the Judge program), perhaps deeply so, in order to subsidize organized play.

I mean, that's not a sure thing by any means, but if I had to guess that seems a good chance for how it might be handled. I say so because the alternative - TOs paying full wages and having to make sure the employment details are all up to regulations - would be a disincentive, especially to smaller operations. Not an insurmountable disincentive (almost all stores already have some employees, as do many TOs, and I'm sure they're already set up to handle pay documentation in most cases already), but an additional burden where there wasn't one before, so I could see WotC eating the cost to keep Organized Play going.

They can't disband it because Judge certification, ruling harmony, and other components of the centralized authority of Organized Play are crucial to Judging being seen as fair and consistent (okay, you can stop laughing).

[Büge]

[beatbandito]

I don't know magic terms well enough. Does he leave the game in reaction to a spell being cast / attack as an interrupt, or does he react to the resolved outcome of the first attack / spell of the turn?

(I know that's probably not the point, just curious)

[Friday]

He leaves before the spell or attack resolves. Basically as an interrupt, though that word hasn't been in MTG for a long time.

He's therefore "useless" because he can't attack or block. He's actually used in a modern deck called Norin Sisters that uses enter the battlefield effects on everything that gets continually triggered by him popping in and out.

[Büge]

Apparently he also makes a hilarious commander in EDH. Run him with Confusion In the Ranks and things get wacky.

[Grath]

Apparently he also makes a hilarious commander in EDH. Run him with Confusion In the Ranks and things get wacky.

He's my mono red commander. He's so hilariously annoying I don't dare play that deck often.

[Mongrel]

An MTG-playing lawyer weighs in on the Judges-vs-WotC case

TL;DR: You don't need to be a contract expert to see that Wizards is almost certainly fucked and should probably settle. All recent precedent is going against Wizards.

[Lyrai]

I made things.

Basically cards based off a group of PCs of a 2+ year D&D game. If the Alpha Nerds could tell me how shit they are I'm curious.

Also how hard would it be to get them on real cardstock, printed like actual cards, as a neat token to the players?

[zaratustra]

Yeah there's no way Flintlock will ever get to transform and then fire off its ultimate.

Blue one seems most overpowered, but that's in-color.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, Flint can only fuel his ultimate by making it useless. Also it depend on opponents having lots of a particular less-common permanent type.

Also I didn't really care about blatant colour-pie violations since whatever, lol, but Black never ever ever gets straight enchantment destruction.

What RPG system/campaign were you guys playing?

[Lyrai]

A modified FATE. I was Lyta, and Evangeline had to drop out, replaced by Chauncey.

Is Flint salvagable to keep the "flavor", or would I need to go back to the drawing board with him?

The things I tried to incorporate in the card for flint was:

Character hates magic, did not use magic.
Gun-user, both short and long.
Used their Sanity track instead of Mana for powerful actions.
Mercenary, otensibly, despite constantly hired by my character.
Transformed into a giant death snake made of guns at the end of the game.

[Friday]

It's fine how it is. Black doesn't get enchantment (or Artifact) destruction according to color pie, but honestly who cares even inside the actual game. It's not like them printing "BB: destroy target enchantment" would somehow break MTG in half. In my opinion they should experiment with shit like that more anyway. (perhaps in a more flavorful way)

Planeswalkers usually have a clause that allows them to use their +X ability whenever they want, even if it's not doing anything. For example, instead of "destroy target enchantment" make it "destroy up to one target enchantment" which would allow Flint to gain counters even if there are no enchantments in play.

[zaratustra]

I wrote something but feel free to ignore it since I haven't actually -played- Magic against a living being in ages.

Flintlock 4BB
Legendary Creature - Mercenary
Reach, first strike
Any player can discard an instant, sorcery or enchantment to put a insanity counter on Flintlock and gain control of it.
When ~ has three or more insanity counters, exile them then return them to play transformed at the start of your next turn.

Great Gun God Flint
Planeswalker - Madelhari
+1 - Target player reveals their hand and discards one instant, sorcery or enchantment card.
-2 - Put a black 8/8 War Snake token with haste and flying on the battlefield. Sacrifice that token at the end of turn.
-6 - You gain an emblem with "At the end of your turn, if you haven't cast any instant, sorcery or enchantment spells, deal 6 damage to six target creatures and/or players. This damage can't be prevented."
[4]

[Grath]

I wrote something but feel free to ignore it since I haven't actually -played- Magic against a living being in ages.

Flintlock 4BB
Legendary Creature - Mercenary
Reach, first strike
Any player can discard an instant, sorcery or enchantment to put a insanity counter on Flintlock and gain control of it.
When ~ has three or more insanity counters, exile them then return them to play transformed at the start of your next turn.

Great Gun God Flint
Planeswalker - Madelhari
+1 - Target player reveals their hand and discards one instant, sorcery or enchantment card.
-2 - Put a black 8/8 War Snake token with haste and flying on the battlefield. Sacrifice that token at the end of turn.
-6 - You gain an emblem with "At the end of your turn, if you haven't cast any instant, sorcery or enchantment spells, deal 6 damage to six target creatures and/or players. This damage can't be prevented."
[4]

Ignore Zara on the -2, if Flint actually turns himself into a murder-snake in-game. The templating you used matches the templating of Sarkhan the Dragonspeaker and Every Gideon ever printed.
Also, gendered pronouns are allowed on legendary/planeswalker cards with defined genders - they don't use gendered pronouns on "generic" creatures because the art just depicts one <that thing> and the one you summon can be male or female, however you choose to picture it.

[Lyrai]

Sarkhan and the first Gideon there are the exact cards I looked at when looking at how to word Flint turning into the death serpent. Now I just need to find the program I used to make these.

[Büge]

I wrote something but feel free to ignore it since I haven't actually -played- Magic against a living being in ages.

Flintlock 4BB
Legendary Creature - Mercenary
Reach, first strike
Any player can discard an instant, sorcery or enchantment to put a insanity counter on Flintlock and gain control of it.
When ~ has three or more insanity counters, exile them then return them to play transformed at the start of your next turn.

Make that "Discard an instant, sorcery, or enchantment card: put an insanity counter on Flintlock and gain control of it. Any player may activate this ability but only any time he or she could cast a sorcery."

[Mongrel]

Hyuk