GENERAL CHALLENGE RULES: READ FIRST

Hi everyone,

Whether you're a veteran or this is your first challenge, this is a primer and a good reminder of the basic challenge rules.

What are clan deckbuilding challenges, anyway?
Vertigo Spiral's deckbuilding challenges are meant for clan members to have some fun getting to know the rest of the clan, and test their deckbuilding skills when the rules of Magic are changed. Though people often build very competitive decks, most challenges limit the number of rares very severely, and they are often singleton, as we don't want wealth to trump skill and smart choices. It is often common for people to pull punches (limited LD, moderate counterspells, etc.) in order to keep goodwill in the clan - so powergamers should try to curb their natural tendencies and treat this as a social event more than anything else.

Is challenge participation required?
Challenges are currently completely optional. However, the clan leadership has been discussing making occasional challenge participation mandatory. This means you don't have to play every challenge, but if you've been in the clan for months, show no interest in the challenges, and don't really know your fellow clanmates, you may get booted.

How are challenges structured?
Every challenge has unique rules. Read these rules carefully several times before building, and again after you've finished as you check your decklist. Almost always, everything you need to know will be in the released rules - which will be posted here and by email.

There is 1 week of deckbuilding time after the rules are released. You are honor-bound to have a legal deck at the end of that time, which you cannot change once matches start. If it is noticed that you have changed your deck once you start your matches, or that your deck is not legal, you will be immediately disqualified. Depending on the severity of the offense and how long it has gone unnoticed, there is a strong likelihood that you will be banned from further challenges, so please use the deckbuilding week to ensure that your deck is legal and works the way you want it to.

Formal matches will begin after the deckbuilding week, at any time when both participants agree that the match should count. Each person involved in the challenge will play each other, in a match format with best 2/3. Set your matches to maximum time (90 min per person) as timeout is not a valid way to win in these challenges. Some challenges allow sideboarding, some do not; this is specified in each challenge's rules. Formal matches take between 1 and 3 additional weeks, depending on the number of participants. Participants who lag too long before beginning their matches may be disqualified in order to keep challenges moving along in a timely fashion.

How do I report my matches?
VERY important topic, as people rarely follow the instructions here. Each challenge will have an excel spreadsheet. Agree with your opponent before the match who will be reporting it. That person needs to download the MOST CURRENT VERSION of the spreadsheet, update it, and REPLY ALL to send this to everyone. When updating, you need to modify 4 cells: your total match score, your opponent's total match score, him vs you, and you vs him. Failure to do this properly and to send to all, twice, will result in disqualification. Routine offenses may result in suspension from challenges. This has been a huge time sink for the clan leaders, trying to correct the mistakes and haphazard reporting that clanmates perform.

What do we win?
The winner gets to determine the rules of the next challenge. Generally, challenges end on a Friday and the new rules go out on a Monday. Winners should email Nik83 to make sure that their challenge idea is viable, and to revise it properly.

I won, what kind of challenge should I make?
The major factors that make a good challenge are:
1) Fairness to all types of cardpools: de-emphasizing rare usage
2) Enough variability to prevent all decks from looking the same: there should not be many clearly-superior cards that all players gravitate toward
3) Dynamic cardpool: challenges should not promote a stale gamestate which requires or promotes players being overly defensive (i.e. wall-based tribal)
4) No required purchases: challenges should not require players to purchase specific cards in order to play

Common Questions
"We're playing a singleton deck, but can I still use multiples of uncommon lands? I can use multiple basic lands after all."
Singleton is a format where ALL non-basic land cards are allowed as 1-ofs. No exceptions. I can't believe how many of you asked this one.

"Why is the challenge using X rule? It'd be better if it was Y."
One of the benefits of winning the prior challenge is, it's your rules. And if they aren't your rules, make the best deck you can with them. That way, next time, everyone will be playing by your rules.