May 28, 2017 | Sealed | Time: 11am - 9pm
HJ: Tobias Durose | FJ: Justin Schofield
Players: 32 | Winner: William Lahay

This event is already starting to fade in my mind! Oh no!

Let's see, operating on the curtails of the Pastimes sealed I decided to walk the players through the procedure this time. Getting player A to open, then player B then starting the 20 min timer and getting them to swap and register. The players seemed A LOT more comfortable with this, and I had fewer players run out of time, or look panicked near the end, so I will totally be doing this in the future.

One thing was while announcing the registration portion I erroneously went on autopilot through my “it's construction time now, make sure there's no talking as this is a skill based portion of the tournament” and a player asked me “wait, isn't this registration?” and I had to say “yes, yes it is. Attention everyone, it is REGISTRATION” yep. I looked and felt pretty dopey. Registration: a skill testing part of the tournament.

This went smoothly after that little hiccup. I grabbed decklists, people played magic. People played with fidget spinners, I got to play with fidget spinners.

The tone of the tournament felt kind of... casual, again I know this is how I project onto the tournament because I'm not really a disciplinarian nor am I a stern person, and honestly, I love my little magic players, and as I start to get to know them I naturally relax a little. It was a LOT of familiar faces at this one, my top 8 was all people that were regulars and skilled players. It felt more like, I don't know a giant magic party than a formal tournament. I'm having a problem trying to figure out what the correct level of distance is with the players, if you're too friendly, they won't respect/take you as seriously, but if you're too serious, or distant they will resent you and will constantly try to fight you. It's something I really have to think about....

On of the big things I am trying to focus more on is preventing cheaters, as much as it kills me to have to think my cute little players are cheating, the realist inside knows that it happens, and if I remain naive I'm hurting everyone, especially Magic, and I *really* like Magic. So one of the things I did this time was when there was someone that seemed to make a few 'advantageous' mistakes, I would watch them for a few rounds, or assign my L1 to them.

One of the benefits of getting to know the players is you kind of get a feel for their skill level, and if someone of a rather low skill level is doing well it's something to kind of watch, not that an inexperienced player can't do well, but it is unusual. There were a few of those this tournament, but I pretty quickly managed to figure out that Sandwurm Convergence is just broken sometimes.

My L1 did great, he nailed basically all his calls, his IPG improves every time I work with him, he was super helpful with decklists. The tournament itself felt quiet but I think that was a combination of the experience in the room coupled with the strong support of my L1.

The Top 8 went really well, there were no issues in the draft, ever since I implemented zone drafting there have been basically no problems. I did the bracket properly, the players, as always (unfailingly) looked at my funny when I didn't seat them according to swiss rank for the draft pod. (literally every time. Even some of my top 8ers from pastimes were there!)

I got them to fill out decklists for top 8, however this I have always been confused about, there is no documentation that I can find that requires them, but there's also nothing that says I can run without them. If anyone has a definitive answer, please enlighten me. (there are certainly some top 8s that I would rather do without them if possible.) Is it HJ discretion? Is there a standard practice that I am not privy to?

There were some friends in top 8, and there was some discussion after deckbuilding was completed, is this okay? It felt kind of strange but not incorrect.

Anyways then top 8 happened, things went smoothly for the most part, there was one game where a fellow judge was playing and forgot his Baleful Ammit trigger twice, his opponent quietly consistently putting the counter on the creature for him, I issued a warning and he responded “but small problems fixed by players require no interference”. I told him to play more carefully but determined that if the problem persisted I would have no compunctions about stacking warnings into a game loss.
I think the verbal reprimand, and the “Serious Tobi” voice got through because there were no more 'mistakes' out of him. Whew.

The rest of top 8 was uneventful. There was some... discussion about what happened at the last top 8. the DQ that should have happened but didn't. I owned up and said it was a mistake and I wouldn't let it happen again. I'm going to feel crummy about that one for a while, but I just have to make sure I'm extra good at everything else to make up for it.

In the end, William Lahay won, with a quirky cycling deck that boasted three mainboard scarab feast

Overall there were a few screw-ups on my part but the event ran smoothly. As I get more experience with the technical aspect I find myself questioning the less clear-cut human aspects of this job, it's tough. The more I do this the more I learn how ambiguous some parts of it really are, and how much I have to learn and improve upon. I'm excited to work GP Toronto, it will be my first event in a while working with people more experienced than me, and I'm excited to learn from them. Hopefully I can come back a better judge for my players.