Greetings all!  Herein you will find all of the details for GENCON 2019 ARENA

Judges
Head Judge and “Dictator-for-Life”: Scott “Puddnhead” Penney
“First Tiger” and Assistant to the Head Judge: Justin “Coshade” Lowe
Hailing from Charlotte to join the Judge roster: James McGuire

Format and Scoring

All released sets up through Necromancer Academy are LEGAL.
No Promos Allowed
No Proxies Allowed

You can sign up HERE: https://www.gencon.com/events/155736

The tournament will be played in five rounds of Swiss beginning at 10:00 AM on Friday, August 2nd, in the Game Hall (see your event ticket for details). Each round will be 80 minutes long. After five rounds of Swiss the top 4 best point totals will advance to the finals. Finals beginning at 1:00 PM the following day, Saturday, August 3rd.

Points will be awarded as follows:
Win (Mage Kill) = 3 points
Loss (You died) = 0 points
Tie (No Mage Kill) = 2, 1 or 0 points.

Explanation: In the event that the game goes to time, there will be exactly one additional round and then if no mage has been killed the judges will determine whether the game will be a tie at 1 point each player or if someone had a clear upper hand and will be awarded 2 points (giving 0 to the other player).

Criteria by which judges will decide:
1)   Current Board State
2)   Remaining effective spells in Spellbook.
3)   Advisement of players’ own estimation regarding their Win-Strategy viability.

Rationale: GenCon is a place where many people of a variety of different skill levels and familiarity with Mage Wars collect to compete. We wish to provide the most equitable experience for all while recognizing that those who have trained should end up in a superior rank.  Therefore, we are choosing a “referee” style of judging which allows for a small amount of subjectivity in order that a newer player or someone unfamiliar with their book that is given to long planning phases, excessive rules clarifications or questions does not jeopardize a veteran player’s chances to advance.  We also wish to eliminate a “planning to tie” mentality during book construction. We wish to encourage all players to strive towards the game’s win condition of killing the enemy mage.
These kinds of rules are necessary in a timed tournament environment that is open to all who wish to participate. We sincerely hope to have to make these judgement calls sparingly but need to cover the possibility.

Errata and Clarifications

•   Disciple of Radiance Text Change
Once per round, whenever your Mage casts or reveals a healing spell, Disciple of Radiance may deal 1 direct light damage to a target creature in her zone
•   Casting a Spell - Change to the end of the Pay Costs Step
Previous wording - If you cannot pay all of the costs, the spell is cancelled and discarded, and you have lost the action.
New wording -If you cannot pay all of the costs, the spell is cancelled and obliterated, and you have lost the action.
Everything else remains unchanged about the step
•   Force Pull
Once per round, the Forcemaster may cast this quick Force spell. Target creature is Pushed 1 zone towards the source of this spell. Will not Push a creature through a wall with the Passage Attacks trait.
•   Trample
- If a Flying creature attacks a non-Flying object, it loses Flying until the end of the attack.
- Elusive Creatures can ignore guards when making a Trample Attack
- Defenses that do not work against Melee attacks cannot be used during the Avoid Attack step, however all other types may be (choosing one during the step following normal rules).
•   Dig in and Press the Attack only apply to the zone they are in
•   Swarm (Please remember all non-mage objects are also spells)
Creatures with the Swarm trait cannot be targeted by non-attack actions or spells that do not specifically target Swarm creatures. When attacking, Creatures with the Swarm trait may make additional strikes equal to their remaining health. Additionally, they are immune to conditions, healing, and life gain that does not target swarms. Non-zone attacks do a maximum of 1 damage to them. Swarms cannot guard.
•   The Embalmed
When summoning The Embalmed, remove target non-Epic Living creature in any discard pile from the game. This creature becomes a copy of the removed creature, gaining The Embalmed’s traits and subtypes. X= the removed creature’s mana cost.

What to bring
Please have ready:
1) Your TICKET
2) Your spellbook
3) A printed copy of your book list that is arranged in the exact same way as your spellbook.
4) Mage specific tokens
5) Dice
6) Please come 15 min early for the tournament to register your book if you don't attend the unofficial practice session* the night before.

*There will be an unofficial "practice session" the night before.  Basically, feel free to come and play some Mage Wars in the Game Hall beginning at 7:00PM on August 1st.  We are happy to check-in your tournament book there as well so you can sleep in a little on Tournament Day.

Hey all!

Arcane Duels is streaming now!  We will be covering some of the new cards from Warlord Academy!  Come join us for some fun discussion!

Here's the Video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4ZUhSOALzI!

So I was rereading the rules recently and came across this entry on page 17 under "Walls":

"Passage Attacks: .... This is a special kind of attack that is neither melee nor ranged, cannot be avoided, and does not trigger any damage barrier or Counterstrike attacks..."
Then in the supplement I found this: "Note that Wall of Pike's attack is not Unavoidable."
For reference: [mwcard=FWW01]Wall of Pikes[/mwcard]
Seems like the supplement is not so much supplementing as overruling here.  Which is correct?

Secondarily, I find that "[A] Climbing Creature may take a special full action to climb over any Corporeal wall and
move into the adjacent zone. If the wall has the Passage Attacks trait, it attacks the creature before it moves. "

Whereas there is no move penalty (other than Wall of Thorns) for just moving through the passage attack wall as a move action and then getting your quick action on the other side.  As if Climbing wasn't useless enough...

TLDR: 1) Shouldn't Wall of Pikes be unavoidable? 2) Climbing needs to save you from passage attacks.

Thank you for getting Domination added to the builder!

I was putting together a spellbook on the builder and when I tried to add [mwcard=MWBG1J02]Gravikor[/mwcard] it gave me an error message: Required mage: Epic.  Pretty sure there was just a data entry error.