Standard Peasant Magic tournament rules are a variation of the DCI's standard Magic floor rules. The variant rules used at GenCon 2001 and other non-standard variant rules appear elsewhere. A complete copy of the standard Peasant Magic tourney rules follows, or you may access a short page of permitted and banned cards.
Decks may consist of at least sixty cards, containing:
Card rarities are listed on the Wizards of the Coast website, in text files for each expansion. If a card does not have a listed rarity, then it is not allowed in Peasant Magic Tournaments. In general, all card sets listed under Starter Sets, Limited-edition Expansion Sets, and Basic Sets on that page are allowed. From Special sets, only Unglued and Chronicles/Renaissance are generally allowed.
Cards from other Special sets (like World Championship decks or Vangaurd) are allowed if the card was issued is another set with a legal rarity (Common or Uncommon). However, players must use deck protectors if their decks contain cards with different backs.
If a card is listed with two different rarities in two different editions, use the most common rating for calculating rarity. For example, Wyluli Wolf is Rare in Fifth Edition, but Common in Arabian Nights. For Peasant Master tourneys, Wyluli Wolf is Common.
Strip Mine is officially an uncommon card, even though it had a version that was rated as common. This is a change from the general rule to limit strip mines in tourneys because of power. This rule is in effect at GenCon and Origins during the 2003 tourney season.
Cards that are restricted or banned in Type 1, Type 1.5, and other DCI constructed tournaments are allowed in Peasant Magic, with the following exceptions, up to four (4) copies permitted in a deck.
The following cards are banned for purposes of peasant magic due to irrational expense and some amount of rule breakage. These cards are not permitted at tournaments using the "official" Peasant Magic rules as determined by the Peasant Council, but may be permitted in other peasant tournaments at the discretion of the head peasant (re: top judge). See tournament notifications for details on specific tourney rules.
Cards are interpreted using the appropriate card ruling section of the Oracle card reference. During sanctioned competition, players must refer to this version of a card to settle disputes concerning the interpretation of a card�s wording or powers. Card abilities are based on card text, not artwork.
Players may not use previously or newly discovered errors or omissions in Oracle to disrupt a tournament or otherwise abuse the rules. The head judge is the final authority for all card interpretations, and he or she may overrule Oracle when a mistake or error is discovered.
There are three games per match. Drawn games (games without a winner) do not count towards one of the three games in a match. The match should continue until one player has won the majority of games as long as match time allows.
The following time limits are used for each round of the tournament:
The winner of a coin toss (or other random method) chooses either to play first and skip his or her first draw step or to play second. The winner of the coin toss must make this choice before looking at his or her hand. If the coin toss winner makes no choice, it is assumed that he or she is playing first. The player who plays first skips the draw step of his or her first turn. Each turn thereafter follows the standard order set forth in the Magic play rules.
After each game in a match, the loser of that game (even if the game loss was due to a penalty) decides whether to play first in the next game. If the game was a draw (so that there was no winner or loser), the player who decided to play or draw for that game chooses for the next game.
Before a game begins, players determine who plays first. This may be done any time during the pregame procedure before the players look at their hands. (Note that players are not required to decide who plays first before sideboarding.) The following steps must be performed before each game begins:
Once mulligans are resolved, the game can begin.
Before each game begins, a player may, for any reason, reshuffle and redraw his or her hand, drawing one less card. This may be repeated as often as the player wishes, until he or she has no cards left in his or her hand.
The decision of whether to mulligan passes between players following the order established in Who goes first. After the participant who plays first mulligans as often as he or she likes, the decision of whether to mulligan passes to the other player. Once a player passes the opportunity to mulligan, that player may not change his or her mind.
If the match time limit is reached before a winner is determined, the active player (as defined in the Magic game rules) finishes his or her turn and five total additional turns are played. For example, time is called on player A�s turn. Player A finishes his or her turn. Player B takes his or her turn, which is turn 1. Player A takes his or her turn, which is turn 2. Player B takes turn 3, player A takes turn 4, and player B takes the final turn, which is turn 5. Players take any extra turns granted to them by card effects as they normally would during the course of the game, but any extra turn counts as one of the five end-of-match turns. Once the fifth turn is completed, the game finishes regardless of any remaining card-generated or end-of-match extra turns. If the game finishes before the fifth turn is completed, the match is over and no new game begins.
If a judge assigned a time extension (because of a long ruling, deck check, or other reason), then the end-of-match procedure does not occur until the end of the time extension.
In Swiss rounds, the winner of a match is the player with the most game wins in the match. If both players have equal game wins, then the match is a draw. In single-elimination rounds, matches may not end in a draw. After the normal end-of-match procedure is finished, the player with more game wins is the winner of the match. If both players in a single-elimination tournament have equal game wins when the normal end-of-match procedure is finished, the player with the highest life total becomes the winner of the current game in progress. In the event the players have equal life totals (or are between games and the game wins are tied), the game/match should continue until the first life total change that results in one player having a higher life total than the other.
Constructed decks must contain a minimum of sixty cards. There is no maximum deck size. If a player wishes to use a sideboard, it must contain exactly fifteen cards.
With the exception of basic lands (plains, island, swamp, mountain, and forest [including snow-covered variants]), a player�s combined deck and sideboard may not contain more than four of any individual card, counted by its English card title equivalent.
Before each game begins, players must present their sideboard and allow their opponents to count the number of cards in their sideboards (face down), if requested. Players may not look at their sideboards during a game. The sideboard must be clearly identified and separated from all other cards in the play area. The sideboard may not be kept where it could be easily confused or switched with other cards.
The deck and sideboard must each be returned to their original compositions before the first game of each match. Thus, cards transferred from a player�s deck to his or her sideboard, and vice versa, must be returned before the player begins a new match. If a penalty causes a player to forfeit the first game in a match before that game began neither of the players of that match may use cards from their sideboard for the second game.
Before the beginning of the second or subsequent game in a match, players may change the composition of their decks by exchanging cards from their decks for cards in their sideboards. Any card exchanges between decks and sideboards must be made on a one-for-one basis to ensure that the sideboards remain at exactly fifteen cards at all times. There are no restrictions on the number of cards a player may exchange this way as long as one card from the deck is traded for one in the sideboard.
A player�s deck and sideboard may not contain more than 5 total cards of uncommon rarity. The uncommon cards may begin each match in the deck, the sideboard, or in a combination of both locations.
