Grand Prix Columbus | Team Sealed | Time: Friday April 27th 2018 – Sunday April 29th 2018
Teams: 443 (1329 players) | Winners: Team Goldfarb, Magalhaes & Baugh

Friday – Scheduled Sides


The Loneliest Grand Prix
The hall was completely dead on Friday. I would even venture to say the deadest GP I've ever been to.
Which is unfortunate, because events are much more fun when they're packed. My legacy double up only got 5 players which had an 1:1 ratio of off-shift judges playing to regular players. However I took the opportunity to enjoy some goofy times with my fellow judges.

The Judge and the Pauper
My pauper event only had 5 players when I printed pairings from the scorekeeper, however the event had as many late adds as it did regular adds, which made it a semi-healthy 10 players. I started a little later after everyone was settled. For some reason giving literally half the event time extensions didn't seem correct.
In round 3 we had a record discrepancy that lead back to a misentered slip in round 1. I confirmed the result with both players and then switched their opponents (so the person who should've been 6 points was playing against the other 6-pointer and vice-versa for the 3-pointers.) Then after the players were seated and playing, I went over to scorekeeping to get the result amended.

Every Day I'm Brawlin'
Because it was so quiet I got to connect with a few adjacent judges running equally tiny events, and found out that one of them was scheduled to run a Brawl tournament later that day.
I gave him a strange look and asked “Isn't Brawl a multiplayer format? How are you going to run a tournament?”
He responded by saying “I asked the same thing, and this is what they told me- WER will seat players into four man pods. Distribute prizes when they sit down, the same way you would for EDH on-demands (20 to each player and 60 to the winner). The rounds are 1 hour long, during which time pods will need to complete one game. If they go to time, one additional turn will be added for each player. And at the end of those turns apply sudden death rules.”
“Sudden death at regular?” I was kind of shocked, since sudden death is unpopular even at CompREL
“Yeah, I'm not a huge fan either, but you need winners for the next round of the event.”
“Wait, is WER handling a multi-round event with pods?”
“Do you think WER can do that?”
“Good point, so how are you doing it?”
“I was told to have each player that won in their pod to raise their hand, and come over to me so I can randomly seat them into pods, and to let the rest of the event know that they are free to 'seat themselves'”
“... Seat themselves?!”
“Yeah, I'll be randomizing them myself with basics if it comes to that.”
For better or for worse, the event only had two people sign up for it and was canceled, but it was really interesting to learn how CFB intended to run a multiplayer event at a GP.

Saturday – Deck Checks


How Many Decks Could a Tobi Check If a Tobi Could Check Decks?
This wasn't my first time on deck checks, that was my first GP about 5-6 years ago, but it might as well have been my first time, since I basically remember nothing from that GP other than being stressed and drowning in paper.
I also remember them telling me that the waivers players signed were thrown (unpiled) into a giant garbage bag that got shipped to WoTC and I recall it making me cringe at how janky that was.
BUT that was 5-6 years ago, and this is now where online waivers are a thing.
We had a good system where we had teams collect decks by section, and staple the three lists as they were collected. Which severely cut down on the organization process later (a smaller more segmented organization as opposed to a larger one) After lists were collected each section was subdivided by seat number into piles of 100, and then each of those piles was organized numerically. We went through each list to ensure that the ABC designation on the lists was the same as what each team had previously registered for the event. Because this was a team limited event, after all.
Also as a side note, in the player kits, they had cute little wristbands to help players remember their seating designation. This is the best idea in the world.
Anyways, we had a master list of all the teams organized by last name that told us where they were sitting during registration, and the decks themselves were numerically organized according to seat number, so whenever we needed a list we just needed to check the last name on the key and then it would tell us where to find it in the pile.
The team was so organized and efficient at organization that we actually managed to do a mid-round during R1 with lists!

My Dog Ate my Decklist
The pools themselves were pre-registered, so this cut down on a lot of boring registration time, as well as severely limiting avenues in which players could cheat. I got to hear how this was going to be used in detail, when we discovered we were missing a set of decklists.
The first avenue was to ask the players, and perhaps they might just produce lists. I recall last time I was on checks instead what we did was do a “deck check” on the players where we swooped and layed out their deck and took a photo with which to reconstruct the list from. However, he decided that because it was a team event and three lists, recreation was a lot more tedious, ergo we would ask first. If they failed to produce it the team lead let us know that we could check the rares in the pool and compare it to a master list of all the pools that were scanned digitally, and see if there existed a pool with that configuration of rares, if not, then we would have some very concrete evidence for pool tampering. If so, we now had a list of the entire pool we could easily print out and create decklists!
I didn't get to follow up directly, but I later heard that the problem had sorted itself out, I assume the players produces the lists.
I think one of the more exciting things about working for CFBE is the constant introduction of new things to help make everyone's lives easier. I can't say enough about how much technology has improved the GP process even in just the short time that I've been doing GPs!

Sunday – Deck Checks (Again)


How Silly is Too Silly?
This was kind of cool because I got to work with Scott Marshall. I worked with Scott Marshall on one of my very early GPs and I remember getting a very good impression from him, even though we interacted very little during that day. I recall liking how he didn't seem to take things too seriously, which I feel is something that is very in line with my personal judging philosophy.
I recall having a conversation with one of my teammates about how to balance professionalism and humor, he made a very good argument that yes, it might be demeaning or misleading to make jokes in a rules or policy article, but I mentioned that really truly, at the end of the day we are pretending to be wizards with pieces of cardboard, how seriously can we really afford to take ourselves?
While a super professional and stoic event can feel very high end and make the players feel super cool and important, a silly and fun event can make them laugh and soften some of those bad beats. I think there are merits to both approaches and it ultimately comes down to preference. I know I lean more towards the goofy side of things, but what are some of your thoughts?

7-Layer Card Dip
In Dominaria there are more cards that cause permanents to lose characteristics than I am entirely comfortable with. It did however let me know that I still have a lot to learn and brush up on, I keep telling myself that I'm going to do some practice exams when I get some spare time. Perhaps I'll set aside some time each day to just grind exams.
One call in particular I answered incorrectly and began second guessing myself as I walked away, I turned around and noticed some other judges at the table and figured they were correcting my mistake. And the end of the round the player in question actually came up to me, and I was very worried, I had ruined something for him, he kindly let me know I had been incorrect and educated me on the correct ruling. I asked if it had ruined his game, but luckily, he smiled and said “actually it turned out okay, I won.” He wasn't at all upset, which was really nice.

Dominaria Limited Quiz
For your perusal some questions included (answers at the bottom)
1. My opponent cast Merfolk Trickster on Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage and in response I Cast On Serra's Wings Targeting Raff, what is Raff?
2. I have Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar in play and my opponent cast Merfolk Trickster targetting it, what is it's P/T?
3. I have a Knight of New Benalia enchanted with Deep Freeze and I equip Helm of the Host to it, what are the Helm tokens?

Whose Turn is It Anyways?
Later as I was stalking through the aisles, I heard a disagreement breaking out, I turned around to see the last half of a turn sequence, and the players calling a judge. Another judge had arrived basically simultaneously, and because it seemed like a sticky situation, I decided to let the more experienced judge handle it.
Andy, attached with a Voltaic Servant then played History of Benalia post combat, he made note of the token trigger and went digging in his box for a token, the opponent, Nate, said “It doesn't matter I'll just kill it”. Andy nodded and put the single token back, but decided it would be good to have it out for later, and when he turned back around, Nate had untapped, drawn his card for turn and attacked. Andy mentioned he wanted to do his eot trigger, but Nate thought Andy had passed turn.
The floor judge listened to each side and then decided to confer with me. I felt this was very kind, since he was much more experienced than me. I really appreciated that another judge valued my opinion enough to want to ask for input. I said that I liked CPV or GRV because it allowed us to do a backup. I felt like a backup was the correct fix, since backing up through a single card draw and a fairly basic attack wasn't a big deal. Also the issue didn't seem to be that anything went wrong in the game, but more that the players couldn't really agree on how or if the turn was passed. Letting them both “re-do” this seemed like a good solution to me.
The other judge mentioned that CPV didn't really fit in this situation because no CPV had actually occurred. He also kind of laughed and jokingly said “We aren't really supposed to issue infractions based on what kind of fix we want to apply,”
I thought this was kind of funny and a very on the nose description of what I was trying to do.
He mentioned that GRV seemed better, and perhaps issuing a GRV to the opp for randomly untapping in the middle of Andy's turn could be a way to swing it. But he said it felt more correct to simply to do no infraction and just backup.
This kind of made me visibly balk, and ask “Can we do that?”
I recall doing an investigation workshop where I had tried to do a random backup because of a life total discrepancy and was told that in order to do a backup some kind of infraction needed to be issued.
To my question regarding whether it was legal to do a backup he shrugged and said “It's a deviation from policy, but they can always appeal,” I left it at that during the call, because I didn't want to add to the time extension with an in-depth philosophical deluge.
The call did get appealed and the HJ upheld the ruling. The players seemed fine, if a little exhausted, the entire ordeal being a 14 minute affair.

Grunn, the Lonely Baloth
I took a call later where a player had tapped four mana and cast a Grunn, the Lonely King, immediately his opponent had called a judge. The player pointed to a Baloth Gorger in his hand and said “I intended to play this but accidentally put this in play instead.” He seemed genuine and while he did have two other mana sources to cast the 6 mana spell, (two Llanowar Elves) when the players were asked the replicate the scenerio it seemed that the speed of the action denoted more of a dexterity error than anything, I issued the warning and did the backup, both players seemed okay with this.

One land, Two land, Red Land, Blue Land
A few minutes later I got called to the same table for that same Grunn player playing a second land in a turn. Now, while playing an additional land can be an accident, it can also be a very good way to cheat lands into play later in the game. I asked the player at this point if he'd received any other GRV's today, and he said he didn't think so (other than the one I had literally just issued), I also let him know that if he got another one it would be a game loss, and told him that there was plenty of time in the round, and that it might be in his favor to be a little more careful. I wandered off, but spoke with another judge about it, the player didn't come off as a malicious cheater to me, but the potential was there, I asked the other judge to keep an eye on the match and see if he noticed anything I hadn't. I also checked with the scorekeeper to confirm that the player didn't have any other infractions, which he didn't. Later I reconvened with the judge and we both determined the player was simply stressed and probably not doing anything weird.

Grand Theft Icy Manipulator
During deck checks, fairly late in the day I found a deck lacking a registered Icy Manipulator in game one.
I let the player know about the missing card and game loss, I also let him know that he had 10 minutes to find a replacement or his Icy Manipulator would magically turn into a basic land. He ran off to the vendors as I checked around the table and through some draft chaff that was sitting up near the judge station. He came back five minutes later looking pretty depressed, because of course none of the vendors had an Icy Manipulator for sale. I remembered that there was an even bigger pile of draft chaff near the side events stage and told him to check that out before giving up hope. He came back in three minutes with a grin on his face and a manipulator in hand!

You Have How Many Minutes Left in the Round?
One thing I would like to mention is that the PTQ timer was projected onto the wall next to the main even timer, like actually right next to it. And while they were both clearly labeled, at a glance a few times I took the time on the wrong clock for a deck check or a longer call and just kind of had to estimate when issuing the time extension. I understand that this was probably a limitation of technology and space, but if anyone with the power to change this is reading this report, it would be nice to have them not adjacent to each other if possible.

In Conclusion...
I felt in good spirits all weekend. I had some very good conversations with other judges, and while I felt like while I wasn't amazing at any of the jobs I did, I was happy and learned some things that will help me be better in the future.
In addition to that my Day 1 team lead gave me some very kind and encouraging feedback. Which I really appreciated. I often feel very mediocre in a sea of very skilled and competent people whenever I work a GP, and it really means a lot to me when I get those little pats on the back.

Answers to the Dominaria Limited quiz from earlier:

1. Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage is a 4/4 with no abilities until EOT
2. Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar loses the characteristic defining ability that gives it +1/+1 for lands, and dies.
3. They are 3/1 Knight of New Benalias