Guildpact release events

[eldaec]

On Monday, February 27th at 9:00 am PST, Guildpact goes on sale in the Magic Online store.

NOTE: Guildpact becomes legal in ALL Constructed formats the day it goes on sale (February 27). All casual rooms and constructed queues will use Guildpact starting on February 27. Constructed Premier events will not run until March 8 and will use Guildpact starting on that date.

Guildpact Release events begin Wednesday, March 1 and will have 4 components:

Release Leagues
Draft Queues
Premier Event Flights (2x and 4x Prizes)
Release Championship

Guildpact Release Leagues

SIGNUP: March 1, 9:00am – March 8, 9:00am (the final 1 week, 2x league will start no later than 9AM on March 8). Release Leagues will have a maximum of 256 players each and will auto-spawn (as soon as a league reaches 256 players, another will begin registration).

LEAGUE DURATION: 1 week

PRODUCT: 1 Ravnica, City of Guilds Tournament Pack and 3 Guildpact Booster Packs.

ADMISSION: 2 Tix, Product

PRIZE SUPPORT: 2x prizes, Participation Avatar: Teysa, Orzhov Scion; Records of 5-0 get Prize Avatar: Rumbling Slum.

Avatars will be distributed Approx. 3 weeks after the last league concludes

NOTE: The regularly schedule downtime will still take place on Thursday, March 2 at 8:00 am PST. Plan your league games accordingly as no compensation will be issued if you lose a game due to the servers going down for maintenance.

Guildpact Draft Queues

QUEUES BEGIN: March 1, 1:00 pm.

FORMATS: Booster Draft

PRODUCT: 3 Guildpact Boosters, or 2 Ravnica, City of Guilds Boosters and 1 Guildpact Booster.

ADMISSION: 2 Tix, Product

PRIZE SUPPORT: 4-3-2-2 and 8-4

Guildpact Premier Events (2x Flights)

DURATION: March 2, 9:00 am – March 8 9:00 am (last starts at 9am). 2x Flights will have 32 players per flight and will start every hour, on the hour. Each flight will have a minimum of 24 players, maximum of 32 players.

PRODUCT: 1 Ravnica, City of Guilds Tournament Pack and 3 Guildpact Booster Packs, top 8 booster draft. The booster draft format will be 2 Ravnica, City of Guilds Boosters and 1 Guildpact Booster.

ADMISSION: 2 Tix, Product (Events that start between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am will be "Nix Tix events and require 0 event tickets)

PRIZE SUPPORT: 2x Prizes, Top 8

Place Boosters
1 24
2 18
3-4 12
5-8 4


All who participate in a 2x Prize Premier Event Flight will get the Teysa, Orzhov Scion avatar. Top 2 will get a Rumbling Slum avatar. In addition, the 1st place finisher will qualify for the Guildpact Release Event Championship on Saturday, March 11 @ 9:00 am PST.

Guildpact Premier Events (4x Flights)

DURATION: March 2, 9:00 am – March 8 9:00 am (last starts at 9am). 4x Flights start every 3 hours. Each flight will have a minimum of 24 players, maximum of 128 players.

PRODUCT: 1 Ravnica, City of Guilds Tournament Pack and 3 Guildpact Booster Packs, top 8 booster draft. The booster draft format will be 2 Ravnica, City of Guilds Boosters and 1 Guildpact Booster.

ADMISSION: 5 Tix, Product (Events that start between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am will require 2 event tickets)

PRIZE SUPPORT: 4x Prizes, Manual Pay to Top 16 (Prizes for 9-16 place will be paid out within 72 hours of event completion)

Place Boosters
1 48
2 36
3-4 24
5-8 12
9-16 6


All who participate in a 4x Prize Premier Event Flight will get the Teysa, Orzhov Scion avatar. Top 8 will get a Rumbling Slum avatar. In addition, the Top 4 finishers will qualify for the Guildpact Release Event Championship on Saturday, March 11 @ 9:00 am PST.

Guildpact Release Event Championship

START TIME: March 11, 9:00 am PST

PRODUCT: 1 Ravnica, City of Guilds Tournament Pack and 3 Guildpact Booster Packs, top 8 booster draft. The booster draft format will be 2 Ravnica, City of Guilds Boosters and 1 Guildpact Booster.

ADMISSION: FREE – (No Tix, No Product, Invitation only)

PRIZE SUPPORT: 6x, Manual pay to Top 64

Place Boosters
1 72
2 54
3-4 36
5-8 18
9-16 12
17-32 6
33-64 3


The winner of the Championship will also receive a complete set of Magic Online Premium Guildpact cards.

Second, Third, and Fourth Places will each receive a complete set of regular Magic Online Guildpact cards.

Although players may have multiple accounts qualified for the Championship event, players not permitted to have more than 1 of their accounts entered in the event. Players are not permitted to have secondary accounts played by another person. If a player is discovered to have more than 1 account playing in the Championship either before, during, or after the event, appropriate penalties will be applied (including disqualification from the event with no refund of product or event tickets).

No big surprises. Off-peak 2x PEs are nix tix once again, I have a feeling the 4x PEs that I don't enter are $1 more expensive than usual - I may be wrong.

[Margalis]

Anyone down for some guildpact release drafting or anything like that?

[Hoax]

You know I really want to, but I hate spending the money on imaginary card, and I suck at MtG... 

I wonder if I could sell all the stuff on my account for some tickets, but last time I sold stuff it was kind of a hassle, I wish I could get the packs for free if they automatically disapeered 3 days later or something. 

[eldaec]

Observations on Guildpact...

The guild flavour really does absolutely dominate GP, espeicially GGG draft, much more than it did Rav. If you play BW you *will* always have a deck designed to stall and bleed the other guy, GR will *always* depend on staying ahead on tempo and board position so you can turn sideways and keep up the bloodlust. Also GGG draft is always BW vs GRu.


Haunt has most clunky mechanic rules I've ever heard of. Why it doesn't say...

Haunt (When CARDNAME would be put into a graveyard from play as a creature, instead it becomes an 'Enchantment - Aura' and is no longer a creature, then CARDNAME enchants target creature).

...beats me, this would be more flexible, use terms players already know, keeps the card in the play field so you remember what haunts what, and would support all the existing cards just fine. You'd have....

Blind Hunter 2WB

Haunt

When Blind Hunter comes into play or is put into a graveyard from play, target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.



So far at least I've been finding that the rarities for cards are better set than usual. ie. rarity is driven more by how broad or narrow a card is than by power. (naturally aside from the stupid decision to make the shocklands rare)