Welcome to Week 4 of the Infinity Wars Pauper League Tournament!

What in the Puffy is this?

The Infinity Wars Pauper League is a series of weekly tournaments following the popular "Pauper" format of Trading Card Games. There will be one League a week, followed by the Monthly Invitational for the top 16 point leaders by the end of the month.

What is the "Pauper" format?

The Pauper Format is a time honored, battle hardened format originally created in the popular Magic: The Gathering. The rules are simple, you may only construct your decks with Common or Uncommon cards, and that's it.

Rules for the IW Pauper League

Deck Construction

This is extremely important, so make sure you read through this section carefully as these rules are unique to this league and this league only.

1] You may only construct your deck using Common and Uncommon cards. No Rares, Epics, or Legendaries are permitted in this format. You are more than welcome to change your decks in between matches, between weeks, whatever you see fit.

2] The Infinity Wars Pauper League will be employing a Ban/Restrict list to maintain a specific environment of balance within the format. It is imperative you review this list and ensure your decks are within legal rulings, if you are caught using anything that makes your deck illegal due to the limitations imposed by this list, you will be immediately disqualified without consideration.

3] The Ban/Restrict list is designed to maintain balance for each monthly running. For 4 weeks this list will not be subject to change. At the start of a new month, I will review discussion for this format and make any necessary changes to the list. That does not mean it *will* change month to month, only that it can.

4] The restrictions imposed by the following list apply to the entirety of deckbuilding, which means the Command Zone as well. Example: If a card is Semi-Limited, and you place one of that card in your Command Zone, you may only place one more copy of that card in your deck.

Ban/Restrict Listing for the month of May

Banned

• Xi, Ascended
• Rite of Rage
• War Machine
• Wealthy Noble
• Veroria, the Lone Keep
• Wholesale Slaughter
• Star Trek, Omni, and Oppression cards
• Blood Crazed Initiate (Due to a bug)
• Herald of Dawn (Due to a bug)
  

Limited

• Lucca, Combat Mechanic
• Lucca, Ascended
• Sacullas, The Final Hammer
• Evolving Parasite
• Solace's Gate
• Noble Protector

Semi-Limited

• Fear
• Hubris of the Strong
• Eucalyptus Tree
• Yuanshi's Wrath
• Spontaneous Combustion
• Controlled Temporal Anomally
• Overcharged Storm
• Demonic Presence
• Dark Blast
• Splitter Bot
• Higher Calling
• Mind Splinter
• Winds of War
• Tibat, the Mad Monk
• Infected Monk

[Legend: Banned = 0, Limited = 1, Semi-limited = 2. Restrictions include Commanders.]

Rules of Conduct

1] There is an imposed 1 hour check in time, and a 30 minute time limit for your matches. What this means is that if you signed up for a league in a given week, you need to come to this website and sign in at least 1 hour before the first match starts. This way we know you're here, and the system will automatically remove anyone who didn't check in.

The 30 minute time limit on matches is for each round, not for the entire tournament. Meaning that if you have a scheduled match in a round, you have 30 minutes to complete that match and report your scores to a Judge. Judges will be asked to use their best judgement in executing this timeframe, so if they haven't heard from you, or haven't gotten your scores, you'll simply be removed from the tournament.

2] If there is a supposed bug or a de-sync, you are to immediately bring it to the attention of a Judge. In the overwhelming majority of cases you will be asked to re-play your match. We know there are bugs, we know de-syncs can happen, you will take on this risk when participating in the Leagues.

Should anything funky happen, bring it to a Judge, they'll very likely ask you to re-play your match if both sides conclude that something funky happened. Be advised that the Judges will be trained on common support scenarios, and should someone be deemed to be abusing our attempts at understanding and fair play, you will be removed from the tournament.

This is a tournament for friendly fun, competition, and community interaction. If you're causing problems, trolling, and otherwise making that environment toxic you will straight up be removed. We will not tolerate it, and that's the end of it.

3] Reporting the result of your match is very simple. Simply ask in Global Chat if there is a Judge online, or add the Judges listed here to your friends list. When you are ready to report the result of a match, simply contact a Judge.

Judges

• Teremus
• Niadra
• Stranger42
• Jgsnowbaorder

4] Most importantly, have fun. This is a video game, and we're all here to have a good time. Compete amongst your friends and peers, share strategies, learn from one another. Make this an enjoyable event that everyone can be proud of participating in and it will last a long time.

Monthly Invitationals, Point Standings, and You

Infinity Wars Pauper League: Point Standings

The above link is for a very important Google Doc that myself and the Judges will be providing for you. In this document we will be recording the points that each user gains at the end of each week, and using that to determine who is invited to the Invitational at the end of the month. It is EXTREMELY important to keep in mind that we invite the Top 16, so if you do bad one week you're not out of the running, keep your head up and punch through the next week.

Prize Structure

Weekly Leagues

Each League Tournament has it's own Prize Structure. For the Weekly League Events, this is the payout structure.

Regular Payouts will be awarded to the Top 3 point leaders at the end of the day. Ties will be determined via Buckholz. These prizes for the Top 3 could range from Premium Boosters/Blisters, Premium card grants such as a gold copy of your Command Zone, or Rift Coin grants.

Along with the Top 3 payout, there will be 2 raffles. The raffles will be similar in prize pool to the Top 3, but these will be paid out to 2 random participants in the league that week.

May League, Week 4

First Place - Choice of Commander of the deck used in the final round given as a Gold Border (1x), Gold Blister Pack, 3 Rift Coins

Second Place - Gold Blister Pack, 2 Rift Coins

Third Place - 2 Rift Coins

Two Raffles: Blister Pack, 2 Rift Coins

Monthly Invitationals

The Winner of each month's Invitational will have their deck entered into the Weekly Free Deck Rotation by myself the week following their victory. The deck that's added will be the deck you used in the final match.

The Winner will also have their name and deck highlighted on the front page of Infinity Wars. They will also receive one of the new titles that will be put into the game specifically for this League, which will be selected at the time of the event posting.

The full Prize Pool for the Invitational will be listed at the time the tournament is posted each month. It should be noted that the Monthly Invitationals are designed to be substantially more significant in prize value than the Weeklies, given that there's 4 of them and 1 Monthly.

You may ask yourself, what is a Rift Coin? Well it's quite simple. This is a currency that was created as a concept by the Infinity Council, and I'd like to use it for this League. Basically, you will want to accrue as many Rift Coins as you can, because you'll use them as a third currency to redeem them for special and significant prizes such as packs, specific cards, battlefields, card backs, so on so forth. More on this to come.

Do you want to be a Judge?

Well, first off, thank you for your interest. This is a large undertaking for me, and I can't express how grateful I am to those that have already volunteered their time to this League to see it succeed.

Let's go over what it means to be a Judge for the Pauper League really quick.

1. You are more than welcome to still participate in the League.
2. It is required that you be available on Skype for text discussions, this way you'll have direct access to me, and all of us to each other. We will have our own Skype Chat for this.
3. You will need to be online during each League event, so that people can whisper you with  match reports or questions.
4. You must be willing to take the reports players give to you and report them on Challonge so that the tournament may advance in a timely fashion.
5. Be there to help with the League. This is a purely volunteer position, and you're here to help the League run smoothly so that everyone can have a good time.
6. Your name will be listed in these Tournament Postings so that people know who to whisper with their results/concerns.

Should you meet all of this and are interested in being a Judge for the IW Pauper League, shoot an email to [email protected] with the title "IW Pauper League Judge" and let me know all about your involvement with IW and why you're interested in being a Judge for the format.

Thank you everyone, see you on the battlefield!