ASK THE JUDGE, 07/15/2005: FEATURE FRIDAY

Pro Tour London Report

Aside from things happening that no sovereign nation should ever have to abide, Pro Tour London was staggeringly normal, hundred dollar cab rides aside. It was the usual good times, good friends, good fun.

A first kudo to United Air Lines. My commuter flight out of Norfolk bound for Washington Dulles was about 40 minutes late (or about 5 minutes longer than the flight itself). At Dulles, the commuter planes pull into the G-gates, and you have to shuttle over to the main terminal. Having only 47 minutes to do this on my itinerary, if my flight was on time, I would have had a trouble making the connection, which of course was the last bound for London on Wednesday evening. United had the good sense to pull the commuter plane into the big gate so that many of us could make our connections. I had no time at the gate, but I didn't miss my flight, either.

I didn't know until our flight landed in London that I was sitting near our esteemed editor's wife, Alena. I asked her about sharing a taxi and she said that she knew the way on the Tube. Almost on cue, the ground crew at Heathrow told us that "the trains are having a problem," so we agreed to get that taxi, and I think we really mised one. It was sitting right outside the door that we exited, not in a queue or anything. We jumped in immediately. That's when a policewoman came up and gave the driver a piece of her mind. I didn't hear what she said, but she was obviously unamused. The driver simply smiled and headed off into traffic. That ride took us about an hour and a half, but I count us lucky. I know of one Judge who was grounded in Rome and didn't arrive until midnight.

After meeting up with Ted (who disappearing surprisingly quickly in the company of the lovely Alena) and BDM, I had lunch with Gis Hoogendijk (newly-installed as the Organized Play Manager for Europe) at the nearby Prince of Wales pub--spicey bean shepherd's pie was on the menu, and I had to give it a whirl. We spent about two pints in the pub just talking about stuff, then headed over to the site to see if we could help out. There wasn't much to do, so we went back to the hotel where we helped Andy Heckt and John Grant with player registration. PT Head Judge Jaap Brouwer and I hammered out some details on the weekend's schedule, then we got together with the rest of the gang for the high-level dinner. I was disappointed that the allegedly-great Italian restaurant was closed, but we found a nice substitute at a Spanish tapas bar right up the street. The food was pretty good, the Spanish wine--which I've not been a fan of in the past--was most excellent. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down the name, so we're SOL.

It was one of the best working dinners we've had in recent memory. We had long discussions on loops and advancing game states and quantum probabilities, plus procedures, potential judge advancements, and all other manner of cool stuff. The high point of the night was when DCI Tournament Manager Scott Larabee let us in on the new Judge foil for PT London--the always-popular Sol Ring. I have to tell you, it looks great in foil. The new foils for the Judge Program are going to be very exciting this year. Stay tuned.

This being a draft event, Friday set out to be a long day. We ran two drafts after which we played three rounds, cutting to everyone with 12 or more points, then another draft with one round following--the next two rounds of that pod to be played on Saturday. One of my favorite parts of the first day of the Pro Tour is getting to know new Judges from around the world. I met for the first time Damian Hiller from Argentina (who I know from #mtgjudge, and who brought me a beautiful bottle of Argentinian Malbec), Evan Blake from the USA, Patrick Linnell from Sweden, Omar Diez from Spain, and Sung-Dae Kim from Korea. All of them did an excellent job in their first PTs, and I look forward to spending more time with them in the future. Most of my time on Friday was spent with Gis, preparing for and doing Level 3 interviews.

For those of you who have Level 3 in your sights some day, let me give you a few tips:

Focus on being, not achieving. While there are objectives that you must meet to make L3, it's not completely objective-based. You can't just pass the written test; you must also have personality traits like leadership and integrity (not to mention the requisite experience).

At Atlanta Regionals, with the help of Russell Linnemann, I came up with this analogy: The candidate who gets it is saying "Hey, throw me the ball!" The candidate who doesn't get it runs in and tries to snatch the ball.

The difference between L2 and L3 is one of perspective. There are many L2s who run great tournaments. L3s, on the other hand, run great events.

Saturday was more of the same, spent locked away from the Main Event with Gis and interviews. I also had some time to sit with some Judges and give them some pointers on their way forward in the program. This has to be one of the most rewarding parts of what I do: helping other folks realize their potential in the program. Hopefully I can teach (not to mention learn from) everyone I talk to at least how to avoid some of the mistakes that I've made along the way.

Congratulations to England's Ray Fong, Austria's Phillipp Daferner, and France's Bart Mouliniere for certifying at Level 3. Phillipp was only the third person, along with the USA's Shawn Doherty and Poland's Andrej Cwalina, to score a perfect 100% on the written portion of the L3 test. Outstanding!

Saturday evening saw us head down to Soho for the Judge dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was nice, the company was outstanding. I had the pleasure of sharing the taxi and table with the Italian contingent--mi bello amico Riccardo Tessitori, his completely broken wife Cristiana, Diego Fasciolo, Marco Risso, and Enrico Boccabianca from WotC Italy. We spoke as much Italian as I could manage. We also had an Indian yoghurt drink called Lassi. It was tasty, a bit too sweet for my taste, and too thick to drink through the straw. Another Judge dinner note: if you're ever in a position to watch the gustatory prowess of Japanese Judge Takeshi Miyasaka, do so. Miyasaka-san eats like a bird: three times his body weight every day. Andy Heckt tantalized everyone with their first view of the foil Sol Ring, which folks wouldn't lay their hands on until Sunday.

I wouldn't want to leave you EDH fans without your fix. After the Judge dinner, we peeled off to play some, and finding that there were 10 of us, split into two groups. My game was remarkably un-wacky. My table included Andrej (who was also my roommate for the event), Are Saxrud, Damian, and JB from France. Andrej was playing Duncan McGregor's (who is the EDH equivalent of Eric Lauer) Dragons-only deck and got a fast kill on JB, but by that time I had drawn enough cards and had Mirari's Wake in play that I could go infinite (recursing and drawing Beacon of Tomorrows and Time Stretch). The only moderately crazy thing that happened in my game (I do recall hearing from the other game "So that Mortivore is 32/32?") was Damian playing Suncrusher, Are countering with Overwhelming Instinct, me countering Suncrusher with Counterspell (who wants an opponent drawing nine cards?) and Andrej Forking Overwhelming Instinct.

Earlier, we had discussed trying to make the General have even more impact on the game. Either Gis or Jaap suggested simply having the General come into play at the end of turn X, where X is the General's converted mana cost (maintaining the minimum of six). We gave it a whirl on Sunday night, and I liked it. It definitely made you think about the implications. Of course, it makes Lord of Tresserhorn a little dicey (not to mention the Elder Dragons, which require colored upkeep), but all in all, I liked the variant. We'll do some more testing in my local group this week. Paul Morris has also agreed to give it a bit of a test with his local folks.

Sunday was thankfully shorter, but no less busy. We had more interviews to finish and other meetings. While the seminars were going on, Andy asked me to take care of arranging the gifts for the Judges, which is always a pleasure. I'm honored to shake everyone's hand and say thanks for a good weekend while I'm handing them goodies. To everyone's surprise, the gift package was a little thicker this time--it included *two* Sol Rings. Andy mentioned that many folks had spent extra time, effort, and money getting into London, and this was our way of recognizing folks' continued dedication.

After the event finished, I spent late Sunday afternoon back at the Prince of Wales pub with Jaap, John Shannon, and John's lovely wife Debby (they were just recently married, so salud!). We talked stuff, and then Jaap got me onto a topic that I'll wear out your ear on: my book, "Zolan's Scar." I spent the next hour telling the three of them the entirety of the story, to include the influences that went into it. They were a gracious audience. Of course, I'll be sure to let you all know when we go to press--which I hope will be sometime in 2006.

Monday I got up VERY early and took the long trip home, another successful Pro Tour in the books. Big kudos to Jaap for running a good event, Gis for all the time we hung out together, Toby Elliot for being just a good guy, and all the Judges who made it a rousing success. I'll be skipping Pro Tour Los Angeles in favor of taking a honeymoon to Italy (Riccardo, Cristiana, and Marco have all volunteered to show us Rome) and France, so I suppose I'll see you in Japan for the World Championships.

And of course, I'll see you here, next week.