Grand Prix - London was fast approaching. On the one hand, I had a newfound - but rather deep - hatred for Constructed in general and Odyssey Block Constructed in particular (even Randy Buehler called it "mediocre," and he helped create it). On the other hand, I had been looking forward to going to London since November. Besides, my 25th birthday was August 31st, the first day of the Grand Prix, and with my age neurosis there was no way I was going to spend my birthday at home.
There was only one thing for it: Go as a judge.
A quick query to the judge list gave me a name to contact, and before I knew it I had hotel accomodation paid for and was ready to go. Rabid Stompy player Magnus was also going, although he had abandoned his monogreen "Overrun for the win on turn 5" Squirrel deck and was instead playing the blue-white Team Punisher deck.
I find it sort of fun that in a block with a mechanic called punisher, there's also a deck called Punisher, which does not use the punisher mechanic at all.
So we arrive at Sturup airport, get all checked in and pass the security control (Magnus was wearing and carrying so much metal I'm convinced he did it just to spite the security staff). Apart from there being thirty kids in orange t-shirts, everything moves rather smoothly and we get on the plane. A week or two prior I had fashioned a three-way proxy deck, copying three decks that had gone 6-0 in the OBC portion of Worlds, namely U/W punisher, monoblack and G/W. We spent most of the flight playtesting, and some of it playing minimaster with six boosters I had happened to take along.
Take it from me, kids: Soulgorger Orgg is broken in minimaster.
We land at Stansted (late, of course) and very slowly make our way through London. It seems there was a security alert at Moorgate underground station, which meant that every single train was either late, heading the wrong way, or missing entirely. The PA system advised all travellers to hop on the first train that stopped by and hope it was going in the right direction, switching trains if it wasn't. Great.
Well, we only had to switch trains once and eventually arrive at the site. I locate Lee Singleton, UK DCI Manager, and he lets me in (the staff at the front desk had no record of me). I check in to the Olympia Hilton and then Magnus and I sit down to eat.
I'll get to the Magic part soon, I promise - I just feel that despite rambling about it for the duration of the Grand Prix, I haven't yet spewed enough hatred over the place where we ate. It was a little cafeteria with sandwiches and the like. You'd think you could get something reasonably quick and cheap at a place like that, don't you? Think again. The cheapest item on the menu was a chicken fillet sandwich for £6.20. We order two of those and two glasses of water at £1.20 each; we're already feeling ripped off. Then we sit there, stomachs rumbling, for over 45 minutes before our meals actually arrive, at which point we notice that there's more bone than chicken, which is kind of strange on a fillet. Call me a food snob if you wish.
We eat the stuff and ask for the bill. The bill takes ten minutes to arrive, because just then two new customers enter and all four waitresses have to attend to them. The owner was busy preparing a new opium pipe, so he couldn't help us either. When we finally get the bill, Magnus's sparkling water turns out to cost £2.40, twice the amount it said on the menu. Also, VAT wasn't included in the menu price, so that was added on top of the exorbitant prices they already charged us.
And then, when I finally get to pay and ask for my change, the waitress looks at me like I'm an alien creature. After all this, she was expecting a tip?
Well, if I ever go to London again, I'm going to walk in a huge circle around that place.
I play in a side-event and lose in the semifinals, run into some friends from Sweden, and then I hit the sack.
The judges' meeting is at 8 a.m. the morning of the Grand Prix. Head judge Ben Martin introduces himself, scorekeeper Jason and the team leaders. My team leader is Darryl (all game losses go through him; all match losses go through Ben) and our team is responsible for getting the results slips out, which means we're very busy for the first few minutes after a round start. After the meeting, things are pretty quiet as the registration is upstairs and players aren't allowed downstairs yet.
Whenever I judge a tournament, my favourite time is the time just before the tournament starts. The tables are lined up and clean. The chairs are pushed in and in meticulous order. All the table numbers are set up. My inner sight shows my a perfect tournament, players showing up on time, sitting at the correct tables, playing sportingly and fairly and keeping the area clean.
I know it never happens like that... But it's nice nonetheless. The calm before the storm.
We're informed that we're going to be emptying the tournament area of people between each round. To me, this sounds like lunacy: Seven hundred players leaving the tournament area each round, and then coming back in for the next round? No way! But who am I to argue?
It does indeed prove logistically impossible (well, really, really hard anyway) and we have a judges' meeting before the second round where we decide to keep the players in the tournament hall, but try to keep them away from the active matches. Apart from the feature matches - where, in the words of Ben Martin, "people are encouraged to watch the players with interesting features."
Well, the tournament kicks off and soon, players are playing like players should. Each team is designated an area and we mill around in that area, waiting for someone to shout "judge!" and put his hand up.
So what is a judge's main task at a tournament like this? Well, first and most-important, keep the chairs in their places. At Magic tournaments, chairs have their own minds. They keep moving around the room, taking little leaps across tables when nobody's looking, sometimes vanishing without a trace. Only on occasion do they actually stay where they're put. That's what a judge does most of all: Push chairs back in.
But then we have the more interesting situations: For example, I was called over after the first game because one player felt his opponent was playing too slowly (in this case, sideboarding and shuffling too slowly) and wanted the game to be watched. I turn to the opponent, tell him so and ask him to play quicker. He looks at me without comprehension and answers with a French accent:
"It's impossible. He won the first game."
I turn to the first player who confirms that he is indeed up one game. In other words, we have a player who is in the lead by 1-0 and accuses his opponent of stalling. Well, the rules say nothing about stalling being permissible just because you have no reason to stall, so I'll have to enforce them anyway.
"It would be stupid of you to stall, but it's not allowed anyway. Please play quicker."
I felt pretty dumb, I must say.
I watch the second game, and the accused staller wins it pretty quickly. Then I leave the table without protests.
Lesson to learn from this: Do not stall. Not even when it's bad for you.
Then we have the case of the size-changing Werebear.
I'm called over to resolve this situation: One player has attacked with a Wild Mongrel, a Werebear and a few other creatures. The other blocked a few of the attackers. Particularly, he blocked the Werebear with a Wurm token. Then, the attacking player sacrificed Centaur Garden to give the Werebear +3/+3. In response, the defending player played Krosan Reclamation to bereave his opponent of threshold, mistakenly thinking that this would counter Centaur Garden's ability. After Centaur Garden's ability is done resolving, the attacking player discards cards to his Wild Mongrel to regain threshold. The players agree to put damage on the stack.
The problem is, at this point the defending player thinks the Werebear is 4/4 whereas the attacking player knows darn well that it's 7/7. I'm called over to explain to the defending player that robbing a player of threshold doesn't affect Centaur Garden's ability once it has been played.
"But he said it was 4/4", the defending player says. "I pointed to the Werebear, said 'so it's 4/4, right?' and he said yes."
Well, that changes things a bit.
"If I had known it was 7/7, I would have flashbacked Krosan Reclamation to remove his threshold before damage went on the stack," the defending player says.
That changes things a bit more.
I ask the attacking player if he did indeed say the Werebear was 4/4, and he goes aggressive.
"Why should I give him advice?", he says. "Why should I advise my opponent on how to play?"
He seems to like this defense, as he repeats it several times as I try to explain to him that the line that goes between advising your opponent and lying outright about the game state isn't a very fine line at all, but a rather thick, black one. In the end, I allow the defending player to flashback Krosan Reclamation before damage goes on the stack. And that's all I do.
Which was a mistake. The attacking player deserved at least a warning, probably more. He lied about the game state. That's cheating. Blatant cheating. He knew the Werebear was 7/7, and said it was 4/4. I don't know exactly what would have happened if I had talked to Darryl about it, as I should have, but I imagine he would have at least lost that game.
Lesson to learn from this: Do not lie. And if you do, make sure the judge that gets called over is some random Swedish guy who's going to forget to nail you for cheating.
Another time, I get called over by a Frenchman who wants to look through his English opponent's graveyard, and the Englishman says he can't. I explain to the Englishman that the graveyard is a public zone and that the opponent is indeed allowed to look through his graveyard. That wasn't all there was to it, though: The Frenchman now asks me to count the Englishman's sideboard, and there are fourteen cards in it. Another judge, Scot Stevie Galbraith, comes over, I give the Englishman a game loss, and the arguments start.
The Frenchman tells us that he pile shuffled his opponent's deck, finding that it had sixty-one cards in it. He didn't say anything but instead let the game start, because he wanted to play. Fine - but why let it go then and take it up now instead? The Englishman is getting rather agitated, explaining that this is his first tournament and now his more-experienced opponent is bending the rules to give him a game loss. The Frenchman gets angry, feeling that the Englishman is calling him a cheater. Stevie and I try to calm him down, explaining that he's on his way towards a warning for unsporting conduct. The Englishman leaves the table in anger. Stevie follows him and I sit down opposite the Frenchman to calm him down.
I ask him why he didn't call a judge, or at least asked his opponent about his oddly sized deck, when he found that the Englishman had a sixty-one card deck. He answers that he just wanted to play. Well, why call him on it now, then? Because he wouldn't let him look through the graveyard.
No, it doesn't make sense to me either.
I tell him to call a judge next time. The Englishman would have gotten a game loss - but he would have been angry at me, not at another player. Players being angry at judges... That happens all the time. It's part of our job. But players being angry at players? That's just not right. Now, this was the Englishman's first tournament, and what he feels happened was that he was winning against a good player, and when the good player started losing, he cheated a win out of it. What actually happened is irrelevant now; that's what he feels happened. When new players have these experiences, that's not good for the game.
Now, it's pretty clear (to me and Stevie, that is, maybe not to you) that the Frenchman was up to something. But what? Calling his opponent on the 61 card deck at the start of the game would have given a game loss anyway, and would have avoided all this hassle. But his behavior was strange, and he probably should have been given a warning for his demeanor during the argument. I did keep an eye on him for the rest of the tournament, but I didn't see anything strange.
Lesson to learn from this: Count your deck and sideboard between each game, before you present the deck. And don't play in a Grand Prix for your first tournament.
All in all, day one was a fourteen-hour work day, with one break of about thirty minutes, and I spent it on my feet all the time. I had lots of fun (I've never judged anything larger than a sixty-man PTQ before) but spending fourteen hours in those black shoes killed my feet. I was planning to go to the pub with Magnus, Auri and Paul - but bugger that for a lark. I get back to the hotel and sleep the sleep of the dead.
Day two, I'm working side events. Apart from a few players vanishing (why, oh why do players finish their matches and then disappear? Seriously, what is up with that?) there's not much to tell, although at one point I was judging ten tournaments at once, which taxes your concentration somewhat. At least now I know I'm not susceptible to stress. Judging the side events was a lot of fun, too.
Our plane for Sweden is leaving next morning, but as we suspected there's no train leaving for Stansted airport early enough, so we'll have to spend the night at the airport. Björn and Tore, two friends from Sweden, are leaving with the next plane so they join us. We spend the night playing four-man attack-left Mental Magic, which is so much fun it's freaky. At one point, I get the land - Sol Ring - Grim Monolith start, but I don't manage to actually put my abundance of mana to any good use for a while. At this point, Tore is well on his way through his second night without any sleep, so we have to nudge and kick him every now and again to keep him alert. Nevertheless, he manages to win two matches that night.
A Frenchman asks us to draft with them, but there's five of them and four of us, so he says he'll go talk to his buddies. And he never comes back.
Other interesting sights at Stansted at night: people sleeping absolutely everywhere, two attractive female dancers practising without music, a Dane and a German trying to communicate each in his own native language, and me and Tore playing shufflepuck trying to break each other's fingers off.
It's finally time to check in. The plane is one and a half hours late (and we spend those ninety minutes in the plane, which may be the most boring time I've ever had in my life), but finally we manage to get home. I spend the day in a zombie-like trance, but that's normal after a Magic tournament.
After twenty-four active judging time in thirty-four hours, despite my feet hurting like hell, despite it being hard work, despite the horrible prices of England, despite players disappearing and trying to cheat, I'd do it over again. Next time there's a Northern European Grand Prix in a horribly boring format, look for me. I'll be the little blond dude in the black and white shirt.
Magnus went 6-2, by the way, thus missing day 2 on tiebreakers... But so did 45 other players, since only one player on 18 points made day 2. Magnus was the second-best Swede at Grand Prix London as well, which is sort of nice.
I'd like to discuss why morph is stupid and idiotic and why I fear judging Onslaught block tournaments, but that's for another time. See ya.
E-mail adress provided below (and this time, it's even working!); please flame liberally.
Patrik Linell
pls@claymore.nu
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