Judge reports are informative and excellent training tools, but rarely entertaining things. I hope to change that. Permit me to both amuse and educate you with the report of my Nationals adventure here on the first installment of"Ask the Judge, Feature Friday." I'm going to start condensing a week's worth of questions into four days so that on Friday we can explore other sides of Judging and tournament Magic, and the issues, personalities, and excitement that go with them.

This will be my 4th US Nationals, having only missed one since my return to the States in 2000. I was going to give this one a skip, but Andy Heckt asked nicely (by that I mean tied me to an uncomfortable board, dipped my feet in brine, and had a goat lick them until I agreed to show up) since Head Judge Mike Guptil would be the only other Level 4 in attendance, and there's quite a few folks looking forward to interviewing for Level 3. Knowing that Kansas City is renowned for its beef, I accepted readily.

I departed The Estate late this afternoon, armed with the knowledge that Kansas City allows corkage (that is, bringing your own bottle of wine to a restaurant, paying a nominal fee for them to open it; it beats paying the outrageous markup of good wines in restaurants). I'm bringing along two bottles of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon: Concha y Toro"Don Melchor" 2000, and Viña Montes Alpha, Santa Cruz Apalta Vineyard, also from the 2000 vintage. Chile is an up-and-comer in the world wine market. Up in the Chilean highlands, they're making some very nice juice these days. Both these should be big, muscular wines that pair well with steaks. Tasting notes to come.

Today's best upgrade: The waffle cone at Ben and Jerry's. Five dollars in Star City credit to the first reader who identifies the flavor and why I like it so much. Either that or the $100 first-class upgrade on the Pittsburgh-to-Kansas City leg of the journey. Vote now in the forums!

Today's worst choice: double spinach at Boston Market. I should have gone for at least one serving of the hot cinnamon apples.

Near midnight: There's nothing quite like Grinder Thursday at US Nationals. Hundreds of hopefuls come looking for a last chance to qualify for the big event in single-elimination events in both Constructed and Limited formats. Most of my day today was spent running around the Side Event area helping with one Grinder or another, handing out product, making rulings, and observing the weekend's Level 3 hopefuls. Chris Richter distinguished himself by stepping up when one of the scheduled Head Judges didn't show.

Tonight's dinner was at Jackstack's BBQ with Nationals Head Judge Mike Guptil, DCI Tournament Manager Scott Larabee, Judge Coordinator Andy Heckt, and some of the senior Level 3's in attendance. This"high-level" dinner at major events is a new brainchild of Andy's, and it's paid dividends so far. We've gotten a good deal of policy stuff ironed out while enjoying the fellowship of folks we only get to see a few times a year.

The wines didn't disappoint. The Viña Montes was the star of the night, pairing perfectly with all the red meat we consumed. And"burnt ends" are completely broken.

7:30 am. Ugh. Three of the four of us who ate steaks are under the weather this morning, me worst of all. It's off to the local apothecary for something to soothe my ailing stomach. I'll be back later.

8:00 pm. Just a few minutes to update before the Judge dinner. I'm feeling much better, thanks. It was a very busy first day of Nationals. I like very much the format of a few rounds of Constructed and a few rounds of Limited. It makes each day about the same length instead of one short one and one very long one. Now off to Milano's.

11:40 pm: A great dinner with a great bunch of folks. Nice Italian food, good Tuscan wine, great company. Now to get ready for the working the JSS tomorrow.

7:45 am: I'm in the elevator, coming down to get a cup of coffee to start the day, and a JSS'er asks me to look at his sleeves. I take a look, and they're fine. I walk from the elevators to the cafe with the kid and his mom, just chatting about Magic all the way. She seems genuinely impressed that Magic isn't completely populated with sociopaths, and that there are actually some people that seem"normal." After more small talk, she says it seems like I know a good deal about the game. Her son interjects that"He's the Star City guy!" She then informs me she's a reporter for USA Today and she'd like to interview me. I pass her off to Sara, the PR Lady and she arranges to meet me later.

10:00 am: I'm surprised and amazed by the JSS kids. All day so far, they've been very, very polite, and sportsmanlike. They've been saying"please" and"thank you," and pushing in their chairs. I have hope for the future. I've had the opportunity to pop backstage and get on #mtgjudge to give live updates to the folks. The folks on the channel seem to like the blog idea over on the Sideboard.

I finish up helping the deck check team and decide to look for interesting deck names. Here's what I came up with:

The Running of the Squirrels - Teddy Vitro

Jason's Deck of Rainbows & Happiness - Jason Putnam

Product Placement with Taco Bell - Elliot Woo

I Think I'm Turning Japanese - Kit Dawson

Big Green Noses - Matt Foxman

The Magical Bob - Donald Howarth

Tog Gone Wrong - Sam Kuerswicz

Last Minute Wins - Michael Le

Elf and N00b - Ben Lucas and Andrew Ross

And my personal favorite...

Slagwurm Orchestra VI: The Last Crusade - Daniel Sondike

I pass the deck names onto Jason Ness, who announces them to a good deal of applause, and then onto the Sideboard, who puts them in the blog.

Noon: Just finished the interview with the USA Today lady. We talked for about half an hour. At one point, she flipped back through her notes and asked"What's mise?" As straight-faced as I could, I told her that it's Magic's version of serendipity. She asked me for more Magic lingo, and I gave her"savage,""broken," and"topdeck." I tried to stay away from anything controversial.

3:30 pm: It's always nice to see a great human interest story, and this one is among the best. It's another one that I passed to the Sideboard. Alan Olsen was playing in the JSS Championships and was off to an early 4-0 start with his Goblin Bidding deck. As his fourth match concluded he found that his deck had disappeared. He was upset at having lost his valuable deck and completely distraught at the idea of not being able to fulfill his dream of winning the Championship with the fifth round looming.

He ran around the room looking for his deck when he came to Adam Boyd who had been playing at his table during round four. Adam--who hadn't met Alan prior to this event--had not seen what happened to Alan's deck but did have a similar build of Goblin Bidding that his friend Tanner Gates had intended to play. The decks were different enough in regards to specific cards that they had to scramble to replicate Olsen's starting decklist and sideboard but it was a big headstart. Collin Baird of Pair-a-Dice Games helped track down the final pieces of the puzzle and they had everything pulled together just in the nick of time as round five pairings were posted. Despite all the hustle and bustle, we didn't delay the tournament even a minute.

5:00 pm: Some judges from Nationals tell me the story of a player who wouldn't believe ANY judge, to include a few experienced Level 3s and Head Judge Mike Guptil, on a ruling. His opponent played Blinding Beam and in response, he made one of the two targets untargetable. He then argued that Blinding Beam would be countered. After much arguing, he was forced to accept Mike's ruling on his appeal. Later, I happened to be standing near that particular table. Ben Drago was signing the result slip, and the player complained that he would have won if the"judge hadn't screwed up." He happened to see me, and called me over, since I'd know the"correct ruling." Before he even started, I told him that every judge he had talked to was correct, and that if he wanted to look it up, it's rule 413.2a in the rulebook. Simultaneously, Ben flashed his Palm Pilot with the exact text.

7:30 pm: I just got finished doing"Game of the Year," otherwise known as Live Action Magic. This is the fourth year for this very entertaining event, where one lucky player gets to match up against a Wizards of the Coast luminary. This year, it was Skaff Elias, creator of the Pro Tour and developer on Fallen Empires, among others. You can check out the coverage in Sideboard coverage. Skaff did end up with a game loss for unsporting conduct. I can't say much more because John Grant is still investigating.

I've accepted an invitation to dinner with the Sideboard Reporters, to include our own Ted Knutson. They've convinced me to go back to Jackstack's, despite Friday morning's illness. I'll stay away from steak and go for barbecue.

Judge stuff: I had the displeasure of disqualifying a player this afternoon.

I heard two players arguing behind me. I turned around, and after settling them down, got the story that there was a dispute over Player B's life total. His opponent was at 8, and he was at 3, and he had a Pulse of the Forge in his hand. Player A was arguing that he should have been at 4. On Player A's turn, with Player B at 8, A had attacked, clearly announcing"five." This was corroborated by Player B and the player at the next table. Player B then untapped, confirmed that he was at three, and played Pulse. Player A immediately objected, saying that he actually attacked for only four the previous turn--which as it turns out, should have been the correct total. To make the rest of the story short, it looked as though Player A made a mistake when he attacked, but decided to take advantage of the opportunity instead of being honest--until it worked against him. During the interview, he changed his story at least twice, so it was obvious he was lying. After consulting with JSS Head Judge Jason Ness, we agreed on disqualification. Object lesson: don't lie to the Judge.

12:15am: Seth Burn and his friend Steve ended up going with us to the BBQ place. All the reporters (BDM, Ted, Scott Johns, and Toby Wachter in his last hurrah for the Sideboard) and I leapt on tonight's special, which included pork ribs, beef ribs, barbecued sausage, and the aforementioned burnt ends. The beef rib was large enough for a small family to live under. Sadly to say, none of us won our matchup. BDM came the closest. It was probably the jalapeno wings that did us in.

Late: Most of my judge day was spent doing Level 3 interviews, so I didn't even get to see any of the Top 8. Congratulations to Chris Richter on passing both the test and the interview.

In the evening, I went out with some of the other Judges: Ben Drago, Matt Tabak, Shawn Doherty, Rashad Miller, Scott Lelivelt, and Justus Roennau, our token German judge. This was Justus' third US Nationals in the last four years. He's one of his country's top judges, and I suspect Level 4 isn't out of the question for him. Topics of conversation stayed away from Magic for the most part. We spent a good deal of time discussing Lord of the Rings and the movies (Fellowship of the Ring is still the best of the three, IMO). Opinions were divided on Liv Tyler (Arwen) or Miranda Otto (Eowyn) being hotter, although I went with Cate Blanchette (Galadriel). The waiter agreed with me. Surpisingly, votes on whether the Olsen twins are hot or not, came in at 6-2 for NOT.

Went back to the hall for a little while. Chatted with Osyp, who told me Skaff was giving me beats during the Finals coverage, and Gabe Walls while watching him playing"Slap Swamp" with some younger players, then watched a few minutes of the Scott Larabee/Alan Pengelly Scrabble showdown. When Alan stepped away from his tiles, I found a 7-letter word on his rack, but then scrambled it before he came back. I think he still won the match. If you think you're a good Scrabble player, test yourself against either Scott or Alan. If you beat them, you're very good.

9:30 am: Waiting for Ben Drago to share a taxi to the airport. Just picked up the USA Today. There's a good article, but no quotes from me. The author decided to concentrate more on the kids. Another excellent Nationals is in the books. Congrats to the US Team of Craig Krempels, Bill Stead, and Ben Zoz.

See you next week on Feature Friday, with a FF Interview!