Honestly, from what I understand, the odds of WotC being affected by this aren't high given similar things in the past. Hasbro has always erred on the side of letting them do their own thing.
The other important thing with Bitterblossom was that all the good Faeries had flash. Bitterblossom let you invest a small amount of mana early and then spend the rest of the game playing reactive cards on your opponent's turn while still generating a lethal threat. They play a small spell, you Spellstutter Sprite it then attack with some 1/1s. They attack before playing spells, you flash in Mistbind Clique and block, tapping them out. They do nothing, you just untap, make another token and attack.
Actually, it's likely this has a lot to do with current Standard. He's gone from a situational SB card to probably one of the best win conditions in the format over the last few weeks.
In the finals of the single elimination portion of an event, players may negotiate splits or similar using all prizes they have been awarded from that event.
Keep in mind:
-Only in the actual finals is this legal. Not semi-finals, not quarter-finals.
-Only the 1st/2nd prizes may be used to negotiate. No outside product/cards/cash.
So, sitting down for the finals and saying "I'm not going to this GP, would you accept a split where I get the product/whatever other prizes, you get the byes?" is perfectly legal.
10 round day 1's are rare, they usually just backload the rounds onto D2 for a number of reasons:
-D1 takes longer, more matches = higher odds they go longer,
-Better for staff to not be 100% dead for D2
-10th round is after the cut anyways, so it's the same as a D2 round
-Convention center may want them out by X o'clock, easier to stay when it's 2-4 players + judges on D2 than everyone on D1.
The main reason they have 10 round D1's is at Limited GP's you can't just magically play 7 rounds of draft with two pods without some odd things happening, so you just play an extra round of sealed. Rather than have everyone come back and do this (and because drafting extends D1 and then you would have a delay to set up draft tables post-Rd 1) it just happens on D1 after the cut.
8 rd D1's are rare these days, but they used to be common. Just all about size.
Mirrodin-Kami Standard had two definite periods. The first was the Affinity beats everything period. Then Affinity was banned out of the format and then some.
After that, the format was defined by the fact there was no good fixing. Mirrodin had no duals, the Kami duals were "Tap for B/R, doesn't untap next turn" and the core set lands were the Invasion CIPT Duals and City of Brass if you wanted it. You had a bunch of mono-colored decks at most splashing for something.
-White had White Weenie with some odd artifacts as curve toppers (Jinxed Choker as a hard to kill threat and Dampening Matrix for disruption).
-Blue had Draw-Go with Vedalken Shackles and Tron (similar to current Modern U based tron decks without the Gifts/Through the Breach sub-engine or an actual Slaver lock)
-Black had Rats, which was basically a generic discard deck with all the discard on bodies.
-Red was either aggressive with Chrome Mox and Slith Firewalker or Big Red with Solemn Simulacrum.
-The only real multi-color deck was GR land destruction. Mana dudes, Stone Rain, Plow Under, Eternal Witness, random 5 drops to win with like Arc slogger.
-Green had Urzatron based Tooth and Nail and a mono-G deck that was basically just equipment, mana dudes, Troll Ascetic, Eternal Witness, and Plow Under.
At the very tail end of the season a Enduring Ideal deck popped up when Form of the Dragon was reprinted in 9th, but there weren't real decks.
Once Ravnica came out, things went completely wild. It went from what was one of the worst Standard formats I ever played (behind Jund pre-Rise and 1 other) to probably the best. Were as above I basically listed every remotely viable deck in the format, I couldn't begin to do that for this format. Here's a greatest hits reel, correlating to when the deck popped up.
Ravnica
-Heartbeat of Spring- Early Harvest combo. You chained a Weird Harvest into a bunch of Drift of Phantasms into more untaps into a Maga, Traitor to Mortals.
-GW Glare of Subdual ended up winning Worlds. Just good GW dudes, Vitu-Ghazi for long game, Glare as a trump.
-Various Gifts Ungiven control decks existed, with a Goryo's Vengeance-Greater Good-Kami Dragons combo build top 8ing Worlds.
Guildpact
-Every WB deck ever mentioned. The core of all of them was Dark Confidant, Ghost Council of Orzhova, and Umezawa's Jitte. Some lists used Tallowisp as an engine, some just played a bunch of discard, and some tried to win mirrors with Hand of Honor and Cruelty as bodies for Jitte.
-Owling Mine. Howling Mine, Kami of the Crescent Moon, Remand, Boomerang, Ebony Owl Netsuke, Sudden Impact. This deck put two copies in the top 8 of a Pro Tour. Don't laugh. 100% vs not Red Aggro, 0% vs. Red Aggro.
-Magnivore. Boomerang, LD, Magnivore, blue card draw, Wildfire. Less outrageous than Owl.
-UR Tron. Dude more typical blue Tron things, now with Wildfire.
-Kird Ape decks. You had WGR Zoo with Watchwolf and Isamaru, or the straight GR list.
Dissension
-Sea Stompy. Basically a RG Kird Ape deck with tempo cards like Remand and Thoughts of Ruin to top the curve.
-Solar Flare. Signet-based WUB Control with a bunch of powerful finishers, Compulsive Research, and Zombify.
Coldsnap
-Counterbalance and Top were legal in Standard. It was miserable.
2) From the Infraction Penalty Guideline on this kind of penalty: "Sideboards are considered to be a part of the deck for the purpose of this infraction. If sideboard cards are lost, make a note of this, but issue no penalty."
I remember for a long time there was also a specific clause about presenting under 15 cards in a sideboard being legal, and it was basically "Add basics now, or if you have a deck list and the rest matches up you just don't have access to the missing cards if you don't have them"
If I was the head judge of the event and someone called him out on this, I would rule the other 11 cards in the sideboard as missing and honestly not care. If there were actual decklists filled out, there may be penalties applied but again it's unlikely.
-Assuming this is him boarding in 4 cards and not boarding out 4 cards, thus presenting something like a 64 card deck and 11 card sideboard.
Enforcing a trading space issue at a local store seems odd to me. It is a clause mostly built in for people who basically show up to GPs with a rolling showcase and post up at a table. I can't imagine anything like this happening at a local shop.
Do you know how much they make??? If the average GP takes in 1500 people thats 60,000 dollars in entry fees. Prizes maybe 15,000 at most not including side events. Leaving them with 45,000 they can spend 15000 on security measures and still take home a pretty penny.
Add in the cost of site rental. Add in the cost of materials for sealed events. Add in judge costs and what not. It really isn't as much as you think.
Not sure on the don't quote people part. It is all about context and who you quote, but really doing something dumb with a quote is no different than making other mistakes.
I assume that the first 20 someone has are worth about $5-6 each, given even odds against a field of 400 people, which seems right adjusted for byes I think. Have to do math on valuation of the 20+ after that and average that in to find the actual market value.
Keep in mind:
-Only in the actual finals is this legal. Not semi-finals, not quarter-finals.
-Only the 1st/2nd prizes may be used to negotiate. No outside product/cards/cash.
So, sitting down for the finals and saying "I'm not going to this GP, would you accept a split where I get the product/whatever other prizes, you get the byes?" is perfectly legal.
-D1 takes longer, more matches = higher odds they go longer,
-Better for staff to not be 100% dead for D2
-10th round is after the cut anyways, so it's the same as a D2 round
-Convention center may want them out by X o'clock, easier to stay when it's 2-4 players + judges on D2 than everyone on D1.
The main reason they have 10 round D1's is at Limited GP's you can't just magically play 7 rounds of draft with two pods without some odd things happening, so you just play an extra round of sealed. Rather than have everyone come back and do this (and because drafting extends D1 and then you would have a delay to set up draft tables post-Rd 1) it just happens on D1 after the cut.
8 rd D1's are rare these days, but they used to be common. Just all about size.
After that, the format was defined by the fact there was no good fixing. Mirrodin had no duals, the Kami duals were "Tap for B/R, doesn't untap next turn" and the core set lands were the Invasion CIPT Duals and City of Brass if you wanted it. You had a bunch of mono-colored decks at most splashing for something.
-White had White Weenie with some odd artifacts as curve toppers (Jinxed Choker as a hard to kill threat and Dampening Matrix for disruption).
-Blue had Draw-Go with Vedalken Shackles and Tron (similar to current Modern U based tron decks without the Gifts/Through the Breach sub-engine or an actual Slaver lock)
-Black had Rats, which was basically a generic discard deck with all the discard on bodies.
-Red was either aggressive with Chrome Mox and Slith Firewalker or Big Red with Solemn Simulacrum.
-The only real multi-color deck was GR land destruction. Mana dudes, Stone Rain, Plow Under, Eternal Witness, random 5 drops to win with like Arc slogger.
-Green had Urzatron based Tooth and Nail and a mono-G deck that was basically just equipment, mana dudes, Troll Ascetic, Eternal Witness, and Plow Under.
At the very tail end of the season a Enduring Ideal deck popped up when Form of the Dragon was reprinted in 9th, but there weren't real decks.
Once Ravnica came out, things went completely wild. It went from what was one of the worst Standard formats I ever played (behind Jund pre-Rise and 1 other) to probably the best. Were as above I basically listed every remotely viable deck in the format, I couldn't begin to do that for this format. Here's a greatest hits reel, correlating to when the deck popped up.
Ravnica
-Heartbeat of Spring- Early Harvest combo. You chained a Weird Harvest into a bunch of Drift of Phantasms into more untaps into a Maga, Traitor to Mortals.
-GW Glare of Subdual ended up winning Worlds. Just good GW dudes, Vitu-Ghazi for long game, Glare as a trump.
-Various Gifts Ungiven control decks existed, with a Goryo's Vengeance-Greater Good-Kami Dragons combo build top 8ing Worlds.
Guildpact
-Every WB deck ever mentioned. The core of all of them was Dark Confidant, Ghost Council of Orzhova, and Umezawa's Jitte. Some lists used Tallowisp as an engine, some just played a bunch of discard, and some tried to win mirrors with Hand of Honor and Cruelty as bodies for Jitte.
-Owling Mine. Howling Mine, Kami of the Crescent Moon, Remand, Boomerang, Ebony Owl Netsuke, Sudden Impact. This deck put two copies in the top 8 of a Pro Tour. Don't laugh. 100% vs not Red Aggro, 0% vs. Red Aggro.
-Magnivore. Boomerang, LD, Magnivore, blue card draw, Wildfire. Less outrageous than Owl.
-UR Tron. Dude more typical blue Tron things, now with Wildfire.
-Kird Ape decks. You had WGR Zoo with Watchwolf and Isamaru, or the straight GR list.
Dissension
-Sea Stompy. Basically a RG Kird Ape deck with tempo cards like Remand and Thoughts of Ruin to top the curve.
-Solar Flare. Signet-based WUB Control with a bunch of powerful finishers, Compulsive Research, and Zombify.
Coldsnap
-Counterbalance and Top were legal in Standard. It was miserable.
1) This is NOT a DQ. At most, it's a game loss.
2) From the Infraction Penalty Guideline on this kind of penalty: "Sideboards are considered to be a part of the deck for the purpose of this infraction. If sideboard cards are lost, make a note of this, but issue no penalty."
I remember for a long time there was also a specific clause about presenting under 15 cards in a sideboard being legal, and it was basically "Add basics now, or if you have a deck list and the rest matches up you just don't have access to the missing cards if you don't have them"
If I was the head judge of the event and someone called him out on this, I would rule the other 11 cards in the sideboard as missing and honestly not care. If there were actual decklists filled out, there may be penalties applied but again it's unlikely.
-Assuming this is him boarding in 4 cards and not boarding out 4 cards, thus presenting something like a 64 card deck and 11 card sideboard.
Easy game loss.
Add in the cost of site rental. Add in the cost of materials for sealed events. Add in judge costs and what not. It really isn't as much as you think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex#Total_Perspective_Vortex
Also played as a ~2x in Affinity. Card was actually $1-2 pre-Modern use and was relatively hard to find.