(In Which Tony Describes, With Appropriate Exemplar Materials, The Satisfactory Procedures For The Retelling Of Competition Experiences In The Written Form Under The Nomenclature of Tournament Report)

Apathetic Introduction
How do you write a good tourney report? Here's a breakdown. (I'll be using an example, so get your pens out)

SAMPLE TOURNAMENT REPORT (WITH CRITIQUE)

I pulled first pick Cateran bloke (4/3 with fear and fetches 4cc mercs), followed by passed Haunted Crossroads (!) then various green and black stuff (incl. Spidersilk Armor+), also managed some red stuff like Jhovall. Second booster very poor - picked up a Seal of Doom and a Phyrexian 3/3 fader (good combo with HC) - oh, also got a Cackling Witch and Plague Witch earlier on, too.

*****Start of Commentary*****
So much to say about this first paragraph - notwithstanding the gay abandon with which the author has inserted brackets. In fact, the last time I saw so many brackets, I was in an ironmongers... it's okay, I'll wait... aaaaaannnnnnyyyyy-way:

Point 1: Give the cards their proper names eg. "Cateran Bloke" is actually "Cateran FearMonster" or, if you want to get anal++, "Cateran Enforcer"

Point 2: Don't throw abbreviations around - remember that stoned, glass people shouldn't throw in live houses.

Point 3: Don't throw brackets about with... Oh, I already said that. Damn! I need an editing window that's bigger than four square millimetres.

Point Pi: Have a point to your paragraphs and structure the whole report - don't skip around (not that I've got anything against skipping around per se, especially when your garden is as big as mine and the wild grasses grow up your chest in the hot Summer months and kites fly in glorious slow-motion across the idyllic...*ahem* )

Point 4: Give the cards their proper names

Point 5: Try to avoid footnotes - they are symptomatic of an untidy/hurrying mind

*****End Of Commentary*****

Prophecy rule #1 : Take the rare and pass on the rest - this was good because I pulled Avatar of Fury, then hoovered up Keldon 5/3s, Fen Stalkers etc to end up with Black/Red with green splash (for spidersilk, silt crawler, rushwood herbalist, wild might, and horned troll).

*****Start of Commentary*****
Oh for the sake of everything that is good and Holy on the face of the planet Earth will SOMEONE tell this guy how to

a) use punctuation, and
b) stop mixing his Cases!

So...

Point 6: Learn your punctuation

Point 7: Don't mix and match cases - if card names are in CAPS, then always type them in caps!

Point 8: Don't throw abbrev...DAMMIT! 6 x 6 is still not big enough!

Bear with me a minute...

(Sound of squealing as monitor is rotated the wrong-way on its pedestal, followed by soft 'ping-ping' of cables as they are rent a-sunder from the ports at the back)

...that's better.

*****End Of Commentary*****

All evening I performed the 'Benson' sequence ie. play three colours and have all three land types out by turn 3 (I went for a 42 card deck with XVI creatures, 8 tricks, and eighteen land - SIX of each).

*****Start Of Commentary*****

Point 10: Try not to refer to private jokes because the rest of us
a) won't get them and
b) will feel a growing resentment at the insinuation that the author is in some sort of elite club while I'm out in the cold (on my own again, naturally), forever shunned, forever excluded from those essential social gatherings...

Dammit ! You can stuff your cosy little cliques up your sanctimonious behinds !!!+++ (Have you considered joining Team AWWAJALOOM? -- The Ferrett)

Point 11: Make sure you keep a track of number allocations++++

Point 12: Be consistent with your numbering system - it only serves to confuse if you arithmeticize according to Ancient Ogham Reckoning, Mauritian Toe Algebra, or with a font that is only visible under ultra-violet light.

*****End Of Commentary*****

Round One vs [Name Witheld]
Game 1: Appalling fast game - keldon guys with Wild Might are horrific - turn 6 kill, I think!
Game 2: He paris-ed to 5 and did piss all. I had HC in play and Seal of Doom when he cast Bribery - he nearly took the Avatar of Fury when I helpfully pointed out what was in play on my side of the board ie. he pulls Avatar, I seal it, put it on my library, draw it, play it soon after etc. I think it was in this game that he blocked my Sabre Ants with a 1/1 and I cackling witch-ed HIS creature to give me 6 ant tokens!!!

*****Start Of Commentary*****

Point 13: Don't gloat - it's unseemly and unsportsmanlike

*****End Of Commentary*****

We played a third, but he just couldn't find an answer to a 3/3 or bigger threat coming out every turn from turn 4!

Round Two vs [Name Obscured by Mayonnaise]

[Name Obscured by Mayonnaise] is my draft Nemesis.

*****Start Of Commentary*****

Now this is better - we have a little "mystery history" alluded to AND an Expansion Set name pun thrown in for free! Good work - see me afterwards.

*****End Of Commentary*****

Game 1: Slow game - both building up threats, but my treetop bracer-ed horned troll has got him down to 3 life. He casts Ribbon snake and says go. I look at board after drawing, then realise the ribbon snake loses flying for 2 mana - I pay the two and he concedes !

Game 2: Again a level pegger, then he plays Alexi, Zephyr Mage. Next turn my army has buggered off and he comes in for brutal beats.

Game 3: He fails to see broken horribleness, I trog in with the Keldon guys ! Woo-hoo ! 6 pts AND I beat [Name Obscured by rancid Pesto] - should be a fair number of ranking points to come my way then !

Round Three vs [Name Mis-spelt]
[Name Mis-spelt] is on 4 pts, I'm on 6 - so a draw is good enough to see me win the pod. [Name Mis-Spelt] is ever obliging and after a relatively quick win for him in game 1, and a tortuously-slow win for me in game 2, we time out in game three just as I have regained some kind of tempo.

I get four boosters for my trouble and can't resist opening them - masques #2 gives me Rishadan Port (!), plus that second Last Breath I need for my Rebel deck.

Nice.

*****Start Of Commentary*****

Now we face the fundamental problem of tournament reports - that they are dreadfully dull affairs of little or no value or interest to the rest of the community - I mean , you could do us the great service of shutting the hell up most times and just reeling off the generic names of the decks that finished in the top 8 (and in what order).

Thankfully, however, our esteemed author avoided that most dreadful of reporting practices which is the inclusion of Props, Slops, Cheers, and Jeers -

*****End Of Commentary*****

In Conclusion:
I think it's only fair to say that you should disregard everything I've said up to this point and either
a) Don't write a tournament report EVER, or
b) Write it in a strange an unusual manner, using whatever graphalogical and numerical system you so desire, e.g. (as someone has already done in the past) in the style of a Chandler-esque thriller (Report Noir), Tolkienesque fantasy, in a poetic form, etc.

Give it a go (if you have to).

I hate you...

I hate you...

I hate you...

I hate you...

I hate you...

I love you.

Ciao babies,

Tony Boydell

P.S Good Words To Use In A Tourney Report: Tempo, mise, gentleman/gentlewoman, love, friendly, sportsman, fresh sandwiches, hygienic, approachable, fair, victory, close games, well-played, etc.

P.P.S Bad Words To Use In A Tourney Report: Halitosis, 'pump', bitch, [EXPLETIVE DELETED], cheat, rancid, prolapse, genital infection, rules-lawyer, Lin Sivvi, "spank" and "mother" in the same sentence, etc.

+ I'm not saying a word

++ Nope. I won't say anything. I'll just get into trouble again...

+++ Oops ! Looks like a we touched a nerve there !+++++

++++ Just thought I'd test you out a little

+++++ I never thought of myself as a schitzophrenic - but now I'm in two minds on the subject (!)