I was fortuante enough to Head Judge the Atlanta Regionals, and once again, I thoroughly enjoyed Atlanta. It was my fourth major event down there (a GP, last year's Regionals, and most recently, a Pro Tour), and I was very happy to once again receive a very warm welcome from the Atlanta crowd. I'll be very happy to keep going back.

I flew into Atlanta on Friday afternoon. I had dinner at Bones, one of Atlanta's finest steakhouses, at the treat of Tournament Organizer Anthony Edwards and his right-hand man, the redoubtable Bill Sides. We talked a little business and lots of literature and movies. I'd worked with Bill a few times and enjoyed his company, but this was the first time I had any time to talk non-Magic with him. He's extremely well-read and an interesting conversationalist.

I brought along a bottle of '99 Sebastiani Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon which we enjoyed with some pretty decent steaks. I had the bone-in rib eye, which was good, but it suffered in comparison to the one I had at Delmonico's in Las Vegas just the week before. If you're in Vegas, definitely head to Delmonico's, which is an Emeril joint. It's pricey (the bone-in rib eye, which according to L3 Judge Ben Drago is "the only item on the menu"), but definitely worth it.

Anthony staffed us extremely well in numbers for the event. The experience level of the judges was somewhat low, with the exceptions of local judge Jimmy Repine and Russell Linnemann, who came in all the way from Tennessee. Because of this, I leaned heavily on Russell and Jimmy to use their experience to help the other judges. When I asked the lesser-experienced folks to do something, I made sure to not only ask them to perform the task, but I also ensured that they knew all the steps in performing it.

We ended up with one of the country's largest events at 386 players. Despite the size, the event ran very smoothly. Everyone on staff did everything I asked of them and more. We had a relatively low number of appeals, and I only overturned Judges twice--a fine track record considering the relative experience level.

We had only one real dust-up during the course of the day. A player playing Tooth and Nail got his Triskelion/Mephidross Vampire combo out, then said "I kill all your guys." The opponent immediately called a Judge. The opponent had an active, untapped Frostwielder in play among his other dudes. The Judge ruled that "I kill all your guys" is an acceptable shortcut and let the play stand. The opponent immediately appealed.

When I arrived, the opponent kept insisting that the Tooth and Nail player played poorly and I should allow him to kill the Triskelion with the Frostwielder. I told him that the player's shortcut was acceptable. He reiterated that he had responses. I agreed, but that there was no way I would force the Tooth and Nail player to load three activations of the Triskelion because it wasn't implicit that that's the way he was doing it. I asked him why he hadn't asked how the Tooth and Nail player was doing it, or to clarifiy. He responded that that would give him strategic information and a clue that he was doing it poorly. I told him that he wasn't playing poorly, he was playing quickly. I once again told him that it wasn't implicit that three Triskelion activations in a row occured. He told me he didn't think he opponent knew exactly how to do it. I replied that it didn't matter, because even if he didn't, in the course of discussion, he figured it out. He continued to insist that I force the player to load three activations, a path that there was no way we were going to take. He got frustrated, but I diffused the situation enough to keep him from getting an Unsporting Conduct penalty. We had taken enough time already, so I told him how we were going to rule--upholding the Floor Judge's ruling--and that if he wanted to talk further, we could do so after his match was done.

Afterward, he came and apologized for getting frustrated, which was nice. I told him that he had called a Judge at the wrong time. He obviously wanted to lead his opponent into a bad play--but I told him he was going to have to do it; he couldn't rely on us to do it for him. I suggested that he try to push the opponent with leading questions like "Can you explain how you're doing that?" or better, for his obvious purpose, "How are you targeting the first three activations?" Again, I reiterated if he wanted to lead the opponent into a poor play, he couldn't use a Judge to do it.

I spent a good part of the latter half of the day doing Judge certifications. This is always tricky. As the tournament gets into later rounds and more players drop, more folks ask about certification. The problem is that the later the tournament goes, the more in demand my time becomes, making it more difficult to give the candidates the time they deserve. If it's possible, and I understand the logistical and organization issues, it's preferable for events of this size to have one qualified Head Judge and a different person doing Judge Certifications.

That being said, the rest of the day went smoothly. We got finished at a decent hour, and we received several comments on how well-run the event was. Special thanks for Chris Lund for the hand and the conversation during the day. Big thanks to Anthony for bringing me down; I'm happy to return to Atlanta any time.

See you next week.