DISCLAIMER: This is an unofficial rules document written by independent judges. This is not official Wizards of the Coast documentation.
Multiplayer Supplemental Tournament Rules
Effective February 10, 2022
The Multiplayer Supplemental Tournament Rules exist to assist Judges who are working at Competitive or Professional Rules Enforcement Level in Multiplayer Tournaments. This document is written as a supplement to the Magic Tournament Rules and should be used in close conjunction with it and the Multiplayer Supplemental Infraction Procedure Guide.
This document is an extension of the Magic Tournament Rules, and therefore a person using the Multiplayer Supplement should first be familiar with that document. Once a person has reviewed the relevant sections of the Magic Tournament Rules, they can turn to the Multiplayer Supplemental Tournament Rules to find details on how to proceed in Multiplayer Tournaments.
Each section within this document mirrors its namesake in the Magic Tournament Rules. Within each section, Policy Additions and Edits can be found. Policy Additions are policies outlined as best practice for handling tournaments procedure. Edits are designed to address the few important removals or additions to this document that differ from the Magic Tournament Rules. Items or sections with italicized text are taken directly from the Magic Tournament Rules.
At the time of original publishing, this document has been published solely in English. If such a time exists that this document be printed, translated, or otherwise ported to another language, tournament participants must refer to the English version to settle disputes concerning interpretations.
This document is updated periodically. Please obtain the most current version here.
Policy Additions
1.1A. There are two tournament modes: Head-to-Head and Multiplayer.
In Head-to-Head tournaments, games are played in such a way that there are only two players or two teams involved.
In Multiplayer tournaments, each player or team will play against more than one opposing player or team. The mode of a tournament is a characteristic independent from tournament type and format. A tournament can be, for example, Premier, Limited, and Multiplayer.
In Multiplayer tournaments, players are organized in Pods. A Pod consists of the group of players competing and a seating order.
A Two-Headed Giant team is treated as a single player when determining the tournament mode.
Policy Additions
The Tournament Organizer of a tournament is responsible for all tournament logistics including:
- Sanctioning the event.
- Providing a site for the tournament that meets the tournament’s expected needs.
- Advertising the tournament in advance of the tournament date.
- Staffing the tournament with appropriate tournament officials.
- Providing all materials necessary to operate the tournament (e.g. product for Limited format tournaments).
- Reporting the tournament results.
- Saving match result slips from each tournament for a period of 6 months (to aid in match appeals).
- Storing any other match result data from each tournament for a period of 6 months (to aid in match appeals).
Policy Additions
The Scorekeeper’s responsibilities include:
- Generating correct pairings each round and accurately entering the results of those rounds.
- Generating standings for posting before and after the final Swiss round. Other rounds may also be posted at the Head Judge’s discretion.
- Solving all scorekeeping problems that arise in consultation with the Head Judge.
- Making sure all necessary information is included in the tournament’s report to be submitted to the DCI.
- Saving match data (such as slips or software data) to be turned over to the Tournament Organizer at the conclusion of the event.
Policy Additions
1.10A. For Multiplayer tournaments, if a Player loses a game during a match, they are expected to act as Spectators for the remainder of the ongoing game.
Example: Alice, Bob, Charles and Dani are playing a Best-of-One Multiplayer match. Bob loses the game to combat damage, but doesn’t leave the table and keeps spectating the game. From this point, until the end of the game, Bob is forbidden from participating in any political or strategic discussions, since at this point it would be advantageous for Bob if the game ended up in a draw.
Policy Additions
1.12A. For Multiplayer tournaments, there are differences on how to handle infractions when compared to Head-to-Head tournaments. Those differences are covered by the Multiplayer Supplemental Infraction Procedure Guide, located at https://github.com/MonarchDevelopment/MIPG-and-MSTR/blob/main/MSIPG.md
Policy Additions
2.1A. In Multiplayer tournaments, the usual number of games required to win a match is one. If a game ends in a draw, a new game is started including every player in the Pod.
The winner of a match is the player that won the required number of games, or the player that has won the most games.
In the case of a tie, the match is a draw between the players that participated in that match, with the exception of players that received match loss penalties or players that conceded the match.
Example: Alice is ranked first in the last round of swiss. This rule prevents her from being targeted by all other Pod participants followed by an intentional draw.
Policy Additions
2.2A In Multiplayer tournaments, both the seating order and first player are defined with a random method. There is no “winner of a random-method” as in Head-to-Head tournaments and therefore no choice to be made in swiss rounds. In single elimination, the player with the highest standing from the swiss portion of the tournament will go first, followed by the player with the next highest, until all player’s order is decided.
2.2B For Multiplayer tournaments where the number of game wins required to win a match is greater than one, the seating order must be randomized across all games. The starting player is decided using a random method for each game after the first.
Policy Additions
2.3A. Some Multiplayer tournaments and Formats might introduce changes to the sequence of pregame procedures. Refer to the mode or format specific rules in the Comprehensive Rules.
Policy Additions
2.4A. In Multiplayer tournaments, players may leave the table after losing a match as remaining players continue playing (see rule 800.4 in the Comprehensive Rules).
2.4B. If a player leaving the game would affect current or imminent game actions, those actions occur as though that player was still in the game until the end of the current phase.
Policy Additions
2.5A. In Multiplayer tournaments, organizers have two methods to consider when deciding how to handle end-of-round procedure: 2.5AA and 2.5AB. It is recommended that 2.5AA be utilized when round times are 75 minutes or less, and 2.5AB be utilized when rounds times are between 75 and 90 minutes.
2.5AA. In Multiplayer tournaments, use N turns instead of five, where N equals the number of remaining players. The number of extra turns is determined as time in the round is called. Once this number is determined, players leaving the game have no impact.
Example: Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Daniel are playing in a Multiplayer match. Alice is the active player when time in the round was called. Alice finishes playing turn 0, and since there are 4 remaining players in the Pod, 4 extra turns will be played. Bob takes his turn, then Charlie takes his. However, during Charlie’s turn, Alice and Daniel both lose the game. Bob and Charlie will take the remaining turns, since the number of extra turns was determined as time in the round was called and is not impacted by players leaving the game during extra turns.
2.5AB. In Multiplayer tournaments, if the time limit is reached before a winner is determined, the player whose turn it is finishes their turn. If the active player has already indicated that they’d like to pass the turn when the time limit is reached, that is considered to be in the next turn. If the game is incomplete at the end of additional turns, the game is considered a draw. If a judge assigned a time extension (because of a long ruling, deck check, or other reason) the end-of-match procedure does not begin until the end of the time extension.
Example: Arnold, Benjamin, Cam, and Durbin are playing in a Multiplayer Match. Arnold is the active player when time in the round is called. Arnold finishes their turn and passes. Since no winner has been declared, the match must be reported as a draw.
2.5B. In Multiplayer tournaments, it is strongly recommended that single elimination matches be untimed. Any deviation must be communicated to the players before tournament begins and any tiebreaker method should be based solely on information pertaining to the current match.
Policy Additions
3.1A. In Multiplayer tournaments, the following tie breakers are used to determine how a player ranks:
- Match points
- Match Win percentage
- Opponents’ Average Match points
- Opponents’ Match Win percentage
3.13. Hidden Information
Policy Additions
3.13A In Head-to-Head tournaments, having the permission to look at an opponent’s card that the opponent can also look at is technically the same as that card being revealed. However in Multiplayer tournaments, that is not true. Being able to look at a card that an opponent can look at doesn’t give a player the right to reveal that card to everyone. According to Head-to-Head Tournament rules though, players are free to reveal cards that they can look at and this clashes with the concept of distinguishing between the Look and Reveal actions as defined in CR 701.16 (a through d).
One of the reasons we want to allow players revealing hidden information they gained access to is to avoid a player accidentally revealing hidden information and either them or the players that gained that information accidentally being penalized. In Multiplayer it is expected that when a player is dealing with hidden information that pertains to one of their opponents, that they are extra careful about not physically revealing it. At the same time we also want to allow players to still be allowed to bluff about hidden information, so in any situation, players are allowed to verbally reveal any hidden information they may have gained.
In Multiplayer tournaments, the following rules apply to physically revealing card faces in hidden zones:
- Library: the owner of the cards in the library can choose to physically reveal as long as they have been instructed to look at them.
- Face down exile: any player with a currently applicable instruction allowing them to look at the cards may physically reveal them.
- Face down on the battlefield: the controller of the permanent(s) can choose to physically reveal them.
- Face down on the stack: the controller of the spell can choose to physically reveal them.
- Hand: the owner of the card(s) in hand can physically reveal them.
- Any other temporary face down zone: any player with a currently applicable instruction allowing them to look at the cards may physically reveal them.
For the purpose of physically revealing cards, an instruction to look at a card is not transferrable to another player controlling the instructed player. The choice of physically revealing hidden information belongs to the player as described above, which means that player-controlling effects, won't allow the controller to force the controlled player to physically reveal hidden information.
Example: Alice resolves a Gitaxian Probe, targeting Bob. Alice may look at Bob’s hand but may not reveal or force Bob to reveal their hand to the remaining players. In this example, Alice is being temporarily shared information about Bob’s hand, and as such she cannot transform the permission granted to her by the Look effect into a Reveal effect. Bob however may choose to reveal their hand at any point.
Example: Alice resolves a Praetor’s Grasp targeting Bob. Alice may not reveal cards from Bob’s library while resolving the Praetor’s Grasp, neither may Bob. Alice may reveal the chosen card that she exiled face-down. In this example, Bob doesn't know the identity of the cards in their library, and Alice is not the owner of the cards. Also, Alice gained a permission to search Bob's library, not to reveal it, therefore she will be able to only physically reveal the face down exiled card after she chooses one.
Example: Alice controls an Opposition Agent and is currently controlling Bob while Bob is searching their library. Although Alice can freely talk about cards in Bob's library with the remaining players, Alice cannot physically reveal the cards in Bob’s library to them. In this example, Alice is controlling Bob. However, controlling the player doesn’t grant Alice the right to make out-of-game choices or decisions. The choice to reveal hidden information at any time is granted by MTR 3.13, and as such is not an in-game choice or decision.
Example: Alice owns a Bane Alley Broker. She activated its ability exiling a Dark Ritual. At some point Bob gains control or Bane Alley Broker and also activates it exiling a Counterspell. Alice can still look at the Dark Ritual but she can no longer reveal it. Bob can also look at Alice's Dark Ritual and he can reveal it. If Charlie now gains control of Bane Alley Broker, both Alice, Bob and Charlie will be able to look at Dark Ritual and Counterspell, but now, only Charlie can physically reveal them.
Example: Bob is controlling Alice during her turn, due to resolving the activated ability of a Mindslaver. Alice draws an Ad Nauseam for the turn, then Alice casts and resolves Praetor's Grasp targetting Charlie, exiling a Lion's Eye Diamond. Bob has access to all of this hidden information, but Alice still has the choice of physically revealing cards from her hand, and neither Alice or Bob can physically reveal cards from Charlie's library. Alice will also be the one with the choice to physically reveal the Lion's Eye Diamond, not Bob.
Example: In a situation where Alice resolved Gather Specimens, Bob controls Lens of Clarity and Charlie is resolving a Reality Shift on a creature controlled by David, both Bob and Alice will gain information about the identity of the Manifested card from David entering the battlefield under Alice's control. However this was an object that is owned by David, created by an effect from Charlie, but neither of them have the right to look at. In this situation, Alice is the one deciding if she wants to physically reveal the hidden information regarding the manifested card.
Policy Additions
Status information consists of:
- Life totals.
- Counters a player has attached to them.
- Continuous effects with no defined expiration within the game that apply to that player, such as Monarch or City’s Blessing.
- Unspent mana in a player’s mana pool.
- Location in a dungeon.
- Amount of damage a player received from a Commander.
Free information consists of:
- Details of current game actions and past game actions that still affect the game state.
- The name of any visible object.
- The number and type of any counter that isn’t defined as status information.
- The state (whether it’s tapped, attached to another permanent, face down, etc.) and current zone of any object or player.
- The game score of the current match.
- The current step and/or phase and which player(s) are active.
- The number of times a Commander has been cast from the command zone.
Edits
Any references to “non-active player” within MTR 4.2 refer to each non-active player in turn order within Multiplayer tournaments.
The following shortcut doesn't apply in Multiplayer tournament games, as long as there are more than 2 players still participating in said game:
- A player is assumed to be attacking another player with their creatures and not any planeswalkers that player may control unless the attacking player specifies otherwise.
The reason being that we can't simply assume a default opponent when there are multiple options. Players will always need to define an opponent / planeswalker / battle when attacking. This also applies to creatures put directly into the battlefield and attacking.
Policy Additions
4.2A In Multiplayer tournaments, if a player requests priority and decides they do not wish to do anything, the request is nullified, priority is returned to the active player and the game state is backed up to the point after the last game action.
This is in contrast to Head-to-Head tournaments, where the priority is returned to the player that had originally it. This is done to prevent abuse where players verbally announce outside of their priority window, that they wish to do something and by not doing anything, they are potentially leading other players into passing priority.
Example: Alice is attacking and Bob is pondering what to do while they have priority. Daniel says they will use a Cyclonic Rift at the end of Alice’s turn. Thus, Bob passes priority and Charles also passes priority, followed by Daniel. Combat ends and during their second main phase, Alice plays a land and says “Pass the turn” - attempting to execute the Tournament Shortcut. Then, Bob and Charles both pass priority saying “OK “ on the Tournament Shortcut, knowing that Daniel would do something. However, Daniel says he changed his mind and doesn’t want to do anything.
If Daniel were to pass priority here, the turn would end and Bob’s turn would start, without Bob having a chance to do anything.
The Head-to-Head fix would allow Charles to have priority at this point, but Charles is fully tapped-out, so they can’t initiate a new round of priority.
With this fix, we allow Alice to have priority back in their second main phase, after they played the land for the turn.
Policy Additions
4.4A In Multiplayer tournaments, a player intervening during a loop may specify that one iteration of the loop is only partly performed in order to be able to take action at the appropriate point. If they do, the final iteration is only performed up to the chosen point. This process cycles through each player, in turn order, where they may propose a number of iterations and point in the loop where they wish to interrupt.
This process continues until an earliest point in the loop is not proposed, in which case it's considered that everyone is passing priority on the loop until it reaches the agreed point.
Then, the first player that proposed the earliest point in the loop is considered to be requesting priority to interrupt the shortcut created by the loop.
This process follows the same rules specified in MSTR 4.2A.
Policy Additions
Unsporting conduct will not be tolerated at any time. Tournament participants must behave in a polite and respectful manner. Unsporting conduct includes, but is not limited to:
- Using profanity.
- Engaging in behavior that could reasonably be expected to create a feeling of being harassed, bullied, or stalked.
- Arguing with, acting belligerently toward, or insulting tournament officials, players, or spectators.
- Violating the personal privacy or safety of any participant, including spectators and staff.
- Using social media to bully, shame, or intimidate other participants.
- Failing to follow the instructions of a tournament official.
- Violating the Tournament Organizer’s Code of Conduct (if applicable).
Policy Additions
6.1A. Some formats have different deck construction restrictions defined in the Comprehensive Rules beginning in section 900.
This section as whole is an addition from this supplement and should be interpreted as being under the “6. Constructed Tournament Rules” section of the Magic Tournament Rules: After “6.7. Pioneer Format Deck Construction”.
Commander Format introduces changes to the Deck Construction rules as defined in section 903.5 of the Comprehensive Rules.
Refer to the official banlist available at: https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/
This section as whole is an addition from this supplement and should be interpreted as being next to the Format-specific sections of the Magic Tournament Rules: After “9. Two-Headed-Giant Tournament Rules” and before “10. Sanctioning Rules”.
X.1A. In Commander matches, the required number of game wins to win a match is one. As per 2.1, a Match continues until the required number of game wins is attained by a player or ends in a draw.
X.1B. In Commander matches, players play against each other in Pods. Each Pod should be composed of four players. In the case that the number of participants is not divisible by 4, it is recommended that players that can’t be matched in Pods of four receive a Bye for that round instead.
X.2A. Commander Damage is considered Status Information and therefore subject to the rules defined in section 4.1 Player Communication.
X.3A. Due to Commander being typically played in Best-of-One matches, the way the turn cycles are organized in the Pod, and the fact that the first player also draws, the Play-Draw Rule is ignored.
Instead, for the Swiss portion of the tournament, seating order (and thus turn order) will be established by a random method decided by the Tournament Organizer. The turn order cannot be altered except by in-game effects.
For the single elimination portion of the tournament, the seating and play order is defined by the standings from the Swiss portion of the tournament, in accordance with rule 2.2A Play/Draw Rule.
X.3B. If the tournament match structure includes multiple games per match, it is recommended that the seating order is randomized between games, as well as the starting player, because otherwise all the players would continue playing with the same priority order as before.
X.4A. Before drawing opening hands, players will reveal their Companion (if any) and then their Commander as per Comprehensive Rules 103.2c. All other pregame procedures are performed as normal.
X.5A Because Commander decks are 100-card singleton lists, after a Deck Check is performed tournament staff should award extra time to the affected match totaling the time spent on the deck check, plus four (4) extra minutes to account for the additional shuffling time needed.
X.6A Refer to the Comprehensive Rules (section 903.13. Commander Draft) for instructions on how Commander Booster Draft works.
X.7A Due to the nature of Commander gameplay, it is strongly recommended that single-elimination rounds be run with no time limit. Any deviation from this recommendation must be communicated to the players before tournament begins and any tiebreaker method should be based solely on information pertaining to the current match.
Policy Additions
10.1A. For Multiplayer tournaments at Regular Rules Enforcement Level, a minimum of four (4) players must participate.
10.1B. For Multiplayer tournaments at Competitive Rules Enforcement Level, a minimum of sixteen (16) players must participate.
Policy Additions
10.2A. For Multiplayer tournaments at Regular Rules Enforcement Level, a minimum of one (1) round should be played.
10.2B. For Multiplayer tournaments at Competitive Rules Enforcement Level, a minimum of two (2) rounds should be played.
10.4A. For Multiplayer tournaments, it is recommended that Tournament Organizers use Squirebot. The most up-to-date version can be found at (https://github.com/MonarchDevelopment/SquireCore/tree/main/docs/SwissPairingAlgorithm.md)
In Multiplayer tournaments, the modified swiss pairing algorithm is as follows:
- Pairings should be done by sorting players by performance (Match points plus Tiebreakers in order), followed by preferably matching players following the performance order, starting from the highest performing players, by allocating them to Pods. This is referred to as Top-to-Bottom assignment.
- This matching process must avoid matching between players that have already played against each other during previous rounds.
- In the case where Players cannot receive any match during the first Top-to-Bottom pass, the process should iteratively attempt to swap the unmatched players with players that can fit into the incomplete Pods (typically the last pods of the tournament, since the first pass happened in a Top-to-Bottom fashion). The swapped players will then become "Paired up" or "Paired down" depending if they ended in a highest rated pod or not.
- In competitive REL events, Byes should be awarded to lowest rated players in the case the division of the total number of participants by the number of Pods has a remainder greater than zero.
- Note: The reasoning behind this is to avoid tainting the competitive spirit of the event by presenting a random situation to the players where their deck, prepared to play in a pod of 4, all of a sudden is paired up to a pod of 3
- In regular REL events, instead of awarding Byes in case of an uneven distribution of players through the pods, players should be instead matched into one ore more pods of smaller size, always trying to minimize the difference in pod size towards the norm. Examples:
- In an event with 23 players, pair players using 5 pods with size 4 and 1 pod with size 3
- In an event with 22 players, pair players using 4 pods with size 4 and 2 pods with size 3
- In an event with 21 players, pair players using 3 pods with size 4 and 3 pods with size 3
In Multiplayer tournaments, the single-elimination playoffs are paired according to the following pattern:
Uneven cuts:
- In the case of a top 40 cut, the top 8 seeded players skip the quarterfinals, with the remaining 32 players being paired in 8 Pods for the quarterfinals, according to the pattern above.
- In the case of a top 10 cut, the top 2 seeded players skip the semifinals, with the remaining 8 players being paired in 2 pods for the semifinals, according to the pattern above.
In the semi finals, the seeds of the winners from the quarterfinals are taken into account and the same pattern as above is applied for the semi final pairings.
Policy Additions
- For Multiplayer tournaments at Regular REL—90 minutes
- For Multiplayer tournaments at Competitive REL—75 minutes
- For Multiplayer single elimination matches—no time limit
Policy Additions
In Multiplayer tournaments, players earn N+1 match points for each match win, where N is the standard number of players in a Pod for that tournament.
The winner is the one that by the end of the round time has the most game wins or that before the end of the round time has achieved the required number of game wins.
In the case of a tie, all players in the pod are awarded 1 match point, including players that have fewer game points than the ones tied with most game points. Beware of the exceptions to this in rule 2.1. Match Structure (penalties and concessions).
Players that lost the match are awarded 0 points.
In Best-of-One matches, the match points coincide with game points.
A player who receives a bye in a Multiplayer tournament receives N+1 match points, where N is the standard number of players in a Pod for that tournament.
Policy Additions
In Multiplayer tournaments, players earn N+1 game points for each game they win, where N is the standard number of players in a Pod for that tournament.
Each player who began a game that does not end with a winner being declared will earn 1 point.
Policy Additions
In Multiplayer tournaments, the Match Win Percentage is defined as follows:
Policy Additions
In Multiplayer tournaments, Opponents’ Average Match Points is defined as follows:
Note that Byes do not count towards n.
Policy Additions
In Multiplayer tournaments, Opponent Match Win % is defined as follows:
When using the MW% of an opponent in the formula above, we don't minimum-cap it to 0.33 when compared to Head-to-head tournaments.
Instead, the minimum-cap is defined by:
Policy Additions
For Multiplayer tournaments, in a configuration of four (4) players per Pod, it is recommended to use the following number of rounds:
| Players | Swiss Rounds | Playoff |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | None (Run 1 Single elimination round) | None |
| 5-15 | 2 | Top 4 |
| 16-32 | 3 | Top 10 |
| 33-64 | 4 | Top 16 |
| 65-128 | 5 | Top 16 |
| 129-256 | 5 | Top 40 |
For Multiplayer tournaments with more than 257 participants, perform a Top 40 Playoff and apply the following mathematical formula to figure out the number of rounds to play:
Between 257 and 1024 players, the recommended number of rounds is 6.
With 1024+ players the recommended number of rounds becomes 7.
In any case, you may want to consider splitting very large events into smaller ones that get merged afterwards
When the number of players is uneven with the desired Pod size, and byes are being awarded, consider that for each player being awarded a Bye, it's as if 3 invisible players would also exist. Think of these invisible players as dummies that the player awarded the Bye got to play against and win. So, in a scenario where you have 30 players enrolled in the event, because you will have to award 2 Byes, you should actually consider using a number of rounds as if you had 36 players, to mitigate the power imbalance of the multiple Byes.
Created by Erin Leonard, Fábio Batista, and Graydon Beadle
Consultation and editing by Landon Liberator, Bryan Spellman, Savannah Beard, Nicholas Hammond, Erin Leonard, Mark Mason, Tyler Bloom, and Ethan Smilg