Ask the Judge, 11/04/2005: Feature Friday
Hi, I'm Lee Sharpe, sitting in for L3 Judge and Ask the Judge Editor Seamus Campbell this week, who is in turn sitting in for Ted Knutson as the editor of this here site here this week. Confused yet? I know I promised my next article would be a rules one, but I didn't know when I said that that the next one I would right would be just after a Pro Tour, so, sorry, you're getting this instead.
Anyway, Pro Tour Los Angeles was another awesome Pro Tour, and marked my one year anniversary as a Level 3 judge. What a year it has been; it seems like it has been far longer. I was privileged enough to get to get to judge this event. As a judge staff, we had the normal responsibilities — a Pro Tour, side events, and other things — but on top of that we had two Duel Masters Continental Championships (one for age 14 and under, and one for age 15 or higher) tournaments to run. Special thanks to head judges Gis Hoogfjewostick, Scott Marshall, and Dorian Redburn, as well as the Wizards of the Coast staff for running excellent events.
We had one interesting rules question considering a Thorn Elemental, which attacked and was blocked, but the blocking creature was killed before combat damage assigned. The rule that normally applies here is:
310.2c. A blocked creature will assign combat damage, divided as its controller chooses, to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it will assign no combat damage.
However, Thorn Elemental's ability reads: "You may have Thorn Elemental deal its combat damage to defending player as though it weren't blocked." This means that, for the purposes of assigning combat damage, you treat the creature exactly as if it wasn't blocked. This allows it to assign damage to the defending player anyway. To double-check this ruling, I could be seen moving about the Pro Tour floor, laptop in hand, consulting various rules resources.
After arriving at the site on Thursday, I got to sit down with several other judges and learn Duel Masters. I was a bit worried that the game would be simplistic, and, while it is in terms of rules, it actually has a pretty good depth of game play and I definitely recommend anyone with a younger child in their life who you hope to grow into a Magic player one day to introduce them to this game. Or even play it yourself!
On Thursday night, a team of us sat down to develop Two-Headed Giant Penalty Guidelines. No spoilers on these, but hopefully this will help balance out the Game Loss = Match Loss issues inherent in the format that cause a problem.
On Friday morning, I got to sit in on an L3 interview. It wasn't a "real" one, as the candidate did not pass the rules test, but was given an interview anyway for experience. Preparing for one of these is difficult, as you really need to test the candidate. Not to further intimidate anyone reading this who is planning on testing soon, but a L3 interview is harder than most job interviews. [ I had a job interview on Wednesday, and I also sat on an L3 interview in LA. Lee's right. - Seamus]
For Friday afternoon, I was assigned to the Deck Checks team, under the leadership of Australian L3 Mark Brown. There were a lot of problems with sleeves, and we ended up issuing eight match losses for Marked SleevesMajor (which indicates the cards that were marked had a pattern such as being combo pieces, cards of the same color, all land, etc.) Players, please be sure to shuffle your sleeves and shuffle your deck before sleeving, and examine your deck for sleeve issues before each match. These simple steps can save you major penalties. This occurred even after Gis made an announcement to all players to check their sleeves.
Then there was one of my more difficult rulings: a life total dispute. Normally something quite tricky to resolve anyway, on top of that I had a Spanish-speaking player on one side, and a Chinese-speaking player on the other. Fortunately, Judge Manager Andy Heckt plans for these issues ahead of time, and I was able to get a Spanish-speaking judge and a Chinese-speaking judge over to the table, and they were able to translate the players’ steps to me. Looking at their life total papers and talking with them, I finally realized that the Chinese-speaking player had played a Lightning Helix without recording the pain from the Barbarian Ring that he would have had to use to play it, looking at the lands he had in play (it and a Sacred Foundry were his only red mana sources, and the Sacred Foundry was the only white source).
Saturday, I had many tasks. I spent a few hours assisting the MagicTheGathering.com coverage team by typing decklists into an XML-ified spreadsheet for a couple hours (there were a lot of players). Additionally, I was assigned as the proctor for the rules examination for two L3 candidates. This involved providing them the actual test, grading it, and going over the exam with the candidate. I then provided the score to the judges coordinating the interviews with them later.
Speaking of rules test, I recommend all of you check out the new tool for judge tests, the DCI Exam Center (DCIX) at http://www.dciexam.com/ At this time, any certified judge can get a practice test to test their knowledge, as well as submit a question, which after going through editing by Scorekeeper Cari Foreman and approval of L4 Judge John Carter, might get included on exams for others. You can also look over reviews other judges have left for you, and in turn leave reviews for other judges. This is one of the most exciting developments for the judge program in some time, and thanks go to Andy Heckt and Collin Jackson for creating and developing this tool that will no doubt have a great impact on the judging community.
My other responsibility, which was probably the most important and certainly the most educational for me, was the "one on ones" (which we actually morphed into "two on ones"). This is a new idea that began at this year's US Nationals. Basically, a L2 who has expressed an interest in working toward L3 sits down with one or two L3 judges (in this case, Paul Morris and me) and figure out where the candidate is, and give the judge feedback about his strengths and weaknesses, and specific suggestions for improvement. They certainly seemed helpful.
Saturday ended with a trip to Fogo de Chao. Many of us went at Pro Tour Atlanta, and it was such a great experience. For around $60, you get unlimited meat that gets brought to you by the waiters who walk around the restaurant carrying the meat on "swords". I ate a lot, and let's just say I'm not exactly known for eating a lot. (I am 5'11" / 1.8m tall and weigh 135 lbs. / 61kg. And yet there’s a running joke on IRC of people calling me a midget. Yeah, I don’t get it either.. It was delicious! A few pro players and several members of the coverage team also showed up there, which was pretty humorous.
After such a wonderful meal, it was time for a final day of judging. After a debriefing by Gis, it was time for seminars. The first seminar was led by the aforementioned Paul Morris, which talked about growing a local judge community. Paul had the attendees talk about how they mentor judges, give them opportunities to grow, and how they develop skills. It's always interesting to see how different areas do things, and I hope that everyone got something out of it. I know I did. Paul then turned things over to yours truly for a seminar on Two-Headed Giant. This is an exciting format that is mostly geared toward casual, fun play. Rules issues in it can be confusing, and it also can be difficult to judge, as it uses only one game matches, so a game loss can be a match loss (as noted above). I shared my experiences as the Head Judge of the $5,000 Standard event at Gen Con this summer, and also talked about how to handle teammate communication issues, especially with respect to teammates taking too long to discuss what they want to go (e.g. slow play and/or stalling).
The seminars later in the day were over several topics, primarily run by L3 judges Johanna Virtanen and Ingrid Lind-Jahn. They talked about handling a L3 interview, public speaking (an important part of a judge's job), judging games other than Magic (such as Duel Masters!). The last seminar of the day was by Peter Lind-Jahn. He reviewed his "Judicial Advice" series from an SCG Daily where he talked about advice for players going into tournaments. All three did an excellent job and covered their topics well.
While all this was going on, of course, the Pro Tour Top 8 was occurring. The second semifinal match was certainly controversial. I want to comment on this somewhat. First, some comments on the mana burn issue. Billy Moreno, unaware of Chris "Star Wars Kid" McDaniel’s Heartbeat of Spring, tapped 3 lands to pay a 3 mana spell. He then passed priority to McDaniel, who then (correctly) told Moreno he should now burn for 3. Unfortunately, the table judge did not realize that priority had been passed, and thought Moreno was just confirming with McDaniel the amount of mana in his pool. So, based on what he thought was occurring, the table judge made the correct ruling.
So the judge told Moreno to "Spend the 3 mana or burn". Moreno chose to use two of the mana to play Naturalize on the Heartbeat of Spring, and burn for one. Of course, given the confusion above, nobody noticed until it was too late that Moreno didn’t have green mana available to him. This was a very unfortunate series of events.
The other issue — the card drawing — was actually handled correctly. A game loss is not the way we want Pro Tour Top 8 matches decided. The cards that were originally in hand were known, so they were put back into the library , which was then shuffled (currently the remedy for looking at extra cards) [the substance Lee's last discussion on Looking at Extra Cards has been made DCI policy — S].
Judge Manger Andy Heckt and senior judges are going to review the roles for the table judge in top 8. What many players are unaware of is that table judges have a lot of responsibilities other than just watching the match. This includes: providing tokens as needed, keeping track of the land drops each turn, and keeping track of the life total changes and the source of each of those changes, and to all of this is a manner the coverage spotter can read the information on the table judge’s paper and relay it back to the coverage team (Randy and Flores) as well as the technical team providing the life total graphics and such. This is hard to do while a match is in progress and simultaneously watching the match. I’ve suggested that two judges be used (one just to watch, and one to do this tracking). Hopefully this or another useful alternative can be developed.
Controversy aside, another Pro Tour ended, and congratulations go out to all. At the judge dinner on Saturday night, Andy Heckt announced two promotions for the weekend: the advancement of John Alderfer to Level 3, and Toby Elliot are Level 4. Congratulations to both of you. The judge dinner is a perk WotC provides to judges each Pro Tour [Sheldon has, no doubt, aquainted you well with this tradition — S](and often a little extra as well, such as shiny Mishra’s Factory goodness). We said our goodbyes, and then at least most of us went to bed early to catch Monday morning flights.
As always, I have to do the obligatory promotion of EFnet’s #mtgjudge I promoted this at PT LA as well, so I imagine some of you reading this who were there may be sick of hearing about it. Well, too bad, as it's one of the best resources out there for judges. It’s also a good place to get a ruling, and there are plenty of discussion about both judging issues, and topics unrelated to Magic as well. Hope to see you drop by.
Well, that’s all for me. Catch you later.
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Lee Sharpe
DCI Level 3 Judge
lee DOT sharpe AT gmail DOT com
LeeSharpe and Lee_Work on EFnet
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