Elder Gargaroth is the New Monarch of Reach

I'm back to tell you which creatures have reach in Magic Core Set 2021, so that you can avoid the embarrassment of attacking your flying creature into them. Let's start with three simple green creatures.



Skyway Sniper
Snarespinner
Sporeweb Weaver
Rating: 0.0
These are the reach creatures we need. They all have higher toughness than power, a classic creature type, and both art and name that are highly suggestive of their anti-air use. While I usually approach this list in color, then alphabetical order, I wanted to start with this trio to emphasize how important all of these flavor hints are as we enter an increasingly digital game where card text is shrunk or absent until you hover. If you are staring at the Skyway Sniper on your opponent’s side of the screen, you can see in the art that they are getting ready to shoot an arrow at that passing Thopter. And spiders are spiders with the added benefit of having web-focused names.


Gnarled Sage
Rating: 3.0
While Gnarled Sage is not the most problematic card on this list, I do need to highlight that this card also exists in the set:


Look at these two cards, just the artwork, and tell me which of these is supposed to have reach. Heck, go beyond the art. The latter card is a warden, “a person responsible for the supervision of a particular place or thing or for ensuring that regulations associated with it are obeyed.” The Warden of the Woods does have vigilance, and that ability has been associated with sentries and guardians in the past, and now that I'm thinking about that, I don't know that I understand the flavor there either. What does that have to do with being able to attack and block? You still have to leave your post in order to attack.

It’s also noteworthy that this is the third treefolk with reach in Magic’s history, and that the previous two were oak trees (per their names, Cloudcrown Oak and Great Oak Guardian). There’s also no consistency in secondary typing with a warrior, druid, and single-typed treefolk. Oak is actually the most common type of tree to be in a card name, and based on my very rudimentary understanding of trees, appears to be the default treefolk in Magic.

What if they introduced a different type of tree as the treefolk with reach? I would suggest pine trees because they have a distinct look to them, and the flavor could be that they shoot their pine needles as anti-air projectiles akin to arrows. This would lean less on the trope of “tall things have reach,” which doesn’t make much sense when we start comparing treefolk. The other way to go would be redwoods, which are renown as super tall trees.


Turret Ogre
Rating: 3.0
Second time’s the charm? During its first printing in War of the Spark, I rated Turret Ogre a 3.0. There’s only one subtle change this time around, the reminder text on the reach ability itself. While that helps new players understand what the ability does, I think that it is a small hindrance for others as it adds some word soup into the mix, making the ability itself stand out less.


Elder Gargaroth
Rating: 5.0

Word soup, especially multiple keywords on the same line with reach buried. Even p/t. "Tall" flavor that isn't reflected in the name, and only somewhat reflected in the art. Luckily a mythic rare, but may have Constructed implications. Probably a 4.0 or 4.5 reach ambusher. https://t.co/ikgyEP7vxw

— Riki Hayashi (@mtgRikipedia) June 8, 2020

Excuse me?!

This card is ridiculous. Word soup with multiple keywords on one line, including having vigilance, so this will always be on defense to ambush you.

And while we’re on those keywords, what’s up with the order that they are printed on the card? I feel like there is some hierarchy of keywords, and this might be something that I spend some more time investigating. Totally get why trample is last. It only matters at the end of combat when it attacks. Basically every other keyword ever printed will be relevant before it. But if we’re talking about relevance of timing, surely reach should precede vigilance. Unless you give this haste through some outside means, Elder Gargaroth is going to be on blocking (and potentially reaching) duty before it goes on the attack and vigilance matters.

My ratings are made on a combination of how likely a creature is to reach ambush based on its flavor and art, and how punishing it is for said ambush to happen. With a 6/6 body, Elder Gargaroth is going to eat your flyer, and that’s plenty punishing enough to warrant a high rating, a 4.0 or 4.5 as I initially Tweeted, but what puts this card over the top is the triggered ability, which yes, triggers on attacking and blocking, something that I actually missed upon my first look.

Not only will Gargaroth eat an attacker, it will also generate an extra card’s worth of value in the deal. The old two-for-nothing. I’m stunned that I started writing these pieces because of Shifting Ceratops one year ago, and I thought that was one of the worst cases of this phenomenon ever. From the ambush side of things, it still might be because the reach is buried in an activated ability. But Gargaroth is now the top… elephant(?) for the maximum punishment it inflicts if you do fly into it. People talk a lot about power creep for things like Planeswalkers. I just never thought that I would see it so starkly in my niche genre.

Don't Get Ceratopped: Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths

Here we are again for my usual installment of Don't Get Ceratopped*, where I examine each creature with reach in the new Magic: the Gathering set Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and rate it on its likelihood of pulling off a reach ambush, as Shifting Ceratops did so many times during M20 Limited season. Here's the original blogpost. Roughly at around a 3.0 I would expect even veteran players to send a flyer unwittingly into the creature with reach and for that ambush to cost you a full card.

*Astute readers will note that this is a new title for this series. I may or may not go back and edit my older posts at some point to Mandela Effect y'all. Credit to Nick Prince for pointing out what a great phrase this is.

Cloudpiercer
Rating: 3.5

Here we have our one-per-set red common with reach. These often rate pretty high because they have unusual creature type and higher power than toughness, as is the case on Cloupiercer. The red reachers also tend to have more word soup, as the reach isn't their primary function. In this case, the word soup is mutate, and that adds an additional level of surprise factor since Cloudpiercer could be hiding underneath the creature it mutates onto.

This is also the space where I will make my regularly-scheduled complaint about the flavor of reach, specifically the notion that tall things can block flyers. This card tries to reinforce this via its name and the scale birds flying around its long neck. So on Ikoria, these tall brachiosaur types can block flyers, right?


...

I guess the vantasaur should have reared up on its hind legs.

Crystalline Giant
Rating: 4.5

This is a card that plays much worse in paper than online, what with needing to roll a die, sometimes multiple times. This ability points to a new direction for card designs using this design philosophy, and it opens up a host of memory and/or token visibility issues when playing it in paper. This card is going to be a nightmare to play and track.
However, the likelihood of an ambush goes up online by several magnitudes. In paper, you'll have to make a chart, roll a die, say the ability out loud, and write the ability on a scrap of paper. That's a lot of steps that will reinforce in your brain when it gets reach. Online, the program will handle all of that, and if you aren't paying attention and just click through the upkeep trigger, you're very likely to miss what actually happened. The flying counter basically plays the same way as reach on defense, and other abilities like deathtouch and first strike can combine to make the ambush even worse, which is why I've bumped this card to just short of Shifting Ceratops based on this heinous online interaction. The way the abilities are displayed on the card may influence the chances of an ambush as well. Will the words of the added abilities be prominent enough to see, or will they be shrunk down and invisible?

Flycatcher Giraffid
Rating: 3.0

Yikes. Yikes. This set is going to get a lot of people ambushed. There are some decent flavor things on this card that hint at reach. "Flycatcher" is a good sign that things that fly should watch out. "Giraffid" not so much. I guess it's trying to fill the "tall things" space, but doesn't quite get there for me. And all of these things don't come close the the cues from the usual spider/archer flavor.
The real culprit for the unusually high rating for a common is the ability counter. Burying the keyword so that you won't see it at a glance is always a problem. Second, and more important, it's variable. Some games, this will have reach and some games it will have vigilance. So there will be some games where you can safely push your flyers right past the strange Antelope Lizard (it's not even a Giraffe?), making it hard to develop the visual connection between the art and reach. And like Crystalline Giant, the ability is something that you are much more likely to click through and forget compared to paper Magic, where your opponent will have to make a verbal declaration and scribble on a piece of paper.
A 3.0 is unnaturally high for the simple, green common in the set, and along with some of the other things going on, makes this a very dangerous set for flyers. The ability counter also has the potential to be moved (albeit via rare cards Ozolith and Bonders' Enclave), and that can make for completely new and unexpected combinations for ambush.

Gemrazer
Rating: 4.0

I don't understand this card. It's breaking these gems for whatever reason. That's fine. You do you. Flavorwise, this fits fine with the ability to destroy artifacts... and enchantments why? Are enchantments "gems"? But why does this have reach? Do the gem shards fly up into the air and hit flyers? It's not a regularly-supported reach creature type, has equal power and toughness, and like the Giraffid, has the potential for mutate to hide the reach ability. Fs in chat for the first Dreamtail Heron that flies necklong into a Gemrazer.

Glowstone Recluse
Rating: 1.5

Classic spider with spider art and higher toughness than power. The 2/3 body at least allows this to threaten to outright kill or trade with a lot of flyers. This gets a slight bump due to mutate potentially putting this on the bottom of a mutation, denying you some of those visual clues.

Sudden Spinnerets
Rating: 2.0

I usually don't rate the green combat trick every set that gives reach, because if that's going to eat a flyer, there's not much that can be done to avoid that outcome. Like with many combat tricks, you just have to hope that they don't have it. But this spell has the potential to eat a follow up flyer because the reach counter sticks around on the creature, and I'm rating it a 2.0 solely on that follow up of "Oh, it still has reach."

Vivien, Monsters' Advocate
Rating: 5.0

We did it. We rated another card besides Shifting Ceratops as a 5.0, and here's why. When I first started writing this blogpost, I didn't have Vivien on my list. I missed it while scanning the visual spoiler, and it was only upon a final Scryfall check that I came across it. As a Planeswalker, you know it's going to be word soup. On top of that, the reach comes on an ability counter, and that counter has three different options. At some point, you are going to look across at this sea of beasts and forget that one of them has reach, and you will be sad. And while my ratings are for Limited play, this card is also going to get people in Constructed where Vivien will combine with Nissa to put counters on ALL THE THINGS. And while the 3/3 body isn't the worst thing you could run a flyer into, the token doesn't cost them a card, and this interaction is bound to happen even though you "know" they can have reach, because sometimes they won't and you'll forget.

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This set is bad for those of us who want to avoid the displeasure of foolishly running a flyer into an opposing creature with reach. Even the boring old spider in the set has the ability to mutate and hide underneath another creature, in addition to two other mutate reachers, including a red reacher that has all the usual problems with red reachers (power > toughness, inconsistent "tall" flavor). Then there's the ability counters. Two of these are commons, and the instant can give the counter to any creature. And once that counter is out there, there are ways to move it around. All in all, there are multiple things that make it very difficult to develop the usual mental and visual shortcuts for what has reach. Good luck to all of you on avoiding getting Ceratopped.

Shifting Ceratops Scale: Throne of Eldraine

Welcome back to the Shifting Ceratops Scale, where I take a look at all the cards in a set with reach and rate them on a five-point scale named after the greatest reach ambusher. Throne of Eldraine has six entries, five creatures and one aura, and overall this is a very dangerous bunch of cards. Be careful and don't get Ceratopped by these cards with reach!

Brimstone Trebuchet
2.0
There is a lot of text on this card, and reach coming after another keyword is a good indicator for a potential ambush, but being only a 1/3 makes it lower impact ambush. Anecdotally, I also think that players tend to read defender text a little more often when they go to attack into them, since there’s more of a likelihood of those abilities mattering to blocking. But it’s still a pretty weird package in all: red, defender, trebuchet?!



I think the flavor of a trebuchet is supposed to suggest some kind of anti-air ability, like archery, but a trebuchet is actually a siege weapon, more akin to a catapult. It’s meant to hurl heavy objects at stationary castle walls, not fast-moving, flying targets. Maybe the flavor is that it’s so tall of a structure that it just gets in the way of a flyer, but in that case, it should probably have zero power.

Robber of the Rich
2.0
Although archers have become the defacto secondary reach creature type to spiders, just having the word in the type line isn’t enough of a tip off, especially when there are multiple other creature types present. For something to truly resonate as an archer, it needs to have the classic “bow pose.” It also helps if the card name itself references the fact that it is an archer. Robin Hood has his bow on his back, and both the name and the artwork reflect more on the robbing aspect of the card than the archery.



The other abilities on the card, focusing on attacking rather than blocking, also serve to draw attention away from the trap laying in hiding here. Similar to the Trebuchet, what keeps Robber of the Rich’s rating so low is its rather pedestrian 2/2 stats. It’s likely to trick you, but that trick probably won’t be a blowout where you lose one of your valuable flyers. Nonetheless, there are a lot of smaller faeries in this set, so maybe it might have more of an impact in this format than most.

Sporecap Spider
0.0

Surprisingly, the only spider in the set. It has typically “spidery” art, and low power, so it’s a low-probability, low-impact ambusher.

Tall as a Beanstalk
4.0

Explain this one to me. Tall as a Beanstalk gives reach, but literal Beanstalk Giant does not have reach, nor do any of the other giants in this set, so this one card is playing into the “tall things have reach,” but nothing else in the set does.

It doesn’t help that this is an aura, and thus the text will usually be hiding behind the creature it enchants. Hopefully, what will happen is that players will read the aura to confirm the p/t boost and when they do that, see the reach. But beware of sneaky players who may try to subvert this when they cast it by omitting that information: “it gets +3/+3 and becomes a giant.” Derived information! Yay! This card might actually lead to the opposite of an ambush, where a card like Beanstalk Giant deters an opponent from attacking a flyer into it under the misattribution of reach.

Wildborn Preserver
3.0

It’s an archer, but if you look at the artwork, you might not know it. The most prominent thing is the fox, and the rider is wielding a sword with their bow slung on their back. In terms of gameplay, the triggered ability is going to garner more attention, and it’s very likely that this creature could be 5/5 or larger when it ambushes your flyer because the play pattern with this card will be to cast it on two, attack once or twice, have it sit on the sidelines accumulating counters, then “Surprise, reach!” It does take a bit of setup for this to be an effective ambush, which is why I don’t rate it as a 4.0.

Stonecoil Serpent
4.0

I don’t get it. I don’t understand why snakes have reach in Magic. The “giants are tall” thing makes more sense to me than what appears to be “snakes are in the trees.” This one isn’t even in a tree; it’s a statue. Nothing in the name suggests reach here either.

Stonecoil Serpent is likely to enter the battlefield with significant size, probably 4/4 or larger in most games, and it has a lot of abilities, particularly other keywords on the same line as the reach. Along with Tall as a Beanstalk, I consider this the most likely to ambush a flyer in Throne of Eldraine. But of course now that you’ve read this list, none of these reachers will take you by surprise.

The Shifting Ceratops Scale: Creatures with Surprise Reach

Have you ever attacked with a flying creature only to be completely surprised when your opponent blocks with their reach creature? This typically happens to me at least once per set. It’s a sheepish and humbling moment as a Magic player, right up there with trying to use a sorcery as an instant. In the past, I’ve referred to this as the Nessian Asp Problem (a snake with reach?!), in honor of one of the first times I remember being ambushed, but that reference is a bit dated, and M20 actually had what might be the most egregious “surprise, reach!” blocker in Magic’s history, so I’ve named this scale in honor of the mighty dino-spider, Shifting Ceratops.



This five-point scale balances both the likelihood of a creature with reach ambushing your flyer and the impact of said ambush on the game. I’m only rating things for Limited play because that is where this is most likely to happen. I've rated all the reachers for the last year of Limited to establish some baselines, and will be writing updates every set. My hope is that by writing about this, I'll avoid the problem, and maybe save you from the same.

0.0 Netcaster Spider, Mammoth Spider

Most spiders and many archers fall into this rating. These are iconic creature types that we have been trained to associate with reach. Hence, it’s unlikely that they will ambush your flyers. It’s possible that for newer players who haven’t developed the shortcut of “spider = reach” that some spiders might rate higher.

Archers are a funny lot. The very first archer in Magic, Elvish Archer, actually had first strike, keying off of an archers ability to attack from a distance. For much of Magic’s history, its archers played off of this “remote strike” capability with various damage-dealing abilities, either in combat or against flyers. But more and more, archers have consolidated into the secondary reach creature type for the humanoid races.

1.0 Arboreal Grazer, Grappling Sundew

These have a low impact due to the zero power. You might accidentally attack a flyer into one of these, but it won’t cost you your creature, and you can play it off as “reach-checking” your opponent.

Historically, this is probably where I would rate spiders and archers with power equal to or higher than their toughness. In addition to creature type and art, the p/t stats have been another strong shortcut for identifying reachers. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sentinel Spider got someone at some point, especially since reach isn’t the first word in its text box, another factor that could play into an ambush. Such balanced p/t spiders are unlikely to ambush, but if they do, there’s a good chance they eat or trade with your creature as well.

2.0 Rubble Slinger, Grazing Whiptail

If these were spiders or archers, they wouldn’t rank here. I actually thought that Rubble Slinger was an archer, but it appears that what is being slung is rocks, not arrows. Meanwhile, the Whiptail fills out a dinosaur quota in Ixalan.

Both rank this low because they are French Vanilla, so if you do bother to read them, you’re likely to notice that they have reach. Plus they have the all-important toughness > power, which can be a good secondary tipoff.

3.0 Turret Ogre, Kraul Harpooner

This is the point on the SCS that I would personally expect to get tricked into a reach ambush early in a Limited format. You’ve got non-typical creature types, power greater than toughness, and what I like to call “word soup,” long abilities that distract you from the all-important keyword ability. The Harpooner is probably slightly less likely to pull off the ambush because it has the triggered ability that fights with a flyer, but most of the time, that fight ends up in a trade or just does nothing, so it’s quite possible to forget that it interacts with flyers.

Flavor-wise, they are both more of a stretch than your typical archers. I usually think of throwing harpoons at whales, so it’s weird to see it touted here as an anti-flyer weapon. Although Kaladesh did have flying whales…And I’m not sure what’s going on with Turret Ogre. It’s standing on a turret so it’s high enough to throw rocks at birds? I mean, that’s what is going on in the art.

4.0 Howling Giant, Cavalier of Thorns

Both of these creatures also rate so high because they are more likely to eat an ambushed flyer for free rather than trade with them, making the mistake all the more punishing. This is the class of creatures where they do so much else that you focus on those things before the reach. Cavalier of Thorns is obviously a word soup; you first focus your attention on the enters-the-battlefield ability, then read the leaves-the-battlefield ability, note the synergy between the two, and completely forget that it has reach. The creature type doesn’t lend itself to assuming reach (but I’m just now noticing that all the Cavaliers are Knights--cross set synergy with Eldraine!), and while it has more toughness than power, it’s still beefy enough for the reach to slip by. In my head, +2 toughness to power is the point where I start looking for reach. Cavalier of Thorns is also the most likely to get someone in Constructed.

When a Howling Giant hits the battlefield, you tend to focus on the 9/9 worth of stats that just gummed up the ground. Suddenly the air is your path to victory... except that it isn't. It’s possible that Howling Giant should be rated 3.0. Someone on Twitter noted that giants are a somewhat supported reach type, but there are only 5 such giants in the history of Magic (compared to 51 spiders and 27 archers). There are also 6 snakes with reach (2 of them gain reach from an activated ability). I guess what trips me up is the flavor behind giants with reach. Are they just really tall? This tracks with what was going on with Turret Ogre standing on the high turret, but the lack of consistency on this over the years means that the giants with reach are likely to pull off a reach ambush.

5.0 Shifting Ceratops
This dinosaur is in a class all its own, as it ticks off multiple boxes.
Unusual creature type not known for reach
Power greater than toughness
Word soup (37 words!)
The word “reach” itself is buried in an activated ability that does multiple other things

The fourth point of toughness is key here as it means that common flyers Dawning Angel or a single-pumped Griffin Protector can’t trade with it. The protection from blue adds an addition kick to the teeth against four and five-power flyers Air Elemental, Atemsis, and the blue Cavalier. The protection also makes Shifting Ceratops extra lethal as it eats blue flyers for free without any worry of pump spells or follow up burn to finish it off. The activation nature of the reach, and the word itself being buried in said ability, makes this such a lethal ambusher that I’ve now named the entire scale after the dinosaur.

A lot of players like to focus on learning the various removal spells and combat tricks in a set in order to play around them at Prerelease. Those things are important, but there’s no more sinking feeling than throwing away a flying creature to a reach ambush. My plan is to make new posts every set to identify all the cards with reach, and to rate them on this scale. Don’t get Ceratopped!

Casting Spells for Free and Profit

Recently a few fun rules interactions came to my attention. These are useful not only to know as they are reasonably common Standard card interactions, but it's also good to know the underlying rules behind them.

AP connects with a Thief of Sanity and chooses to exile a Rix Maadi Reveler from NAP's library. Can the Reveler be cast for its Spectacle cost, and can mana of any color be used to pay for the black and red mana in its cost?

AP casts Hostage Taker and exiles NAP's Venerated Loxodon. Can AP cast the Loxodon using Convoke? If yes, what combinations of creatures and mana can they use?

Effects like this are interesting to me because of how they've evolved over the years, and the rules implications therein. Older cards would let you cast spells without paying their mana cost. Think Cascade. Casting a spell without paying its mana cost is a subset of alternative costs, rule 117.9:

Some spells have alternative costs. An alternative cost is a cost listed in a spell’s text, or applied to it from another effect, that its controller may pay rather than paying the spell’s mana cost. Alternative costs are usually phrased, “You may [action] rather than pay [this object’s] mana cost,” or “You may cast [this object] without paying its mana cost.” Note that some alternative costs are listed in keywords; see rule 702.

The mana cost of a spell is whatever is in the top right corner of the spell, just as its Converted Mana Cost is the generic sum of its mana cost. Casting a spell without paying its mana cost means not paying for what's in the top right corner, essentially turning it into a 0. You'll still have to pay for any additional costs, whether they are imposed by the card itself or by other effects. If you Cascade into a Harrow, you'll still need to sacrifice a land in order to cast it. If you Cascade into a Lighting Bolt, you must pay 1 for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. While this might feel like a negative, it also gives you the ability to pay for optional additional costs like Kicker.

Because "casting a spell without paying its mana cost" is an alternative cost, you cannot then choose to cast the spell via some other alternative cost. If you Cascade into Nourishing Shoal, you can only choose to cast it for X=0, and you do not have the option of trying to exile a green card in order to get an X-value. Another good example of conflicting alternate costs is when you give a spell flashback with Snapcaster Mage. You can only play the spell via its flashback cost. You can't pitch for a Force of Will, for example.

So what of Thief of Sanity and Hostage Taker? Neither of these cards offers an alternate cost to cast the spells. You are still on the hook for paying a cost of some kind. For the vast majority of cards, that means paying their mana cost. However, it does mean that you can cast these spells for alternative costs. You can pay a Spectacle cost (if you've met the damage criteria), and the mana clause will apply as well, so you can pay for Rix Maadi Reveler's Spectacle with all blue mana if you want.

Convoking a Venerated Loxodon yields one slightly different result. Since you are casting it, you can use Convoke to help pay for the spell, but the color-filtering only applies to mana spent to cast the spell. You cannot Convoke with a non-white creature for that portion of the spell. You will either need a white creature to Convoke with, or you will have to pay that portion with mana, which can be any color.

Both of these are good examples of how getting something for free comes with some opportunity costs. By being "forced" to pay for these spells, you can get the additional bonus of the Spectacle trigger upgrade on Rix Maadi Reveler, or the counters on creatures that help Convoke your Venerated Loxodon.

When you are evaluating effects like this, remember that "casting a spell without paying its mana cost" is an alternative cost, and will preclude any other alternative costs like Spectacle and Madness, and any associated benefits from casting spells that way. If you are just asked to cast the spell (under normal circumstances to spend mana on it) you can instead apply an alternative cost, which includes casting variants like Spectacle and Evoke, or mana free options like on Force of Will or Archive Trap.

Addendum: While writing this post, another interesting card with this type of effect was spoiled, God-Eternal Kefnet.


You can see that this follows in the footsteps of Thief of Sanity and Hostage Taker in that you are casting the spell. It's a little different because you are casting a copy of a card. But if you've met the casting condition for things like Spectacle, you can cast this via alternative costs. Whatever alternative cost you choose will get the benefit of the cost reduction.

One of the more common questions about effects like this is "Can you just float this copy in limbo until you need it? It doesn't give a duration for when you can cast it." The latter part is true enough. Thief of Sanity and Hostage Taker tell us "for as long as it remains exile." Kefnet doesn't. In the latter cases, when no duration is listed, the card can only be cast immediately during the resolution of the triggered ability. And yes, you can cast a sorcery even tough it isn't your main phase. Why? Because the trigger lets you. Technically, you couldn't even cast an instant at this time (during the resolution of a triggered ability) if the ability did not let you.

Finally, I've seen questions about whether you can Miracle cast this copy. Seems possible because Miracle is an alternative cost, right? The problem here is the part about fulfilling the casting conditions. Just like you would need to have damaged your opponent to be able to Spectacle a copy off of Kefnet, you need to meet the requirements for Miracle, which are a bit more complicated. In fact, the only way to cast something for its Miracle cost is during the resolution of its own trigger. If you reveal a Miracle card for both Kefnet and its own Miracle ability, you could cast the original card for the Miracle cost and the copy for its regular mana cost minus 2.

The Battle for Information

Judges often use the phrase “every judge call is an investigation” to emphasize that we should always be vigilant to evaluate for potential cheating vectors even in the simplest of rulings. I agree with the general sentiment that we should approach every judge call with this thought in the back of our head. However, what does it really mean for every judge call to be an investigation?

I don’t think it means that we should assume ill intent in any given ruling; but at the same time we should not assume innocence. What we have is more of a Schroedinger’s Cheater and our investigation is the act of opening the box. The problem is that it isn’t as simple as just opening a box. Discovering whether a player is innocent or guilty of cheating means determining their intent, something that even a bad cheater will keep close to their chest. No one is going to outright tell a judge “I did this illegal thing on purpose to gain an advantage and I was hoping that you wouldn’t notice.” Their intent is going to be shrouded in mystery under layers of information.

The phrase “playing close to the chest” is apropo for this discussion. It comes from card games like poker and refers to keeping your cards hidden from the view of your opponents. For an investigation, think of information as those poker cards. You obviously want to know what information the player is holding, but equally important is that you don’t want the player to know what information you have in your hand. Put another way, if the player doesn’t know what information you’re looking for, they don’t know what to lie about.

One important piece of information that you don’t want the player to know early on, and something that I see far too many judges offer up for free, is the fact that the player is under investigation at all! An astute player should realize that something is up any time the Head Judge talks with them, but this is a piece of information that you want to hold onto for as long as possible because as soon as a player knows, they will get defensive, clam up, and become more careful about what they share with you.

This is why some Head Judges will start with some light small talk. “Hi. I’m Riki. What’s your name?” *shakes hand* “Where are you from? What’s your record?” These aren’t questions that are critical to the investigation, but they serve as a low key conversation starter. They’re more useful when you’re coming into a situation somewhat cold. This is common in a shuffling or marked cards investigation that happens away from the match table, possibly even between rounds. Obviously if it’s an active match and you’re investigating the player’s intent on an illegal play, you want to keep the small talk much shorter, both because the FJ has already spent some amount of time with their initial investigation, and also because it is much more obvious to the player that the Head Judge is trying to suss something out.

(As an aside, it can be equally important to lead with “You’re not in trouble” when approaching a player outside of a match while investigating the actions of one of their past opponents.)

The nature of the infraction or error under investigation is another key piece of information that you want to keep under wraps. For example, when investigating curved foils, you don’t want to just flip over all the curved foils and say “Look at how badly these are curved” because part of the calculation to determine cheating here is whether the player realized the problem at any prior point.

At one event, I watched a judge perform a brief investigation triggered by a deck check. The player’s decklist was missing one card, Darkblast, that was in the physical deck (Legacy Dredge). When the player was brought over, the judge started right in with questions about “What singleton cards are you playing?” Not only did this immediately let the player narrow their scope for determining what the investigation was about, but the judge also left the decklist out in front of the player. Instead of working purely off of memory, the player scanned the decklist a couple of times and rattled off some card names before naming the Darkblast that wasn’t on the list.

Even if you want to lead off getting the player to talk about their singletons cards, it’s better to get them to talk more generally about them. The question “What singleton cards are you playing?” is a dead end question. They will name the cards, and that’s it. Instead, get them to talk more about the strategy. Something like:
“I noticed that you have a couple of singletons. I guess with the dredge mechanic you’re more likely to see them if you dredge a bunch of cards. How often have you seen [card name] today How relevant has it been?”
In fact, my recommendation here is for the first card named to be one of the non-Darkblast singletons. Ask a few metagame questions about the card. Then ask about the Darkblast in the same manner. Now you’ve masked that your intent is to find out about Darkblast. Get the player to talk about what matchups Darkblast is good against.

“Have you faced many of those decks today? How often has Darkblast been relevant?”

The thing with this investigation is that you have to consider what the potential cheat is. Ask yourself why would it be advantageous to not list Darkblast on the decklist? The likely answer is to use that card slot as a “flex slot,” trying out multiple cards throughout the day depending on the metagame. In a meta with a lot of Death and Taxes, Darkblast can be an all-star in taking down Mother of Runes and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Against a field of Show and Tell decks, it’s just a bad dredge enabler.

Another good question might be to ask how long they’ve been maindecking Darkblast as a singleton. Obviously this question is getting very specific. At this point, you are trying to gauge the truthfulness of their answer. If they say that the card has always been in their deck and explain their reasoning, it becomes more believable that it was a simple error of omission rather than a sneaky way to try out different cards in this slot.

One unfortunate way that information can leak is from the opponent. I’ve had several judge calls where a player has said right at the table “My opponent is stacking their deck/ looking at my cards while they shuffle.” This is another dead end scenario. The player now knows exactly what they are accused of, can set up their story to refute or lie about what’s happened, and will not taking the offending actions any more for the duration of the match (or possibly the tournament) because a judge’s attention has been called to their shuffling.

From the perspective of the player who called it out, this might be a favorable outcome--the opponent is no longer cheating against them. However, from our perspective, we’ve effectively lost the ability to investigate the situation unless a spectator can corroborate the story or the offending player is really bad at lying. This is why for players I always advocate a more discrete conversation with the judge like “I have a question about a card away from the table” and then tell the judge your concerns out of earshot of the opponent. This way we have masked the key piece of information from the opponent, that we suspect them of some kind of shuffle cheat. We can then watch them shuffle from a distance and try to catch them in the act.

Finally, I want to address the issue of time management. Beating around the bush asking set-up questions can take time, so there’s only a limited amount of it that you should be doing. This isn’t a technique for every investigation out there. I used them as an example of how to use information, or the lack of it, to make investigations more effective and focused. Know what information you want to know, and what you don’t want the player to know, then strategically maneuver around those axes to further your investigation. I hope this was useful to you. Best of luck in your investigations!

Super Sunday Series at Grand Prix Denver

Sunday for me was arguably the most important day of the GP Denver weekend as I was the Head Judge of the Super Sunday Series (SSS) Sealed event. Unlike some other GPs, this one only had the SSS Sealed with no companion Standard event. It was somewhat serendipitous that I had been chosen to HJ this event. Just a few weeks prior I had started an L3 discussion about whether it was appropriate for L2s to HJ SSS events. My goal wasn't necessarily to set a hard line that L2s could not HJ SSS events, but more to spur discussion on the topic and make sure that we as a Program were taking these tournaments seriously and staffing them appropriately.

I've had similar talks with regards to everything from StarCityGames Opens to PPTQs. When discussion turns to giving people opportunities to learn, I become the voice of caution and conservatism. Opportunity needs to be balanced with the proper support and feedback. Arguably, a SSS at GP should afford those things because there is usually an L3 support judge assigned to such an event being head judged by an L2.

I don't think that I was intentionally placed on this event as a statement ("If you think L3s should be doing this, then you go and do it!") because Side Events staffing was decided by Kyle Knudson, who wasn't privy to the L3 discussion directly.

Part of taking an event like this seriously is preparation. As soon as I knew what judges were on my event, I sent messages to the L2s about what roles I wanted them to fill, not traditional "Team Leads" (since we didn't have enough judges on staff to form full teams) but more like "Task Leads." I also try to send out a message to team members if I am a Team Lead on Day 1 of a Grand Prix. (I just sent one out to my GP Vancouver team for this weekend.) "Pre-gaming like this establishes a good mindset for judges going into the weekend. It can get a few administrative things out of the way. Basically, it's a low overhead way to put set up good expectations.

Setting good expectations applies to players as well. That starts with announcements during the player meeting. Since this was a Sealed event, there were a few more administrative details to talk about versus a Constructed event. For the latter, I'm a big fan of Jeph Foster's methodology: "I know that you guys came here to play Magic, so I'm going to keep this short." I know that I spearheaded the "food and drink pun" movement, but there's a limit to how much players are willing to tolerate with announcements.

Do we really need to announce the Rules Enforcement Level (REL) at the beginning of every tournament? Does the average player care? Does the average player even know how this is relevant? If the answer is "no," that's ten seconds we should be shaving from the announcements. The same applies to announcing the Tardiness policy ("Zero and ten"). If you don't announce it, does it give grounds for a player to complain? "If you had announced the Tardiness policy, I would have gotten here sooner." We don't tell players that the policy for tapping a Mana Confluence for mana without taking a pain is going to be a Warning. Seems like players should just... not be tardy to their match. There's also the matter that the tardiness announcement could be made at any time, like say after Round 1 pairings are posted. Not every announcement needs to happen during the player meeting.

Back to Denver, we had a slightly slow start to the day because we had to distribute sealed product and GP Denver playmats... and coupons for GP Denver playmats. Registration for Saturday's main event went above and beyond expectations. This left the supply short for Sunday, and we had to hand out coupons for players to write down their shipping address. The growth of Magic continues to amaze me. Denver has traditionally been a 700-900 player GP city, and suddenly we get over 1500. That's crazy.

The SSS had 238 players, a little over the 9 round threshold. That's a good day's work for sure. Part of the challenge for an event like this is the ever-changing cast of judges that you get. For a GP Side Event, you usually start with an AM shift of judges, get a relief/PM shift at some point in the late morning or early afternoon. There's also a rotation of judges who come over from other side events. Since the SSS is the premiere Side Event on Sunday, the Side Events Lead makes sure to keep the event well-staffed and supported. That's all well and good, but there does reach a point when more isn't always better. I think this event had a healthy balance for most of the day.

In terms of rulings, it seems like Missed Triggers are still a thing that players are getting used to, especially with things like Prowess. It's the same old thing as Exalted years ago (or every year if you play Modern). You don't have to explicitly announce the trigger when it happens. You just have to make sure to acknowledge its existence before it would matter in the game. For the vast majority of cases with these two triggers, that means when the creature deals damage. Keep in mind that there are a few "Prowess-ish" triggers that work differently. Mistfire Adept, for example, has the second "flying prowess" trigger. This trigger targets and you have to announce your target when the ability goes on the stack.

GP Portland and the Side Show Judges

Yesterday (8/9/14) I played in GP Portland. It was a Team Sealed event and my teammates were Adam Shaw and David Lyford-Smith, two fellow Magic Judges (L2 and L3 respectively, although Adam is a former L4 recently returned to judging). It was really fun to play with them and I especially enjoyed our interplay during deck build, as I snatched up the aggro Boros cards and DLS took the Grindclock. Adam quickly settled on Mono-Green with a Twin Pines Mauler. We ended up 2-3 on the day and dropped. It was fun playing, and I especially enjoyed our interactions with all of our opponents.

What I didn't enjoy was our interactions with judges. I understand that it is unusual to see high-level judges playing in events of this caliber, and I'm okay with drawing a crowd. Jeff Morrow pointed out that I bring another level of celebrity factor to the table, in general and also by being the RC of the NW where this GP took place. Again, that's all fine. In Round 1, several judges birded our match in plain clothes, presumably before their shift started. They said nothing, acting as spectators should. I also want to say that I did not mind all of my friends asking what our record was when they ran into us between rounds. Although we didn't play as well as we would have liked, I had no shame about losing, and appreciated the support I got from people. It's very important that I establish that. Asking about our record, cheering or commiserating with us, is perfectly acceptable.

What I did take issue to was judges stopping by our match and saying things unsolicited. Two examples:

I lost my match and was packing my stuff up to move over to help Adam, who was now in a tight Game 3 to decide the entire team match. I play with the lounging Brian Kibler playmat. With the recent update to USC - Minor, I've seen a lot of chatter about where the line is on various things. One of those lines that gets discussed is anime girl sleeves and playmats. How much skin is too much? When does a provocative pose cross the line? This judge apparently thought it would be funny to say "I think that playmat is a little too provocative." I said nothing, gave him a glare, and moved over to help Adam.

Another round, I had finished my match (don't remember if I won or lost), and moved over in between David and Adam to be able to help both of them. Earlier that day, we had overheard a judge saying that you could not move chairs around to sit between your teammates because it would be a fire hazard. That's reasonable, but puts the 3rd player in an awkward position. Standing behind your teammates puts you in a position where you can see their opponents's hands, and that isn't fair to have an extra set of eyes with that vantage point. To solve this, most 3rds would crouch or kneel behind their teammates. That's what I was doing, with my legs extended out into the aisle. The aisle was narrow enough that my legs were over 50% across the aisle. A judge walking the aisle said "Excuse me, but you're causing a fire hazard by kneeling like that." I wasn't sure if he was serious, so I looked up, and he said something that made it clear that he was joking. More glare, more silence, and back to watching teammates.

There were a couple of other times that judges stopped by our match and said stuff, but I don't remember the specifics too well. Those last 2 struck out because I was already salty from losing a few rounds in a row, and I was really fed up with the constant needling. At past events, I've gotten judges watching my match say things like "I'm going to hang around and watch you for Slow Play." I also see a lot of judges take pride and joy--PRIDE AND JOY--in giving a fellow judge playing in an event a penalty of some kind. There's also the typical "Oh, you lost? I guess that's why you judge."

The strangest part about all of this is that non-judge players, are super friendly and supportive when they see me playing. Some of them are downright giddy. And at least locally, perhaps because I've played a lot recently and had moderate success, I don't get comments like "I thought judges were bad at playing." This could also be a factor of several other prominent Portland judges being fairly successful players.

I get it. These are typical ways that friends show affection through jokes and ribbing. And while I advocate for judges to treat players as friends (certainly versus as enemies), there's a point where things can get too familiar, and it seems that judges playing in tournaments is one of those points. You see, when a judge plays Magic, they are making a choice. You should respect that choice, and treat them like players. If you are "friends outside of the tournament," maybe some friendly banter is appropriate, but that should be seriously tempered and evaluated on context. Would you go up to a player who had just lost a match, even a good friend, and make a joke about their playmat being inappropriate (when it clearly isn't)? Would you stop by just to comment on how you want to give them a Warning? I certainly hope not.

If you do want to make a comment, you should think long and hard about it. If you've got that level of rapport with the player, then good. That's a start. If it doesn't make you look like an ass, then better. And here is where context is king. There are other players around. They may or may not know that the player you are talking to is also a judge. Now you just look like you've drive-by douched someone. Good job. I'm often left to deal with the aftermath of explaining that I am a judge and that other judges are getting their yucks at my expense. I often get sympathy from my opponent, because yes, it does suck... constantly.

And there's the kicker, Mr. Comedian. You aren't the only one. It happens almost every round, sometimes twice in one round. There is a pervasive culture of this type of judge-on-player/judge abuse, and I'm tired of it. When I Tweeted about my negative experience, several other judges threw in their comments that it had happened to them. Why are we so supportive of each other when we are working, but such dicks to those who choose to play? I don't know. I've done it myself in the past, but after this experience I will be curtailing that behavior, and I encourage you to call me on it if I ever do it to you in person or online.

Is it Missed? #2 - Oakheart Dryads

Welcome to Is it Missed? #2 featuring yet another 2/3 for 3. I swear it's a coincidence. Oakheart Dryads has a constellation trigger that reads:

"Whenever Oakheart Dryads or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."

The basic scenario is that you cast an enchantment pre-combat with an Oakheart on the battlefield, say nothing, then attack with the Dryads.

Is it missed?

Yes, it is missed. This might be surprising to you if you tuned in last time because on the surface, it seems the same as Kragma Butcher. They are both creature pumps. The difference is in the details, and the important detail here is that Oakheart Dryads has a targeted trigger, and you must select a target at the appropriate time. Straight from the IPG:

"A triggered ability that requires its controller to choose targets (other than 'target opponent'), modes, or other choices made when the ability is put onto the stack: The controller must announce those choices before they next pass priority."

That means you must declare you target before passing priority after the enchantment resolves, which is before creatures enter combat. If you don't select your target and move into combat, you're out of luck. The same applies to any other targeted constellation triggers like Dreadbringer Lampads, Forgeborn Oreads, Goldenhide Ox, Harvestguide Alseids, Strength from the Fallen, or Whitewater Naiads.

(Is it Missed? scenarios are all assumed to be at Competitive REL and thus are subject to the rules of the IPG, Infraction Procedure Guide.

Is it Missed? #1 - Kragma Butcher

Having played a fair deal of live Magic, specifically Theros Block Limited, I wanted to do a series of blogs on various Missed Triggers that may be confusing to players and judges alike. First up is Kragma Butcher, one of my favorite red commons in the block.

"Whenever Kragma Butcher becomes untapped, it gets +2/+0 until end of turn."

The ability triggers during the untap step and goes on the stack at the first opportunity in the upkeep step. Rargh! 4/3 Butcher ready to go to Brown Town.

Let's say I attacked with Kragma Butcher last turn for two. Now on my turn I untap it, draw my card, play a land, and attack again. My opponent has a Karametra's Acolyte (1/4) and decides to block since I said nothing about the trigger.

Is it missed?

The answer is... not yet. Although the ability goes on the stack during my upkeep, because it has no effect on the visible game state, I am not required to demonstrate awareness of the trigger at that time. I just have to do so when it becomes relevant to the game. In the case of Kragma Butcher's +2/+0 trigger, that probably means when it attacks and deals combat damage. Going back to the above scenario, I can do this by saying "Okay, go to damage. Your Karametra's Acolyte is dead." The same holds true if the Butcher goes unblocked. If I say "Take four," I've demonstrated awareness that the trigger happened.

How then do we know if the trigger is missed? If I let the Karametra's Acolyte stay on the battlefield after combat, or I tell my opponent to take two damage. The baseline assumption with triggers is that they did happen unless something happens that would indicate otherwise, in this case a Kragma Butcher that untapped only dealing two damage in combat.

As the opponent, how can you tell if the trigger is missed or not before damage? How can you figure out if you can safely block with your Karametra's Acolyte or not? You ask. you probably don't want to ask "Did you remember the trigger?" because that's a bit of a giveaway. A simple "How big is that?" should suffice. If they say 2/3, go ahead and block.

GP Richmond and the Pink Paper Team

Last time out, I discussed some of my social anxieties tied to this mega-sized Grand Prix Richmond. I reached out to Event Manager Jared Sylva and Head Judge Jason Lems independently, explaining my issues. I don't know how much was due to this, but when staff assignments came out, I was in the Ballroom, which later became known as the Pink Split/Room, because our Scorekeeper was Kali Anderson and she procured pink paper to run the event on.

A side note, when a GP is split, it is customary to have different colored paper for each event so things like match result slips don't end up going to the wrong Scorekeeper. This was less relevant to the Pink Room because the Ballroom was in a completely separate part of the Convention Center from the Blue and Green Splits. This made for a much more comfortable event for everyone involved. We didn't have the added distractions of coverage, feature matches, vendors, side events and the associated mass of humanity. We just had a 1600-player tournament. This made things a lot easier on me from an anxiety standpoint, and it was great for the judges and players as well. We even had carpeted floors. All of the feedback I've heard about the Pink Room has been positive.

But a nice room alone isn't enough to deliver a great experience for players. When I spoke to the Paper Team, I made it clear that we were the team that had the most real impact on how fast the tournament finished, something that Head Judges love to emphasize. Sure, time extensions from deck checks could spill over and make for a long round turnover, but whether they did or not was largely a matter of luck. The Paper Team is directly responsible for additional time burned during what Nick Fang describes as the Prep portion of a round here. Paragraph break for emphasis time.

The longer it takes to get the pairings from the printer to the pairings board is time that you, the Paper Team, are exclusively costing everyone in the tournament.

There are a couple of things you can to do get back this time. Even if each of these actions only saves seconds on its own, that's seconds per action over multiple rounds, potential minutes that you can save 1600 players and 30 judges. Isn't it worth that extra effort?
1) start taking pages off of the printer as soon as they start printing. Do not wait for an entire set to finish printing. Most large tournaments will have multiple letter ranges and each range could have multiple pages. It takes time to collate and divide these pages among your team members, so the sooner you start taking pages off of the printer, the sooner you can get to that task.
2) have tape prepped. The easiest way to do this is to have tape prepped at each pairings board. I recommend doing this when you take down the pairings in the previous round. (You should be doing this because it takes time to take down old pairings and put up new ones at the same time. Leaving old pairings up too long can also lead to player confusion.) One innovation that someone suggested at GP Richmond (at least this was the first time I had seen this--and I apologize for not remembering who suggested this) was to have reusable tape loops. This solved the twin problems of tape ripping off when you take down old pairings and having ugly pieces of tape lining the sides of the pairing board in preparation for the next round. The tape loop is simple. You attach the piece to your surface as normal, but at the bottom you loop it so that it adheres to itself, leaving you with a non-sticky loop or tab. You can then lift that tab until some of the adhesive portion is exposed, and slide the piece of paper under it and attach the tape to it.
3) walk fast. Judges are advised to not run on the floor. It looks unprofessional. It is dangerous. However, as I told the Pink Paper Team, when you have pairings in hand is the fastest you should be walking in your judging career. Those seconds matter. And the effort you display to the players matters. You want to be seen hurrying with the pairings because...
4) get players out of your way. Use your judge voice to announce that you are coming through with the pairings. They will move out of the way for you. One surprising thing I found at Richmond. They will even help you put up the pairings. I was having a little trouble with the tape and a player reached out to help me. They just want to find their table number and get to their seat. If you need help to make this happen, they will give it to you, and in the future I'm thinking of being a little more proactive in asking for their help.

Another important factor in saving time is traffic flow. This is all about the room layout and the positioning of the pairings boards. One mistake I see Paper Teams make is automatically placing the boards in alphabetical order clockwise around the room no matter what (because we read from left to right and the letter ranges are displayed this way (A-B, C-F, etc). Why does this matter? It may not necessarily match the way that players are seated for Player Meeting, which is seated alphabetically from Table 1. In the Pink Room, Table 1 was to the right if you were standing on the stage and the tournament expanded to the left. If you place the pairings boards in alphabetical order starting on from the left of the stage going clockwise, you are created an unnatural traffic flow for that alphabetical seating. The A-B name range has to walk to the left to find their seat, then travel all the way to the right to their table. at the opposite end of the alphabet, T-Z will go to the right to check their seating and go back all the way to the left for their table. Hey, at least the middle of the alphabet won't have to go far. :(

This is terrible. Not only are you forcing the 2 ends to walk the maximum distance, they have to cross each other in the middle, leading to a traffic jam in the middle.

There are other factors that can lead to traffic jams. One classic one is space around the pairings boards. For the Pink Ballroom, the entire floor plan inside was taken up by the tables and chairs for matches, plus the main stage and single dealer booth (a small ad hoc one in the corner). If we had chosen to place the pairings boards inside the Ballroom, they would have been up against walls and the distance between them and the tables would have been far too narrow. You need to allocate enough room around pairings boards to allow people to both come and go, keeping in mind that up to several hundred people may need to access each board. Unfortunately, Magic players haven't acquired any kind of sensible etiquette like "enter from the right, exit from the left." Perhaps there's a social engineering opportunity there.

Due to the lack of space in the room, we placed the boards outside the Ballroom in the lobby area. At first, we had all 6 boards in the main lobby. The Ballroom was rectangular in shape with 4 sets of double doors as entrances from the lobby on the long side of the rectangle. The main stage was on the opposite long side. Again, this meant a long walk from printer to boards, making speed of the essence.

But wait. After placing the 6 boards in the main lobby, I began to worry about the traffic through those 4 double doors. As with space around boards, doors can be a serious impediment to traffic, especially because players do not follow any orderly traffic pattern as a norm and will just try to walk through each other going both ways. 4 double doors for 6 boards seemed low. I spoke with a few of my team members about my concern and they agreed with me. We noticed that there was a set of double doors on each of the short sides of the room. They were closed, but we confirmed that they could be opened and did so, placing the A-B and T-Z boards at the appropriate sides to match the numbering layout (counter-clockwise).

It's important when doing any job not to get married to the plan just because it is the plan. Flexibility, especially in light of actual logistical issues is important. It would have been a simple matter to stick to the plan of all 6 boards beyond the 4 main doors. Looking back at the way that traffic ended up flowing just with the 4 remaining boards in the center, this clearly would have been awful, and I'm glad that we made the adjustment.

Speaking of adjustments, it's important to watch the actual flow once players start moving and see if you can identify any problems with it. Theory is all good in... theory, but what matters most is what actually happens. In our case, we immediately noticed that the P-S board was taking a considerably longer time to clear and get seated. We went out in the lobby to examine the issue and discovered that the problem was that the P-S board was standing right next to an ill-placed pillar. This caused awkward in-out traffic flow issues since players couldn't use the pillar side of the board, essentially cutting the traffic capacity of the board in half. We moved the board away from the pillar. Even though it meant a longer walk from the Ballroom, getting the traffic flowing better meant that it kept up with the other boards.

Speaking of traffic flow at the pairings boards, we were lucky to have the new double-sided zip banners. This meant that we could put pairings on each side of the banner, doubling our capacity per board. Frankly, even without the double-sided banners, I would have probably put a second set of pairings on the backside anyway. When you're dealing with 1600 players, you have to do everything you can to divide people up into smaller chunks for the process of seating. Twitter pairings are a great innovation for this, but the buy-in has been slow and being dependent on Convention Center WiFi or having their concrete bunkers block signals has caused issues at more than one location. I briefly considered putting up a third set of pairings somewhere, but couldn't find a sufficient location that would reduce the stress on the existing traffic points or not cause other logistical issues to crop up. My understanding is that the Blue and Green Events (running together in the main hall) only had 1 set of pairings each at the start of the day for about 1300 players apiece. That's certainly one among many reasons why we finished so much faster.

I tracked the amount of time it took from when the printer started printing pairings to when the round started for our event. As I said, this is time that we the Paper Team cost everyone between just getting pairings collated and posted, and traffic issues. Some of it is on the players actually getting to their seats quickly, and yet another factor is the Head Judge and his or her willingness to start the round when enough players are seated, absorbing some number of tardies or "you're okay because you were on your way."

In Round 1, the printer to round start turnover was 12 minutes. Part of this is probably a natural player education period. It takes a few rounds for players to get used to the room layout, find good traffic alleys, and learn the general layout of table numbers. (btw, putting up signs or maps with table numbers is another way to potentially cut down on this turnover time.) Part of it was also the Head Judge making a few more announcements. For the rest of the day, the printer to round start turnover averaged under 8 minutes. It wouldn't surprise me if an equal-sized tournament with only one set of pairings took 10-15 minutes on average. Given that, it's likely that the decision to only post one set of pairings initially (my understanding is that this was corrected in either Round 2 or 3) cost those events around 5-10 minutes.

Wow. I've already written quite a bit and I haven't even talked about cutting result slips or how we took care of our Scorekeeper. I guess there's going to be a Part 2 to this episode. Stay tuned because you don't want to miss the greatest innovation in Scorekeeping technology of all time. Before we go, I want to give a huge shout out to the Paper Team, Ward Warren, Rick Salamin, Ben Klein, Jarrod Williams, Xander Forral, and Michael Mills. They bought into my messaging and their experience and willingness to engage me in conversations about how to improve our processes led to a lot of the things I've discussed here. The day was so hectic that I didn't note who said or did what in most cases, but each of you added something important to the team that made it better, and my hope is that future Paper Teams can learn from the example and bar that you set in the Pink Room.

SCG St. Louis and Customer Service

Customer service is a big part of judging, some might say the biggest part, but what does it really mean to give good customer service? I think most people see judging and customer service as a reactive thing. We don't get involved in a match until the players call us over. Once they do, the customer service kicks in, but how? Get the ruling right, do it quickly, and do it with a smile. Is that all we can do?

Obviously I say no. As a judge, part of good customer service is recognizing when players are having a bad experience and taking the time to talk to them about it. My first example of this is from the Round 1 feature match between Chris Van Meter and Gregg Diekhaus. Chris wrote about his account of that game in his article here and you can watch the video here. The short version is that Gregg was a very new (or old and returning) player who got thrown into a feature match because he was paired against a name player. This wasn't an ideal situation, as his lack of experience combined with the bright lights led to him play slowly. These things can happen, especially in Round 1. I want to point out that players do have the option of declining a feature, whether it is to hide their tech or because they just aren't comfortable playing under the lights.

I arrived at the match during extra turns and watched Gregg play through some turns slowly enough that I checked the match result slip for a Slow Play Warning. When I didn't see one, I asked Matt, one of the judges in the feature match area, if it had been that way all match, and he indicated that it had. After the match, I also spoke with Nicolette, the spotter judge, about Slow Play. She said that it had been an issue and that she had said something to Gregg several times because Chris had brought it up. No, we shouldn't necessarily cater to one player's opinion of what the pace of play should be, but it can be a good sign that the pace isn't sufficient to finish the match, which is indeed what happened here.

Based on the testimony of the two judges who had been there, it seemed likely to me that Gregg should have gotten a Slow Play Warning at some point during the course of the match and didn't. I told Nicolette as much, and she agreed that she should have pulled the trigger. It's a definite growth area for many judges, and it is even harder when you are working as the coverage spotter, a role that we are trying very hard to divorce from "actual judging" due to the heavy constraints it puts on being able to actually pay attention to the board while you talk back and forth with the coverage director.

If you watched the match, it's plain to see that Chris was quite frustrated to walk away from the match with a draw. Even though he was behind on the board at the conclusion of the match, in an 11-round tournament, a draw in round 1 is pretty close to a loss, and more to the point, it was about how the match played out, with Chris having to play the "bad guy" by prompting Gregg to play faster, and pointing out things like missed triggers on Bident of Thassa. In hindsight, with the ability to watch the replay, Chris does a lot of talking in these situations, where I would prefer a judge to explain the tournament rules at Comp REL and take that "bad guy" burden off of a player's plate.

When Chris sat down for round 2, I sought him out to have a quick chat about the situation. I apologized to him because based on the talks I had with the judges it seemed like a Slow Play Warning was warranted and was not given. This didn't change anything tangible for Chris. He still started off the day with a draw. And looked at objectively, had the Warning been given and Gregg sped up his play, Chris might have lost the match instead.

But feelings matter. By Chris's own admission from his article, he was on tilt after the match, and my main goal was to provide Chris some relief from that. "Sorry" can be a meaningless word when used excessively, but it can be one of the most powerful words when used sparingly in times like this.

My primary regret in exploring this axis of customer service is that I also did not speak with Gregg. He too was likely under some amount of emotional distress after his match. I should have done more to alleviate his tilt as well. I will admit that the reason I didn't think to talk to Gregg was based on my bias of knowing Chris for a couple of years, and seeing and understanding his situation as a competitive player better. It's a flimsy reason upon reflection, but I'm happy that at least my follow up conversation with Chris on the topic yielded good thoughts on being an ambassador to newer players, and Chris's excellent article on the topic.

The issue of potential bias is something that has followed me since my early days as a Judge/Writer when I wrote about my friendship with Luis Scott-Vargas. After getting advice from Seamus Campbell and Sheldon Menery, two senior judges who also had Internet-writing careers at the time, I settled on a philosophy to deal with this. Since it was impossible for me to stop being friends with players (and my circle of friendship among players has grown considerably since then, especially thanks to the SCG Open Series), I would set out to treat all players like my friends.

This philosophy is in action in the other big customer service interaction I want to write about, which happened with a complete stranger. In consecutive rounds, I took complex appeals that took some time to unravel and get the stories straight, and I ultimately upheld rulings that essentially lost the match for one of the players in the match, the same player in both cases. After the second time, I sat down with the player while he de-sideboarded and offered him a handshake. "Hey, I'm sorry that we keep meeting under these circumstances. I'm Riki."

There's that word again, "sorry." Note that I wasn't apologizing for the rulings. In our conversation, I stood by the rulings. It's important not to apologize for things that you aren't sorry about, because that's disingenuous. The player, Kevin, expressed his obvious frustration, and I let him vent that a little, but also told him that I was just trying to do my best to make the correct call based on the information provided to me. In the end, I don't think we were ever going to agree on the ruling itself, but we reached a good point where again, my hope was that Kevin would be able to play on without tilt, and perhaps with some restored faith in judges.

As it turned out, there was another appeal on Kevin's match later in the tournament that went, if not in is favor, at least neutral, and after the match we exchanged a "Hey, that wasn't that bad." We also crossed paths again on Sunday and exchanged pleasantries.

This isn't exactly proactive customer service. It's still in reaction to situations that occur. But it's the type of customer service that many judges don't even think of delivering because it is beyond the scope of a normal ruling. It's important to think about the impact we have on a tournament and on the feelings of players, who are our customers. Even when we do everything by the book, there's always the potential feel-bads, and how we react to, and try to mitigate those feel-bads can make or break someone's tournament experience.

Don't Be a Hero Judge

The past two weekends at GPs Sacramento and Vancouver, I've had the opportunity to watch Magic Judges in action from the perspective of Staff Manager and Side Events Lead respectively. From these positions, I've noticed that there are far too many Hero Judges around, and frankly, I'm here in Dragon Mode to slay a few of them. Let's start with a simple definition:

Hero Judge - A judge who begins working before their scheduled shift starts or stays after their scheduled shift ends.

This type of behavior is very common with judges. There are a lot of pyschobabbly reasons for it, but fundamentally judges enjoy judging and want to do more of it. The problem is that there are reasons we have shifts, and while you might think that you are helping by extending your shift, you're actually being a problem for the following reasons:

1) Managing judges on staff is a skill that people need to learn. I compare it to playing a worker placement board game like Stone Age or Lords of Waterdeep. As a Shift Lead, you have to figure out how best to allocate your judges to serve all of the events, or if you are the Head Judge or Team Lead, you have to find a way to give all of your judges a break in a timely fashion. If a bunch of judges show up early for the Mid or PM shift, the people responsible for the AM shift don't get to learn how to allocate their resources efficiently because they have a bunch of extra workers to place.

2) Your Lead needs to know how long you've been working. Leads are responsible for the well being and health of the judges working under them. If a Mid-Shift Lead comes on at 11am, he or she is expecting all of the judges on the shift to have come on at 11am, not 10am or 9am, and will make break decisions based on that assumption. Similarly, if you stay on the floor after your Lead has dismissed you for the day, there is often no one there to relieve you.

3) The effects of you overworking might not be seen until the next day or the day after. How many times have you said, "I fee fine. I can stay on for another hour..." on Friday night of a Grand Prix. There are two more days on this event. Get off the floor, get out of the event hall, go eat some food. At a GP you need to pace yourself for multiple days of work. If you frequently find yourself completely tuckered out on Sunday night, you may need to re-evaluate what you did on Friday or Saturday night, not how hard you worked on Sunday.

Over the years, I've heard a lot of people say "take care of yourself. Drink water. Take breaks." Working your scheduled shift and only your scheduled shift needs to be included in this.

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.