Hello everyone! It’s been another month on the road, taking in events in St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Chicago. However, the month started with an all-too-rare chance to actually do some drafting myself at the Fantasy shop. It feels a little bit like home, being in the Fantasy shop, as I played every Prerelease there from 2001-2005. At first while I was a research fellow in Rolla, and then during my early teaching years) driving down from Macomb, IL. I still remember the thrill of taking advantage of just unbelievable commons like Wild Mongrel and drafting every copy that came my way (I think one of my decks during the Odyssey prerelease weekend had eight Wild Mongrels, while novice drafters around me failed to realize that there is no four-of limit in drafting). Anyway, back to the present. I think I went with a Naya deck containing a good sprinkling of mana acceleration with things like Noble Hierarch (sweet!) and Knotvine Mystic. This was backed up with two Bull Cerodon and Rakeclaw Gargantuan. However, I did pass on an Infest early in the draft and I was made to pay against St. Louis’ very own Mr. Suitcase. I didn’t last long enough to see it, but I believe Eric also had a Cruel Ultimatum in his deck as a nasty surprise.
Back to judging! Considering I judge regularly in six states around the Midwest, it’s a little ironic that I don’t judge more often in St. Louis. I certainly try to, but often something gets in the way: no more, I tell you. St. Louis is facing a drain on its L2 support as Andre Veen and Mike Suire get ready to eventually move out of state. I’ve been offered (and honored) to receive the chance to start running PTQ events for Moy Events, and I’ll become a more regular fixture in St. Louis from the release of the core set this summer onwards. This doesn’t mean I won’t still be running around other parts of the country, but I feel it’s important to try and help out where I’m likely to be most needed.
The St. Louis PTQ for Honolulu was very smooth indeed. We averaged a turnaround time of 59 minutes for 7 rounds of Swiss, and managed to shake hands with the eventual winner John Penick by around 9pm (he played out a very edgy final with local boy, Larry Waymon). We had some help from Kansas City’s Wes Humenczuk, who had started out on the road at 5am in order to help us out for the day. This is typical of the kind of commitment Wes shows to his judging and he’s a great asset to be able to draft in. Hopefully we’ll see more of him in the future. On the rulings front, things were fairly quiet, but things that did come up included…
Contested Cliffs will do nothing if either of the two creatures is no longer a legal target when it tries to resolve.
Controlling an opponent’s creature with Vedalken Shackles does not let you remove counters from an Umezawa’s Jitte equipped to that creature (Jitte is still controlled by the opponent).
When there are any creatures in combat with first strike and double strike, a second combat damage step is created. When the second combat damage step happens, the game checks for any creatures in combat that either have double strike or have not done any combat damage yet. So creatures with first strike or double strike that lose these abilities somehow before the second combat damage step will not get to do damage a second time.
Creatures with double strike and trample that attack a planeswalker and remove the last counters during the first combat damage step will not trample any damage in the second combat damage step to the defending player.
Planeswalkers in play with the same type (words after the dash on the type line) will be put in their owner’s graveyard as a state based effect — important for Ajani Goldmane and Ajani Vengeant.
I’d also like to remind players of the importance of making your mind up early about your deck (24 hours earlier) and completing a decklist before you come to the event. We want decklists altogether at the player meeting, at the same time to prevent players from scoping players’ cards and gaining an advantage by handing the decklist in later. A late decklist will be treated as tardiness, and at the Competitive rules enforcement level this is indeed a Game Loss (we shouldn’t be delaying the tournament for just one or two players’ benefit either). A rushed decklist with partial names can be abused if there are other legal cards in the format with the same partial name. Abuse of this could occur right up until the error is found and so the decklist will be treated as illegal — again, a Game Loss. We had to give out several penalties like this in St. Louis for tardiness and illegal decklists.
I just wanted to say congrats to The Next Level Game events in Nashville, TN. They were running a PTQ the same day as St. Louis and pulled out a whopping 180+ players. They might have been swamped if it wasn’t for a call to arms for help by the TO Donnie Noland. This was answered by L2 judge Casey Hogan from Atlanta. Casey had come a long way determined to play at Nashville, but he immediately gave up his time to judge the day instead.
This weekend was the big one: StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open in Indianapolis. I think it’s clear from the GPs in the Midwest over the last few years that we have a hotspot right here for Magic attendance (GP: Chicago, Indianapolis, and Columbus). Trying not to get carried away with things, I thought a conservative estimate would be 400+ as I was getting ready to leave on Friday afternoon. We were certainly going to be ready. The staff list for the Indy $5K included a collective GP experience from over 42 events and a collective Pro Tour experience from over 33 events. This information comes from a quick search on reviews for these people on the judge center for premier events, but you don’t always get a review, therefore these figures might still be much higher when everything is taken into account. Kudos to Nick “I love it when a plan comes together” Sabin for his sterling work putting this squad together.
We assembled at 7am and started getting ready for the day. I had a fair idea that my 400+ target had been reached when we got a message around 9:30am to add extra chairs and table numbers to the back end of the room. At the player meeting HJ Gavin Duggan announced that we had a spectacular 432 players, and a long day ahead with 10 rounds of Swiss and a Top 8. He also stressed to everyone to try and play quickly, especially at the end of rounds when time has been called. With such a high player-to-judge ratio it’s just impossible to table-watch a large number of matches, and things really slow down. Players really need to help us and police themselves at this time if the tournament isn’t going to be held up. I’ve seen rounds occasionally take an extra 30 minutes at a Grand Prix. I ask you, who takes 30 minutes to play 5 turns? Somebody does!
I wish I could tell you that the $5K was full of interesting rules decisions, but things went very smoothly indeed for the most part. I sometimes wonder if it’s the effect of Shards of Alara block on Standard. I personally think that Wizards felt that the Standard format had become too complex with the rush of abilities in Time Spiral block and interesting cards like Mirrorweave from Shadowmoor etc. Maybe they were worried about trying to make the game appealing to new players and thought they would be too daunted. That’s a genuine concern they should have, but my own personal thoughts are that maybe Shards is a little too simple with big creatures. I’ve definitely noticed a marked drop in problems at Prereleases since last fall. I’d be interested in what you think?
Late in the day I did have one judge call that was a little more unusual. A judge asked me to help out with a situation where a player had two Windbrisk Heights in play (easy so far). However, he had placed both cards facedown at the side of the board and not put them underneath the appropriate lands. When one of the Heights was destroyed his opponent was not sure which of the cards was no longer playable, and he didn’t think his opponent knew either! So what to do?
I talked to each player in turn privately about their actions and what they witnessed. Obviously, I don’t have a video replay or a lie detector test, but the opponent couldn’t really point to any behavior that was suspicious or any time where the cards were moved around in the RFG zone: he just maybe forgot over time which card was which. Talking to the player with the Heights, he was certain of his actions and which card was which. He correctly described the two facedown cards without looking at them and indicated that one of them was another Windbrisk Heights, while the second card (from the land destroyed) was a 2/2 creature. Although most people slip the chosen card underneath the appropriate Windbrisk Heights, they are not required to do so by the game rules. He correctly removed them from the game as separate piles of cards in the RFG zone. The Windbrisk player’s testimony on separate occasions was consistent and accurate, plus he was about to lose the Heights that could have let him play the creature card. There seemed to be no attempt to gain advantage by keeping a Heights that had removed a second Heights. I believe each action to remove the cards when the lands were played was clear to both players at the time, but they just became uncertain over time. We don’t give out penalties for having a ‘bad memory.’ So the situation was resolved by indicating which of the two cards was pertinent to the Heights still in play and issued no penalties (albeit I did get a heavy frown from Gavin for taking nine minutes to clear things up — Sorry Gavin!)
I was finally relieved of duty at about 10pm when the finals started, but stayed around anyway and chatted with players and judges. I gave Mike Zimmerman and Nick “Short Nick” Rzeczkowski a ride back to their hotel room at around 1am, and was kindly offered some bed space by Gavin Duggan in his nearby room. I can safely say that Gavin is a fantastic roommate for one very blessed reason: he doesn’t snore. There are some legendary “snore fest” judges on the Pro Tour but they shall remain nameless. Did someone say “Miller Time”…?
On Sunday I made a pit stop in Champaign, Urbana to try and help out at a local store called Master Consignment. They have been without a certified judge, and I went up to see how I could help. I know Paul touched on becoming a judge a few weeks ago with his article, but I thought there were a couple of points that came out of my afternoon meeting with De Irvine that bear repeating.
1. Get in contact with a L2 or L3 judge in your area and let them know you’d like to work with them towards certification (try turning up at one of the bigger Prereleases or a PTQ if you’re not sure whom to contact).
2. If you’re committed to helping out, that’s great, but it doesn’t mean you stop being a player yourself. L1 judges are local judges who help out in their nearest shop. If you can volunteer for bigger events at greater distances that’s great, but it’s not required!
3. Practice! Go to the judge center (through Wizards’ website) and take practice tests. As you improve, take the rules adviser test. If you pass the rules adviser test then it probably means you’re ready. If you don’t, you could still take the judge test, but I’d want to talk to you about how you have resolved the problems you had from the rules adviser test.
4. Obviously, read the Comprehensive Rules. However, don’t try and do it all in one sitting. The rules are complex and you can only absorb new information in short doses, say 40 minutes at a time before your brain is exhausted. Think of it like physical training, as your body needs to rest between exertions and so does your brain!
5. Read the Penalty Guide. This is crucial. Most level 1 candidates are unprepared for penalty questions and it is the most common single reason for people failing.
6. Be prepared to have fun! I judge more events than most. Why? Simply put, I’ve made so many friends, and I have such a good time I just can’t stop.
Thanks to De and everyone who came to say hello on Sunday afternoon. I finally got away and off to Chicago around 8pm, but when I got to the hotel room in Schaumberg they couldn’t find a reservation for me. Phoning up to the hotel room for Chris Goff I got a mystery voice on the other end that sounded confused, so I ended up having to look elsewhere (I found out the next day I had actually been talking to a dazed Ben Wienberg who was unaware of who he was sharing a room with).
Why was I in Chicago? Well, a certain young gentlemen whom I had ‘run into’ at GP: Chicago decided to stay on in the area as a guest of Cook County Police. We found out on Monday that the court will indeed move forward with felony charges, and I’m expecting a court summons in the weeks to come. My wife had given me a list of things not to do in court — 1. Don’t wear a batman shirt, 2. Sit up straight, 3. Don’t pick my nose, 4. Don’t shout, “You’re going downtown” and 5. Don’t adjust my crotch. I didn’t know she had so much respect for me.
So what am I looking forward to this month? Well, there are PTQs in Chicago and Louisville. And longer-term plans are coming together for GenCon in August. I’ve been authorized to say that the Vintage and Legacy Championships WILL be back at GenCon this year, after the temporary move of the Vintage Champs to U.S. Nationals last year.
That’s almost it for this month. I’d just like to say that ‘Most Valuable Judge’ (MVJ) of the month has to be Casey Hogan for his work at the PTQ in Nashville. Here’s hoping that everybody gets a lucky topdeck this week. Thanks to Eli Shiffrin for his help with this article.
Until next time!