To say I've seen it all with SeaCat (Sean Catanese) is not too far off, at least when it comes to his Magic judge career. I didn't personally test him for Level 1, but that was because I only just tested for Level 2 that same day, both under Toby Elliott. We spent a lot of time together over the next two years, plotting and pushing each other to greatness.
While I jet-set around the world and sped my way to L3, SeaCat was the one who kept the home fires burning. He worked diligently to build the grass roots base of judges in the Sacramento area. I knew that he was the one who I wanted to test for L2 first, and in my haste, I screwed things up. I gave him the test before he was ready, twice, and I bore as much responsibility for those failed exams as Sean. Those exams taught me a very valuable lesson about letting knowledge be the driving force behind whether I should test someone, not passion because in the latter, Sean was never lacking. I am grateful that Sean stuck it out with me. I grew up a lot during that period, and third time was the charm. As a tribute to our own double advancement earlier, Sean turned right around and tested Jose Boveda for L1 that day. The three of us podcasted together, turning Judgecast into a household name.
When I needed a driving companion to make the five-hour trip to LA tolerable, Sean was there, and together we helped forge stronger bonds between Northern and Southern California. The state feels a lot smaller these days, but back then, there was almost zero contact between the sides. The best fruits of the North-South outreach, David Zimet. We'll get to him later.
One of the lessons that I have always tried to put to practice has been "train your replacement." When I left California to work for SCG in Virginia, I felt that I had succeeded in that. Sean look on more and more of the leadership in the state, and one year later he advanced to L3 at PT Philadelphia 2011. I wasn't on staff for that event, but as soon as I heard that Sean had passed the written exam (the part that I felt would give him the most trouble; the interview panel would be a cakewalk), I jumped on the next flight to Philly so that I could be there in person to congratulate him. Shortly after that, he was named the Regional Coordinator of the Southeast United States, again no surprise given the work he was doing.
Last year, I joined him among the ranks of RCs, taking the reigns of the Northwest region in anticipation of my move to Portland. I've taken a lot of how I handle being an RC from my talks with Sean. As Darth Vader said, "The student has become the master." Well, the master just ascended again, this time to Level 4 at GP Oakland, a fitting tribute given that he now calls the city of Oaks home. My biggest regret is that I couldn't be there to congratulate him in person again. I was in Baltimore instead, Scorekeeping the SCG Open there. Had I known that he would be promoted, I would have dropped everything and flown out to Oakland, just as I had in Philly. But L4 promotions are kept very tightly kept secrets. And I suppose it is fitting that I wasn't there. Several people asked me if I was proud of Sean's promotion. Of course, I am extremely proud of everything he accomplishes. He's one of my closest friends. But I detect that people are asking me if I am proud like a father is of his son, as if I still lord over Sean, and his accomplishments should somehow validate me. I haven't felt that way in years. He's done so much without me. I am proud to stand by him as his friend. I will be proud to stand at his side when he HJs his first GP. That one I won't miss under any circumstances. Better tell me when for that one.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
My Anxiety
This is something that I've been wanting to write for awhile now, but could never muster up the courage to. You see, I have a problem. This isn't one of those joke problems like "what am I going to do with all of these frequent flier miles?" This is a very real problem that affects my day to day life and sometimes affects my ability to be a good judge.
I suffer from social anxiety.
More specifically, I develop anxiety in larges masses of people, like World-War-Z-crush-of-zombies sized masses, and the associated noise. If this seems odd for someone who spends a majority of his weekends at airports and large Magic tournaments, let me explain. Those two places have a degree of order to them, and in particular it is a degree of order that I have conquered.
Let's take airports. I have 1K status with United, which is the highest status you can earn. This gives me access to the cheater lines at check-in, security, and boarding. Especially with United going to a clearly demarcated five-tier boarding system, I rarely have to wade through the masses anymore. During layovers, I beeline to the United Club, where I can hide out from crush of bodies. It's a nice quiet place to read e-mails and have a beer. About five minutes before boarding is scheduled to start, I make my way to the gate and try to time my arrival so that I can get right on the plane.
At Magic events, I am in charge, oftentimes literally as the Head Judge or Event Show Lead. When I get up in front of 600 people and make a pun like "We would hate for your Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to become a Tabernacle of Ginger Ale" I don't feel nervous just because all eyes are on me. I actually like it because of the quiet and sense of order. Similarly, the mass of bodies when pairings are posted does not bother me. I know exactly where all those players are going and what they are doing. Even when I am wading through those players with the pairings in my hand, I am in control; a loud "judge coming through with pairings" will part the players.
Order and control. These things keep my anxiety down. In contrast, I suffer very bad anxiety attacks in Japan's subway system. There are way too many people crammed into way to small a space for my comfort. And unlike players at the pairings board, they don't move out of the way just because I tell them to. When a train stops, there are two streams of people fighting against each other, and despite what you might think about the polite demure Japanese stereotype, things can get brutal.
Yesterday, I suffered a pretty bad attack at a soccer match. Well, not even at the match. Outside the stadium on the way to the match. My anxiety level was building for a while leading up to the stadium as we saw more and more soccer fans--rowdy soccer fans. When the stadium came into sight, I lost it. I could feel the crush of people in my future. I could hear the chanting in my head. I stopped dead in my tracks and could not move another step forward. Tasha had to lead me away from the stadium back to the car and we went home.
I suffer from social anxiety.
More specifically, I develop anxiety in larges masses of people, like World-War-Z-crush-of-zombies sized masses, and the associated noise. If this seems odd for someone who spends a majority of his weekends at airports and large Magic tournaments, let me explain. Those two places have a degree of order to them, and in particular it is a degree of order that I have conquered.
Let's take airports. I have 1K status with United, which is the highest status you can earn. This gives me access to the cheater lines at check-in, security, and boarding. Especially with United going to a clearly demarcated five-tier boarding system, I rarely have to wade through the masses anymore. During layovers, I beeline to the United Club, where I can hide out from crush of bodies. It's a nice quiet place to read e-mails and have a beer. About five minutes before boarding is scheduled to start, I make my way to the gate and try to time my arrival so that I can get right on the plane.
At Magic events, I am in charge, oftentimes literally as the Head Judge or Event Show Lead. When I get up in front of 600 people and make a pun like "We would hate for your Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to become a Tabernacle of Ginger Ale" I don't feel nervous just because all eyes are on me. I actually like it because of the quiet and sense of order. Similarly, the mass of bodies when pairings are posted does not bother me. I know exactly where all those players are going and what they are doing. Even when I am wading through those players with the pairings in my hand, I am in control; a loud "judge coming through with pairings" will part the players.
Order and control. These things keep my anxiety down. In contrast, I suffer very bad anxiety attacks in Japan's subway system. There are way too many people crammed into way to small a space for my comfort. And unlike players at the pairings board, they don't move out of the way just because I tell them to. When a train stops, there are two streams of people fighting against each other, and despite what you might think about the polite demure Japanese stereotype, things can get brutal.
Yesterday, I suffered a pretty bad attack at a soccer match. Well, not even at the match. Outside the stadium on the way to the match. My anxiety level was building for a while leading up to the stadium as we saw more and more soccer fans--rowdy soccer fans. When the stadium came into sight, I lost it. I could feel the crush of people in my future. I could hear the chanting in my head. I stopped dead in my tracks and could not move another step forward. Tasha had to lead me away from the stadium back to the car and we went home.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Getting my MOJO Back
I wasn't even supposed to be here...
Since moving to Portland, I had spent exactly one weekend in town, the M14 Prerelease, and that was only because there was a community-wide moratorium on large Competitive REL events (read: GPs and SCG Opens) on Prerelease weekends. Gen Con Weekend was supposed to be my second break, another no-GP, no-Open weekend. Then Rob McKenzie decided to get married. Or more correctly, he decided to have a camping/gaming weekend to celebrate his nuptials with his gamer friends. Despite moving all over the place and ending up in Portland, Oregon, Tasha maintains deep ties with the Minnesota judge community, and I've been honorably adopted into the fold as well, so we got invites to this shindig.
I am always down for some airline travel, but in this case the price was not right. I try to maintain a certain cents per mile standard when it comes to my flying, especially when it is not to an event (since that can offset costs). So Tasha and I booked our flights with our redeemable miles, a bank of extra "money" that we save for occasions just like this. Meanwhile, sometime between now and then, the next installment of MOJO (Magic Online Judge Open) was announced. This is a MTGO Sealed tournament open to any certified judge to play in. Back during the first MOJO (played with Rise of the Eldrazi), I made Top 8.
This year, the two tournaments fell on weekends where I would unavailable to play, not very surprising with my schedule. One of those was Gen Con / Rob's camping party. The other is the SCG Philadelphia Open Weekend. Thus, it didn't even occur to me to register for an event that I couldn't play in. Free avatar for playing? Nope. Don't care. Free Sealed product? I have enough product online from other sources. As the saying goes, I came to game.
One day before we were supposed to fly off to Minneapolis for games and more games with Rob and friends, our cat Sedna got sick. We took her to the vet and she mostly checked out okay, but she would need two forms of medication to get better. I'm very much the doting father when it comes to these things, and Tasha could see how worried I was so we quickly agreed that it would be best for us to stay at home with her for the weekend and look after her.
I called up the airline to see what options we had for cancelling our flight, and it turned out that status is even better than I thought. The agent on the phone told me that since the flights had been booked using miles from a 1K status account (mine), it could be completely refunded, miles and fees (only about $20 total). With that out of the way, I came to the realization that we could play in the first MOJO event. Tasha had actually registered for MOJO on the off chance that something changed. I guess she's like that. I'm not like that and I didn't register for an event I wasn't planning on attended "just in case." I posted the following on Facebook:
"Had to cancel trip to Minnesota to stay home with Sedna. Realized that meant we could play in MOJO. I hadn't registered because I didn't expect to be able to play. Blow out."
It wasn't meant as a complaint, nor a cry for help. I was just describing what happened to me that day. I got several kind offers from folks to use their accounts because they would be unable to play. I have a very personal MTGO account name, Manriki Hayashi, and I wouldn't want other people playing on it, so I've never taken to account sharing or borrowing. Andy Heckt reinforced this by posting in the thread, " Do not use someone else's account. It is a violation of T&C (Terms and Conditions)." I know people violate this all the time, but as judges we should make sure that we hold ourselves to a high standard of conduct, especially in a public forum, and especially when it's for a free event.
Tasha decided that she wanted to MOJO at Guardian Games here in town with some other judges. It seemed like a chill way to spend a Saturday morning, so I agreed to come along and bird her or just write some reviews, when I got an unexpected gift. Andy Heckt had pulled some strings and gotten my account added to the upcoming MOJO event. I didn't ask for it. I don't even think that I strongly implied that "it sure would be great if..." It was something that Andy did independently out of the kindness of his heart and I greatly appreciated it. I know that there were probably other people who didn't forgot to register and would have liked to have played, and I sympathize with them a lot. It's why I usually don't ask for favors like this; I have a pretty strong sense of "you play the hand that you dealt yourself." When I missed the deadline to apply to judge GP Oakland, I asked Judge Manager Jess Dunks about the possibility of being a Scorekeeper for the event, rather than a judge. He offered to let me get in my application late (and pretty much guarantee that I was on staff( because I'm an L3 and we're still at a point in time when L3s rarely get rejected from GPs (although it happened to me this year for GP London). I appreciated Jess's offer, but didn't want to abuse the system like that so I politely declined. I didn't hear back on SKs, but they eventually got Kali Anderson for the main event and she's an excellent choice for them.
If I was willing to decline Jess's offer to get on staff for the GP, why didn't I also turn down Andy's MOJO offer? The difference is that the damage, or the kindness in this case, was already done. Andy had already talked to someone and added me to the event. It wasn't like I was competing for slots in the tournament. For Oakland, adding me and Tasha would have certainly taken spots away from other judges, judges who had applied for the event on time, and that was something I wasn't willing to do. (This is slightly different from events that put out a late call for L3 Judges after applications have closed; in that case, there is a need at the event that still requires filling. With over a dozen L3s on staff, this wasn't the case for Oakland.)
Back to the MOJO. I wish that I could make some grand gesture like Chris Pikula when Helen Bergeot told him that he was getting a Sponsor's Invite to PT Dublin. He announced that any winnings would be donated to Jon Finkel's charity, Gamers Helping Gamers. It just doesn't have the same ring if I were to donate a handful of booster packs versus hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars. The best way for me to repay Andy's kindness was to have fun with a bunch of judges. Tasha and I biked to Guardian Games, which is a treat to be able to do, and another reason I love Portland.
We had 7 judges gathered at Guardian Games. It was their new location, which I hadn't been to, and let me just say that I am looking forward to spending more time at this place and running events here.
My pool lacked heavy hitting bombs, but it did have a good Sliver synergy going with 2x Predatory, 2x Manaweft, 2x Battle, and a lone Galerider Sliver. That was the entirety of my Slivers (with a Clone thrown in that became a Sliver whenever possible); if I had more, I would have played them. The deck was a GB (no black Sliver, but I had 2x Liturgy of Blood and 2x Wring Flesh) base splashing for the Slivers, Clone and Time Ebb (which I never cast). Unfortunately, I lost the document that I had put all of my opponent's names on, but I remember I only played against one judge from the US that I had worked with. The rest were from Russia, the UK, the Czech Republic and China. It was great to have short chats with these international opponents. It's really the best part about MOJO; it gives you a sense of just how wide this community really is.
Since moving to Portland, I had spent exactly one weekend in town, the M14 Prerelease, and that was only because there was a community-wide moratorium on large Competitive REL events (read: GPs and SCG Opens) on Prerelease weekends. Gen Con Weekend was supposed to be my second break, another no-GP, no-Open weekend. Then Rob McKenzie decided to get married. Or more correctly, he decided to have a camping/gaming weekend to celebrate his nuptials with his gamer friends. Despite moving all over the place and ending up in Portland, Oregon, Tasha maintains deep ties with the Minnesota judge community, and I've been honorably adopted into the fold as well, so we got invites to this shindig.
I am always down for some airline travel, but in this case the price was not right. I try to maintain a certain cents per mile standard when it comes to my flying, especially when it is not to an event (since that can offset costs). So Tasha and I booked our flights with our redeemable miles, a bank of extra "money" that we save for occasions just like this. Meanwhile, sometime between now and then, the next installment of MOJO (Magic Online Judge Open) was announced. This is a MTGO Sealed tournament open to any certified judge to play in. Back during the first MOJO (played with Rise of the Eldrazi), I made Top 8.
This year, the two tournaments fell on weekends where I would unavailable to play, not very surprising with my schedule. One of those was Gen Con / Rob's camping party. The other is the SCG Philadelphia Open Weekend. Thus, it didn't even occur to me to register for an event that I couldn't play in. Free avatar for playing? Nope. Don't care. Free Sealed product? I have enough product online from other sources. As the saying goes, I came to game.
One day before we were supposed to fly off to Minneapolis for games and more games with Rob and friends, our cat Sedna got sick. We took her to the vet and she mostly checked out okay, but she would need two forms of medication to get better. I'm very much the doting father when it comes to these things, and Tasha could see how worried I was so we quickly agreed that it would be best for us to stay at home with her for the weekend and look after her.
I called up the airline to see what options we had for cancelling our flight, and it turned out that status is even better than I thought. The agent on the phone told me that since the flights had been booked using miles from a 1K status account (mine), it could be completely refunded, miles and fees (only about $20 total). With that out of the way, I came to the realization that we could play in the first MOJO event. Tasha had actually registered for MOJO on the off chance that something changed. I guess she's like that. I'm not like that and I didn't register for an event I wasn't planning on attended "just in case." I posted the following on Facebook:
"Had to cancel trip to Minnesota to stay home with Sedna. Realized that meant we could play in MOJO. I hadn't registered because I didn't expect to be able to play. Blow out."
It wasn't meant as a complaint, nor a cry for help. I was just describing what happened to me that day. I got several kind offers from folks to use their accounts because they would be unable to play. I have a very personal MTGO account name, Manriki Hayashi, and I wouldn't want other people playing on it, so I've never taken to account sharing or borrowing. Andy Heckt reinforced this by posting in the thread, " Do not use someone else's account. It is a violation of T&C (Terms and Conditions)." I know people violate this all the time, but as judges we should make sure that we hold ourselves to a high standard of conduct, especially in a public forum, and especially when it's for a free event.
Tasha decided that she wanted to MOJO at Guardian Games here in town with some other judges. It seemed like a chill way to spend a Saturday morning, so I agreed to come along and bird her or just write some reviews, when I got an unexpected gift. Andy Heckt had pulled some strings and gotten my account added to the upcoming MOJO event. I didn't ask for it. I don't even think that I strongly implied that "it sure would be great if..." It was something that Andy did independently out of the kindness of his heart and I greatly appreciated it. I know that there were probably other people who didn't forgot to register and would have liked to have played, and I sympathize with them a lot. It's why I usually don't ask for favors like this; I have a pretty strong sense of "you play the hand that you dealt yourself." When I missed the deadline to apply to judge GP Oakland, I asked Judge Manager Jess Dunks about the possibility of being a Scorekeeper for the event, rather than a judge. He offered to let me get in my application late (and pretty much guarantee that I was on staff( because I'm an L3 and we're still at a point in time when L3s rarely get rejected from GPs (although it happened to me this year for GP London). I appreciated Jess's offer, but didn't want to abuse the system like that so I politely declined. I didn't hear back on SKs, but they eventually got Kali Anderson for the main event and she's an excellent choice for them.
If I was willing to decline Jess's offer to get on staff for the GP, why didn't I also turn down Andy's MOJO offer? The difference is that the damage, or the kindness in this case, was already done. Andy had already talked to someone and added me to the event. It wasn't like I was competing for slots in the tournament. For Oakland, adding me and Tasha would have certainly taken spots away from other judges, judges who had applied for the event on time, and that was something I wasn't willing to do. (This is slightly different from events that put out a late call for L3 Judges after applications have closed; in that case, there is a need at the event that still requires filling. With over a dozen L3s on staff, this wasn't the case for Oakland.)
Back to the MOJO. I wish that I could make some grand gesture like Chris Pikula when Helen Bergeot told him that he was getting a Sponsor's Invite to PT Dublin. He announced that any winnings would be donated to Jon Finkel's charity, Gamers Helping Gamers. It just doesn't have the same ring if I were to donate a handful of booster packs versus hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars. The best way for me to repay Andy's kindness was to have fun with a bunch of judges. Tasha and I biked to Guardian Games, which is a treat to be able to do, and another reason I love Portland.
We had 7 judges gathered at Guardian Games. It was their new location, which I hadn't been to, and let me just say that I am looking forward to spending more time at this place and running events here.
My pool lacked heavy hitting bombs, but it did have a good Sliver synergy going with 2x Predatory, 2x Manaweft, 2x Battle, and a lone Galerider Sliver. That was the entirety of my Slivers (with a Clone thrown in that became a Sliver whenever possible); if I had more, I would have played them. The deck was a GB (no black Sliver, but I had 2x Liturgy of Blood and 2x Wring Flesh) base splashing for the Slivers, Clone and Time Ebb (which I never cast). Unfortunately, I lost the document that I had put all of my opponent's names on, but I remember I only played against one judge from the US that I had worked with. The rest were from Russia, the UK, the Czech Republic and China. It was great to have short chats with these international opponents. It's really the best part about MOJO; it gives you a sense of just how wide this community really is.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Introducing Your NorthWest State and Metro Coordinators + other news
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.
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.
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.
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