Pro Tour: Hawaii is in the books. It was completely amazing. Hawaii is a great location, and the event ran quite well. The format also proved a lot more varied than people first imagined — or maybe feared.
What the Pros can do to/for/with a Format
One of the more interesting parts of the weekend was watching the format evolve. A couple weeks before the event, Magic Online had a really big tournament in the same format as the Pro Tour: Alara Block Constructed. That tournament seemed to prove that the format was all about Bloodbraid Elves and Jund aggro decks. Here was the Top 8 form that event.
Jund
Jund
Jund splash White
Naya splash Black
Jund
Jund
Naya splash Black
Here’s a typical Jund deck:
Christian F̩vrier Р1st Place, MTGO Series Season 2 Championship
4 Crumbling Necropolis
5 Forest
4 Jund Panorama
4 Mountain
4 Savage Lands
4 Swamp
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Broodmate Dragon
4 Putrid Leech
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth
4 Sprouting Thrinax
3 Bituminous Blast
4 Blightning
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Terminate
2 Vengeful Rebirth
As much as the Online world would like to claim otherwise, it does not really evolve formats completely. Sure, formats change online, and some new decks are established, but to really define a format, you need to turn the pros loose for a while with money on the line. The Top 8 of the Pro Tour turned out a bit differently than the online event.
Beach House Beatdown
Jund splash White
Five-Color Cascade
Jund
GW Aggro
The thing Conley Woods played that I can’t really name… Five-Color Aggro?
Beach House Beatdown
Sphinx Control
Paul Rietzl: Beach House Beatdown
Top 8, Pro Tour-Honolulu 2009, Block Constructed
4 Arcane Sanctum
3 Island
6 Plains
4 Swamp
4 Court Homunculus
4 Esper Stormblade
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Ethersworn Shieldmage
4 Glaze Fiend
4 Master of Etherium
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Vedalken Outlander
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Thopter Foundry
Zac Hill — Five-Color Cascade
Pro Tour-Honolulu 2009, Block Constructed
3 Arcane Sanctum
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Forest
3 Island
2 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
4 Rupture Spire
3 Seaside Citadel
4 Swamp
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Caldera Hellion
2 Kathari Remnant
4 Wall of Denial
2 Ajani Vengeant
3 Bituminous Blast
3 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Esper Charm
4 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Obelisk of Alara
4 Traumatic Visions
Tom Ross — GW Aggro
2 Exotic Orchard
7 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
3 Mountain
3 Naya Panorama
5 Plains
2 Battlegrace Angel
4 Dauntless Escort
2 Druid of the Anima
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Ranger of Eos
1 Thornling
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Ajani Vengeant
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Martial Coup
2 Naya Charm
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Path to Exile
1 Sarkhan Vol
Conley Woods — Five-Color Aggro
4 Ancient Ziggurat
1 Arcane Sanctum
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Jungle Shrine
1 Mountain
1 Plains
3 Savage Lands
3 Seaside Citadel
1 Swamp
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Broodmate Dragon
2 Jenara, Asura of War
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Putrid Leech
4 Rhox War Monk
4 Sedraxis Specter
4 Woolly Thoctar
Michael Hebky — Sphinx Control
4 Arcane Sanctum
3 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Exotic Orchard
2 Island
3 Mountain
4 Rupture Spire
3 Seaside Citadel
3 Swamp
2 Cancel
3 Celestial Purge
1 Countersquall
4 Courier’s Capsule
4 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Double Negative
4 Esper Charm
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Magma Spray
1 Martial Coup
2 Offering to Asha
1 Path to Exile
1 Terminate
The format went from 8 aggro decks running a maximum of 32 copies of Bloodbraid Elves to fully half the decks not even sticking an elf in the sideboard. The format has changed.
All it takes is letting the pros have a whack at it.
The Judge Draft
Thursday, the day before the event began, the judges meet for three main functions. First, a pair of judges present the “
The second function is the two-headed judge draft. Wizards is kind enough to provide product, and we all draft. Everyone gets one more look at the format, and a chance to discuss, well, stuff. The discussion is not all judge related.
The third function is a format briefing. In this case, some Canadian judges who were involved in playtesting for the PT covered the likely decks. They had a pretty comprehensive list of the archetypes — although I’m not sure they had a complete read on the Japanese GW or Beach House Beats. They were close. Since they were slotted between the end of deck construction and round 1 of the draft, they were also well attended and — thankfully — reasonably brief.
My judging day began a bit before the sessions. Five of us went out for dinner, including my co-presenter and the judge organizing the two-headed draft. The one with the product.
We had talked to Aaron Hamer — a fellow judge and a former Hawaii resident — about a good local restaurant. We wanted something in easy walking distance, with good food that we could not get at home. He could not recommend any true Hawaiian places close by, but knew of a really good Korean restaurant. It was two blocks from the venue, in between an adult superstore and a strip club. That small part of town has a lot of strip clubs and the like. After all, Hawaii has several military bases, so they get a lot of business.
We walked over and checked it out. It had a lot of indications that it might be good. The biggest was that it was fairly crowded, and most of the customers and all of the staff was Korean, or at least Asian. The posters and décor was also all Korean — or at least in an Asian language I don’t read. Ordering was a bit tricky, but the menu had pictures and numbers, along with some very questionable translations. I’m still not sure what “stringiness of cow with bamboo and vegetables of stew” was. I had fish soup.
The service was a bit slow, but the food was excellent. However, the time of our seminar was fast approaching — and then past. We tried to explain that we needed the bill, because we had to leave. The response was “You want more spicy, yes?” By the time we had everything sorted out, it was almost fifteen minutes after the seminar was supposed to start, and since the seminar was at the judge hotel — ten minutes away — we were going to be very late. We considered running, bit the temperature was pushing 90 degrees, and it was extremely humid. We settled for walking fast.
By the time we arrived, all the judges were waiting to draft. We could have done the first big event, but the judge in charge of the draft had a better idea. He simply paired each new judge with someone that had presented the seminar before.
My “new” judge had worked a GP before, so he understood how big events worked. Better yet, he was a skilled drafter. We would alternate picking up the packs and rapidly cutting to the best cards. We only disagreed on a couple cards all draft, and we won our pod fairly easily. It was a sweet night.
Notable Comments I Overheard
Player A was in topdeck mode, while his opponent was reasonably well off. The player cast Enlightened Wurm, which cascaded into Bituminous Blast, and into Bloodbraid Elf, which brought out produced a Blightning. (I guess Cruel Ultimatum is not the best 6+ cost spell out there anymore. I saw this at least twice.) The comments — first, the opponent did not swear, at least out loud. Player As comment was typical: “This format is so random.”
Player A hit one of his opponent’s two blockers with Path to Exile. When the opponent picked up his library, the opponent said “let me save you the trouble. I’m going to Path your other blocker, then kill you.” So helpful.
Judges of all stripes: “This format is amazing!” The players might find it a bit random, but we judges loved it. The format was all about playing guys and turning them sideways. That sort of format is fast, and this certainly was. Rounds were ending on time. The last round of Swiss, on Day 2, ended early. The last match result slip was turned in with one minute and 52 seconds left on the clock. Overall, the Swiss part of the event ended over an hour ahead of schedule.
Judges love that sort of thing. We would rather have an extra round of Swiss than matches running long after time is called. In an extra round, everyone plays. When matches run on, everyone waits. The first option is much better.
The other thing judges love is carpet. This venue didn’t have carpet. It had concrete. Walking on concrete for ten to twelve hours straight is hard on the feet. I asked about bringing in carpet for events like this. You can get carpeting for venues like arenas. The costs can be something like $20k or more. That is a lot, but we did have roughly 50 judges at the event. That would mean we could get carpet for the venue for just $400 per judge.
That sounds insane — but at the end of Day 2, I was limping pretty badly. At that point, it seemed totally reasonable.
And the Comments Nobody Heard
At a big event, judges have to be impartial. We also have to appear impartial. That can also be hard. In a couple of cases this weekend, Madison players were playing against well known names in matches that were not in their favor. In several cases, they won. In at least two cases, I was able to see most of the final games. As a judge I was rooting hard, but I couldn’t let anything show on my face.
In at least one case, I had to take the match result slip all, then walk all the way back to the judge room before I could pump my fist. We are impartial, but it is still fun when friends pull one out. It’s like rooting for the home team.
The Top 8
Once again, I got the best job I know of — running push tool while watching the Top 8 coverage. As part of the coverage, Wizards pushes images of relevant cards out onto the web along with their coverage. I was the one doing that. The tricky part is that the cards are delayed a couple of seconds, while the card image is fetched and uploaded. Now I could simply listen to the coverage, and when they mentioned a card, then clicked on a pull down list, found the card and shipped it, but the coverage also had a delay. Listening to the coverage would mean that it would appear ten or more seconds late.
I had one alternative — I was working from behind the scenes — and almost directly behind the big projection screen that was showing the video feed. That was not delayed — but I was looking at the back of the screen, so the image I saw was reversed. I don’t know if you have ever tried to record a draft when the card images (and names) are both fuzzy and backwards, but it was a challenge.
The Top 8 draft is in the archives, as are the matches I watched. You have access to the same things I did — and possibly more. The Internet access service that Wizards was using to run push tool had a failing router. That was eventually identified, but until that happened, the Wizards folks were seeing what appeared to be trouble with a firewall. The end result was that I kept getting locked out of the program at the most inconvenient times — usually when I had either just misspelled something or pushed a card that was relevant for a very short time.
The Top 8 also took a long time to play out. Many matches went to five games. I enjoyed listening in immensely, but some other judges did not. I was scheduled to do a training seminar on deck checks after the Top 8. Early predictions were that the Top 8 might end by 4:00pm. It didn’t — my seminar didn’t start until almost 6:30 pm. I was really gratified to find that a lot of judges stayed around to participate. I’ll probably talk about that seminar — and the data collection that lead up to it – in some future article.
For now though — I am still in Hawaii. I am going to do something more interesting than typing on my laptop.
PRJ
Soon to be on the beach, or in the water, somewhere in Hawaii.