To help assist me in my role as North West US Regional Coordinator, I've selected some judges from around this great region to be my eyes and ears among other things. For the most part, if you live in these areas, you should know these judges. The whole reason I approached these judges was because of their local involvement and leadership, and their communications with me regarding those local communities. I wanted to preserve the nomenclature of "Coordinator" because it is something we have all grown to recognize and understand in relation to the RC role. While I love hearing from judges in general, these individuals are going to be much better points of contact for most local matters, and the people I would be deferring to anyway if I needed information on a local issue. The distinction between State and Metro is that those cities have large judge populations and require a little extra "coordination." As we discuss these roles and see how they develop, I'll have more to say about who to go to for what needs, . Until then, it never hurts to keep all appropriate Coordinators in the loop. Without further ado, here are your State and Metro Coordinators with contact e-mails (fill in appropriate punctuation).
Alaska State Coordinator - Eric Heyne - efheyne[]alaska[]edu
Colorado State Coordinator - Scott Marshall scott_j_marshall_jr[]yahoo[]com
Hawaii State Coordinator - Stephan Classen - drakk2[]yahoo[]com
Idaho/Montana State Coordinator - Ashton Chapman - thedicu[]yahoo[]com
Oregon State Coordinator - Riki Hayashi - rikipedia[]gmail[]com
Washington State Coordinator - James Lee - councillour[]yahoo[]com
Utah State Coordinator - Jeremy Behunin - jeremy.behunin[]gmail[]com
Wyoming State Coordinator - Nole Clauson - nole_clauson[]yahoo[]com
Denver Metro Coordinator - Bryan Spellman - bluesaddict[]gmail[]com
Portland Metro Coordinator - Aaron Henner - saruden[]gmail[]com
Seattle Metro Coordinator - John Carter - sagency[]yahoo[]com
In addition to these Coordinator positions, I'm in the process of setting up Regional "Managers," with the completely arbitrary distinction being that Coordinators are for geographic areas and Managers oversea Region-wide projects. The first Manager is Tasha Jamison, who will be the L2 Testing Manager. This is mostly for you L2 candidates who live far away from a local L3; if you're close to an L3, you should just be talking with that person. Tasha can be reached at stagedtheology[]gmail[]com and would love to help you with best study practices, what you can be doing locally, and finding an opportuntiy for you to sit down with an L3 to test. Of course, it never hurts to CC me on those as well, although even if you don't, I imagine that the information will get to me.
I'm also looking for other Managers, the first being a Tournament Report Manager (spoiler). I would prefer someone not named already in this post, to spread out the workload, and some amount of writing or copy editing experience is preferred. And if you can think of something else you'd like to see to make the NW Judge Community even better, let me know.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Why Portland?
Portland. Where the dream of the 90s is still alive.
I'm going to put that adage to the test because for me Portland is where the dream of my future is on the line. I've been asked more than once "Why Portland?" and I'm going to try to answer that right now.
I first fell in love with Portland because of a view from I-5, the major North-South Interstate on the Pacific Coast. My friends and I were driving up to play in GP Seattle 2005 and I had decided that the best way to do this was to leave Thursday evening and "red-eye" the 11-hour drive. We hit Portland sometime before dawn. There was a massive freeway interchange in the middle of the city that happened over a river, so bridges and interchanges were crossing all over and around each other and on both sides you could see a beautiful skyline. I remember thinking how pretty it was and that it looked like a nice place to live.
I guess my next encounter, so to speak, with Portland was with Seamus Campbell, the resident Level 3 Judge from the city. We met at GP San Jose 2007, my first as a judge. Our friendship grew over the next year; we were roommates for PT Hollywood the following spring, my first PT and where he was promoted to L4, so memorable for both of us! He was inspirational and influential in my journey, including providing some of the best advice and feedback I got on my final push to become an L3.
Seamus and I would talk occasionally online and one thing that came up was bicycles. My hometown of Davis, California at the time was known as a very bike-friendly city, and by some metrics was the #1 in that category in the country. (It doesn't make some lists due to its relatively small size ~60,000 people.) Anyway, Seamus would rib me about Portland overtaking Davis on this list or that from time to time, and I suppose that when I started to like the idea of Portland as a destination. Ever since living in LA, I've had an aversion to big city life, especially the infinite traffic, and it appealed to me that here is this bigger city that can still offer the charm of good biking.
As I got more and more involved in Magic: the Gathering as a judge, I entertained the notion of someday working for the parent company in Renton, Washington (suburb of Seattle), and the idea of living in the Pacific NW started to take supremacy in my mind. The weather was nice--sure it rained a lot--the food and culture were diverse like California, and I avidly followed the exploits of the Japanese baseball players on the Seattle Mariners led by Ichiro Suzuki.
As the months went by, so did my aspirations for working for Wizards of the Coast, and things shifted back towards old PDX (btw, as a frequent flier, it is clearly another feather in the city's cap that it identifies so strongly with its quirkly airport code). It also helped that the older I got, the more hipster I became, sweater vests and all. Portland was where I needed to end up.
Everything changed for me when I met my fiance, Tasha Jamison. Suddenly I had a real future to think about, and it became important to balance both of our dreams and desires. Luckily, like so many other things in our lives together, those matched up perfectly. After GP Seattle 2012, I convinced Tasha to spend a week in Portland at Seamus's to explore the city and see if it was the place we wanted to live after she finished her Masters degree at Virginia Tech. It was. The bike-friendliness, the diversity of world cultures and food (especially the huge Japanese grocery store Uwajimaya), the focus on green, and especially important the number of companies there that specialized in her desired field of humanitarian logistics. At the end of the week there, Tasha agreed that we should move to Portland. We have just over a week until we arrive for good. Almost there.
I'm going to put that adage to the test because for me Portland is where the dream of my future is on the line. I've been asked more than once "Why Portland?" and I'm going to try to answer that right now.
I first fell in love with Portland because of a view from I-5, the major North-South Interstate on the Pacific Coast. My friends and I were driving up to play in GP Seattle 2005 and I had decided that the best way to do this was to leave Thursday evening and "red-eye" the 11-hour drive. We hit Portland sometime before dawn. There was a massive freeway interchange in the middle of the city that happened over a river, so bridges and interchanges were crossing all over and around each other and on both sides you could see a beautiful skyline. I remember thinking how pretty it was and that it looked like a nice place to live.
I guess my next encounter, so to speak, with Portland was with Seamus Campbell, the resident Level 3 Judge from the city. We met at GP San Jose 2007, my first as a judge. Our friendship grew over the next year; we were roommates for PT Hollywood the following spring, my first PT and where he was promoted to L4, so memorable for both of us! He was inspirational and influential in my journey, including providing some of the best advice and feedback I got on my final push to become an L3.
Seamus and I would talk occasionally online and one thing that came up was bicycles. My hometown of Davis, California at the time was known as a very bike-friendly city, and by some metrics was the #1 in that category in the country. (It doesn't make some lists due to its relatively small size ~60,000 people.) Anyway, Seamus would rib me about Portland overtaking Davis on this list or that from time to time, and I suppose that when I started to like the idea of Portland as a destination. Ever since living in LA, I've had an aversion to big city life, especially the infinite traffic, and it appealed to me that here is this bigger city that can still offer the charm of good biking.
As I got more and more involved in Magic: the Gathering as a judge, I entertained the notion of someday working for the parent company in Renton, Washington (suburb of Seattle), and the idea of living in the Pacific NW started to take supremacy in my mind. The weather was nice--sure it rained a lot--the food and culture were diverse like California, and I avidly followed the exploits of the Japanese baseball players on the Seattle Mariners led by Ichiro Suzuki.
As the months went by, so did my aspirations for working for Wizards of the Coast, and things shifted back towards old PDX (btw, as a frequent flier, it is clearly another feather in the city's cap that it identifies so strongly with its quirkly airport code). It also helped that the older I got, the more hipster I became, sweater vests and all. Portland was where I needed to end up.
Everything changed for me when I met my fiance, Tasha Jamison. Suddenly I had a real future to think about, and it became important to balance both of our dreams and desires. Luckily, like so many other things in our lives together, those matched up perfectly. After GP Seattle 2012, I convinced Tasha to spend a week in Portland at Seamus's to explore the city and see if it was the place we wanted to live after she finished her Masters degree at Virginia Tech. It was. The bike-friendliness, the diversity of world cultures and food (especially the huge Japanese grocery store Uwajimaya), the focus on green, and especially important the number of companies there that specialized in her desired field of humanitarian logistics. At the end of the week there, Tasha agreed that we should move to Portland. We have just over a week until we arrive for good. Almost there.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
M10 Combat Still Trips us up
There's a significant amount of chatter tonight about the Pro Tour: Dark Ascension Top 8, specifically the quarterfinal match between Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Jelger Wiegersma. Here's the situation:
PV attacks with a Primeval Titan and a Thrun, the Last Troll. Jelger has 4 Spirit tokens from a Lingering Souls and 2 Drogskol Captains (1 tapped from attacking). PV also has a Kessig Wolf Run in play that can threaten quite a lot of extra damage. Jelger blocks thusly:
3 3/3 Spirit tokens on the Primeval Titan
A 3/3 Captain and a 3/3 token on the Thrun, apparently placed in that blocking order
Paulo pumps up his Thrun with Kessig Wolf Run (and also regenerates). They go to resolve combat damage and two things happen. First, PV tried to trample an extra point of damage over to Jelger with Thrun, claiming that the Captain dies first, so the token only absorbs 2 damage instead of 3. Of course, this isn't how combat damage works. Although you do line up the blockers and assign damage sequentially--you have to assign lethal damage to the first blocker in line before you can go on to to second--the damage happens all at once. That means you have to assign 3 to the Captain and 3 to the token.
While this is going on, there's some combat damage on the other "side" of the table to be assigned, Prime Time versus 3 3/3 tokens. Based on the way the board clears out, PV apparently assigns 2 damage to each token, which if legal would mean all three of them die when the Drogskol Captain (the first) hits the bin.
But that's not how damage works anymore, not since the M10 rules changes. You still have to assign all your damage in order with lethal damage to each creature in line. Primeval Titan's trample doesn't change this one bit. The only thing that could possible change this is deathtouch, which allows you to count even one point of damage as lethal for the purposes of moving along in the blocking order and/or assigning trample damage. Thus, if Primeval Titan somehow acquired deathtouch here, it could have assigned 1 damage to each Spirit token and 3 to Jelger.
I saw one person try to interpret the last line of rule 702.18b to allow for this type of deathtouch distribution just with a trampler, but that just isn't the case. The pertinent line is "The attacking creature’s controller need not assign lethal damage to all those blocking creatures but in that case can’t assign any damage to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking." This just means that you don't need to assign lethal damage to as many creatures as you can (unless you want to trample over).
For example, if the Primeval were blocked by a 3/3 and an Academy Rector (and put in that blocking order), you might not necessarily want the Rector to die because it could fetch out any number of scary things. In that case, you could assign all 6 damage to the 3/3. You don't need to assign lethal to both creatures, even though it is an option. If you want to trample, you do have to assign lethal to both and go 3-2-1.
Over two-and-a-half years after the M10 changes and we are still seeing people get this stuff wrong (not that getting things wrong is exclusive to the M10 rules). Even I missed this interaction when I was watching the match live, and it wasn't until a discussion afterward that I realized the error. Largely I suspect this is because of how rare it is to see multiple blockers assigned where you would want to assign damage in such a fashion so as not to kill anything until the follow up when a lord dies or you Pyroclasm. There's years upon years of damage being assigned one way, and even with the new rules, this type of interaction doesn't come up enough for it to become ingrained in our heads.
PV attacks with a Primeval Titan and a Thrun, the Last Troll. Jelger has 4 Spirit tokens from a Lingering Souls and 2 Drogskol Captains (1 tapped from attacking). PV also has a Kessig Wolf Run in play that can threaten quite a lot of extra damage. Jelger blocks thusly:
3 3/3 Spirit tokens on the Primeval Titan
A 3/3 Captain and a 3/3 token on the Thrun, apparently placed in that blocking order
Paulo pumps up his Thrun with Kessig Wolf Run (and also regenerates). They go to resolve combat damage and two things happen. First, PV tried to trample an extra point of damage over to Jelger with Thrun, claiming that the Captain dies first, so the token only absorbs 2 damage instead of 3. Of course, this isn't how combat damage works. Although you do line up the blockers and assign damage sequentially--you have to assign lethal damage to the first blocker in line before you can go on to to second--the damage happens all at once. That means you have to assign 3 to the Captain and 3 to the token.
While this is going on, there's some combat damage on the other "side" of the table to be assigned, Prime Time versus 3 3/3 tokens. Based on the way the board clears out, PV apparently assigns 2 damage to each token, which if legal would mean all three of them die when the Drogskol Captain (the first) hits the bin.
But that's not how damage works anymore, not since the M10 rules changes. You still have to assign all your damage in order with lethal damage to each creature in line. Primeval Titan's trample doesn't change this one bit. The only thing that could possible change this is deathtouch, which allows you to count even one point of damage as lethal for the purposes of moving along in the blocking order and/or assigning trample damage. Thus, if Primeval Titan somehow acquired deathtouch here, it could have assigned 1 damage to each Spirit token and 3 to Jelger.
I saw one person try to interpret the last line of rule 702.18b to allow for this type of deathtouch distribution just with a trampler, but that just isn't the case. The pertinent line is "The attacking creature’s controller need not assign lethal damage to all those blocking creatures but in that case can’t assign any damage to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking." This just means that you don't need to assign lethal damage to as many creatures as you can (unless you want to trample over).
For example, if the Primeval were blocked by a 3/3 and an Academy Rector (and put in that blocking order), you might not necessarily want the Rector to die because it could fetch out any number of scary things. In that case, you could assign all 6 damage to the 3/3. You don't need to assign lethal to both creatures, even though it is an option. If you want to trample, you do have to assign lethal to both and go 3-2-1.
Over two-and-a-half years after the M10 changes and we are still seeing people get this stuff wrong (not that getting things wrong is exclusive to the M10 rules). Even I missed this interaction when I was watching the match live, and it wasn't until a discussion afterward that I realized the error. Largely I suspect this is because of how rare it is to see multiple blockers assigned where you would want to assign damage in such a fashion so as not to kill anything until the follow up when a lord dies or you Pyroclasm. There's years upon years of damage being assigned one way, and even with the new rules, this type of interaction doesn't come up enough for it to become ingrained in our heads.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Chicken Little has his Day (and Night)
Innistrad's transform mechanic, aka Day/Night, has people up in arms, ready to quit the game and call for Mark Rosewater's head on a platter. So just another new set, huh? I'll admit that when my coworker Ben Bleiweiss posited the possibility of Double-Faced Cards (DFCs) I said "No way. No how." Right now, I am very happy that I did make any kind of dinner wager on this topic. Now that transform is official, I am fairly "meh" on it. Once the initial surprise factor wore off, it is just another mechanic to learn the rules for, some more foils to collect (and yes, the foils are double-sided, which is the most exciting part about all of this for me), and a mass of people complaining. Here are my thoughts on some of the most common complaints.
"This could have been done with the flip mechanic from Kamigawa!"
MaRo explained it in his article introducing transform. The flip mechanic was terrible. Most people agree on this. From my perspective, it was mostly the art issue. I do not want to own a single piece of flip card art. The transform mechanic gives me two opportunities for awesome art. Win.
"Drafts are ruined!"
And you know this because you've drafted with Innistrad? I think it's actually interesting that there is a legal "peek" now. Look around the table, but especially your neighbors and check out if they have any DFCs in their pile and what color they are. It is legal to hide them amongst your picks, but if its P1P1, how do you hide it? Under your token? Heck, do you even want to hide it? People have been writing about the art of signaling for years now. Isn't this just the beginner's course?
"There won't be enough checklists!"
As a judge, I am always picking up the draft leavings from tables: tokens, rules cards, basic lands. Now 3/4 of those lands will be checklists. If you want a checklist, just pick it up off the table after the draft. 3/4 of the packs seems like a good ratio for this thing. Not everyone will want to or be able to play with the transform cards they get (which is confirmed as one per pack replacing a common. Yes, that means we are back in potential double-rare pack territory, or triple-rare with a foil. Heck, double-foil rare and regular rare. Wow!) Worst case scenario: the very first draft at your store, everyone plays all their transformers and you don't have enough checklists. Well, then someone can play with sleeves.
"The rules are too complicated. What do you mean I can't Ixidron these things?"
Honestly, I like complex rules. That's why I'm a judge. So do you, even if you aren't a judge. How do I know this? Because you're the same person who complains about how boring Core Sets are. If we got 4 Core Sets a year, then I would quit Magic.
"The game is becoming Yugioh!"
Actually it's becoming Duel Masters, which is where they ripped this DFC thing from. And what's wrong with that? Apparently it is a very popular mechanic in Duel Masters. And despite the "Magic players are more mature than those other people who sit around and play with cards" I'm pretty sure that there's enough demographic consistency to see this through. Again, if Magic just stuck to the same tropes and mechanics that were safe and popular, things would get boring quickly. Slivers are one of the most popular gimmicks of all time, but they only do them once every five years or so because we don't need this to become Slivers: the Gathering. Diversity and change is what keeps the game fun.
"Sooooo gimmicky!"
Yeah, it is gimmicky. But I'll reiterate the Core Set argument. Most expansions have a gimmick. Scars block was a bunch of artifacts. That is a gimmick. Alara Reborn's all gold set was a gimmick (and one that I did not like very much). Gimmick's have a high risk/reward rate. Sometimes they work real well (Memento) and sometimes they are kind of blah (Clear Coke). But I would rather see gimmicks that fail rather than same old boring. Will this one fail? Unclear. It's going to lead to a lot of changes to the CR, MTR, and how we do things at tournaments. Then, a year will pass, and we will return to a safer gimmick... or not. Maybe they will finally get those 4-D time traveling cards to work because suspend was such a lame attempt at that gimmick.
"This could have been done with the flip mechanic from Kamigawa!"
MaRo explained it in his article introducing transform. The flip mechanic was terrible. Most people agree on this. From my perspective, it was mostly the art issue. I do not want to own a single piece of flip card art. The transform mechanic gives me two opportunities for awesome art. Win.
"Drafts are ruined!"
And you know this because you've drafted with Innistrad? I think it's actually interesting that there is a legal "peek" now. Look around the table, but especially your neighbors and check out if they have any DFCs in their pile and what color they are. It is legal to hide them amongst your picks, but if its P1P1, how do you hide it? Under your token? Heck, do you even want to hide it? People have been writing about the art of signaling for years now. Isn't this just the beginner's course?
"There won't be enough checklists!"
As a judge, I am always picking up the draft leavings from tables: tokens, rules cards, basic lands. Now 3/4 of those lands will be checklists. If you want a checklist, just pick it up off the table after the draft. 3/4 of the packs seems like a good ratio for this thing. Not everyone will want to or be able to play with the transform cards they get (which is confirmed as one per pack replacing a common. Yes, that means we are back in potential double-rare pack territory, or triple-rare with a foil. Heck, double-foil rare and regular rare. Wow!) Worst case scenario: the very first draft at your store, everyone plays all their transformers and you don't have enough checklists. Well, then someone can play with sleeves.
"The rules are too complicated. What do you mean I can't Ixidron these things?"
Honestly, I like complex rules. That's why I'm a judge. So do you, even if you aren't a judge. How do I know this? Because you're the same person who complains about how boring Core Sets are. If we got 4 Core Sets a year, then I would quit Magic.
"The game is becoming Yugioh!"
Actually it's becoming Duel Masters, which is where they ripped this DFC thing from. And what's wrong with that? Apparently it is a very popular mechanic in Duel Masters. And despite the "Magic players are more mature than those other people who sit around and play with cards" I'm pretty sure that there's enough demographic consistency to see this through. Again, if Magic just stuck to the same tropes and mechanics that were safe and popular, things would get boring quickly. Slivers are one of the most popular gimmicks of all time, but they only do them once every five years or so because we don't need this to become Slivers: the Gathering. Diversity and change is what keeps the game fun.
"Sooooo gimmicky!"
Yeah, it is gimmicky. But I'll reiterate the Core Set argument. Most expansions have a gimmick. Scars block was a bunch of artifacts. That is a gimmick. Alara Reborn's all gold set was a gimmick (and one that I did not like very much). Gimmick's have a high risk/reward rate. Sometimes they work real well (Memento) and sometimes they are kind of blah (Clear Coke). But I would rather see gimmicks that fail rather than same old boring. Will this one fail? Unclear. It's going to lead to a lot of changes to the CR, MTR, and how we do things at tournaments. Then, a year will pass, and we will return to a safer gimmick... or not. Maybe they will finally get those 4-D time traveling cards to work because suspend was such a lame attempt at that gimmick.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
I Never Gave up; I Never Surrendered (or the tale of my own GP rejection)
Another day, another Grand Prix staff selection e-mail, right? Well, maybe next year it will be like that, but for now GPs are still rare enough that the staff selection e-mail sends a nice stir throughout the community. Who made it? Who didn't? The selection for GP San Diego also held the extra nugget of possible hints to who might be selected for Worlds in San Francisco the week after, especially for the international judges.
I was selected to be on staff for GP San Diego. It might seem like a no-brainer for an L3 to be chosen, but that certainly hasn't been the case this year, and especially for an event leading into Worlds where multiple L3s will be flying in from around the globe. There certainly was a point in time when I took it for granted that I would get on any GP staff I wanted onto, but with the program growing at the pace it is, that's a dangerous assumption to make, and seeing the multiple messages across the Internetsphere from people who didn't make it on reminds me of when I started to travel to events.
I made it onto the staff of the very first GP I applied to. Of course, things were different back then. There were a lot fewer judges vying for those slots. It also helped that it was the local GP in San Francisco and I had a very good working relationship with the TO, Conan. I had recently come back to judging (and live Magic events in general) after a brief hiatus and had set my sights on getting to L2 in the near future. Again, this was 2007 and L2 was a completely different animal back then. It could be roughly defined as "good L1" rather than all the stuff about being a mentor and certifying people. Conan was on board with this plan, and that meant I was on board the GP.
GP SF (in San Jose) was a truly eye-opening experience for me that taught me how much I had to learn. It was my first exposure to non-Toby Elliott/Don Barkauskas L3+s, including John Carter, Seamus Campbell, and Adam Shaw, three people that went on to become very good friends of mine and also greatly influenced my path as a judge.
My next GP was Daytona Beach. That's on the opposite side of the country. My decision to go to this event was influenced by a couple of factors. First, I had just failed my L2 exam and I was itching to get back on the horse. Unfortunately, this was a time when OP was messing around with PTQ distributions or something and we only had 1 in Northern California (and the State Championship). In my insatiable thirst to judge more, I not only flew all the way to Florida for a GP but also drove to Seattle for a PTQ (about an 11-hour drive). For Midwest and East Coast folks, an 11-hour drive might seem like a normal day on the road to a tournament, or at the very least, the top end of the curve for a long drive. For a Californian, 11 hours was unheard of, as we didn't event make the 5-hour drive to LA for events at that time. Since then, many more players do make this drive, but few make that Seattle run.
Daytona Beach was another great event where I met some very important people in my life, Jared Sylva, fellow globetrotter Carlos Ho, David Vogin, and nonjudge Megan Holland among others. I came back home from Daytona with a much broader understanding of judging and my own strengths and weaknesses. I felt like I was improving, and it was with the intention of improving even more that I applied for GP Vancouver.
I didn't get selected for that GP. It was chock full of a lot of high level judges, and I was still an L1. I guess it stung a little to not get chosen, but I was still nobody, and a bunch of somebodies were on that staff. Still, I had already made my plans to go to this event, including a stopover the week preceding in Seattle to judge another PTQ (this time I flew there) and hang out with good friends Jon Loucks and Zaiem Beg. It was fun times at that PTQ. In the Top 8, I shifted gears and did event coverage style match reporting for my TCGplayer column, along with a metagame breakdown of the PTQ decklists. You can read that article here. It's amazing to read that article today because look who is in that Top 8: Gavin Verhey, Travis Woo, and Alexander West. Yikes. They've all gone to have some modest amounts of success in various avenues of this game.
Doing match coverage at that PTQ helped me get ready for GP Vancouver. After being denied as a judge, I decided that the best use of my time there would not be to play, but to do event coverage for TCGplayer. Unfortunately, the coverage I wrote was via some experimental blog entry thing and I can't seem to find it anymore, but I assure you that I did a bunch of feature matches, interviews, and other assorted "from the tournament floor" reporting. One piece of reporting that did survive from that weekend: quarterfinals and semifinals match coverage on the mothership. I got this great opportunity because I was already there with a laptop typing furiously next to every feature match, plus I had a proven background as a regular columnist and had introduced myself to Brian David-Marshall at GP Daytona.
Oh, earlier I mentioned a couple of factors in wanting to travel for events like Daytona and Vancouver and never made it to the second factor. How about traveling with close friends and watching them succeed. My good buddies Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon were just starting to hit their strides as big-time players, and I just didn't have the playing chops to keep up with them, so I found the next best way to be right there in the thick of the action.
About a month after Vancouver, I retested for L2, passed, and went to GP Philadelphia. I guess this is the point where I can say that the rest is history because another 2 months after that I went to my first Pro Tour, Hollywood, and started my column on StarCityGames (The Riki Rules). The next few years of my judging career are well-documented in those articles, for better or for worse.
What I wanted to illustrate is that I came from somewhere. I wasn't just an overnight judging sensation. It took me 4 years to go from L1 to L2, 4 years that were fraught with a lot of trying to be a competitive player, uncertainty, more uncertainty, and almost quitting it all for good (and only managing to quit for 6 months). Even when I set myself on my rampaging course at GP SF, it took a long time for me to get to a point where I was anywhere close to the road warrior I am today.
I wrote this because a lot of people have been hurt and downtrodden about not being selected for GP San Diego.
You know what I would do if I were in your shoes? Go anyway. Talk to people. Look at all the random names that are littered throughout this tale, and remember that this all before I became some kind of nerd world celebrity. Make an impression, and it doesn't have to be just with other judges. Maybe if you make a connection with a Rashad Miller, you can find yourself in the GGSlive commentating booth. Remember how I said I met Megan Holland? That was because I judged a side event that was lovingly called "the Girlfriend event." And yet we made a connection, became friends, and my connection to the MtgMom had enabled me to further my deep connections within the community.
I know that I've gotten pretty lucky throughout my career, but I've also been persistent as heck. I have always believed that anyone can be "the next Riki Hayashi" because that fundamental skill of mine is something that anyone can have. Beyond that, all I really have is some modicum of writing talent and my dashing good looks. Ignore those parts and you can join me on my cloud.
I was selected to be on staff for GP San Diego. It might seem like a no-brainer for an L3 to be chosen, but that certainly hasn't been the case this year, and especially for an event leading into Worlds where multiple L3s will be flying in from around the globe. There certainly was a point in time when I took it for granted that I would get on any GP staff I wanted onto, but with the program growing at the pace it is, that's a dangerous assumption to make, and seeing the multiple messages across the Internetsphere from people who didn't make it on reminds me of when I started to travel to events.
I made it onto the staff of the very first GP I applied to. Of course, things were different back then. There were a lot fewer judges vying for those slots. It also helped that it was the local GP in San Francisco and I had a very good working relationship with the TO, Conan. I had recently come back to judging (and live Magic events in general) after a brief hiatus and had set my sights on getting to L2 in the near future. Again, this was 2007 and L2 was a completely different animal back then. It could be roughly defined as "good L1" rather than all the stuff about being a mentor and certifying people. Conan was on board with this plan, and that meant I was on board the GP.
GP SF (in San Jose) was a truly eye-opening experience for me that taught me how much I had to learn. It was my first exposure to non-Toby Elliott/Don Barkauskas L3+s, including John Carter, Seamus Campbell, and Adam Shaw, three people that went on to become very good friends of mine and also greatly influenced my path as a judge.
My next GP was Daytona Beach. That's on the opposite side of the country. My decision to go to this event was influenced by a couple of factors. First, I had just failed my L2 exam and I was itching to get back on the horse. Unfortunately, this was a time when OP was messing around with PTQ distributions or something and we only had 1 in Northern California (and the State Championship). In my insatiable thirst to judge more, I not only flew all the way to Florida for a GP but also drove to Seattle for a PTQ (about an 11-hour drive). For Midwest and East Coast folks, an 11-hour drive might seem like a normal day on the road to a tournament, or at the very least, the top end of the curve for a long drive. For a Californian, 11 hours was unheard of, as we didn't event make the 5-hour drive to LA for events at that time. Since then, many more players do make this drive, but few make that Seattle run.
Daytona Beach was another great event where I met some very important people in my life, Jared Sylva, fellow globetrotter Carlos Ho, David Vogin, and nonjudge Megan Holland among others. I came back home from Daytona with a much broader understanding of judging and my own strengths and weaknesses. I felt like I was improving, and it was with the intention of improving even more that I applied for GP Vancouver.
I didn't get selected for that GP. It was chock full of a lot of high level judges, and I was still an L1. I guess it stung a little to not get chosen, but I was still nobody, and a bunch of somebodies were on that staff. Still, I had already made my plans to go to this event, including a stopover the week preceding in Seattle to judge another PTQ (this time I flew there) and hang out with good friends Jon Loucks and Zaiem Beg. It was fun times at that PTQ. In the Top 8, I shifted gears and did event coverage style match reporting for my TCGplayer column, along with a metagame breakdown of the PTQ decklists. You can read that article here. It's amazing to read that article today because look who is in that Top 8: Gavin Verhey, Travis Woo, and Alexander West. Yikes. They've all gone to have some modest amounts of success in various avenues of this game.
Doing match coverage at that PTQ helped me get ready for GP Vancouver. After being denied as a judge, I decided that the best use of my time there would not be to play, but to do event coverage for TCGplayer. Unfortunately, the coverage I wrote was via some experimental blog entry thing and I can't seem to find it anymore, but I assure you that I did a bunch of feature matches, interviews, and other assorted "from the tournament floor" reporting. One piece of reporting that did survive from that weekend: quarterfinals and semifinals match coverage on the mothership. I got this great opportunity because I was already there with a laptop typing furiously next to every feature match, plus I had a proven background as a regular columnist and had introduced myself to Brian David-Marshall at GP Daytona.
Oh, earlier I mentioned a couple of factors in wanting to travel for events like Daytona and Vancouver and never made it to the second factor. How about traveling with close friends and watching them succeed. My good buddies Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon were just starting to hit their strides as big-time players, and I just didn't have the playing chops to keep up with them, so I found the next best way to be right there in the thick of the action.
About a month after Vancouver, I retested for L2, passed, and went to GP Philadelphia. I guess this is the point where I can say that the rest is history because another 2 months after that I went to my first Pro Tour, Hollywood, and started my column on StarCityGames (The Riki Rules). The next few years of my judging career are well-documented in those articles, for better or for worse.
What I wanted to illustrate is that I came from somewhere. I wasn't just an overnight judging sensation. It took me 4 years to go from L1 to L2, 4 years that were fraught with a lot of trying to be a competitive player, uncertainty, more uncertainty, and almost quitting it all for good (and only managing to quit for 6 months). Even when I set myself on my rampaging course at GP SF, it took a long time for me to get to a point where I was anywhere close to the road warrior I am today.
I wrote this because a lot of people have been hurt and downtrodden about not being selected for GP San Diego.
You know what I would do if I were in your shoes? Go anyway. Talk to people. Look at all the random names that are littered throughout this tale, and remember that this all before I became some kind of nerd world celebrity. Make an impression, and it doesn't have to be just with other judges. Maybe if you make a connection with a Rashad Miller, you can find yourself in the GGSlive commentating booth. Remember how I said I met Megan Holland? That was because I judged a side event that was lovingly called "the Girlfriend event." And yet we made a connection, became friends, and my connection to the MtgMom had enabled me to further my deep connections within the community.
I know that I've gotten pretty lucky throughout my career, but I've also been persistent as heck. I have always believed that anyone can be "the next Riki Hayashi" because that fundamental skill of mine is something that anyone can have. Beyond that, all I really have is some modicum of writing talent and my dashing good looks. Ignore those parts and you can join me on my cloud.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Updates in August
It's been a while since my last update. This is the point where people usually start promising more updates, and I suppose that's what I'm doing now. This isn't just an empty promise though. A bunch of stuff has happened recently that I feel is conducive to more writing, primarily a move to Blacksburg, Virginia. That's 40 minutes away from Roanoke, so I'm a commuter now. This might not sound like it bodes well for me getting stuff done because it's essentially 2 hours every day that I am additionally stuck in a car, but I've always gotten a lot of quality thinking done while driving. Plus I'll be downloading a bunch of MTG podcasts to listen to. Maybe I'll even listen to some Judgecasts... ok probably not. I still think everything I say is silly banter, and there's no reason to listen to yourself talk about the movies you saw last week.
The casts I am downloading for this week are In Contention; Yo! MTG Taps!; Avant Card Show; and The Mana Pool.
I've also started running seriously again. The goal is to get ready for a 10-mile race at the end of September. With a few weekends off between that span and a really nice trail a little over a mile away from my home, I should be able to get some quality runs in like yesterday when I went 7.1 miles after work.
WotC released the first quarter GP/PT schedule for 2012 and it is a doozy. PT Honolulu is sweet and worth about 10,000 miles r/t (round trip). That's a good way to keep up the pace for 1K (100,000 miles) next year. GP Seattle is about 5,000 r/t, the next best domestic trip. The international GPs are obviously good mileage, but they are all paired up against domestic GPs, and that doesn't event take into consideration what StarCityGames will be doing next year.
All in all, truly a tournament every weekend type of stuff for 2012, which makes it that much more important to be able to run consistently on the weekdays, something I'm hoping to do before work. Getting in 3-4 miles should be possible with the key being getting to bed early the night before. I'll have more in depth stuff on all of this and the release of Korean Magic cards this week.
The casts I am downloading for this week are In Contention; Yo! MTG Taps!; Avant Card Show; and The Mana Pool.
I've also started running seriously again. The goal is to get ready for a 10-mile race at the end of September. With a few weekends off between that span and a really nice trail a little over a mile away from my home, I should be able to get some quality runs in like yesterday when I went 7.1 miles after work.
WotC released the first quarter GP/PT schedule for 2012 and it is a doozy. PT Honolulu is sweet and worth about 10,000 miles r/t (round trip). That's a good way to keep up the pace for 1K (100,000 miles) next year. GP Seattle is about 5,000 r/t, the next best domestic trip. The international GPs are obviously good mileage, but they are all paired up against domestic GPs, and that doesn't event take into consideration what StarCityGames will be doing next year.
All in all, truly a tournament every weekend type of stuff for 2012, which makes it that much more important to be able to run consistently on the weekdays, something I'm hoping to do before work. Getting in 3-4 miles should be possible with the key being getting to bed early the night before. I'll have more in depth stuff on all of this and the release of Korean Magic cards this week.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Open Series Killed the PTQ Star?
We had a PTQ at the StarCityGamesCenter this past Saturday and it was a disappointingly tiny affair of only 30 players. I was one of those players, having originally been scheduled to Floor Judge but cut at the last minute. Having someone with my experience carries diminishing returns as the size of the tournament and staff diminishes. And while I could have provided some spiffy mentoring for the L0s that worked that day, someone had to get benched, and better me than the new guys.
The week before there was a PTQ in North Carolina with something like 60 players. These are small numbers. I've only been around Roanoke for a little less than a year, and during that time we've had a lackluster Limited season and the atrocious Extended season. And yet, 30 players is a new low. There are some popular theories:
a) GP Providence - off the top of my head, I could think of 3 PTQ regulars who went to the GP instead. Realistically we can probably put another ten names on that list.
b) Memorial Day Weekend - maybe some folks just took some regular old vacation time for family and other non-Magical pursuits.
c) Snore-Blade - people are tired of this deck already, and the problem is going to get worse with Batterskull. It's likely that attendance will continue to drop across the board as Magic just isn't much fun under these circumstances. Two players in the semifinals of the PTQ playing the Caw mirror looked like they wanted to kill themselves as they literally battered each other's skulls ad infinitum to the point where the life totals were 60-20 at one point. Zzzzz
d) Open Series - and finally my pet theory. PTQs have always been a winner-take-all thing. No one is there to collect their packs of product. Heck, when allowed to split the product prize, most finals give all of the packs to the loser, and he is indeed the loser because 2 boxes is nothing compared to qualifying for the Pro Tour. When 2nd place is "tied for dead last" you have a lopsided prize structure.
On the other hand, tournaments like the SCG Open Series provide cash prizes down to 32nd place, and making Top 8 is a pretty good day all around. With Top 4 prize splits being the norm, the only extra bonus for winning it all is a trophy, some extra Player's Club points, and some more notoriety. Even before he finally broke through in Charlotte last month, AJ Sacher was doing quite well on the Open Series circuit despite "never winning anything." PTQs are not so forgiving, and it's possible that having an alternative tournament series where you can actually go home with something substantive despite not winning it all is changing the way people look at PTQs.
And that brings us to what will happen with PTQs next year. With an expanded GP schedule and the continued success of the Open Series, where will all these PTQs fit in? And who will be running them? The axing of Regional Prereleases was undoubtedly a blow to the PTOs running them, as I've heard in that past that those tournaments pay the bills for the PTQs, which are only marginally profitable. When WotC started store Prereleases back in 2008, severely cutting back on the profitability of the Regional Prereleases (which were rumored to be cash cows on the scale of GPs), several PTOs up and quit rather than preside over what they perceived as a sinking ship. It seems inevitable that more will follow suit now, so will control of PTQs fall into the laps of the store-level TOs? Will PTQs become slightly larger GPTs more on the scale of what they see in other countries as opposed to the multi-hundred player events that they used to be?
The week before there was a PTQ in North Carolina with something like 60 players. These are small numbers. I've only been around Roanoke for a little less than a year, and during that time we've had a lackluster Limited season and the atrocious Extended season. And yet, 30 players is a new low. There are some popular theories:
a) GP Providence - off the top of my head, I could think of 3 PTQ regulars who went to the GP instead. Realistically we can probably put another ten names on that list.
b) Memorial Day Weekend - maybe some folks just took some regular old vacation time for family and other non-Magical pursuits.
c) Snore-Blade - people are tired of this deck already, and the problem is going to get worse with Batterskull. It's likely that attendance will continue to drop across the board as Magic just isn't much fun under these circumstances. Two players in the semifinals of the PTQ playing the Caw mirror looked like they wanted to kill themselves as they literally battered each other's skulls ad infinitum to the point where the life totals were 60-20 at one point. Zzzzz
d) Open Series - and finally my pet theory. PTQs have always been a winner-take-all thing. No one is there to collect their packs of product. Heck, when allowed to split the product prize, most finals give all of the packs to the loser, and he is indeed the loser because 2 boxes is nothing compared to qualifying for the Pro Tour. When 2nd place is "tied for dead last" you have a lopsided prize structure.
On the other hand, tournaments like the SCG Open Series provide cash prizes down to 32nd place, and making Top 8 is a pretty good day all around. With Top 4 prize splits being the norm, the only extra bonus for winning it all is a trophy, some extra Player's Club points, and some more notoriety. Even before he finally broke through in Charlotte last month, AJ Sacher was doing quite well on the Open Series circuit despite "never winning anything." PTQs are not so forgiving, and it's possible that having an alternative tournament series where you can actually go home with something substantive despite not winning it all is changing the way people look at PTQs.
And that brings us to what will happen with PTQs next year. With an expanded GP schedule and the continued success of the Open Series, where will all these PTQs fit in? And who will be running them? The axing of Regional Prereleases was undoubtedly a blow to the PTOs running them, as I've heard in that past that those tournaments pay the bills for the PTQs, which are only marginally profitable. When WotC started store Prereleases back in 2008, severely cutting back on the profitability of the Regional Prereleases (which were rumored to be cash cows on the scale of GPs), several PTOs up and quit rather than preside over what they perceived as a sinking ship. It seems inevitable that more will follow suit now, so will control of PTQs fall into the laps of the store-level TOs? Will PTQs become slightly larger GPTs more on the scale of what they see in other countries as opposed to the multi-hundred player events that they used to be?
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