here's a couple questions:

Can the point value be changed from 300 points to anything else for a marquee?

Can people use more than 3 boosters in a marquee (assuming all use the same #)?

this kind of stuff always happens at marquees at my venue

Officially the answer to your questions is currently "no". 300 points, 3 boosters.

But some places do what they want, sometimes if the players agree, but sometimes if they don't (either the judge is uninformed, uncaring, or just plain wrong).

I wasnt allowed to use the 3D objects during the marquee. I thought they were legal for "any" Wizkids sanctioned tournament.

Marquees may not be house ruled, period. Judges know this (at least they should if they pay even a little attention to the material they are supposed to read to become judges) but, as Uniquist mentioned, some choose to still do whatever they and/or the players want. I am all for keeping players happy, but I also don't think it is too much to ask for when WK says, "Hey, this one specific tournament that is run once per set (so maybe once every 3 or 4 months), don't house rule it, please."

Here's a link to the official tournament rules, if you all wish to peruse them. They cover a lot of things, including Marquee format. In addition to this, WK also sends out a sheet of paper with the Marquee prizes explaining how they should be rewarded and some other details, too.

Although changing rules in the marquee is technically not kosher, if all players involved agree, the judges around here as well as myself when I was a judge were very okay with changing them as long as the tournament remained true to the format.

I actually like having set rules for the marquee, it makes everything easy.

As always, I'll interject that sometimes circumstances dictate that a Marquee be run 'officially'. This has happened to us a number of times if the store has sold out of product prior to the Marquee.

So, we've occasionally run 2-booster/200-point games (Sinister) or even older product if new product was not available.

Usually someone jumps and and 'blames' the venue for selling out of product...but our stores have had troubles getting reorders. Even this week I think we only had enough boosters because I had agreed to buy a brick and had it set aside.

I have no problem at all with situations like this; stuff happens and you have to make do with what is available. My old venue almost had to use Mutant Mayhem for the Legacy Marquee. Luckily one of the other stores in the area had some boosters and the venue owner was able to purchase those for our use.

The problem I have is when there is absolutely no reason to run a Marquee any differently than what the official rules say... but the judges goes ahead and does it differently anyway.

The judge at my Marquee PLAYED and even when I told him it was against the rules, he ran a 400 point Marquee because he pulled vet surfer and wanted a better rounded team. (He declared the point value AFTER we opened our boosters!)

Yeah, weak.

Contrary to popular belief, there's nothing that says that judges can't play (at least not anymore). What judges can't do is win any prizes. I'm the judge for our venue and I played in the marquee (we had an odd number of players show up, so I decided to round it out to avoid the awful first round bye). Turns out I pulled a Vet Hyperion and some nice support. I won the tournament, but the prize went to second place. Now I jumped in only after it was obvious that we'd have an odd number and long after everyone knew the map rules and the build total. A judge screwing with the build total after he saw what *he* pulled is fishy as hell. I hope he didn't win and then give himself fellowship for running such a bang-up tournament.

No, he still lost. I don't care if judges play, but they CANNOT make rulings to benefit themselves, it is just stupid.

Report the judge to [email protected]. Right now is a bad time to not follow Wizkids rules.

Yeah, but that's a whole other problem you're creating for yourself. Unless you've got a approved judge ready to take over for him today, you're going to be without an envoy of record for the venue. That means no prize support. We didn't have any for the marquee because WK dropped our previous judge with no notice. So now, having become the judge for the venue, I'm trying to track down a marquee prize pack to give to the guys that won (anyone got a spare King Hyperion, Donald Blake, and eight Frogs of Thunder?). I expect Approved Play will get back to me soon, but that wasn't much comfort for the players who showed up on Saturday.

I don't play at a venue very often , but the judge is my friend and I wouldn't do that. I will just have to convince him that he is in the wrong and that his judgeship can be revoked for it.

I asked the judge at my venue to please keep the Supernova sealed events to a 300 point total, and he went ahead and made it 400 anyway, rationalizing that the high cost figures justified a larger build total.

Personally, I think that facing off against Thanos (Vet Surfer et. al.) is easier to manage in a 300 point build as the Uber-figures have less options for support. Tack the extra 400 points on there, and suddenly Thanos has some TK, enhancement, perplex, and tie up pieces that really, really make him hard to handle.

While we were opening boosters, a judge from another venue saw my picks (mostly figures in the 70-95 point range) and the booster contents of the guy sitting next to me and commented something like "Wow you guys didn't get any big figures did you?" Which was true, no Rare Vets, no high end U's. Luck of the draw I know, but I can't help feeling that my marquee would have been better served at an even 300.

And that's how the dice get thrown around these parts...

Just remind him that as a judge he is required to frequent the Envoy Forums on the WK site. This very topic is almost always discussed weeks before every marquee on the site. We always seem to get new judges that have this same exact question every marquee.

Also you should note that this is what the Official Hero Clix Erata released by WK on October of 2006 says:
Also if you do have a new judge you should just bear with him until he becomes adjusted. Regardless of wether a judge makes the correct rule (as he should) or not, his ruling at the event stands: