Can’t talk now, still playing Skyrim.
OK, actually I have plenty of time to talk about Magic. In fact, I’m going to talk about my trip to San Francisco, Head Judging the 2011 World Championships. There weren’t any super-crazy stories, although more than once there was cake. And for sure, it was a weekend to remember.
Tuesday was my travel day. Fellow (at least then-fellow) Level 5 Toby Elliott picked me up; we had Indian food; and I read a few chapters of “Dance of Dragons.” I also read a good portion of an odd, if interesting, book called “Jitterbug Perfume.” When flying, I take my Kindle plus a hardcopy book for the times when all devices must be powered off. “Jitterbug Perfume” is the non-Kindle thing I’m reading. The story, which has multiple plotlines, is engaging, although I’m not quite sure yet where the author is going with it. There are frequent references to beets, which is a bit head-scratchy. We’ll see where it ends up.
Wednesday saw the biggest-ever Judge Conference (I believe the final count was 84), hosted by our friends at Endgame in Oakland. Toby and I took a quick run by the Worlds site for the morning Staff Meeting and got to Endgame just before 1pm. There were multiple seminars, with topics appropriate for judges of all levels, throughout the rest of the day. 
Best of all, there was cake. A little more disturbing was that the cake had my face on it (actually two different pictures of my face), and Riki Hayashi delighted in eating my head. I’m sure if this were a Greek tragedy or horror film of some sort, there would be deeper meaning. As it was, I think the meaning was just “Riki likes cake.”
After the conference, Toby and I zipped across the street to a brewpub accompanied by Johanna Virtanen, Jason Lemahieu, Chris Richter, and briefly, James MacKay (apparently, Aussies have more social commitments than the rest of us, enabling them to consume more beer). There were delicious local beers and mediocre fish tacos (still no one beats Tin Fish in San Diego), and oddball discussions. We had some brief chats with other conference attendees who had the same idea (the drinking delicious beer one), then headed back to Endgame for a game of EDH with Eric Levine and David de la Iglesa, who borrowed a deck from Eric. Let’s just say that Eric builds mean decks (actually, the one he was playing was fine, but the one he loaned out was his “need this one to play against the local Spikes”), and David violated the principle of Own Your Actions. I actually think Toby, playing his very goofy Ulasht, the Hate Seed deck, won. That deck, by the way, was the first one to show us the terrible power of Vicious Shadows. I don’t think he still runs it, but the lesson was learned.
Thursday started by getting up at 0530 so we could get out the door by 0600. Toby’s place is about 45 minutes from the tournament site at the Fort Mason Center, but given part of it was through San Francisco traffic, and rush hour starts frighteningly early, we wanted to make sure we had enough flex time. Stopping for coffee, we arrived at about 0715, giving me enough time to get set up and into the right headspace for the day. Judges started trickling in about 0730, and we had a full staff briefing at 0800.
I’m a big believer in the operative part of briefing—the ‘brief’ part—so I had just a few words for the judges before they broke off into teams. Most of it involved taking care of themselves for the day (drinking enough water, taking sufficient breaks), but the significant part was the reminder that they’re the best judges in the world, among the best ever in the program, and they were here to judge at the top of the event mountain—and I had every confidence that they were going to demonstrate it. Turns out, I wasn’t wrong.
The final part of the briefing was a few words about deviations. When high-level judges deviate from the MTR and the IPG, it has a tremendous trickle-down impact on tournaments everywhere, and being that this was the World Championship, I wanted to make sure that we were enforcing our own rules. Worlds isn’t the place where you try out new stuff; it’s where you demonstrate how things are done. Pro Tour HJs deviating is “legislating from the bench,” and I find it more dangerous than productive. I reminded everyone that the two watchwords for deviation from existing policy are “significant” and “exceptional.” Otherwise, we were going to go by the book (mostly because the book is already pretty good).
My Day 1 XO was the incredible Jason Reedy. The idea of XO, a role I first created back at PT Hollywood in 2008, in exchange for getting a view into how we run events at the highest level, an up-and-coming Level 2 Judge offers the Head Judge some administrative support. It mostly involves note-taking, but the real value is the opportunity for mentoring someone who will be a significant part of the program’s future. I had the day before briefed the weekend’s XOs that they weren’t there to fetch me coffee (although each of them did end up being kind enough to bring me lunch), but to be a significant part of the judge staff.
The day itself was quite smooth. There were sixteen appeals of judge calls, and I upheld fourteen of them, once again demonstrating the quality of the judges on the floor. The two that I overturned were judgment calls that I disagreed enough with to overturn, not mistakes by the person making the original ruling.
In the first, the player, who had no cards in hand, drew his card for the turn, looked at it, and put it down on the table. After studying the board, he revealed it to flip Delver of Secrets. The ruling on the floor was the player was allowed to flip the Delver, as the game had not progressed regardless of the time it took him to reveal. The reason I overturned was that upon further questioning it came to light that the player used the same motion for this card as he had been using when drawing for the turn, signaling that he had clearly forgotten his trigger, and when dealing with ‘may’ triggers, the textbook answer is no action means the player has chosen to not take the optional action.
The second involved a player flashing back Think Twice for a second time. After some investigation to make sure it wasn’t cheating, the original judge had correctly ruled that this was a Game Rule Violation, but he also chose to back up. This was where I disagreed. The opponent had also drawn cards from this play via Consecrated Sphinx. I felt as though too much had happened to warrant backing up—too many cards drawn by both players, too much confusion created by this situation for a clean back up. Again, the operative part here was the investigation that the original player hadn’t cheated.
There were a few other interesting rulings/situations on the day. Early on, we set a great tone when a judge correctly ruled on how to handle Liliana’s discard ability. Since both players are discarding at the same time, the active player first chooses his (without revealing it, since it’s still hidden information), then the non-active player. They then reveal them simultaneously. This question came up a number of times during the weekend.
Another came when a player was tutoring for a creature with Garruk, the Veil-Cursed. When he activated the ability, he named the card he was going to fetch, took it out of his library, laid it on the table in front of him, stared at it for a few seconds, then decided to get something different. The opponent called a judge and insisted that the original player be forced to get the creature he named. The judge ruled correctly in this situation, based on two factors. First, there is no announcement of which creature you’re getting with the ability—you put into your hand on resolution. Second, and more significantly, the original player in no way attempted to gauge his opponent’s reaction or gain additional information from his actions. He in no way signaled that he was finished resolving the ability and putting the creature into his hand; in fact, it lay on the table the whole time. If he was guilty of anything, it would be of the poor play of revealing too much information and his thought processes—but that’s not an infraction.
The final interesting ruling of the day came courtesy of Snapcaster Mage. Player A cast something, which Player B responded to with Snapcaster Mage. He then grabbed Mana Leak from his graveyard and said “counter it.” Player A tapped three mana to pay for it. Player B then said that he had intended to grab Negate. The floor judge correctly ruled that with no other verbal communication, Player B’s action of picking up Mana Leak was clear announcement and didn’t allow him to change. The judge pointed out (and I agreed) that if the player had stated “Negate” and then picked up Mana Leak, it would have been clear announcement of Negate, and we would have allowed him the play.
In most cases, the food at these events is suboptimal. Worlds 2011 will probably go down as one of the best food scenarios ever, as a number of food trucks showed up at Fort Mason Center. In fact, the weekend saw an onsite Food Truck Rally, much to the appreciation of everyone assembled. I had some quite delicious spicy fried chicken for lunch. After the day was over, Toby, Jason, and I left the site for dinner, ending up at a place called The Tipsy Pig, a recommendation from Toby’s wife Jen (her office being not far from the site). It was a bar with food as opposed to a restaurant, but the food was extremely good—and we fortunately got our orders in just before the kitchen closed. We dropped Jason off at his hotel and then took the drive back to Toby’s, which at this hour took half an hour less than it had in the morning.
Day 2’s ride in began with a discussion of how we were going to get more sleep tomorrow because there’s no rush hour on Saturday. The whole San Francisco experience reinforced my idea that I don’t want to live in a big city again. Sure, there are great things to be had—food and culture being the primaries—but, as I think I mentioned regarding Philadelphia, there is a noise and haste to the city that I can live without (despite my ability to go placidly amid it).
The only downside to Day 2 was the guy who didn’t get the memo. He cheated; I caught him; there was paperwork. Other than that, it was mostly smooth sailing. James Elliott served as XO and did his customary awesome job.
The major ruling of the day involved Curse of the Bloody Tome. It’s an unusual card in that the trigger is controlled by one player and the action is taken by the other, so the player controlling the trigger can’t “miss” it until his opponent has missed it. It seemed bad to have that player get a Warning without the player who actually did the trigger-missing get only a Failure to Maintain Game State or maybe nothing at all. I huddled with Toby, Riccardo, Jeff Morrow, and James MacKay, throwing around all the possible variations on the infraction and penalties. Eventually, and if I recall correctly, with unanimous support, I decided that the best case, especially for clean play, was to warn both players for Missed Trigger, giving the Curse player incentive to make sure that his opponent does indeed remember. Curses are a policy area we really hadn’t delved too deeply into, and aware that they create some heretofore unseen situations, we agreed that this was the best ruling for the time, and the policy folks would go into the tank and come up with something for the future (I’m suspecting that it will be consistent with the Worlds ruling, but we’ll see).
Lunch was the Bacon Sloppy Joe from the Bacon Truck. Bacon Sloppy Joe.
Day 2 wasn’t all work. I got a visit from a friend I hadn’t seen since I left Alaska in 2003. She relocated to the Bay Area a few years ago and has a thriving massage therapy business (you can check out Sara Wilson Bodywork on Facebook if you’re interested). She showed up just as we were finishing the last round. After I had finished up the last of the paperwork, we sat for 3-4 hours (while Toby EDH’d), catching up on the past eight years, talking philosophy, sociology, culture, and everything in between. I had always thought that Alaska wasn’t the right place for her. If there’s anywhere for the healer/earth mother/moon goddess to flourish, it’s in SF, so I was pleased to find her doing well. We ended the visit earlier than we otherwise might have since Toby and I had a long drive back, and Saturday morning was still coming early.
Fortunately, Saturday morning came half an hour or so later than the previous two days. A little extra sleep didn’t hurt going into what is usually the most tense day of Worlds. David Hibbs served as XO, and like Jason and James before him, did a bang-up job.
Due to the powerfully good judge staff and pretty good sportsmanship by the players, Day 3 was also extremely smooth. There were still a few interesting things that happened.
The major rules question was “Does an activated Inkmoth Nexus have infect when the opponent has Melira, Sylvok Outcast in play?” The floor judge ruled that it wouldn’t because there was a dependency, which I initially agreed with until David (XOs are awesome!) pointed out that he thought that Melira didn’t create a dependency. We did what we always do in these situations—make sure that we get them right. I pulled in Toby, and we looked at the Oracle wording of Melira. We discussed it and came to the agreement that it indeed did not create a dependency, which meant that the Nexus would indeed have infect—but that would be rendered largely irrelevant due to Melira’s other ability.
A good lesson for judges came in Round 15 when a player in the Feature Match area was warned for Slow Play. The player appealed it, and the judge neglected to instruct the players to continue playing while he came to get me. It was a tactic in the olden days to appeal slow play warnings simply in order to gain more time, so we developed the practice of not actually giving them the time. Slow Play warnings are judgment calls, like balls and strikes in baseball. A judge has to be actively watching a match in order to give one out, and especially in the case of having the best judges in the world on hand, I’m going to trust their judgment. It’s been a rare thing for me to overturn a Slow Play call. The only times that it’s happened has been when I felt as though the judge hadn’t watched the match long enough to make a proper determination. The last one I remember overturning was GP Fitchburg—back in 2007.
One of the habits I developed years ago was announcing to players exactly how much time they have after posting pairings before the round begins, as in “Pairings for Round X are up, this round will begin in Y minutes” (usually 4 or 5, depending on the size of the hall and layout of the tables). I generally then watch from the stage (one of the reasons I like a stage is so that I can see the whole floor in one glance), and if I see someone making an honest effort to get to their seat on time, I won’t call the start of the round. That said, “You may begin” is a firm line. If you’re not in your seat ready to play, you’re getting the Tardiness penalty. In Round 15, we had a player get to his seat about 10 seconds after the round had begun. The judge on the scene ruled that there was no infraction or penalty, which the opponent promptly appealed, and I promptly overturned. You might think “oh, 10 seconds isn’t all that late,” but there has to be a line. Especially when we’re clear about where the line is, I’m comfortable enforcing it.
At the end of the day, after the Top 8 was announced, there was a nice announcement and ceremony regarding my retirement from active judging—and there was cake. Phelddagrif cake. Cake makes everything better. I was pleased and humbled with the number of folks who came by and said thanks.
That evening, Scott Larabee, Toby, and I, and our wives (mine having arrived the previous evening) went to Baker and Banker, a newly-popular foodie place not far from the event site. The food was indeed great, and I was happy that we all agreed to go for the Chef’s Tasting Menu (it was everyone at the table get it or no one, something about timing of courses). The place was tiny, and a little pretentious for pretention’s sake, but other than that minor criticism, it was well worthwhile.
My day Sunday consisted of sitting in on a bit of a high-level judge meeting and handing out some trophies. World-class judges Michael Wiese, Mirko Console, Jared Sylva, and Steven Zwanger patrolled the Top 8, and I was never called in to make a ruling. I also got to spend some time after the ceremony with my close friends Thom and Jeff, who live in nearby Daly City.
Judge dinner followed the pattern of better food than in the past. I actually don’t recall the name of the place, but it was a PF Chang’s-like deal that had a nice banquet room downstairs. They served a number of Asian specialties and had a decent bar. Many Judge dinners have been in places with less-than-agreeable food, not to mention tight spaces, and this was one of the better rooms we’ve had.
There were the normal program announcements (like our new Level 3s, David Hibbs and Jason Reedy) and things we’re doing for the future. Always the last to speak is the event’s Head Judge. When Andy introduced me, I’ll have to admit getting a little emotional at the reception I got. After waiting long enough to make sure that my voice wouldn’t crack when I started talking, I talked a little about how the program was in the olden days, how we got to where we are today, and what I hoped my legacy would be. There were then many handshakes and hugs, and we were off to the airport to catch the red-eye home.
I will certainly have fond memories of HJing my final Worlds. It was a true pleasure and honor leading the best judges in the world to what I believe may be one of their finest hours. Thanks to all the judges, players, staff, and friends who made it all possible.