Tiny Leaders Format Changes Battle For Zendikar

For the Battle For Zendikar rules changes, the Tiny Leaders format will be adopting the Vancouver Mulligan rule:

103.4. Each player draws a number of cards equal to his or her starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a player's starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with his or her initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether or not he or she will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles his or her hand back into his or her library, then draws a new hand of one fewer cards than he or she had before. If a player kept his or her hand of cards, those cards become the player's opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. (Note that if a player's hand size reaches zero cards, that player must keep that hand.) Then, beginning with the starting player and proceeding in turn order, any player whose opening hand has fewer cards than his or her starting hand size may scry 1.

The optional Sultai Leader, a generic 2/2 for UBG can be substituted with a legendary version of Ana Battlemage, retaining the name Ana Battlemage, but gaining the Legendary supertype.

There are no ban list changes.

We hope that these changes are well met, and that the Sultai change encourages people to play that colour combination more in the future!

Thank you for your continued support, and look forward to more updates in the future.

Ban List Update 7/13/2015 - Magic Origins

Update--- July 13th 2015

Banlist changes:

Banned: Grindstone

Unbanned: Painter's Servant

Notes- The inclusion of both of these combo pieces is likely too powerful, Painter's Servant is an interesting card to build with and with a less-powerful version of Grindstone being printed in Sphinx's Tutelage, we found this would be a fun way to shake up the format.

Testing is underway on Gaea's Cradle, Day's Undoing (and Timetwister)- and with finished testing on True-Name Nemesis, preliminary results show there is no need for a ban, as the card's power level is well within the acceptable range (<65% game win rate when cast).  Data on True-Name Nemesis' testing will be available when formatting is complete, but I'm going to be pushing more testing rather than data reformatting.

04/01/15 Ban List Update (April Fools!)

Update--- March 31, 2015

Banlist changes:

Banned:

• True-Name Nemesis (99% win rate when drawn)
• Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest (Dominant in tournament results) 
• Steel of the Godhead (Makes Geist of Saint Traft decks too strong)
• Sensei’s Divining Top (Proven to make games take 26 minutes longer on average)
• Sword of Vengeance (Everyone wants the Swords banned, might as well start somewhere)
• Hero’s Blade (Fits in every deck, way too powerful)
• Bronze Sable (Also fits in every deck, power level similar to Goku’s)

News: Trademark and Fair Use

Hey, everybody- we at Tiny Leaders are super sorry if our trademark and fair use policy was confusing or unclear.  I'm here to put some rumors to bed, because people seem to have the wrong idea of why we're doing this.

1) "They're Trademarking _____!"

We have trademarked the name "Tiny Leaders", that's it.

2) "Rule 1, you don't talk about Tiny Leaders"

No, we're not that thing that happens thursday nights in the basement of the bar, Tiny Leaders' trademark is just to legitimize us as the rules and ban list people.  The name is still open for use, honestly, the trademark doesn't change anything.

3) "You guys are just trying to make money off of it!"

That would be awesome, but no- we're only looking to protect ourselves from losing opportunities- it's like if you were to take something Wizards owns, say... the clan symbols or guild symbols- and print off a bunch of shirts and sell them?  That would get you in trouble.

4) "You're going to sue us!"

I don't ever want to even think of going through the hassle of litigation.  Honestly, the legal action statement is more of a safety net in case things go horribly wrong in some unforeseeable way.

5) "The EDH guys didn't do it."

The Elder Dragon Highlander development team didn't do a lot of things we're doing, does it make either of us wrong? I don't think so, you might, and you're entitled to that opinion- we're going to continue down this path, and hope things work out for us.

6) "Wizards won't be able to recognize it as a real format if they do this"

The beautiful thing about the law and ownership is that you can change it.  If Wizards wants to bring Tiny Leaders into the fold, they can talk to us and I think everyone is more than happy to do that.

7) "We can't make any money writing about Tiny Leaders!"

Run ads on your site, we do!  It's not up to us to say what you can and can't write about us- but we can ask you to make your articles about Tiny Leaders free to access, because it's the internet and information is important- that's a value we all share.

Trademark and Fair Use agreement

[Updated: 1/28/2015]

Hello everybody, it's come to this- time to become the layman's lawyer and get some of this information to you guys!  This page is your one-stop shop for what you can and can't do in regards to the Tiny Leaders brand- The Trademark statement lets you know we came up with and own the name, and the Fair Use terms give you an outline as to how you should go about making your Tiny Leaders pages and articles.

Tiny Leaders Trademark statement:

"Tiny Leaders™" is a trademark of Bramwell Tackaberry and Steven Hamonic 2013-2015.

In layman's terms: we have the exclusive rights to sell and distribute merchandise bearing our trademark, and you can't go claiming you thought up the idea, because that's just not cool.

Fate Reforged Release notes.

Tiny Leaders has experienced some changes with the release of Fate Reforged.

Fate Reforged, and all further sets will be legal to play in the Tiny Leaders format upon release- that means you have a week between pre-release and release that you can't play the new set in Tiny Leaders.

We now have access to a Mardu (white, black, red) Leader, and a Jeskai (blue, white, red) Leader.  So we have removed the format exclusive Dega and Patriot placeholders.

We also get another Temur Leader, so that's interesting!

I will note here, these Leaders are untested by our overlords committee, and will be undergoing rigorous tests in the coming months (mostly because we're always excited to play with new toys!), so expect to see an update on the facebook page with some information about them.

We hope you all are as excited as we are to welcome Yasova, Shu Yun and Alesha to our growing ranks- and I for one welcome our new wedge overlords.

Have fun building with our new toys, And Wizards- we're still waiting for that Sultai Leader! (Just kidding, guys, we love you- keep making Magic fun.).

-The Elated Overlords.