I expect most of you reading this attended a prerelease somewhere. I know I did (or at least I hope I did, since I submitted this article before the prereleases). I’m betting most of you had a good time. You probably pulled a mythic or had a fun deck. Some of you won prizes. Most of you had a chance to laugh and hang out with your friends while getting a feel for Dark Ascension.

Bennett didn’t.

Jacob didn’t either.

These guys, along with several others, would have been at the prerelease I regularly hold at our local community library, but Wizards of the Coast shut down my prerelease.

This isn’t a case of someone at Wizards being mean and nasty. There is no cruel stepmother. This wasn’t Mark Rosewater or Aaron Forsythe cackling from a throne in some tower at Wizards of the Coast headquarters, saying that these children shouldn’t be allowed to attend a prerelease. This was a case of a large company setting up rules that make sense for the majority of the time—but not always—then being unwilling to vary from those rules. Not really something you would expect from a company that makes a game that survives by constantly evolving and changing the rules, is it?

The situation is pretty straightforward. I became involved in the WPN because of my son Spencer. Two of his friends had started a Magic club and were meeting regularly and running tournaments for a small group of friends. I knew that if I signed up, I could get them some foil cards to use as prizes in their small tournaments. I became an Organizer and became involved in their club. Eventually, I reached Core level and held a Launch Party. It was a huge success: We pre-registered every space I had. Everyone even paid a month ahead of time.

Since it isn’t the store that is running the event, there is no need to make a profit. I take any proceeds from the prereleases and buy prizes for the next prerelease. I’ve given out deck boxes, play mats, and dice. The friends I play with have extensive collections, so most times, the young children all walk out with hundreds of cards from our collections. I have flattened the prize structure as well, so instead of having to go 3–1 to win packs, the prize structure is: win your match, win a pack. On the second round, I give away another pack, and if anyone ends the tournament without a win, that player gets a pack, too.

This is how our Commander tournament ended.

When the rules changed—saying you had to affiliate with a store—I went out and found a store and affiliated. The store was small (as many card/comic book/toy stores are) and could not host events in the store. This was fine by me, as it allowed me to keep hosting events at the local community library, as I had been doing before. This situation went on for over a year.

My affiliated store was going through tough times, and the owner warned me in early December that she was probably going to close the store. I knew I would need to affiliate with another store, so I went looking and found another place. It was another small store that was happy to keep everything going just the way I had been doing it before.

I contacted Wizards to let them know what was happening. I asked if I could transfer the Core level status to the new store, even for just the coming prerelease. WotC’s policy is that you can’t transfer level status—that is tied to the store. The idea behind the policy is to build a community at each store. If you could transfer levels from store to store, there would be stores that were at Core level that had not demonstrated the dedication to be at Core level. This will better help the stores that sell Magic to prosper and thrive. It makes good sense, unless . . . your community isn’t at the store.

Over the last few years, the Magic community at the library has grown and thrived. That first Launch Party included only twelve people, while the latest prerelease was over twenty (and probably more than our little library could handle!). The players were all aware of who was sponsoring the prereleases, but everything was at the library. Events were being held twice a week. The younger players learned from the older ones, and they are open and inviting to new players. They are good kids.

My thought was that they would let the new store host the prerelease, then work its way up to Core level in time for the next prerelease. Why would you punish a fully established Magic community by taking away their prerelease?

My response back from Wizards of the Coast was that they didn’t want to decide anything until they knew for sure that the current store was out of business. This was promising for me. It suggested that my plan might actually work. On top of that, they were right; the store could have a great Christmas and continue running.

At Christmas, the store closed. The recession had finally caught up to the owner, and it just wasn’t going to work any longer. I contacted Wizards and let them know the unfortunate news. The folks there got back to me right away:

I was surprised by this response—this was something they could have told me before the store closed. I e-mailed back, stressing that the events and the community were not changing—simply the sponsor of the events. I again received a prompt response from Wizards:

As I said, this was not a case of a mean and nasty individual. The person I discussed the situation with is someone known to me at Wizards. I know he did what he could, but the rules are the rules. This is a case in which the purpose behind the rules needs to be considered. I am confident that this would not have happened if there was more flexibility within Wizards of the Coast to address anomalies or quirks that make the general rule a bad fit.

The reason this is so frustrating to me is that most of my players are very young. Everyone in the club is between seven and fourteen years old. Most of these players will not get to go to another prerelease somewhere else. Their parents feel that their children are safe at our local library with people they trust. If their ten-year-old child is to play at a prerelease at a store, it means that parent will have to spend the entire day at the store, since they will not know the owner or most of the players in the store. This is assuming the ten year old will even be comfortable playing against college-aged players whom they have never met.

My prereleases offer extra time for deck-building. Often, it is the first time for a player to build a deck. Ever. The time given for deck-building is usually frantic for me, as I move from one young player to another, helping each decide which colors to use and give some idea of the number of lands to run. I’ve had tournaments in which I practically built decks for some of the players. I don’t exactly follow DCI floor rules, but my situation is very different and calls for unique solutions.

Of the twenty or so players who would have attended my prerelease, only six or seven will be attending prereleases elsewhere. The remaining children are just missing out.

I’m not suggesting that this is the end of this Magic community. My new store is signed in to the WPN, and our first event is scheduled for next week. I already have people signed up for the event. We will reach Core level quickly, and we will host an Avacyn Restored prerelease. The issue is that the rigid rules cost us a prerelease that we can never get back.

When discussing this with a friend, he asked: What would have happened had I not said anything? What if I had not promptly talked to Wizards and made them aware of the situation? Had I not said anything, would I be hosting the Dark Ascension prerelease? Absolutely.

And Peter would have been at the prerelease.

Think about it another way: What would have happened if the store had closed two days after the prerelease? I would have had time to sign up the new store and get them to Core level in time to host the next prerelease. Due to the timing of the closing, there was no way to get the new store to Core level in time to host the prerelease. In fact, the window to sign up for the prerelease had closed before I had even received the warning from the store owner that the store may close. Due to a combination of bad timing and honesty:

Theo and . . . 

 . . . Sebastian missed out on the prerelease.

Wizards, please rethink your policy. Your current policy encourages Tournament Organizers to lie. Your current policy has hurt an established Magic community made up of some of your youngest players.

Isn’t this . . . 

 . . . better than this?