We would like to announce that a misprint was made in the Fields of Honor booster release, and apologize to our players for any inconvenience it may have caused. In order to maintain consistency with Organized Play globally, we have decided to ban the misprinted card in tournaments. Those who have purchased a misprinted card can send it in and we will replace it with the correct card.

One in every 132 packs of the European production of Fields of Honor contains a misprinted hero card: the front of the card shows Honor 3/208 – Kinivus the Focused, while the back is that of Honor 13/208 – Emek the Equalizer. This applies to all European translated editions as well.

If you have purchased a misprinted card and would like to exchange it for the correct version, please send it to:

Upper Deck International – Customer Service
Flevolaan 15
1382 JX Weesp
The Netherlands

Once again we apologize for the mistake and hope it hasn’t inconvenienced our player base too much.

Upper Deck International

Players qualified for the realm championship

200966818 Erik Dirks
204409519 Lynn Torrekens
200966793 Simon De Grieve
104152328 Bert D'huyvetter
101534206 Frisque Maxence
103200190 Raemdonck Cederic
108274657 Hamers Juan
203939200 Oliver Delcande
108275535
104157448
103499332
107524070

Ah! A brand new year brings new resolutions to be broken. The sheer joy of thinking what you will do and then most probably will not do. Let us be honest here. How many times have we made a resolution and then never succeeded at it?

Today however is not about that kind of resolutions, I\'m going to show you how I decided on some resolutions I made that I will keep.

Judge Resources
Long ago, when I was still a young judge and organizer, I looked at promises and resolutions as a way to make my players happy. I would say something in the lines of: \"I\'m working on something really cool, I promise it will be done soon.\" However, sometimes I couldn\'t get that thing done in time, or not done at all. With that, I gave a bad message to the players. How could they still trust me, if I didn\'t keep my promises? That\'s why I bring you a golden rule.

Do not make promises that you are not sure you can not keep

\"Wow, thank you Pat, for your awesome teachings on the way of the life!\"

Yes, I know, it is a known rule. But I also know that many of you will often break it. Let me tell you how you can make promises and keep them!

Before you could go make a promise, you have to check your resources. What do you have and what can you still get. There are 5 main types of resources: prize support, money income, time available, shop support and game support. There are a few smaller things, but we will not discuss those today.

Prize support is what you technically get for \"free\". Nothing is free, most obviously, but sometimes you can make a deal with the distributor or you local shop to give you some extra boosters, each time he sells a lot of stuff. You could also count Battlegrounds kits in this since that is the kind of support UDE will give you.

Money income is another very important factor. I am not suggesting prize money here, but buying an extra booster for a tournament could equal to prize money for up to 19 players. Money income usually comes from entrance fees. Many organizers still underestimate the impact of an entrance fee. At each of my local small constructed tournaments, the entrance fee is 1€. This is a very low number, but it allows even the youngest to join that tournament every week and more players will automatically attract even more. Luckily none of that money has to go to renting the place, since I am backed up by a shop with place for tournaments. In the case you have to rent the place, might I suggest the following calculation: (rent prize / average number of players) + 1. That number should allow for enough extra money for prizes. I have seen organizers asking 4€ or more for a tournament, but all players get a prize! Usually this will be an extra booster. I understand the idea behind this, it is an easy way for a shop to sell boosters. However, from personal experience, I know that if a player comes for a tournament where he will not get a certain booster, he will still buy one after all. This is why I personally believe that asking money to give a prize a player would buy anyway, is a bad way of attracting more players.

Back to the main subject now, the 3rd resource is \"available time\". A short way to explain this resource: \"at what times can you get a local community together?\" However, there is more to it than meets the eye. The most obvious parts are the time you have the place available for playing and the time that your players can come and play. An often forgotten part is the time that the players are just playing. \"But Patrick, what can we do when players are just playing?\" Remember that in each game, there are 2 players. Use the opponent to verify the truth. The truth to what, you ask? Anything you can come up with. Campaigns, \"achievements\", tournaments spread over several days. This is a good solution for communities with NO store. Forums can be created for free, tell your players to go on it and then start the tournament. Each game in the tournament, both the winner and the loser have to verify who won. That way, you do not have to rent a place, players just get together on their own terms and play!

If you do have a shop where you can play at, you already have one of the main possibilities of the Shop Support resource. Having a local shop to play at, usually for free, is a great way to enhance your community. Other shop support could be prize support, money income support, time available support. A shop can essentially support you in all ways. A question that might rise with the shop owners that read this: \"What do I gain from this?\" The answer is simple: Customers. If you make a deal where the customers can buy whole boosterboxes at a reduced prize when a new set releases, or other similar deals. Now I can hear a select few of the shopkeepers saying: \"So I gain money, by losing money?\" Yes, when you do something like that, you will lose some money at first, but the players will remember what you did. They will start buying cards more often from your shop. Some will even start believing that buying boosters from you gives them more luck. I used to know a player who always travelled quite a distance to a shop in Antwerp to buy boosters, well knowingly that there was a shop right around his corner. He just liked the other Shopkeeper better, not only because sometimes he did a deal for the players, but because he understood what the players wanted. It is a gain in the long run and aren\'t we all hoping your shop stays open for more than a few years?

The final resource is game support. Game support is not like the other resources, it can\'t always be measured and it fluctuates more than the others. How do you know how many players actually play the game in your region? \"But Patrick, we can just count all the players that come to our shop!\" Oh, great idea! Then we don\'t even have to count those countless players that buy their cards in another shop, a shop incapable of doing tournaments. As you can see, there are quite a few players who do not know about your tournaments. Your small local tourneys probably won\'t attract them, but if you want to organize a bigger tourney, or you get the chance to organize a regionals, then those players may consider coming. Bigger tournaments also attract new players. If you forget that all those players could come, you might have a lack of room, or maybe not enough prizes. This usually gives a bad first impression. Try to know how many players are out there. Visit other shops and maybe even other cities. Put a post on a general forum. Getting an idea of the total game support is time consuming, I admit, but by doing it you gain a valuable resource!

All those resources together will teach us a lot of things, but they will not teach us what we can do with them. They are just pieces to the puzzle. Combined with the other pieces you will be able to make your promises. Next week we will go over some other pieces of the puzzle. Tune in next week, for part 2 of the New Year\'s Resolutions!

Christmas is around the corner. It is a moment of peace and silence. Where everyone joins together to make one happy group of happy people...

But enough of that stuff, now it is World of Warcraft time!

Judge Resource
Even though we are not going to discuss Christmas, we will discuss one of the values that come with this time of happiness, namely helping eachother. There are many ways to help eachother, some are obvious, like lending cards or learning the newer players how to play. If it would make yourself happy, it will probably make someone else happy. So do a good thing and everyone is happy!

A judge is by definition always in the Christmas spirit. We judge to make the game fun for the players. However, many judges can do extra things to make the game better. Judging on another location is one of those. Let us look in depth what judging on location can do for the game and for yourself.

Obviously, you are improving the game overall. A place which has no resident judge to solve rule discussions can learn a lot from one day with a judge. Most probably, the players will have plenty of questions ready if you told them that you will be coming for a day. This helps those players improve their skill and also their fun.

New players visiting the shop will get a feeling that this game is not just any game. There are "professionals" at work here. This is often reason enough for players to become more serious with their small little hobby. This works even better if you are the proud wearer of an official Upperdeck Judge shirt. New players are always a great influence for the game. It helps to keep the metagame fresh and helps to keep judges busy!

Something else a judge can do on location is training a new judge. Sometimes a player wants to become a judge, but due to lack of an example, they do not know how to start learning for it. This article series is one way to start improving, but having a judge helping you with every move, works even better. The "teacher" has an assistant to help him with the tournament, while the "student" has someone to show them how to improve their judging. And the players? They have even more professionals to help them play their game!

The previous point brings up another interesting point. Sometimes one judge is not enough for a slightly bigger tournament. If you are known to the organizer or the judge, they might ask you to come help out. We are not looking at a "student-teacher" relationship here, one could better think of it as a team relationship. Two persons teaming up to make a tournament even better.

So we already concluded that the players have some awesome profits from judges on location. But judges are humans as well, so what do they gain from this?

Experience! At first glance you could say that he also gains this from his own environment. However, think about the decks that a judge sees at his own environment? Most players build a deck and then try to improve that one. That means that the questions that player will need to ask are limited to that deck. When judging on another location than his usual one, a judge will see new decks and new rules. This is a great way to gain experience.

A final note on judging on location is that one can do it on top of your usual store, if you can find enough time for it. Judging on location is not a requirement, but if 1 in 2 judges can do this, we are already serving 50% more places. A world where no player lacks a judge is what I once hope to see!

Ruling of the Day...
Temporary Dissipation is a card in Drums of War with a rather special power.

It removes all allies in your party from the game and puts them back in play at the end of the next turn. But what with activated powers? Can I remove Myriam after using her power to put her back in at the end of the opponent his turn, after which I activate her again?
The answer is no.
CR415.10a tells us that a card which changes zones is no longer the same card. This means that when it enters play again, it was not in your party continuously since the start of your last turn. Does this make Temporary Dissipation a bad card? Imagine removing two Parvinks and you know the answer.
Also an extra small note, all allies removed that way are put back into your party, even those owned by another.

Things I heard
I have been pretty deaf past days. I did go to a minis tournament in Spelfanaat Mechelen past Sunday, where I got beaten by my own girlfriend, who won the tournament. Good game to myself :(

Next two weeks is Feast of Winter Veil, so you will not see me on this website. I will be out feasting the whole week. Or as some might refer to it, studying for exams. So I will be taking a two week break from posting articles and you should leave your computer alone coming weeks and which your family and friends a merry Christmas!

See you all next year, when Judge! articles will be back, fresh and ready for a new year of articles!

Phew, again a bigger tourney done. Expect the pictures and the more in depth discussion somewhere the coming week. Allow me to congratulate the winner first: Congratulations Sjoerd Mulder!

Judge Report: Realm Championship
Let's start with telling you what happened, before giving you an opinion of the day.

It was a great day. Around 10 am the other judges and I were already present. We knew we had to work hard and fast, because the schedule was very tight. However, for the players in the Benelux we were especially willing to do this. I did not have anything special to announce during the Player Briefing, so the Realm Championship started on time. With 22 players and a few more that showed up later, it was a rather small Championship, but the players that did attend were the best of Wetlands. Thus it still was a blast. When round three was done, I announced that we did not have enough players for the Realm Open, so those having a bad run in the Championship dropped and joined the Open. The number was still only ten players, that is why all players agreed to not have a Top8 cut. Both tournaments then went on without any problem and by the end of the day, around 21.00 we had crowned our Realm Championship winner: Sjoerd Mulder. I looked back at a day well done and I already looked forward to the next Realm Championship.

I have very few remarks about the Championship. Due to all players being good, very few things actually happened. It felt like a normal tournament. The only major downside of the day was the lack of players coming for the Realm open. We only had ten To all those who did not come because they did not qualify, next time come! I feel many players did not realize that there was a rather big side event. Not only a bigger one, but we can always do smaller side events as well. If I have the judges I could even do a Gunslinging event. So next time, be there. You are not helping yourself have more fun, but you are helping another to have more fun!

"But Patrigan, when is the next time?" Well, young orc, keep an eye on this website and you will know! Next big Wetlands tournament will be the next Realm Championship, situated somewhere in the Netherlands. So for the announcements, keep an eye on this website!

Ruling of the Day
I have 3 small ones from the Realm Championship for you today.

First is Quakelord Razek Warhoof.

So what is so special about him?
If you get attacked by him, your hero will not be able to use weapons. They all get exhausted in the attack window, when his ability triggers.
However if your hero attacks him, you can still chain the strike effect on his power, because then it triggers in the defend window. This is due to defenders only becoming defenders in the defense window. (CR602.3) So to kill Quakelord in a solo deck, you can attack the guy head on.

Second Rules question is about Brelnor Mindbender.

The question asked was as follows: When I destroy Brelnor, can I immediately attack with the ally I got back? The answer is No. The reasoning is simple, CR601.2a tells us that to be a legal proposed attacker, the ally has to be in the player's party continuously since the beginning of that player his turn. This is not true for this ally, since he was in the opposing party at the start of your turn.

The final question for today was about Spell Ricochet. It is actually more a little trick than it is a ruling.

If I, as a mage, play an card. You as another mage play an ability to interrupt my card. Let's say Nether Fracture. I may then play Spell Ricochet targetting himself. This means that your Nether Fracture will interrupt my Spell Ricochet and not my initial played card. However, since Spell Ricochet will resolve first, Nether Fracture his target has become illegal and will then fizzle (CR706.2, 709.2g last point).
This last one is indeed an intriguing one. The first time I ever saw it happen, I actually stopped the game from continuing for a sec, so I could figure out what happened. Luckily I realized quickly enough, but it shows that as a judge, I should always improve myself.

Things I heard...
WoW Miniature Deluxe Starter are in stores now. Go grab them for a guaranteed loot card. If yours does not contain one, follow the steps explained in this thread: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/WOW/COMMUNITY/forums/thread/1571173.aspx
World of Warcraft Miniatures tourneys are popping up. Look in your local and less local shops for news about this.

Once more Congratulations Sjoerd Mulder. I hope to see you all next week for another exciting JUDGE! call!

For those of you who aren't sure yet, you can find a list of all Belgian invites in our forum

Below you can find all the necessary information for the tournament:

The final will be held on December 6th at Outpost Antwerp, tournament start is scheduled at 11am, doors will open at 10am.

Participation is free, but only qualified players can participate. Format is Constructed (this means all sets are allowed).

Prize Support:
1st Place
• Hotel & Travel for a 3 night vacation to a destination of your choice (must be within the continent of their Realm)
• Four Redemption Extended Art Cards
• Warrior Deckbox

2nd Place
• Apple 16GB iPod Touch
• Four Redemption Extended Art Cards
• Warrior Deckbox

3-4th Place
• Nintendo Wii
• Four Redemption Extended Art Cards
• Warrior Deckbox

5-8th Place
• Apple iPod Nano
• Four Redemption Extended Art Cards
• Warrior Deckbox

9-16th Place
• Four Redemption Extended Art Cards
• Warrior Deckbox

17-32nd Place
• Warrior Deckbox

Participation: Bloodsoul Extended Art cards

The same day will also feature a Realm Open Championship: A Sealed Deck tournament (6 boosters Drums of War) in which any player can participate.
This tournament will start at 12.00, entry fee is 20€

Prize Support:
1st Place
• Free Entry into any Realm Qualifier for the Spring Realm Championship Season 2009
• Four Nether Fracture Extended Art Cards
• Warrior Deckbox

2nd Place
• Four Nether Fracture Extended Art Cards

3rd – 4th Place
• Four Nether Fracture Extended Art Cards

5th-8th Place
• Four Nether Fracture Extended Art Cards

9th-16th Place
• Four Nether Fracture Extended Art Cards

Participation: Piercing Howl Extended Art Card

Top players for both events will also receive Rare loot cards, but these will unfortunately only be available at a later date.

Now available at the better gaming stores: The talking Murloc plush!
A MUST HAVE for any World of Warcraft fan!

This Murloc plush is the mascot of the world's most famous MMORPG: World of Warcraft.
The plush makes the typical sound of a Murloc in the game when it charges after you:



So go get yours, before they get you ;)

Invites to the World Championship will be awarded in the following order:

Yearly honor 5 or more
Lifetime honor 8 or more
Limited rating 2800 or more
Constructed rating 2900 or more
Realm Championship winner
Top 8 Belgian Nationals

The Honor & Rating invites will be cut on October 13th, we will post the full invite list as soon as we receive it from UDE.

You can find the current Honor ratings here: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/wow/community/forums/1/1418115/ShowThread.aspx

Congratulations to Christophe Vandalem!

A detailed report including pictures, feature matches, standings and more will be available soon.

The Belgian Championship 2008 is fast approaching.

The list of all currently qualified players is available under the "Belgian Championship header to the left", a list of all players qualified by ratings & honor rank will soon be added as well.

The first batch of invitations, with all the necessary info, will be sent out next week, so keep an eye on your inbox!

The wowtcg.eu website is looking to expand!

We are looking for volunteers who are willing to write the occasional article - be it a tournament report, hot news, a deck concept, rules updates or more.
Anyone is welcome, wether you\'re a Judge, Player or just someone who likes to write.

Interested? Please contact us at info@wowtcg.eu

The 2008 World of Warcraft World Championship has been announced!

The tournament will be held on October 18 & 19 in Paris, France and will feature an enourmous prize support, including 200.000$ cash, the chance to create your own card, a laptop, iPod Touchs, promocards and much much more.

Only invited players can participate, but there are many ways to receive those.
The first upcoming opportunity will be the Belgian Championship on September 13th in Brussels. Don\'t miss out on the chance and participate in the last Regional Championships that will be held in August & September.

The 2008 Midsummer Fire Festivals have begun!

No less then 9 series will be held, held over 13 locations, each with their own Final!
To qualify for a Final, you need to finish as top 2 (unqualified) during one of the store qualifier tournaments. Take a look at our tournament webpage (almost 100 tournaments are announced!) to find a location near you.

Full prize support for the Store finals will be announced soon.

Good luck!

As some of you have no doubt already discovered, the Belgian National Championship World of Warcraft 2008 and the Regional Qualifiers for the tournament have been announced.

Take a look on our tournament webpage for a list of all Regional Championships, each of which will Qualify the Top 4 players for Nationals.

Good luck, we hope to see you at the National Championship this year!