🧛 VAMPIRIC TUTORNAMENT — Mono Black cEDH Halloween Spook-Tacular Extravaganza 🧛
Halloween Mono-Black cEDH Tournament — Battlegrounds Framingham, MA
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 — check-in 6:00–6:10pm, Round 1 at 6:15pm sharp
Philosophy
This tournament is casual, fun, and free. We want exciting games, swampy nonsense, and good vibes. Competitive play is encouraged — unsportsmanlike play is not. It is Halloween. Plan accordingly.
The Special Rule
Your commander must be mono-black. Its color identity must be exactly black — no other colors, and no colorless commanders.
Partner, Background, Friends Forever, Doctor's Companion, and similar pairings are legal as long as the combined color identity of the pair is exactly black.
This is the only modification to official Commander rules. All other Magic and Commander rules apply, including the official Commander banlist and the usual color identity rules for your 99.
Format
- All games are 4 players (see Pods & Pairings for what happens if attendance isn't divisible by 4)
- Three rounds of Swiss, then a final table for the top 4 (final table played at a date/time TBD)
- Starting life total is 40, as usual
- No draws. Players get points according to their placement. Ties for placement are broken by life total.
- You can also get points for donating to Trans Lifeline, supporting the shop, dressing up, and other ways!
- Decklists are required. Bring a Moxfield/Archidekt link or a paper list to check-in, or register here on Topdeck. Decks lock when Round 1 starts.
- Proxies are allowed and strongly encouraged. Contact Marty if you need cards printed — he will do it for free as quickly as he can.
- Any cards officially spoiled by WotC but not yet officially printed are legal for play.
Schedule
- Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
- Location: Battlegrounds Framingham, MA
- Check-in & decklists: 6:00–6:10pm
- Round 1: 6:15pm
- Round 2: 7:30pm (or sooner if rounds end early)
- Round 3: 8:45pm (or sooner if rounds end early)
- Done by roughly: 10:00pm
- Final: Played on another day, unless rounds end early and we have time
Rounds start promptly on schedule. Be checked in by 6:10 or you're not in Round 1. Be at your table when pairings go up.
Entry & Prizes
- Entry is free
- Prizes: TBD
- Additional prize pool donations from players are welcome and encouraged
Rounds & Time
- Each round is 65 minutes. Marty will call time.
- When time is called, the active player finishes their current turn, then the game ends and placements are determined (see Trick Points). No additional turns.
- The final turn is capped at 5 additional minutes after time is called. When the cap is reached, nothing new may be put on the stack. Anything already on the stack resolves, and the game ends the moment the stack is empty.
- In short: the game ends when the active player finishes their turn or 5 minutes have passed since time was called, whichever comes first.
- Pods that finish early should report their result right away and enjoy the break.
- Deliberately stalling to protect a life-total lead is slow play and will be handled at Marty's discretion. Win the game or die trying.
🎃 Trick Points — Scoring
Points you earn by playing Magic are Trick Points. These are the points you're used to during a tournament.
- 1st → 5 Trick Points
- 2nd → 2 Trick Points
- 3rd → 1 Trick Point
- 4th → 0 Trick Points
There are no draws. Every game produces a full 1st-through-4th placement:
- If a player won the game, they are 1st.
- Players still in the game when it ended are placed next, highest life total first.
- Players who were eliminated or conceded are placed after all surviving players, in reverse order of elimination. The last player out places highest.
- If time is called with no winner, all surviving players are placed by life total. The highest life total takes 1st and the full 5 Trick Points.
Life total clarifications:
- Your life total is whatever it is when the game ends. Negative life totals count as negative (looking at you, Platinum Angel).
- Poison counters, commander damage, and "you lose the game" effects only matter if they actually eliminate you.
- Conceding counts as being eliminated at that moment.
- Points are never split. Ties go to whoever has the most cards in their graveyard. Still tied? d20 roll-off.
- If the game ends in a draw under the game rules (for example, everyone loses at once), treat it like time was called: surviving players are placed by their life totals immediately before the game ended.
Pods & Pairings
- Round 1 pods are random.
- Rounds 2 and 3 are paired by Swiss score (Trick Points plus Treat Points — see Treat Points below), grouping players with similar scores. Repeat pods are avoided where possible.
- If attendance isn't divisible by 4, some pods will have 3 players. A 3-player pod places 1st/2nd/3rd for 5/2/1 Trick Points.
Standings & Tiebreakers
Your Swiss score is your Trick Points across all three rounds plus your Treat Points (see Treat Points below).
Tiebreakers (in order):
- Most 1st-place finishes
- Highest combined final life total across all Swiss rounds (a round you were eliminated in counts as 0)
- d20 roll-off
The Final
- The top 4 players after Swiss play one game to determine the champion on a date and time TBD after Halloween, unless we can play and end the game before 10pm on 10/28. The shop closes promptly at 10pm so we can't have any gameplay after that.
- The final uses the same rules as Swiss rounds: 65 minutes, active player finishes their turn with a 5-minute cap, placements by life total
- Treat Points do not carry into the final — it's played straight
- If two or more players are tied for 1st on life total when the final ends, the tie goes to whoever has the most cards in their graveyard. Still tied? d20 roll-off.
- Final standings are: the final's placements for 1st–4th, then Swiss standings for everyone else
🍬 Treat Points
Points you earn without playing Magic are Treat Points. These "for fun" points are added directly to your Swiss score and count toward standings and pairings. They do not apply to the final.
There are three ways to earn Treat Points:
Support Trans Lifeline — 1 Treat Point per $10, no cap
Donate here: https://give.translifeline.org/give/t851588/#!/donation/checkout
- Every $10 donated earns 1 Treat Point. A $50 donation earns 5 points, and five separate $10 donations also earn 5 points.
- Donations count from the moment these rules are posted until the end of Round 3. Donations after that are still wonderful but don't affect standings.
Wear a costume — 1 Treat Point
Show up to check-in in a costume. Marty decides what counts as a costume. Effort is rewarded. A hat is not a costume.
Buy into the shop's daily raffle — 1 Treat Point
Buy an entry in Battlegrounds' daily raffle and show Marty the ticket. Only one entry counts, no matter how many you buy.
A note on buying your way in
Yes, a big enough donation can carry you to the final table without winning a game. That's fine with us. Entry is free, nobody is playing for their livelihood, and every dollar of it goes to Trans Lifeline. If someone donates their way into the top 4, they've done more good on the day than anyone who merely won three games of Magic — and they still have to win the final with Trick Points alone.
👻 Spooky Surprises
- One or more surprise rules or events will be revealed during the day.
- Most surprises will be announced before the round they apply to. At least one will announce itself.
- Every surprise applies equally to every pod in its round.
- No surprise will require you to change your deck or your commander. Everything legal in your 99 at check-in stays legal.
- Surprises are fun. Surprises will affect gameplay. Surprises are not optional.
- Marty knows what the surprises are. Marty is also playing in the tournament. This is a big reason the tournament is free to enter, so there's not a financial conflict of interest. (Marty tried to design his deck agnostic to the surprises--take his word.)
Reporting Results
When your game ends, the pod reports their game results on Topdeck.
Banlist
This tournament follows the official Commander banlist. Nothing else is banned, and nothing will be banned before or during the event.
That means K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth; Gwenom, Remorseless; Tergrid, God of Fright; and every other terrifying mono-black commander are fair game. Build with that in mind. If a commander is a problem, the solution is in your 99.
Fine Print
You may use Griselbrand as your commander if, and only if, you dress up as Griselbrand. Marty is the sole judge of whether you have dressed up as Griselbrand. This rule is not a joke.
Sportsmanship, Collusion & Outside Assistance
- Normal game politicking — deal-making, negotiation, alliances — is part of cEDH and explicitly allowed.
- Colluding to manipulate game outcomes or standings beyond the bounds of normal play (including trading life totals or placements for anything outside the game) will be handled at Marty's discretion, up to and including disqualification.
- Players who are no longer active in a game may not advise or influence active players. Spectators may not advise or influence active players. This applies to Swiss rounds and the final.
- Phones are fine for oracle text, life tracking, and decklists. They are not fine for getting advice from outside the game.
Tournament Organizer
Marty McCrory (@mcjortss on Discord) is the TO and head judge. His rulings are final. (Marty may consult an actual judge working at Battlegrounds for actual rules questions, and you may request this since Marty isn't a certified judge, though his decisions are still final.)
Marty reserves the right to administer punishments for goofy ahhh shit that ruins the vibe, at his sole discretion.
🤖 AI Disclosure
These rules were drafted with the help of an AI assistant (Claude). Marty provided the format, structure, scoring, and all of the actual decisions, and used the AI to organize, word, and proofread the document. Every rule here was reviewed and approved by a human, and any questions or disputes are settled by Marty, not a chatbot.
