Toronto, Canada | Team Trios
Time: Friday May 18th – Sunday May 20th
Players: 389 Teams (1167 Players)
Winners: Team Morgan McLaughlin, Chris Harabas & Lucas Siow

Friday – PM Sides Lead


Everyone Remembers Their First
It was my first time leading anything bigger than a PPTQ so I was pretty nervous, I wasn't really sure what was expected of me, luckily though, they paired me up with GP veteran & all-star EDB to help me out. He took care of basically all the pre-event scheduling, save for half round breaks. On Friday we scheduled those breaks together.
Mostly the job consisted of wandering around making sure things weren't on fire. which they weren't, probably mostly because it was Friday, and Fridays are pretty chill.
This was a bit of a challenge for me, because I am much more comfortable seeing a problem and fixing it than seeing a problem and telling someone else to fix it. And a few times I found myself getting a little overloaded with tasks because I was trying to do everything myself.

Grand Prix Marathon
Another thing I noticed was that I was on my feet significantly more than other events, I think this is because usually when I feel tired I can simply sit on a match for a while, but I felt like sine I was the team lead I needed to be visible at all times, and sitting basically makes you disappear. So I kind of endlessly cycled between my team members. I also took a page out of Maria's book and decided to bring cups of water around to everyone. Unfortunately clumsiness is a chronic weakness of mine, and I dropped no less than two boxes of water-filled cups. Luckily, they were dropped in inconsequential places far away from players and cards.

The Early Bird Gets to Leave
One of my team members was scheduled until closing on Friday, but was scheduled on main the next day, for reference, that's a 1pm-10pm shift into an 8am-6pm shift. He asked if it was possible that he be let go early, I said I'd see what I could do and managed to move some things around, and get him out 1-2 hrs early.

Saturday – PM Sides Lead


Team Leading Part II – The Reckoning
For this one I decided to work out a break schedule Saturday morning and have EDB look it over to ensure nothing was horribly wrong. He took a look over and let me know it seemed good.

Saturday was a lot busier. there was a lot more shuffling of people, we had one guy that we had loaned off of main, that I ended up donating to ODEs because they needed him more. We also had another person that didn't make it so we needed to cover his shift, which we did by shuffling some people around. Overall things went okay, at one point ODEs asked me if I could donate some space to them, and I made sure it happened by letting Kickstart know that we would be giving some space to ODEs and to place events accordingly. Later in the day Kickstart team mentioned they might need product, so I sat in the back for a bit prepping product, a little while in one of my team members came in and looked at me kind of funny, and said something along the lines of "we kind of need you to be out on the floor delegating, not back here prepping product."
I knew that he was right, so I went back out and sent someone from my team to help prep product instead.
For the most part things went well on Saturday, there were a few mix ups with breaks, where I may have miscommunicated some times, but luckily it was easy enough to fix. I like that the team lead has very few scheduled responsibilities, because it allows them to fill in where needed if necessary. On some particularly large events I could be another FJ if we didn't have the people, or if I screwed up a break, or if a HJ needed to step away for a moment, it would be very easy for me to take their place. this is one of the things I really liked about leading, the flexibility and variety, while being allowed to take care of one event in particular can be fun and rewarding, it's nice to be able to wander around and do whatever needs doing most. It gives your day a lot of variety and freedom.

Premature Departure
Near the end of the day one of my team members mentioned that they had an early shift the next morning, knowing that we were allowed to manipulate the schedule to a degree, I agreed to see what I could do. Her last event was a Brawl event scheduled to end at 9 and she was scheduled to be let go at 10, I told her instead of taking her half round, I'd let her go after her event was finished. She agreed, and came to me a little later when that had happened. I said she could go, and later I noticed another member of my team acting a little uneasy about it, I asked her what was wrong and she mentioned that it didn't look good that I had let someone on third shift leave before the people on second shift.
The brawl event had ended much earlier than expected and I hadn't really accounted for that, thus it ended up that a 3rd shift member got to leave about 30 minutes before a second shift member, I let my team member know that this was a mistake and that I'd take these sorts of things into account in the future.

I felt a lot more confident on Saturday about letting people go and taking over events at the end of the day. I was still nervous, but my team was very good and seemed to trust me a lot, which helped significantly.

Sunday – PM Sides Lead


Team Leading Part III – The Finale
EDB let me do half-round breaks directly this time, but I missed one of my team members somehow! I fixed this by finding coverage on the fly and letting her go, but it looked a little dopey on my end. I did much of the same things as the previous to days, I cycled around with water, which was positively received by many, and constantly checked to see how people were doing.

Mentoring From Afar
I was informed that a member of the team was a little more inexperienced, so I made sure to stay close while he covered and flipped his rounds, but he seemed okay to me. I didn't have any further problems with him, and when the main event got released very early, we managed to pair him with a more experienced judge to allow for some mentorship.

Straight or Angle Shooting?
Later in the day we had a bit of a kerfuffle in the 7pm Legacy event. A player was accusing his opponent of intentionally missing Dark Confidant triggers to avoid life loss. the HJ of the event brought the situation to me, but I wasn't entirely certain what he wanted me to do. Later he admitted he thought because I was lead, I was L3 and more versed in such matters. He took each of the players away and spoke with them individually. First he took the accuser away. I was kind of bored and wanted to diffuse the tension a bit so I casually asked the accused player what her version of the story was. She carefully went through the game with me and said that yes, she had missed a Dark Confidant trigger, but only one, and it had been accidental. I thanked her for her time, her reconstruction of the game seemed sound, the players were moving into her turn 5 so Dark Confidant had only been around for upkeep triggers for two turns so far, and one of the confirmed cards gotten off Dark Confidant was crop rotation.

Then Ellis, my FJ took the other player and left me with the accuser. He was a little sultry and didn't seem very interested in reconstructing the game, but continued to insist that he just wanted "justice and integrity” to be upheld. I calmly listened to him and carefully lead a discussion going through each game action, calmly getting confirmation of what the other player had told me. Finally agreeing that yes she had only missed one Dark Confidant trigger prior, (his initial story was that she had missed two or three) but he argued that she had missed a trigger for this turn as well, since neither player could agree on the current turn or phase (the accused thought she was casting crop rotation eot, and the accuser thought she was casting it in upkeep). After we had spoken with both players, Ellis and I met and discussed the outcomes of the investigation. we both seemed to agree that no cheating had occurred and her intent was to cast Crop Rotation eot, in order to have Marit Lage ready to attack on her turn.

Ellis mentioned that backing up for the missed bob trigger seemed kind of bad, since a lot had happened in those turns. I reminded him that since it was a missed trigger at regular, we could just put it on the stack if we wanted to (even though it might have been a little bit of a stale trigger) if only to placate the upset player. She was currently at 10, so it probably wouldn't be a game ending trigger., thus falling under the 'unobtrusive to the game state' line in the JAR. We delivered the verdict, the accuser still seemed upset, and unfortunately, the Dark Confidant trigger grabbed a land, and she promptly killed his flying blocker and won, which made the accused very upset. I asked if he would like to discuss anything, but he did not seem very interested. I also spoke to the accused after, who mentioned that she was still quite uncomfortable, I let her know that there was plenty of time in the round, and to take a walk to clear her head, and that I would speak to the HJ to see if further action needed to be taken. I was feeling pretty shaken, I get very anxious when players are upset and I am unable to make them happy. I spoke to the Sides lead, which helped me calm down a bit. He said that monitoring the situation seemed like a good idea, but no immediate action needed to be taken.

Later I passed by the event and saw both players laughing and seeming to have a good time (not with each other, but with their current opponents) , so I felt a little better about the whole thing. One thing I do regret is not checking in with at least the accused player later to see how she was doing, and to let her know that we were still monitoring the situation.

Then again, it might not have been the greatest idea to bring up the unpleasant experience again and again, and perhaps it would be more beneficial to simply allow it to be forgotten by all.

...In Conclusion
Overall it was a very positive weekend for me, I received a lot of very kind and encouraging feedback from many people I respect and admire, and felt very honored to be given such a cool and exciting opportunity. I felt like I learned a lot and am looking forward to my next GP!!