OFF THE TOP ROPE 2025

Written By Sunil Seelamsetty

Are you a premodern enjoyer but can’t stand it when your opponent simultaneously demonic tutors and stacks their deck with a Flash of Insight? Are you an honest mage who lives for the perfect topdeck while your opponent casually flips their entire library into their graveyard with Hermit Druid? Come play some lo-fi premodern with us in NYC!

WHAT: “no deck touching” Premodern variant (rules below)

WHEN: Saturday, November 1st at 11:00am

WHERE: Hex West (Hex & Company, 2911 Broadway, New York, NY 10025)

WHY: For charity! Your TOs will be donating all prizing and covering all venue costs so 100% of ALL ENTRY FEES will be donated to UNICEF

HOW MUCH: $30 (all goes to charity)

PRIZES: Participation prizes, Top 8 prizes, early sign up prizes, and THE BELT for the winner! See below for details.

TOURNAMENT STRUCTURE: Swiss pairings with a Top 8 cut based on attendance

SIGN UPS: https://tinyurl.com/OFFTHETOPROPE

RULES:

  • Disclaimer: I will not be posting an explicit banned list because it requires me to study the entire card pool and ain’t nobody got time for that. However, this is not a vibes thing - your TOs will have the final say as to whether a card is considered “deck touching”. If you have any questions about it when constructing your deck, please reach out to Sunny @twoexplores on Discord for a ruling.

  • The overall approach to the rules for this event: if a card COULD result in “deck touching” for you OR YOUR OPPONENT, it is not allowed for this event.

  • Some examples of “deck touching” (this list will periodically be updated as clarifications are made, so check back if you want the current description) are if the card says:

    • Draw a card

    • Look at the top X cards of your (or your opponent’s) library

    • Mill X cards

    • Search your library

    • Reveal the top X cards from your library

    • Putting cards on the bottom of your library

  • You take mulligans as normal and draw a card in the beginning of your draw step as normal.

  • For clarity, you may not play a card if it has “deck touching” text on it, even if you do not intend to use that ability.

  • For clarity, “touching” graveyards is allowed (discarding, reanimating, returning Squee from graveyard to hand)

  • In the spirit of discouraging searching, searching your sideboard for a card (i.e. most Wishes) are banned for this event.

  • In the spirit of encouraging fun, you can put cards on top of your (or your opponent’s) library. We jokingly suggest you should drop the card from a high enough distance so that you do not actually touch the deck, but there are no rules implications for physical dexterity. Drop the card on top of the library, or place it on top normally. These are allowable maneuvers for this event.

PRIZE DETAILS (IF YOU’RE INTO THAT KIND OF THING):

  • Winner: THE BELT (literally enormous and weighs 6 lbs.)

  • All Participants: Stamped Phyrexian Plaguelords (aka The Rock)

  • Top 8: Stamped Deranged Hermits (aka His Millions)

  • First 20 sign ups: Land peel alter by Lilypad

Sunil Seelamsetty