What is up with the Mythic Championship Qualifier!

Hello all. Boy was this a mess! Let me see if I can help straighten things out and put forth a few issues that have guided our actions in this, and apparently caused consternation in the community (although I recognized very few people who play regularly at my shop making comments). First, the easiest problem to solve: There will be prize support. I will include a breakdown at the bottom of this article. Here is what happened. Wizards changed the prize support offered to stores between the MCQ and the RPTQ it is replacing. Before Wizards provided the packs given out at an RPTQ and in addition, provided a very valuable card. With the MCQ, they only provide the card. I missed that somewhere and thought they would provide packs, so they were not mentioned. When I discovered packs were a problem, I called every store running an MCQ from here to Texas, took the average prize support offered, and that is what we decided on. This number was adjusted by the fact that only 6 of those stores were charging 30 dollars or less, most were charging much more than we are. Also, most had a cap of 226 compared to our 132. So even if we both gave out 50% of the entry fee as prizes, the store with a cap of 226, or that was charging $60 to attend would make more than we were, so I feel our prize support is fair given our lower event fee.

The second problem is judges. For some time now Wizards and the judges have been at odds, primarily because the judges are a separate entity from Wizards. Wizards does not set policy for judges, nor do they police infractions. Recently, some Magic Judges sued Wizards claiming that they were de-facto employees of Wizards and were due certain benefits. Wizard’s response was to distance themselves from the judge program and send out a letter to retailers stating that judges were now employees of the stores. This has been a death blow to the judge program because the State of California dictates to retailers how employees are paid. No more under-the table deals of boxes for work. Now everything has to be above-board. We asked several of our judges, including an L2 if they would like a job. We were turned down, most do this as a fun gig and didn’t want to sell product or clean bathrooms in addition to judging events, and I get that.

On the note of our store not having a certified judge on staff, I did in fact hire an L1 on to work the days when we have Magic events that require someone with knowledge of the game. Wizards has stated that all we need is someone with an understanding of Competitive Rules Enforcement Level. We have that. They also pointed out that even L2’s make mistakes, they are not infallible.

So that is where we are at, I hope that helps with understanding what happened. Here is the breakdown of prize support for the MCQ…..