Denver, Colorado | Team Sealed
Time: Friday October 12th – Sunday October 14th
Teams: 506 | Players: 1518
Winners: Jack Dobbin, Jacob Baugh & Andrew Tenjum

Friday – Scheduled Sides


Back to Basics
After being on scorekeeping and team leading, it was a nice change of pace to be in black and in the trenches again. I got the pleasure of Head Judging the Legacy Double Up as well as the Pauper event! Two formats I can really get into! The legacy double up wasn't very difficult, with only about 30 players it was pretty manageable, the pauper event was a quaint 20ish players and also ran smoothly. While I did enjoy the different activities ad the previous GPs I feel like my favorite part of any event is still interacting with the players and running events. The one thing I really missed while team leading was the fact that I barely got to watch any games.

Nexus of Interactions
While us Sides judges were floating around our medium sized events, a discussion spawned regarding the interaction between Notion Rain and Nexus of Fate, the question being, if you surveil leaving one card on top and binning the nexus, do you get to draw the card you put on top or does the nexus shuffle it in? My response was that I felt like it made more sense to shuffle the card away, since nexus is binned as part of the completion of the surveil 2 act. However I've heard the official ruling is that the top card stays on top because two actions are being completed simultaneously. I think both solutions feel a little unintuitive.

Sadistic Tendencies
I got called to a table where a player mistook his Wretched Gryff trigger for a Mulldrifter trigger and accidentally drew 2 cards. The first time it happened, the cards had remained distinct and in sequence, so I simply shuffled the offending extra card into the library. (similar to the LEC fix) The second time it happened, the player had mushed the cards into his hand, I was about to shuffle one back at random when the player requested the thoughtsieze fix instead.
I was a little taken aback, the player was playing both Mulldrifter and Wretched Gryff (it was pauper) and had called it on himself both times. I didn't really feel like he was cheating, and it seemed like a pretty reasonable mistake considering his quick pace of play, however when he requested a harsher fix, I re-analyzed the situation, and tried to think of any way there would be potential advantage for a different fix. Perhaps he might think his opponent had a higher chance to picking an irrelevant card than the random chance, due to inexperience? This didn't seem like a reasonable argument. Guilt from potentially intentional malicious behavior might have been a factor, but again, if he was opting for harsher punitive measures, I felt like he was probably already on the way to self-correction, After a few seconds of deliberation, I confirmed both players were on board for the fix, and delivered the harsher ruling.

What REL is it Anyways?
In the legacy double up event, I got called to a table where an off-duty judge was playing storm against a miracles player. The miracles player told that the storm player had cast Infernal Tutor and not given him any time to respond before beginning to search his library. Before I managed to say anything the storm player let me know that he had previously thoughtsiezed his opponent and knew that the miracles player had no responses. I was initially a little stunned, seeing as the call seemed meaningless, but I quickly realized the miracles was probably not interested in hearing me say “well buddy, you don't have responses so just let him search.” I noted that there was plenty of time left on the clock and this was basically the end of game 2, running out of time wasn't an issue here, so I decided to simply do a fix as if the miracles player did have responses, which was a quick rewind and shuffle of the library to allow the miracles player to respond. The miracles player then said “okay no responses” and the storm player continued, the opponent asked if there was some kind of warning or infraction associated with the action, and I explained to him that it was a regular level event, with a heavier focus on fun rather than technically correct play.
The entire interaction kind of left me feeling uneasy and I was already thinking about having a discussion with the miracles player after the match to see what exactly was going on..
I went to find another judge to watch the match, since I was good friends with the storm player, and it might project something less than impartiality if I continued to take calls on the match. However, by the time I returned with a neutral judge the match had concluded.
I was still turning over what I wanted to do when the storm player came up to me and mentioned that he felt the opponent should be spoken to about his attitude. I agreed and spoke with the opponent at the beginning of the next round, letting him cool off after the match was probably a good idea anyways. The opponent mentioned that he felt like the storm player was rushing through actions and not allowing him to properly keep track of everything that was happening. He said that he had told the storm player to slow down, but the storm player had not. I got the impression that the miracles player was a little newer to the format, and felt a little confused and perhaps demeaned by how the storm player had acted.
I listened and thanked him for his time, and let him know I would be speaking to the storm player.
Which I did, relaying the information and letting him know that sometimes it might be polite to slow down a little to allow the opponent to track everything. The storm player refuted rather lightly by saying, “You must understand, I'm in a profession that heavily frowns upon players slowing down!” I thought this was amusing, but let him know that at the time of the call there were still about 30 minutes on the clock and that with the deck he was running he probably knew there was no risk of running into time in the round.
This was a rather strange call because I had to be even in a situation where I have an inherent bias, and I kind of had to in essence, deliver a verbal reprimand to a friend.

“The Things Fell Over”
I was on my way to throwing out some trash when a player approached me and said, “Judge, the things fell over,”
My first thought was 'things? What things?' I then noticed he was pointing at the trophy case,
He then repeated, probably because I looked very confused, “I just wanted to let you know that all the things fell over,”
I further examined the trophy case and came to the conclusion that yes, while the trophies were fine, the three plaques on the shelf below them, likely the offending 'things' the player was referring to, were probably not supposed to be in a cacophonous heap.
I nodded and thanked the player.
I thought about going to a CFB staff member but recalled two critical pieces of information,
One: three GPs ago CFB staff had mentioned that we were empowered to fix small problems on our own. I took this to mean “Please stop bothering CFB employees with trivial issues that you can probably solve yourselves.”
Two: I had watched the trophy case being opened at GP Vegas when I ran pauper champs. So I had the requisite knowledge to complete this task.

I dithered for a moment and opened the case, gently leaned the plaques up against the sides of the case so they looked not fallen over and closed the case. I examined it for a moment and decided that it looked bad and that couldn't have been how they were previously set up, otherwise there was no way for them to have fallen down the way they did. I thought for another moment and made them into a precarious plaque triangle. I closed the case, confirmed it looked good and felt like that was that.
I joked about it with my roommates later who seemed a little uneasy that I had been mucking about with the trophy case, noting that perhaps entering the case was not as trivial as I initially assumed. I thought about it, went to bed and came in the next morning to see that the trophy case was gone and all the trophies were behind the appeals judges on the main stage. I was extremely worried that perhaps a player or an employee had seen me opening and messing with the trophies and they had been moved to increase security (even though, as discussed with my roommates, there is basically no merit to stealing a GP trophy.) I asked the appeals judges who were on stage at the time why the trophies and plaques had been moved. The first one declared that the trophies function as secondary routers to enhance the wifi signal, and the other mentioned that it was the main source from which he drew his power, which he would need for the Main Event.
While these are both plausible arguments I decided that perhaps consulting a CFB employee might give me an answer a little more grounded in reality. As it turns out, the trophies were moved simply to accommodate more tables and not because of wifi, or ethereal power or for security. I don't know if there were really any meaningful lessons to be learned here, but it was a strange and amusing story so I thought I'd share it.

Saturday – Main Event – Stage/EOR


Furniture Malfunction
Saturday was BUSY. We had about 500 teams, but felt like we had the staff for about 300. I recall going from call to call to call throughout the day. I am not joking when I say I started having flashbacks to GP Vegas. At some point in the day I noticed that an entire table was missing from my section (the chairs were still there though), it felt very similar to BFZ island 259, where you know something is supposed to be there but isn't. I thought about asking someone about what was going on but was swept up in a torrent of calls. Later during EOR I began sweeping tables. With team events it's a little weird because sometimes one match is still playing even though the team result has been decided, I got pretty good at deciphering what was a “real” match and what wasn't after a while. So at the end of round 3 I got to the end of my area which had been shrinking, and noticed that a few tables down there was a match that still looked pretty intense, but it was at a table where there weren't supposed to be any players. I skulked by and spied a match slip. I became increasingly confused until I saw the table number was 162, which I then realized was the missing table from earlier (which had since been replaced without me even noticing!).

If you find yourself on an angle of 90 degrees or more, see a physician
If players can go on tilt, judges can too, Saturday started out good, but with a capped main event the first three rounds were pretty rough at 1500 players. Also in normal events, you usually don't have to deal with the full number of players at any one time because most of the time your 0-2 drops will be happening at the same time as you get your 2-round bye players coming in. In short the morning was very busy, each round I was darting from call to call and then when the calls died down it was time for end of round procedures. By the time the third round came I was already feeling pretty run down. And then I took a call on a card I should've known how to answer. Should've but didn't, if I had gone through the pre-GP prep primer I would've been fine, but I didn't and so I completely splattered the call in front of my team lead. It was pretty embarrassing and frustrating. In retrospect it was a pretty silly thing to be upset about, but due to some other compounding circumstances and my own current frustration with my level of rules comprehension, it was a pretty upsetting experience that I allowed to ruin the rest of my day, which resulted in a few other sub-optimal rulings, including an especially frustrating instance where I was in the middle of an (admittedly incorrect) ruling and was interrupted by players loudly calling for another judge. Instead of appealing, or waiting for me to double check (usually if players look at me funny or question what I've said I'll do a double check just to be certain).
Overall, my Saturday was a pretty miserable experience. I think a lot of it could've been mitigated if I had prepared a little more diligently and had more rationally accepted my shortcomings at the beginning of the day. In any case, I feel like difficult events are the ones I learn the most from and the ones that really help me identify where my weaknesses are.

Sunday – PTQ


Abandoned Commander Pod
PTQ, much like main event on Saturday, felt like it wouldn't have minded having a few more judges on staff. Luckily it was a quieter event for actually no conceivable reason. I recall at some point seeing a call in what used to be an empty adjacent block near me. I walked over to a complex looking board state with crucible of worlds, a couple of dual lands and a sudden spoiling on the stack. It was a jarring shift after looking at nothing but Guilds of Ravnica cards for the last two days, the players asked me a question about a rather Reckless Bushwhacker being surged into play and attacking with infinite tokens of some kind. To which the defending player had cast Sudden Spoiling. I let him know that (unfortunately) he would still be taking infinite damage. The players seemed happy with the response, to which I asked, “What event is this and where is your judge?” They replied that it was a multiplayer commander event and that their judge had said he would be back in a minute and that if there were any question to call and a judge would be available. To which I looked back at the understaffed PTQ and sighed. I let my lead know that there was a nearby commander event that we might need to be mindful of for a little while until their judge returned.

...In Conclusion
I had an unambiguously crummy Saturday, and Sunday morning I was still a little depressed, but I decided I didn't want to let the entire weekend be a wash because of one mopey day. Some fun interactions with players and other judges really helped to bring me back to my normal level of energy the end of it all. Judging may be frustrating sometimes, but on the other hand, I also find it immensely rewarding and more often than not, it usually cheers me up. It was very difficult for me to drag myself into the hall on Sunday morning, but I'm glad I did, and I'll keep doing it as long as CFB keeps letting me! I feel like I got some pretty aggressive lessons this weekend on where my deficiencies lie, so rather than letting that information depress me, I'm going to spend the time between now and my next event working to improve upon the parts of me that aren't good enough!