Wisers Collectibles | Sealed | Time: 12am – 7:30pm
HJ: Tobias Vyseri
Players: 22 | Winner: Joseph Tang

There's no Place Like Home
Lately I've judged in a lot of places, but very few of them have been in BC, heck, very few of them have event been in Canada. I think the last time I judged locally was back in September. I've been judging since the inception of PPTQs and while the program has gotten a lot of flack, I think one of the things it did was bring the grinders and stores in a area closer together. In my area we have about 9 or 10 stores that can run events within a 1-3 hour drive of each other, and we have a core group of about 20 people that will just hit every event. It's kind of impossible to hit like 10 events in a season and not get to know some of the other grinders from the other stores, and I think this program really helped people form bonds with other competitive players. This also rolled over a little onto me, before I started on the GP circuit I'd take about 5-7 of these PPTQs each season, and would play in the ones I didn't work. Which really let me get to know the local grinder community, so when I came back to do this PPTQ it was kind of like visiting a bunch of old friends. The other cool thing about coming back is that I got to share some of my GP knowledge with players, I got called on a rules question that I got appealed and overturned on at GP Denver and nailed it this time!

A Needle in the Grinderstack
Because of my familiarity with the players and their familiarity with each other the event had an *extremely* casual feel. A lot of jokes were cracked, and it was difficult to get through sealed procedure announcements. I didn't really mind because it kept the atmosphere really light and the room was basically veteran players who didn't really need an explanation anyways.
Unfortunately I wasn't totally correct on this. I did actually have about 4 new players in the event, and for the pool swap two of them were registration buddies. Some judges describe the entire process and then begin doing the process, but for me, looking out at a pile of players that just want to open packs I'm an “explain as you go along” type of person. I guess my explanation was a little anemic because the pair of new players were building decks during registration, a player adjacent to them flagged me down, and I helped sort cards for them to ensure they got registration done in a timely manner, and spent a little longer with them explaining the rest of the process to ensure nothing else weird happened.

To Game Loss or Not to Game Loss
When I collected decklists, I did a more informal sweep and opposed to a booming announcement, since there were so few players, then I posted pairings and when I returned I noticed a player still had a decklist, I let her know that at this point it was quite tardy and there would be a GL infraction, she seemed a little flustered, mentioning that she had been trying to figure out where the extra guildgate in her pool had come from, as she thought there was some kind of registration error, I let her know that Gateway Plaza took up a common slot and not a gate slot. She seemed a little upset at the entire situation, and I would've rescinded the GL, but she also still had basics to register as well as a few other cards in her deck. It felt a little lame since the feel of the event was a little informal, and to be fair, she had gotten stuck on trying to ensure her pool was correct. After I reflected on it I ultimately regretted issuing the GL, I think a 2 or 3 minute time extension would've been fine, and considering the circumstances I don't think it would've been an egregious deviation.
I made sure to speak to her later and let her know that if she ran into pool registration errors in the future to call a judge because that is literally what we are there for. She seemed to cheer up throughout the course of the event though, and I shared a little of the candy from the judge stash behind the counter to generate some good will.
If I got a re-do on this event, I think that would be the one thing I'd change, because it didn't really feel like it was philosophically congruent with the IPG.

Casual REL
I was a little worried about the casual atmosphere of the event, it's always a delicate balance of casual vs competitive at these things. On one hand if you keep the atmosphere too casual players might start thinking they can get away with things, or at the very least, people may perceive it that way, and players may not feel like their event is being run with integrity. On the other hand, if you run it too strictly you are going to suck the fun out of the entire event, and making a 20 person PPTQ feel like the Pro Tour is not really the goal. I think the players for the most part enjoyed themselves. I was worried that the newer players might feel a little left out since I was pretty friendly with some of the regulars. So I made a point of checking in on them at various point to ensure they felt included in the shenanigans, they all seemed to have enjoyed their time, and left with smiles on their faces.

...In Conclusion
I remember when making announcements in front of a group like this one would've scared and intimidated me, and to be honest it feels a little silly looking back on it. But it's also a great marker of how much I've improved as a judge and how much more confident and comfortable I now feel in the position. The entire event was also a little sad for me, since it may very well be the last PPTQ I ever run, and to be fair I don't know if I'll be seeing much of this group of players in any other context, so in a way it felt like one last chance to see some of the players that steered me through the initial stages of my judging career. I remember one of the things my local L3 told me when I certified for L2 and began running PPTQs was “don't worry, if you make a mistake, the players will catch it.” While this is a little scary, I also remember finding a weird comfort in knowing that if I messed up, the players would let me know, sometimes I'd forget to post standings or I'd announce the wrong number of rounds, and rather every time one of the regular grinders would quietly let me know, and I'd be able to fix the event for everyone. Ultimately I'm going to miss PPTQs and personally, I hope that WotC gives us something to replace them.