I was recently participating in a local heroclix game where the scenario stated:
"Man is the Cruelest Animal ~ Friedrich Nietzsche Bring out your retired figs! In this 200 point rumble in the jungle, each figure must have an animal, insect, invertebrate, or mythical beast in its name. No duplicate figs,(same name or sculpt from same set), and no medics (R/E/V or LE counterparts). Perplex does not stack."

My team consisted of

E. Robin
U. Phoenix
R. Green Lantern

I asked the judge before the game if I could use green lantern because in his name, contains the name of a common insect : ANT. As stated in his posted scenario.

He said it was cleaver and he would allow me to use it. All the other players started to complain that I was allowed to use this piece, and He then changed his mind and told me to use my back up team instead. I thought this was extremely unfair and the judge was highly persuaded by the other players. Please give me your input,

Should I have been allowed to use Green Lantern?ant
Thanks!

I think it was clever, but I also feel it abused the spirit of the scenario. As far as the ruling went, it certainly could encourage hard feelings if the Judge made a ruling only to go back on that ruling due to pressure from the other players. But I think it would've been best in this case for the Judge to poll the other players before making a snap decision anyway.
Do I think it unfair? No. The Judge was doing what he could to make the event the most fun for all. If there were hard feelings harbored by the other players because they felt you abused the scenario rules, that would've been worse than asking you to play a back-up team. (Why did you bring a back up team if you thought that your team was exactly by the letter of the law, anyway? It seems to me that maybe you thought it was a little suspect.)

Edit: Wait, why is this in the DC Forum?

Did the player complaints happen immediately afterwards or something like 5-10 minutes later when the tourney began?

Depends on the circumstances - I think it was fair enough of him to determine one way or the other but once his decision was made he should have stuck w/ it.

If it was a circumstance I hadn't predicted & I wanted to check w/ the players (fair enough since you certainly thought "outside the box") I would have another example rather than have the players know they'd be facing a Green Lantern. Mr. FANTastic comes to mind. Then when the players say sure & you bust out Hal & they're start complaining I'd say "Tough noogies ya' bunch a pewlin' panty-waists!" Yeah, that's what I'd tell 'em!

Thats cleaver and fair. Taking unfair advantage of the rules would be Use ing Ultimate thor in a tournament where everyone needs a colour in thier name, Because everyone know "or" is a shade of red.

Besides that... how is using Ultimates Thor, where two letters of his name (50% of his name) is a color, more unfair than using Green Lantern, where three letters of his name (25% of his name) is an animal? Neither of these cases are really representative of: a) what the scenario for the tournament is supposed to be or b) the theme of the character.
I think your objection in the second case is U Thor's obvious point efficiency, and not the theme of the tournament.

so wait.....did anyone use Batman?

LE Antman?

this thread is nonsense.

Thanks for contributing.

I woudl of complained about it too. Animal or such in name would be like BLack Canary or Hawkgirl or such. Not a section of a name like lANTern.

Cry me a river.

You completely tried to abuse the spirit of the requirement through twisting semantics and you complain when people objected?!

Sorry, but your judge and the complaining players were completely in the right as far as I'm concerned.

Well, if he wanted to let you use GL, he should have informed the other players a.s.a.p. so they could possibly try to come up with some 'cleverness' of their own. If I were the Judge, I would have applauded your idea... then I would have made the clarification that the animal, etc. had to be a full word of the character's name, not contained in a word of the name (which I believe is what the scenario was going for in the 1st place, right?).

Since you had a back-up team prepared, I don't think what he did was really unfair ... It was just a little bit foolish of the Judge to think everyone else who had made their teams according to the proper scenario restrictions would think your team was as 'clever' as he did. It's unfortunate that he made the mistake of telling you it was okay then took that decision back, but I wouldn't call that unfair. Unfair would be disallowing your Green Lantern, but allowing someone else's Bullseye, or the like. Hopefully that didn't happen.