Changes to Organized Play for 2013

by James Hoskin, Director of Organized Play

25th March 2013

Version 3.2 of the Continuing Committee's Organized Play Guide (OPG) is released today, with immediate effect. You can download the guide from the links on our homepage, or from this direct link: https://www.trekcc.org/op/TCCOPG.pdf. As the document has evolved over the years, fewer changes are needed. This year's changes include:

Guidelines for Online Play

As described in Section 12: Guidelines for Online Play - Following consultation with online players, guidelines for situations unique to online play have been defined.

Printable Card Policy

As described in Section 5: Printable Card Policy - In order to reduce the confusion surrounding card legality following an expansion's release, the errata legality policy has been modified. It now says that First Edition converted cards released as part of an expansion become legal for play with the rest of the expansion one week after it has been released. This removes the situation were an expansion was released and some cards were legal immediately, and others were legal one week later.

Note Taking During Games

As described in Section 7.8: Tournament conduct - The rule defining what can and cannot be written down during a game has been reintroduced. Originally created by Decipher, this rule was accidentally omitted from the Continuing Committee's original Organized Play Guide. This oversight was only noticed last year. The rule now says "Players may write down the player who took the first turn, the time the game started/is due to end and changes to either player's score. Players may also write any changeable or selectable characteristic of a card (Example: [1E] the classification and gender of a Soong-type Android or [2E] the skill on Vina, Orion Slave Girl) on a slip of paper and insert that in the card's sleeve. No other note taking is permitted during a game."

Cutting Cards

As described in Section 7.8: Tournament conduct - A rule defining how to cut cards has been introduced following the 2012 Championship season, where some players wanted to shuffle their opponent's deck as part of the pre-game cut. Players may now cut an opponent's pile of cards only once, and are specifically banned from performing any kind of shuffle.

Time Limits

As described in Section 4.1.2: Draft - The time limit for Second Edition Draft games is reduced to 45 minutes.

As described in Section 7.2: Initial Pairings - The time limit for Tribbles tournaments has been clarified. Rather than two hours per game, it is now listed as one hour for each pod of five rounds. This removes the situation where a small tournament with only five rounds was given a two hour time limit.

Card Limits in Draft and Sealed Events

As described in Section 4.1.2: Draft and Section 4.1.3: Sealed - The rule removing card limits in draft and sealed events has been expanded to cover all three games: First Edition, Second Edition and Tribbles.

Academy Card Pool

As described in Section 4.2.6: Academy - The card pool for Second Edition Academy tournaments has been clarified. Virtual Promo (VP) rarity cards are not legal in this card pool.

Capping Differential

As described in the Glossary - If the rules specify that the game's victory conditions are reduced from 100 points, Differential is capped at that number. For example: In a Second Edition Slipstream tournament, where you only need 50 points to win; points in excess of 50 do not count towards Differential, Differential for a single game will range between -50 and +50, players with an Earned Bye receive a Differential of +50, and if a game ends due to concession or other non-score means, the winning player receives a Differential of +50 and his or her opponent receives a Differential of -50.

League Schedule Reduced

As described in Section 11.2: League Schedule - This section has been updated to reflect the reduction of the league schedule from eight months to six months for the 2012/13 season and beyond.

Minor Additions/Corrections/Clarifications

A number of minor additions, corrections and/or clarifications have been made throughout the Organized Play Guide. Additions are marked with [NEW]. Corrections and clarifications are marked with [UPDATED]. In addition, a number of links to rules documents have been updated since last year.

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Please remember that all of these changes are effective immediately. If you have any questions, you can ask them in this thread, or on the relevant gameplay forum.

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