The time of the year comes once again when every young Magic player's fancy turns to dreams of Nationals. StarCityGames.com has long been covering the decks, the players, and the metagame you're going to be facing come Saturday, and now it's time to put the exclamation point on all of it: The rulings you're going to see or have to deal with.

Rulings fall into two categories: Technical and administrative. Technical are things that deal with play, whether it's not tapping the correct mana or the interaction of different cards; Administrative deals with everything that's not inside the game being played, from decklists to start times. For the administrative, I can only give you suggestions; for the technical, I can spell things out completely. I'll even break the technical out into"game play" and"card rulings."

Administrative
Doing these things correctly will keep you from getting otherwise-avoidable game or match losses.

Decklists: Type up your decklist on Friday night on the computer. Check it twice. Make sure the totals add up, and are correct. There are players who show up and try to judge the metagame on Saturday morning and then change their decks accordingly; this generally results in disaster, both from screwing up the decklist and from making card choices based on a limited amount of knowledge. Make your choice, then sleep on it.

Timeliness: This might sound obvious, but show up for your matches on time. Pay attention to when the next round will start. If you really have to go to the rest room and the round's about to start, tell a tournament official first. If the judge says"go" and you're not in your seat, it's a game loss. No amount of after-the-fact complaining will help.

Materials: The DCI Universal Rules, section 4, say you're supposed to have all the necessary tournament materials: Your deck, proof of your DCI number, and a method to track your life. Some judges and organizers will permit only pen and paper; this is the best method and likely to lead to fewest disagreements.

Sleeves: It's your responsibility to make sure your sleeves aren't marked, even if you just bought them from the organizer. Always shuffle your deck before sleeving it. This way, if there's some manufacturing defect and you have some marked sleeves, there's no pattern to the markings. If it just so happens that all your lands are marked and your spells aren't, you're in big trouble in the form of a match loss.

Questions: I can't count the number of times I've said,"Your opponent is not the expert." Don't let her tell you something is a certain way - get a Judge to verify! You don't have to be a jerk about it, but your opponent doesn't have your best interests in mind.

Combat timing: Both players are responsible for communicating clearly. The biggest source of problems is what combat step they're in. If you want to tap something before your opponent can attack with it, take a lesson from Pro Mikey Pustilnik: Without fail, he would say"During your Combat Phase, but before attackers are declared, tap your ~whatever~." This avoids silly"He tapped it, so I'm still in my Main Phase, right?" arguments. When you're ready to put damage on the stack, announce it clearly. If someone does something beforehand, ask again, just to make sure.

Floating mana: When players are playing Wake decks, there is likely to be much mana flying around, with tappings and untappings, multiple Mirari's Wakes and whatnot. It's the player's responsibility to account for his mana. I encourage everyone to use a pen and paper to do this, or perhaps multicolored dice. If you're playing someone playing a Wake deck, keep an eye on their mana. I've seen combo players slip a few by the unsuspecting, especially when the color of mana is important.

Floating mana is also important if someone is playing Upheaval. Make sure your opponent tells you exactly how much of which color he's putting into his mana pool. Whether it's blue or black can make a huge difference to what you're going to do in response. Additionally, unless it's drawn from a source that says otherwise, mana has a color; don't let someone hoodwink you by saying"a black, a blue, and a colorless," then spending the black and blue and Force Spiking your spell with the"colorless."

Shuffling: Pile shuffling is legal (contrary to"what someone told you"), but not required. There are ways of pile shuffling that don't randomize the deck, so if you do pile shuffle, do it in random numbers of piles. Make sure you shuffle your own deck and your opponent's deck - thoroughly, no matter what.

Sideboarding: You have three minutes. Keep to that and make sure your opponents do.

Writing down information/notes: Players may write down what cards they see in their opponent's hand if that hand is in any way revealed (like Duress or Cabal Therapy), so long as they do so in a timely fashion. They can write it down while looking at it; they don't have to memorize it and write it down later. You can't use notes brought from outside the game, such as a sheet on how you should sideboard in certain matchups.

Technical: Card Rulings
The metagame has been hashed over for the past few months, so there shouldn't be too many surprises, assuming you've been paying attention. There have been some recurrent questions, so I'll go over what many folks seem to struggle with.

Astral Slide: If Astral Slide is activated during your End of Turn Step, the creature won't come back until your opponent's End of Turn, because the chance for end of turn triggers to go on the stack has already passed. Creatures Sliding back in will trigger comes-into-play abilities; those that come into play with counters (such as Phantom Centaur) will have a full complement of them. Remember that tokens that leave play are removed from the game as a State-Based Effect.

Cabal Therapy: The card is named on resolution (as is the color on Persecute). Be very clear as to what you're naming. If you're not sure of a card name, ask a judge. Once the card is named, you're resolving the Therapy; you can't play something in response.

Compost: Compost triggers on cards going to the graveyard from anywhere, not just play. Black spells that are countered, discarded, Millstoned, whatever - all count. Black spells which are played face-down (like Grinning Demon) and then are countered also trigger it. Black tokens will not trigger Compost, because they're not cards. Finally, be careful if you're playing Compost (or anything with optional actions); you can't"go back" and draw cards later if significant actions have occurred.

Contested Cliffs: If one of the targets is invalid on resolution, such as the Beast changing creature type, the ability does nothing. The source of the Contested Cliffs' ability is a land and has no color; it's not red, green or whatever color the Beast is, meaning that protection from a color becomes irrelevant when you're using the Cliffs to target something. (If the creature has protection from the Beast's color, the damage will still be reduced to zero, though, so it's not your brightest move in most cases.)

Converted Mana Cost: Nothing ever changes the mana cost or converted mana cost of a spell. The converted mana cost of tokens, face-down creatures, and animated lands is zero.

Flaring Pain: Damage not being prevented also applies to creatures with Protection. If you attack with your Grinning Demon and your opponent blocks with his White Knight and then you play Flaring Pain, the White Knight will die.

Flashback: If a player has priority, you can't stop him from flashing back something (assuming it's legal for him to play it - like only playing Sorceries when the stack is empty) by removing the card from the graveyard with cards such as Withered Wretch. The reason is that by the time you get priority, the card is already out of the graveyard and on the stack.

Flashback, Redux: A Flashback spell that's Memory Lapsed will still be removed from the game, no matter what.

Flashback, Mighty Dux: Flashback does not change a spell's type. A Sorcery Flashback is still a Sorcery and subject to the same restrictions for when you can play it.

Grim Lavamancer: The two cards are removed as part of the cost of activating the ability; if you don't have two cards in the graveyard, you can't play it. Your opponent can't stop you by removing the cards, because he won't get priority until after the cards are gone.

Morph/Morph Triggers: Turning a face-down card face up doesn't use the stack. Abilities that trigger from cards turning face up use the stack; they go on at the first available opportunity. Turning cards face up doesn't trigger comes-into-play abilities.

Ravenous Baloth: If you have a Baloth and other Beasts and want to sacrifice them all, the Baloth must be last. If you sacrifice it first, you won't be able to subsequently activate the ability.

Sparksmith: Sparksmith counts the number of Goblins in play on resolution. If the ability is countered because of an invalid/illegal target, then you don't take any damage.

Triggered abilities: You pay the mana cost of a triggered ability, such as Lightning Rift or Genesis, on resolution of the ability. If the ability has a target -and Rift and Genesis do - the target is chosen when the ability is put on the stack, even if you're not going to pay for it later.

Wild Mongrel: The card discarded to activate the Mongrel goes into the graveyard right away as part of the cost to activate it. If it's a Glory or the like, it can be activated in response to activating the Mongrel. The Mongrel's +1/+1 and color change happen on resolution.

Wishes: Wishes replace in your sideboard whatever card you Wished for. Remember this between games and matches.

Worship: Worship doesn't prevent damage; it just changes what damage does to your life total. If you're at one with Worship and a creature in play, and your opponent attacks with an Exalted Angel that isn't blocked, he'll still gain four life.

Obviously, space doesn't permit covering every possible situation or interaction. The sampling here, taken from the most popular decks, should give you a leg up on what will likely be an long, hard day.

Many thanks to all the gang on #mtgjudge for the ideas and crossfeed, especially DSCreamer, Natedogg3, Monkster, and the inimitable RuneH. They rock!

And that's my Final Judgement.

Sheldon