June 4, 2017 | Sealed | Time: 12pm - 9pm
HJ: Tobias Durose | FJ: Hardy Johnston
Players: 33 | Winner: Dylan Gidlof

This tournament... I was very nervous about this one, while Wisers is the store I learned to play magic at, it's also the store I learned to play magic at. So like, the owner and associates remember a time when I was a shit-headed idiot. Also historically, one of the most experienced judges (and one of the judges I look up to) in the area works this store, and sometimes I work it because he can't and... and well I can never totally shake the feeling I'm being compared to the judge they actually wanted and am coming up short.

Basically running events at this place freaks me out.

And running sealed is still frightening. There are so many more little... bits to a sealed tournament that can go wrong.

However, the sea of now familiar faces kind of put me at ease a little more.

That is, until I announced that there were 7 rounds for 33 people instead of 6. what am I even doing? Luckily only about 7 players mentioned this to me in the four seconds after I made the announcement. It was an easy fix. But, I looked dumb. I think I need to resign myself to the fact that basically no less than once a tournament I will do something irrevocably idiotic for no reason that will leave the players questioning my capabilities to sail them through the rough PPTQ waters.

Ahem, in any case, metaphors aside. I again, walked them through the opening and registration process. They seem so much more comfortable when I do this, I don't know why I ever thought the other way would be better.

One thing I did was bring paper and pens to the tournament. Some stores get kind of upset when players (and subsequently judges) are constantly asking for pens and paper, and I recall that being a minor point of contention last time, so I brought a little pad of paper and a few pens, and I had enough for everyone that asked and I didn't have to bother the store, which was nice.

At the end of construction I had a player who hadn't finished registration of his deck, so I had to give him a tardiness penalty and GL for the first round, looking back on it this felt really harsh and I kind of felt bad for him all tournament, since it's such a stupid thing to give an infraction for. But at the same time, like, it wasn't anywhere near done, he managed to finish it up a little after getting seated for round 1 but... I wanted to apologize in some way but that feels incorrect.

Hardy was my L1 for the event, but he was also kind of helping with store duties at the same time. His IPG is a little thin and the group at Wisers seems to chronically call less anyways so that aspect worked out. And he was always there for deck checks and start of round.

It was a little strange working as Hardy's boss, since when I started he was that really experienced player that wasn't a jerk that I kind of looked up to. Working at Wisers is a weird experience for me, to say the least.

Deck checks went smoothly, I usually do them for rounds 2-4 and get more check in than is strictly necessary, and by R5 and 6 all the relevant tables are splitting anyways. In R4 or 5 I did a deck check on the bottom half on of my more vocal players who was like “why are you deck checking the bottom, these matches literally don't matter” and I responded “well that's how you know it's random” his retort was “but it shouldn't be” I didn't totally respond to that because it seemed like a can of worms that I didn't want to open during a time sensitive activity like a deck check, but a discussion that might be better to have later. Perhaps I will bank that and bring it up during the next time I see him. I mean, sometimes deck checks are not random, if I think something weird is going on, I check that person, but I don't think telling the players that is the best idea. We certainly don't want everyone looking at the deck check-ee like they're some kind of indicted criminal.

In round 2 the TO let me know that prizes were being handed out after swiss and top 8 would be played for just the invite. I was a little nervous as this is the kind of thing you are supposed to announce at the beginning, but luckily nobody seemed to take issue with this.

In R4 a player came up to me and said that his opponent had “mistapped lands” favorably in the last game. I had heard a light scuffle earlier from their table and wanted to address it, but it seemed that they had worked something out by the time I finished whatever I was doing, so this player coming up to me after the fact was a little disconcerting, I wish they had just called in the first place. There is no shame in calling a judge I mean, that is literally what we are here for.
I told him that yes it could be cheating and yes it could also not be cheating, but that I would keep an eye on the situation and thanked him for talking to me about it.
It came as a bit of a blindside because this was a player that didn't come across as a cheater but, I know that making judgments based on flimsy unfounded assumptions like that is incredibly poor. So I watched her games through the next few rounds when I could, after the next round I asked her about the situation at the end of the previous round, but she didn't really say anything about it that gave me an inclination either way. I also didn't see any other strange behavior so I didn't have any reason to take further action, but I suppose they will be someone to passively keep an eye on in the future. Unfortunately.

The top 8 draft went smoothly, and quickly, zone drafting is the best thing invented my mankind IMO. If there was a church of zone drafting I would totally join it.
The other thing I've started doing is timing the review period, in my first few events I was a little shaky on procedure and kind of just gave them “a few minutes” and when everyone felt done I let them draft again. That was wrong, I knew it was wrong, so for the last three events I've had a cute little 60 second timer and then a 1:30 min timer for the two review periods. I like doing this because it makes me feel important and official. Uhm, also because it's correct procedure. That too.

Top 8 actually finished in like, 1.5 hrs. it was fantastic, there was W/B aggro, R/B aggro, the U/R durdle got knocked out in first round (while that deck is adorable to watch sometimes it also makes games take FOREVER). Because of the swiss prize give away the discussion for top 2 was kind of hilarious “do you want the invite?” “yeah” “oh, okay so do I. Let's play” it actually took a lot of strain off of me, because there really wasn't any discussion that could happen.

In the end a lot of my nervousness was for naught as the tournament went smoothly. I think it was a record low of infractions, not sure if that is necessarily a good thing, it either means everyone is playing properly (yay!) or people aren't calling when they should be (boo!) in any case, I had fun, players seemed to enjoy themselves. And all was well that ended well.