Question 1

What is PlanesForge?

Accepted Answer

PlanesForge is a tournament management platform for Magic: The Gathering. It handles player registration, Swiss pairings, live standings, and meta analysis — all in one place.

Question 2

Is PlanesForge free?

Accepted Answer

Playing in tournaments is free for players — always. An optional Player Premium subscription adds deeper personal stats and tournament data, but it's never required to register or compete. Organizers can run tournaments of any size at no cost — there is no player limit. Premium is an optional per-tournament upgrade that unlocks advanced tools like the matchup matrix, registration heatmap, custom branding, and the broadcast suite. See pricing.

Question 3

What formats are supported?

Accepted Answer

PlanesForge supports all major Magic formats: Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, Premodern, Duel Commander, Sealed, Draft, and Cube Draft.

Question 4

How do I create an account?

Accepted Answer

No password needed. Enter your email address and you'll receive a magic link. Click it and you're logged in. The link expires after 30 minutes and can only be used once.

Question 5

How do I register for a tournament?

Accepted Answer

Find the tournament on PlanesForge, click "Register", and fill in your details. You'll see the tournament in your dashboard once registered.

Question 6

How does check-in work?

Accepted Answer

When the organizer opens check-in before the event, a check-in button appears on the tournament page. Check in to confirm you're attending — players who don't check in may lose their spot.

Question 7

Why is a card legal at this tournament that the format bans?

Accepted Answer

The organizer can set house rules for a single event: ban extra cards, or release cards the format bans. Whatever applies is listed on the tournament page and on its meta page, so you can check it before you build. House rules never widen the card pool — a Pauper event can only release a card that Pauper itself bans, never let a rare in.

Question 8

The organizer changed a rule after I submitted my decklist. What now?

Accepted Answer

You get an email naming the cards in your list that are no longer legal, and you edit the list yourself on the tournament page — decklists stay editable through check-in. The organizer only sees how many lists are affected, never whose.

Question 9

How do standings and tiebreakers work?

Accepted Answer

PlanesForge uses the Swiss tournament system. Players are ranked by match points first, then tiebreakers: opponent match win percentage (OMW%), game win percentage (GW%), and opponent game win percentage (OGW%). Why it is calculated exactly this way is explained in full under Pairings & Standings.

Question 10

Why am I playing someone with fewer points?

Accepted Answer

Because your point group held an odd number of players. One of them then has to play a group below, and it is always the lowest-placed player of that group — not chance. The reverse holds too: if you are playing someone with more points, you are the highest-placed player of your own group. The step stays as small as possible — one group down, never across the field.

Question 11

Do drawn games count towards tiebreakers?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A drawn game is worth one game point, a won game three, a lost game none. A match ending 1-1-1 therefore gives 4 of 9 possible game points, a 44.4% game win percentage rather than 33%. Until August 2026 PlanesForge did not count the point for the drawn game; that is corrected, and finished tournaments now show the right figures.

Question 12

Can I sync my tournaments to Google Calendar or Apple Calendar?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Go to your profile and open the Calendar tab. There you'll find a personal subscription URL. Add it to any calendar app that supports iCal subscriptions (Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, etc.). Your upcoming tournaments will appear automatically and stay up to date.

Question 13

What is Player Premium?

Accepted Answer

Player Premium is an optional subscription for players who want more from their data — deeper personal stats and tournament analysis. It's never required to register or play. You can unlock your next 3 completed tournaments for free (no card required) and then choose a monthly or yearly plan. See what's included.

Question 14

How do I cancel my Player Premium membership?

Accepted Answer

Open your profile, go to the Premium card, and click End subscription — this takes you to the cancellation page, where you confirm with one click. A monthly plan stays active until the end of the current billing period (no refund for the period already started). A yearly plan is cancelled right away with a pro-rata refund for the remaining full months. If you're not logged in, go to the cancellation page and request a confirmation link by email.

Question 15

Can I withdraw and get a refund?

Accepted Answer

Yes. New subscriptions come with a 14-day right of withdrawal. Within those 14 days you can withdraw on the cancellation page and get a refund — minus a small amount for any Premium time you already used. After 14 days the regular cancellation rules above apply. Full details are in the withdrawal policy.

Question 16

Where do I find my invoices?

Accepted Answer

In your profile, open the Premium card and click Payments & invoices. This opens the billing portal, where you can view your invoices and update your payment method.

Question 17

Can I use PlanesForge for my tournament?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Log in, create a tournament, configure the details (date, location, capacity, entry fee), and share the link with your players. No approval needed.

Question 18

Can I run a tournament with my own banlist?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and it costs nothing. Next to the format field — in the creation wizard and later in the tournament settings — there is a switch for a tournament banlist. Turn it on and the tournament gets a Banlist tab, where you ban additional cards or release cards the format bans.

Question 19

What can't I put on a tournament banlist?

Accepted Answer

Only cards the format already bans can be released. Everything outside the format's card pool stays out, so a Pauper tournament cannot start admitting rares — that keeps card search and the archetype data intact. A list that instead names the only legal cards ("only these may be played") is a different feature and not available yet.

Question 20

Until when can I change a tournament banlist?

Accepted Answer

Until the first round is paired. The rules that apply are frozen when check-in opens — that happens for every tournament, not just house-ruled ones, so "under which rules did this event run" stays answerable afterwards. Changing something between check-in and the first pairing rewrites that frozen list and re-checks the decklists already submitted: affected players are emailed the cards by name, and you see a count.

Question 21

Can I reuse a banlist at my next event?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in two ways: start from one of your earlier tournaments, or save the list as one of your club's templates and start from that. Both are copies. Editing a template later changes nothing about an event that already started from it — this Monday's list can be corrected without touching last Monday's.

Question 22

Does a house-ruled tournament still count towards the format statistics?

Accepted Answer

Its own meta analysis works as usual — archetypes, matchups, the breakdown. It is left out of the format-wide statistics, because it was not that format. The tournament page and its meta page both name the rules that applied, and the CSV export carries the same note.

Question 23

How does Swiss pairing work?

Accepted Answer

PlanesForge generates each round's pairings automatically from the standings. Avoiding rematches outranks everything else: a rematch only appears when no rematch-free pairing of the whole field exists at all — never because one was missed. After that the system keeps point gaps small, so a player drops at most one group. If there's an odd number of players, the lowest-ranked player without a prior bye receives one. The full explanation, including the reasoning, is under Pairings & Standings.

Question 24

Why do your standings differ slightly from another platform's?

Accepted Answer

On everything the official tournament rules define, we agree: points, tiebreaker formulas, rematch avoidance, the size of point gaps. Two things the rules leave open, though — which player of an odd group plays a group below, and how players within a group are matched against each other. Every platform settles those for itself. Here the lowest player of a group plays down, and inside a group the top half plays the bottom half — the same way the FIDE Swiss system does it. Both chosen because the result is reproducible and can be explained at the table. How large the effect is and exactly where it comes from is explained under Pairings & Standings.

Question 25

How many decklists are sent to mtgtop8.com?

Accepted Answer

Exactly eight — the Top 8. Once a tournament is completed, you can submit its Top 8 decklists to mtgtop8.com from the decklists tab in the organizer view. This requires decklist collection to be enabled, at least 8 checked-in players, and a decklist from each of the Top 8 finishers. A tournament can be submitted only once.

Question 26

What does PlanesForge post to my Discord?

Accepted Answer

If you add a Discord webhook URL in your tournament settings, PlanesForge posts twice: when registration opens, and when the tournament is completed. Each post is one line of text plus the event's own card image — date, time, entry fee and how many spots are left at the start; the winner, their record and, if they published their decklist, its name at the end. Nothing is sent that isn't already on the tournament page: no email addresses, no participant list, nobody else's decklist. Names are the display names players chose themselves, the same ones the public standings show.

Question 27

How do I get in touch?

Accepted Answer

Join the Discord community or send an email to info@planesforge.de. We're happy to help with questions, feedback, or issues.

Frequently asked.

About PlanesForge.