At Back of the Closet Games & Hobbies we hold a variety of different Magic: The Gathering events, nearly all of which are sanctioned by the DCI, the body that governs the Magic: The Gathering play rating of players, and controls the Magic: The Gathering international Pro Tour .

Even if you never intend on playing Magic beyond the level of your FLGS (friendly local gaming shop), you are still part of a larger whole: the Pro Tour, which has been aired on ESPN and distributed millions of dollars in cash prizes and scholarships over the years. Because of this, even our humble local tournaments strictly adhere to DCI standards and policies. We understand that some of the rules and terms can be confusing to new players, so we created this page to shed some light on things.

Constructed vs. Limited

There are two main categories of Magic: The Gathering events: constructed and limited. Constructed formats (such as our Friday Night Magic tournaments) require players to build their own decks from their own personal card pools. In limited events (such as our Saturday night booster drafts) players are provided with unopened packs of Magic: The Gathering cards and may build their deck only from that limited pool. After the event, players keep the cards they were given!

Types of Constructed Events

There are a variety of different types of Constructed Magic: The Gathering events. Each type restricts players from using certain cards to build their decks. Regardless of the type, all Constructed events share the following characteristics:

  1. 60 card minimum deck size: All Constructed format decks must contain a minimum of 60 cards. There is no legal maximum deck size, but a deck may not be so large that it creates a game delay when it has to be shuffled. Generally speaking, all the best performing Constructed format decks contain exactly 60 cards. Fast, lean and mean is the way go here.
  2. Sideboard: Players are allowed to use an optional sideboard if they wish. A sideboard, if used, must contain exactly 15 cards, no more or no less. Players in constructed events play in matches of best-2-out-of-3 games. At the start of each new match, a player must return his deck to its original configuration, but for the second game of a match (and the third game, if there is one) a player may swap cards back and forth freely between his main deck and his sideboard. The swaps must be one-for-one, meaning that the sideboard must always contain 15 cards. So if a player puts, for example, four cards from his sideboard into his main deck, he must then take four cards from his main deck and put them into his sideboard.
  3. No more than 4 copies of any card: A player may never put more than four copies of any Magic: The Gathering card into his deck. This includes the sideboard, if a sideboard is used. So if a player puts, for example, three copies of Shock in his deck he may only have one copy in his sideboard -- no more than four total copies of any card between both the main deck and the sideboard. Basic lands (Swamp, Forest, Island, Plains and Mountain) are exempt from this rule; a player may have as many copies of these cards as he wishes in his deck and/or sideboard. Snow-covered versions of basic lands count as basic lands for purposes of this rule.
To see which cards are legal in the various types of Constructed events, check out this official link from Wizards of the Coast: Ban List
Recent Tournament Winners:
Legacy
4/19 - Fred Clark

Rise of the Eladrazi Prerelease
1st - Larry Doolittle
2nd - Erik Pentycofe
3rd - Garth Avery

Friday Night Magic
4/16 - James Moore
4/9 - Edgar Bustos
4/2 - Edgar Bustos
3/26 - Ryan Gilotti
3/19 - Larry Doolittle
3/12 - Steve Bennet