PPTQ Report – Aug 21, 2017
LSoM | Sealed | Time: 11am – 8:30pm
HJ: Tobias Durose | FJ: Justin Schofield
Players: 26 | Winner: Chris Yao

The event was advertised as having a player cap of 24; however, we had some waitlisters, and at 12pm anyone who registered but wasn't present had their seat donated to a waitlister. Unfortunately due to some miscommunication we were still entering players in at around 12:05 (I thought front desk was doing it as people paid, but they allegedly were not) and we had some of the per-registered players wander in late, I looked innocently up at the TO and asked if we could fabricate two more seats out of thin air. He agreed, but this caused a little unrest with some of the other players, who protested that “if I had known that you would just let more people I would've brought x or y friend”. Luckily before I had to respond some of the other players pointed out the logic in my decision, mentioning that other game stores would do the same thing. Whew. I feel like I may have dodged a bullet there. Thank you magic community :) Overall, we started a little late, around 12:15(ish) I made announcements as players received product and went through the sealed procedure with them. Notably, while I had the first set of players verify the markings on the packs, I forgot to get the second set to do so. Which made me feel rather foolish. Oops. A few players took it upon themselves to display the double black line on the side of the packs to their registration partner. Opening went quick enough, registration was pretty mellow. Some people barely managed to register in time but we didn't have any unpleasant tardiness situations. Construction went well, it was nice & quiet. Some very typical reg errors. Nothing weird.
The tournament itself was pretty quiet, there were a few fairly basic questions, the group itself was fairly experienced. In round 4 we somehow managed to deck check two of my fellow L1's. What a useless deck check.
Other interesting things I learned during the course of this tournament were:
While the bubble tea place near me has excellent bubble tea, their slushies are pretty sub par, as verified by players.
Alternatively the nearby grocery store was selling sandwiches described by players as being “sick value”.
What I thought was really cute was one of our seasoned PPTQ-ers drew with his opponent in round 4, a younger, less experienced player and he kind of mentored this kid a little, talking to him about his deck and card quality. It made me really happy that our experienced players were willing to help out the younger players, regardless of whatever else happens, I think that in and of itself is a sign of a really healthy community. Again, way to go Magic BC! I've done a few top 8's at this point, so I asked my L1 if he would like to run the top 8, he agreed and I went through everything with him beforehand and made sure his bracket was accurate etc.
It was a little gratifying seeing him have trouble with the draft bracket because I always have to think about it. Like I know how to make a draft bracket, but I always feel like I need to triple check it just in case.
Top eight draft was pretty quiet, one player went to look at his picks, we knew it was his first top 8 and told him off for it. Since I had my L1 for the top 8 draft (usually I set them free at this point) I decided to do a deck check (because on one of my last reports someone advised me to do a deck check in top 8 > I always read the comments, I might not always respond usually because I read them like 2 months later, but I do always read them and consider what is said. I appreciate every bit of advice from people with more experience than me :3) And then one of my.. ahem, more vocal players immediately asked me philosophically why I ran a deck check in top 8, because any cheating would've likely occurred during registration, at first I very honestly said “someone smarter than me said it was a good idea so I thought I'd give it a shot” and then after a beat I was like “oh and we can also catch pre-sideboarding”
This seemed to placate the player. He agreed that yes, pre-sideboarding could be a thing.
I had one player in top 8 make a few weird mistakes. Not tapping for a creature, missing an exile vs graveyard effect, I wasn't sure if cheating, but after the second call I watched him very closely, I didn't see anything else weird and he ended up losing that round anyways. If I see him in the future I will check in on his games.

One of the benefits of running a lot of events in a fairly localized community is that you really start to get to know and recognize the players, and as an extension you can kind of track people who might be doing... ahem... weird stuff. So while I might not be able to come to a conclusion this tournament about a potential malicious player, over the course of many tournaments eventually I will hopefully be able to find and eliminate these people from the player base.

In the end it was a fun tournament, spirits were high. And for the most part things went well.

Oh except for the potential bribery/collusion in finals.

This one... the community here is.. most of the time people in the finals know each other, which can cause them to be less.. vigilant about the kind of language they use to adjust the prizes.

Typically if a question is phrased as an “if prizes then match result” the player is toast. I know this. I feel like they should know this. I am embarrassed to admit that this is how one of my finalists phrased his prize distribution suggestion. I verbally reprimanded him, at which point his opponent actually asked for clarification on how prize splitting should be phrased. Saying something along the lines of “I know some judges who don't seem to care what happens in the finals” I was more than happy to educate the players, and they both seemed more than happy to play after some legal prize distribution discussion.
I let the players know this was inaccurate but feel like a DQ was probably a more correct “by the book” solution. I think I am quickly realizing I have a hard time DQ'ing players for this kind of thing. This is a huge weakness and something I need to work on. Above all else I want to ensure the players have a pleasant tournament experience, and I also want to ensure that games of magic decide games of magic and not anything else. I know it's inaccurate, but a small part of me felt like DQ'ing the player was the wrong course of action. Afterwards I discussed with my L1 who was on the other side of the argument, agreeing that yes, what was “said” was wrong, but didn't feel a DQ was necessary, mentioning that “we understood what he meant”. Of course as soon as he said that, he realized how weird it sounded.

So we end up with a situation where everyone but me feels like the right thing happened. Makes me second-guess myself quite a bit here. It will be something I will have to think about in preparation for my next event, and I think ultimately, I need to be a little more strict.