I'm typically not one in favor of the splashy shock titles, but recent changes to the WPN are exhibiting the same symptoms as herpes. Am I exaggerating? Perhaps, but before you pass judgment let me give you the symptoms and we can decide together.

Symptom 1-Irritation and sores. Irritation and soreness are a large byproduct of the new WPN policies. Under the new system each store is now granted a level, as opposed to the old system where individual tournament organizers were assigned a level. Here's the catch, the store is given the level by the highest level TO that has been associated with the store. This means that if I were to run an event for a random Wal-Mart they would instantly become the highest level TO. Needless to say this irritates all of the organizers who put in the long hours and tedious growing of the community required to advance through the levels. I would be sore too!

Symptom 2-Headaches. This new system also forcibly restricts the number of pre-releases/releases/premier events a location can run. An excellent example is Armada Games in Tampa, Florida. Prior to this new rule going into effect, Armada Games legitimately advanced six organizers to Advanced level. This means that Armada was eligible to receive six FNM kits, six release kits, six prerelease kits and so on and so forth. This not only provided a great service to the players, it did so while building the community on all levels. I do not look forward to the headaches caused by the lost business, lost promos, and of course the players who will now need to be turned away because Wizards has decided to do away with any extra product Armada legitimately earned.

Symptom 3-Soreness. There is plenty of reason for independent TOs to be sore! Each TO who is not associated with a store is no longer eligible for WPN support. This means that those who have put in the time and effort to advance to the highest level TO can no longer run their release/prerelease/FNM at a non store location. This seems to fly in the face of what the WPN was created to do, get people to play magic, even if in a non-traditional location! Even worse, those TOs probably put in a great deal of time to build up a loyal enough player community that they were able to advance to the highest level without any brick and mortar support. I fully expect an outcry from sore independent organizers.

Symptom 4-Outbreaks. Probably the worst symptom is the ease with which it spreads. Follow my logic:

1. Each store has the highest level of an organizer attached to it.
2. Each organizer gains the level of the store.
3. There is no restrictions on number of stores an organizer can be attached to, or distance.

This means the Advanced TO level will spread rapidly and soon lose most, if not all, meaning. I myself have run events at over seven stores. By my count I've now created over forty advanced TOs. If each of those TOs creates another, and another, etc. Fantastic! We've managed to take advanced level, which used to be difficult to achieve and now made it essentially meaningless. Advanced level now spreads, well, like herpes.

As an aside, another awful side effect of this system is the number of organizers who ran legitimate FNMs are now forced to change tactics. If I were so inclined I could run a Friday Night Magic at a gas station, who can just defer their overflow seating (everyone) to the local game store of my choice. Wizards has managed to take legitimately run events and force them to be run in a shady manner, unfortunate at best.

In better, happier news I'm glad to be back! Finals and a string of 6 consecutive weekends of tournaments unfortunately ran my time to nonexistent, but mercifully things have calmed back down. I promise that next week there will be EDH, and in fact I plan on revisiting an old favorite: My mono-black EDH list. It was one of my more popular decks and I think it is about time to take off the training wheels! We are going to unbudget, but not unfun, Maga.

Until then this is Ben McDole reminding you to use protection (I recommend UltraPro), there are changes on the horizon!