My official job title at Star City Games is Events Coordinator. This typically involves promoting our events, staffing them, and then traveling throughout the Southeast to run them. Although I’ve never actually counted, it’s a safe bet that I run some thirty to forty events every year, everything from Prereleases to PTQs. I’m the guy taking money at the beginning of an event, I may be the head judge of that same event (if not scorekeeping), and I’m the one who loads up the van and drives home at the end of the day. I’m the guy you talk to when you need to know where the ATM is, where the bathroom is, or where you can get some food real quick before the next round starts. It’s a job that requires lots of travel, many nights in hotel bedrooms, and an aptitude for knowing where the best restaurants are in the towns we frequent.
When we transitioned from holding infrequent $5000 Standard Opens in 2007 to running an entire series of them in 2009, I’ll confess to a slight hint of intimidation at the prospect of staffing what is, essentially, a miniature Grand Prix ten times over the calendar year. Staffing events locally is not terribly difficult, as I know most of the judges in this area and can count on them to make the trek to Roanoke or Richmond in the event of a PTQ or a $1K. Trying to coordinate judges outside of Virginia, however, is a bit more challenging. It involves lots of scouring the DCI Judge Center, e-mailing and IRCing with judges I do know, and soliciting the Judge List for the rest.
I was very fortunate this time around, as Minneapolis (or Burnsville, if you want to be precise), the host of our most recent $5K, is close enough to some of the best judges the DCI has to offer. In addition to my fellow judge and SCG writer Pete Jahn and former SCG writers Chris Richter and Jason Lemahieu, I was fortunate enough to also have such luminaries as Judge video guru Ingrid Lind-Jahn and Pro Tour comrade Justin Hovdenes (who made the nine-hour drive to our event along with fellow judge Ashlund Salway) on staff. My gratitude also goes out to Erik “Shiny” Olson, Jordan Baker, Rob McKenzie, Matt Danner, and Joel Nerenberg for their hard work. Of course, it doesn’t hurt things when your scorekeeper is none other than Pro Tour Public Events mastermind Steve Port, and the exceptionally talented Lindsay Kary was overseeing side events.
Our head judge for the event was Eric Shukan, a talented judge from the Boston area whom I’ve known for many years. This was in keeping with our goal of introducing high-level judges to regions in which they may not be familiar. Our first $5K this year, for example, had Pennsylvania’s excellent John Alderfer driving seven hours down to Richmond. Gavin Duggan made the trip from Calgary to helm Indianapolis back in March, Aaron Hamer crossed the country from Portland, Oregon to join us in Atlanta three weeks ago (despite not arriving at ATL until sometime around midnight EST), and SCG alum Seamus Campbell trekked out to helm the first half of our Boston $10K weekend (an event at which Eric judged, oddly enough). This is a practice we fully intend to continue throughout 2009 and into the 2010 $5K Series; judges often become quickly familiar with their local colleagues, and having an outside influence to shake things up can be quite useful.
Traveling to different parts of the country as a judge typically has significant advantages, primarily relating to the differences in the way organizations manage their events. At your average Star City Games event, for example, we require that you fill out a registration slip with your name and your DCI number. At our $5K in Minneapolis, I was introduced to a new way of getting people into an event: do not use any registration slips, but instead have people queue up and type their DCI numbers into a USB keypad, entering themselves into the event after paying the entry fee. I was quite impressed with the efficiency of this method; our Roanoke players ought to expect to see it at an upcoming $1K or PTQ.
Another change we encountered upon our voyage to Minnesota was the way in which we kept the players abreast of how much time remained in the round. When we’re at the Star City Game Center, we use flat-screen televisions to post both pairings and time remaining. Otherwise, we hoist an LED clock on a large stand. At Misty Mountain North, they actually have a projector that displays both pairings and time remaining in the round on a screen toward the back of the store. This information is also fed into a series of televisions hung from various places so that the information is easily accessible. It definitely facilitates the process of pairing and seating a room full of Magic players..
A few days prior to the event, I polled around to gauge expectations for attendance. The consensus was that we’d hit somewhere in the range of 300 to 350 players, so I was rather pleased when the final player count topped off at 334. That meant nine rounds of Swiss in addition to the Top 8 cut. Those who performed well would surely be in for a long day of Magic. Those who did not perform well had the option of competing in a Cruise Qualifier; 54 players availed themselves of that option, which was sufficient for an extra six rounds of Swiss, plus registering and constructing sealed decks, plus the possibility of a booster draft in the Top 8.
Those of you who keep track of the rules may have noticed Aaron Forsythe article of a few weeks back detailing the rules changes that would be implemented with the onset of Magic 2010. While those changes are indeed significant, there have also been some recent developments in the DCI. You might be aware of the significant changes we’ve made to the Holy Trinity of Magic policy: the Magic Floor Rules (MFR), the Universal Tournament Rules (UTR), and the Penalty Guide (PG). The MFR and the UTR are no more, now replaced by the Magic Tournament Rules (with the hybridized acronym MTR) and the Infraction Procedure Guide (IPG).
While those who cared to would be familiar with the changes instituted in these two new documents — for example, the new legality of outside notes (within reason, of course) and the ability for observers to request that a match be paused if said observer believed a rules violation had occurred — it was also possible that players would assume that these changes were effective immediately. This is not the case — both the MTR and the IPG did not become actual policy until the first of July.
I was concerned that we may encounter situations in which players played under the new-but-not-technically-official-yet rules. How exactly do you rectify a situation where players are acting in a fashion that is incorrect now, but correct and appropriate in a matter of two weeks? Consulting on this with Eric, he presented the opinion that the occurrence of such incidents would be minimal enough to avoid serious concern. Nonetheless, he made a point of explicitly mentioning the slight temporal difference in rules and policy. To my surprise, there were no incidents of players mistakenly operating under the new rules.
Back when I was a player, the concerns I had over the course of a tournament typically had to do with my play (and the mistakes I made whilst playing), my sideboarding plans, and how many more matches I’d have to win in order to make Top 8. As an aside, one of the most common questions I get as a judge is “what record will make Top 8?” The easiest and safest answer to this question? “I don’t know.” The process of calculating tiebreakers, while not terribly complex, is rather work-intensive and, as always, things can go wrong. But I digress.
The hat of Tournament Organizer — even with the fantastic staff with which I was blessed this past weekend — comes with a variety of different concerns: are there going to be enough tables and chairs? Does the printer have enough ink? Where do we get lunch? (Surprisingly, it is the latter of these three questions that presents itself most often.) In Minneapolis, we had enough chairs to seat 342 players, making our final attendance rather fortunate. Packing two printers and an extra ink cartridge obviated the second concern, and the presence of a Papa John’s employee who parked himself at the front of Misty Mountain North and sold pizzas all day long satisfied our culinary needs. Being a tournament organizer — at least, being a good tournament organizer — is quite a shift from being a judge. When things are running smoothly, when there are no major issues and everybody is having a good time, there is actually very little to do. It’s only when things get bad — somebody’s binder full of Beta Power gets stolen, a player gets disqualified for cheating, and so on — that the job becomes stressful. Contrast this with the constant vigilance required of a floor judge, and endless rulings to explain how no, Incinerate (or, soon enough, Lightning Bolt) doesn’t necessarily kill a 2/3 Tarmogoyf, and the dichotomy can appear somewhat jarring.
At the end of the day, once the players have been seated for the Top 8 and we’ve begun packing up the van, there’s a wave of fatigued relief that washes over me. Running a Magic event is hard work — getting up at six in the morning after spending the previous day driving to the event, then sticking around until the last player has packed up their trade binder and gone home — and knowing that the event has passed without any major catastrophes is a wonderful thing. When I started really getting into judging, I did it to contribute to the Magic community. It’s what I do for a living now and, while getting paid to do something I used to do for a few slices of pizza, a soda, and a box of product has absolutely changed the relationship I have with the game, I’m still pleased and proud to run a good event.
Until then, this is Nicholas Sabin, encouraging you to find what you enjoy most about this game and do it as much as possible. That is, unless what you enjoy most about the game is stealing other people’s cards and being a jerk, in which case I encourage you to find something else.
Nicholas Sabin
nicholas dot sabin at starcitygames dot minneapolis
NicholasAtSCG on our forums and … pretty much everywhere else.