I'm back! For those who don't know, I've relocated to sunny Washington State, namely Bellevue Washington. Bellevue is just about 5 miles north of the even sunnier city of Renton Washington. You might have heard of a little company in Renton called Wizards of the Coast, they make cardboard, or something like that... I haven't been to Wizards yet, but I do have a standing invitation to play EDH with the boys (I'm looking at you Scott Larabee!).

For anyone who has never moved cross country; don't! No matter how hard you may think it is to do this, it's harder, much harder. I mean if it's just you, your guitar and the Nissa Planeswalker deck, sure jump on a plane and go. But when it's you, the wife, kid, dog, two cars, house full of furniture, and 20,000+ Magic cards it takes some extensive planning to make a 3500 mile move. You can look forward to my "Building a huge wooden crate to ship your Magic Cards in" article coming soon!

But enough about me, what is going on in the Magic world? Magic 2011 is heading our way in the next couple of weeks. Prerelease events are coming up this weekend, and it looks as if I'll be playing in a prerelease instead of judging for this go round. With Magic 2011 we have some new rules. Let's talk about those for a bit.

How many of you know what the "Infraction Procedure Guide" is? Let's see a show of hands. That's what I thought! The Infraction Procedure Guide, or IPG for short, is the document Magic judges use to determine the various offenses you can commit during a tournament and what to do about those offenses when they occur. Previously the IPG was split into three Rules Enforcement Levels: Regular, Competitive and Professional. For each offense we had a different penalty for each offense at each enforcement level.

It sounds complicated just trying to explain it, imagine trying to learn all those offenses and penalties! With the latest rules update, the IPG attempts to simplify all those offenses and penalties by combining all penalties at the Competitive and Professional RELs, making them the same, and creating a completely new document to handle everything at the Regular REL, appropriately named the Regular REL Guide to Fixing Common Errors (FCE). Check it out, read it, learn it, know it: http://www.wizards.com/dci/downloads/MTG_FCE_1Jul10_EN.pdf

The document is short and sweet, only 2 pages that everyone should take a glance at. The FCE doesn't attempt to go into any great detail on what is required and expected of players at these smaller events, but merely gives simple fixes to the problems that occur. The majority of Regular REL events, like FNM, don't even have a judge. They generally have some poor shopkeeper trying his best to keep up with the matches while simultaneously selling a play set of Wall of Omens and answering the phone. This document is intended to make it all a little more bearable for that poor shopkeeper. Be sure to mention the new Guide to Fixing Common Errors to your local shopkeeper, as he may have been so busy he missed it!

Wow, I go away for a month and everything changes! What does this mean for you? Besides now being much easier to pass that pesky judge test, it means FNM should now be a lot more fun. It also means your poor shopkeeper can read a 2 page guide rather than that monster IPG.

This weekend, be sure to attend your local or regional prerelease! From the spoilers I've seen so far M11 looks like it's going to be crazy good! Until next week (Really next week this time) this is Dale Lovelace telling you there's more than one way to play!

Notes:

This is sarcasm, I know it doesn't come across well through the printed word, but trust me; this should be read with as much sarcasm as one could possibly convey.