Yesterday Equinox added filters to the Event Locator on their website, making it easier to filter for the upcoming Tumult Championships. The filters make it easier for all Alterers to find “local” stores running a Tumult Championship from April 5 to May 11, 2025, and pre-register for them. If your store is still missing from the list, we strongly encourage you to contact them and ask them to add their event, with the correct label, to the events page of Altered.gg.

Judge Test

Along with the filter, a Judge Test was also released. With this test you can check up on your own knowledge of the game’s rules, even if you are not planning to ever judge. The test is, in our eyes, enlightening, fun but also pretty difficult, highlighting some easily overlooked situations that might not resolve in the way you assume they do. Taking the test should give all players the opportunity to better understand certain situations which can greatly help not only in the Tumult Championships, but also in weekly local play.

Deck Checks

Stores running Tumult Championships are encouraged by Equinox to run deck checks for players reaching the top 8, including the suggestion to drop from the tournament any players in the top 8 with a deck that’s not legal. Keep in mind that it’s the stores choice to do deck checks and when to do them, and not reaching the top 8 is not a guarantee your deck will not be checked. Therefor it’s important for players to understand what a deck check entails.

In most cases, especially since the tournament part of the Altered app is not available yet, stores will either ask for a paper decklist or ask for your phone, opened to the altered website, with you deck on it selected. They will then check if all the cards in your actual physical 40-card deck are the same cards as listed on the decklist. All decks must follow the deck-building rules for Altered, which means they must be legal within the Altered app and in all cases can’t have more than 15 Rare (R or F marked) cards and no more than 3 Unique (U marked) cards that are all in the same faction.

For paper decklists, Uniques should be listed by their number which can be found at the bottom of the card, so the person checking the deck can determine if you’re playing the correct Unique. For digital deck checks using the Altered app or website, this is handled by the app already.

One of the often overlooked issues found during deck checks is the quality of sleeves you use. Worn down, damaged and see-through sleeves often lead to issues when decks are getting checked. Any wear, damage to sleeves or, in the case of see-through sleeves, cards can be viewed as an attempt to mark cards so the player knows which cards are coming up when. As proving ill intent is always hard, often it is assumed in TCGs, so we advise all players at Tumult and other competitive championships to use new, opaque sleeves always and be sure to have an extra set of sleeves at hand in case the deck check determines your sleeves are of a too low quality to use in the (continuation) of the tournament.

Deck checks can be stressful, even if you are 100% sure you did it right, but rest assured, no store or judge is hoping to find a reason to disqualify you and in most cases deck checks lead to a confirmation that you actually did everything right.