Welcome to MTG Fight Club.
The first rule of MTG Fight Club is that we don’t talk abou… forget that, I want you to talk about MTG Fight Club! I want you to get all your friends involved! The more people that know about it the better! But what is it you ask?
Well it’s a free PRE event. Free, meaning that you don’t have to pay anything to enter the event. PRE, meaning Player Run Event. What this means is that the event is run by a member of the MTG community (I will be running this one), instead of your traditional corporate entities, such as Channel Fireball or Wizards of the Coast. Furthermore it means that the event is not limited to the confines of your traditional tournaments.
Such as one of the first PRE’s I played in, it was the Tuesday Pauper Classic over at gatherling.com, run by a gentleman named longtimegone. You see, he saw a gap in MTGO events that Wizards hadn’t filled, and that was a Pauper Tournament, given at the time Pauper wasn’t a sanctioned format. So he, as a member of the community made a tournament, that was free to enter, for players who enjoyed the format. He even found a sponsor to provide prize support.
Which is exactly what I’m doing now. Well, not exactly. I don’t want to run Pauper events, as that’s longtimegone’s schtick. I want to run Legacy events. But not your normal Legacy events, where you would play out several rounds against multiple opponents and pray that your tie breakers are good enough to get you into some top 4/8/16 placing, and then duke it out over the top spot. No, there is another format that I want to do this with and it was inspired by Blippy the Slug and his Maximum OverDrive! series.
Maximum OverDrive! is an event series that takes place every Monday night at 830PM EST, and is in the Modern format. All regular deck rules apply to construction (the same as will be run for my event), so you are playing with at least 60 cards in your deck and no more than 15 in your sideboard. All of them Modern Legal. Now where Blippy had changed the game is that he is running the tournament in a Single Elimination format. So if you win, you get to go on. If you lose, better luck next week. This usually ends in no more than 4 rounds, maybe 5 if there are enough people. And he, just like longtimegone, has sponsorship for the event. Specifically from our very own Face to Face Games!
That’s right, if you haven’t already caught it, these are free tournaments you can enter into and can earn real prizes. Doesn’t sound bad eh?
So what inspired me to try and take on the mantle of running an event series myself? Well, Blippy and longtimegone were huge influences as I’ve had very positive experiences with playing PREs. I’ve also been on the short end of the stick (pun intended) for MTG Finance and through these events managed to scrounge up extra cash to play in real life tournaments. I want to run this event series to give back to the community, like they did for me! That, and I don’t think there is nearly enough support for Legacy on MTGO and I hope that MTG Fight Club will help fix that!
Now to the nitty gritty of what MTG Fight Club is!
MTG Fight Club is going to be a 6 week (hopefully more) series of Single Elimination Tournaments, where players can enter for free, and earn prizes by beating their opponents to the final rounds. Top prize (undefeated) will earn $10 store credit from Face to Face Games, and second place will earn $5 store credit from Face to Face Games!
The event is going to take place on Tuesday nights at 830pm EST, and will run until there is only one man left standing in the pit. The format, as mentioned already will be Legacy!
And now to the Rules.
First Rule of MTG Fight Club is… we already covered that!
Second Rule of MTG Fight Club is that you must have an Magic Online account, as that’s where the tournament will be taking place. If you do not have a Magic Online account you can get one here: https://accounts.onlinegaming.wizards.com/AccountSignUp.aspx
Third Rule of MTG Fight Club is that you must have a gatherling.com account. What is gatherling.com? It is a website that helps facilitate Player Run Events by providing a tracking system for entering your decks, figuring out who your next opponent is. It even shows tracks and shows what your favorite or most played card is, and even if you have a Rival.
In order to get a gatherling account go to gatherling.com and click the “click here if you need to Register” link.
After this you fill in the information required, so MTGO Username, choose a password (not the same as MTGO), confirm it, and then choose your security question. After that you can log into gatherling and register for events!
When you first log into gatherling you will be presented with your “Player Control Panel” page. On your right hand side you will see your ratings and stats, and on the left you will see PRE’s that are available to be registered in. Such as Blippy the Slug’s Maximum Overdrive event!
When you click Register it will bring you to the “Deck Database” page. Here you can choose from a list of recent deck’s you’ve played if you want to use them again, or you can create a new one by entering a name, Archetype, and entering your decklist into the given boxes. I highly recommend using MTGO’s “export” function and saving your decklists as a text file. It makes things a lot easier to copy and paste.
And then once you are done you click “Create Deck” and you are registered for the event! As easy as that! After that, when you go back to your “Player Control Panel” page if you scroll to the bottom you will see the name of your opponent, if you have one. This of course will only show up after the event has begun.
Now back to the rules.
Fourth Rule of MTG Fight Club is that you must report your match results in gatherling, just as you would fill out a match slip in a regular tournament. To do so you can scroll to the bottom of your “Player Control Panel” page and beside where your match is listed there is a “Submit Result” link. You click that and enter your results, easy right?
Fifth Rule of MTG Fight Club is that you must show up to the event/match on time. Now, we here at MTG Fight Club understand that real life can get in the way, so we will give a leeway of 10 minutes for you to show up to your match. If you don’t show, your opponent will be awarded the win. As for where you will show up, it will be in the #MTGFightClub room on MTGO.
Sixth Rule of MTG Fight Club is that all games will be played in the “Getting Serious” room, they will be best of three, they will be labelled accordingly (eg. MTG Fight Club – R1, MTGFC Round One, Fight Club R#1, etc.), and will be watchable by outsiders.
Seventh Rule of MTG Fight Club applies to anybody who would earn a prize from our gracious sponsor, Face to Face Games, in that they must give me their email addresses for prizes to be claimed.
Eighth Rule is to HAVE FUN! Because that’s what this is all about!
I would highly recommend to anybody who hasn’t played in a PRE before that you check out MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE! on Monday Nights at 830pm EST, in order to get familiar with the gatherling system. Remember it’s free to enter and there are prizes from its sponsor by Face to Face Games! Just like my event will be!
And now to the thank you portion of the evening. Thanks go out to Blippy the Slug and longtimegone for making the PRE scene and community a great place to play without the pressure of the REL environment. And before I forget, if I haven’t already mentioned them enough. I really need to thank Face to Face Games for giving me the chance to help give back to the community!
I’m looking forward to seeing everybody out at MTG Fight Club.
And remember…
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” – Tyler Durden
Mana Deprived is the #1 Magic: the Gathering Site in Canada.