Ask the Judge, 07/28/2006: Feature Friday

Can't talk, must judge!

Today's column comes to you from the 8th floor of the Renaissance Waverly (perhaps Waverly Renaissance) Hotel at the Cobb Galleria, site of this year's US National Championships. I'm going to keep things brief today, as I've lots to do, many people to see, and also, I'm jetlagged to semiconciousness.

What is the National Championships, and why should I care?
Most of you will already know the answer to the first question. The primary purpose of Nats is to invite four players to the World Championship (to be held this year at the friggin' Louvre... yes, that Louvre) as the US National Team, which consists of three team members and an alternate.

The secondary purpose of Nats is to give away a good chunk of cash. A tertiary purpose is to host the Junior Super Series Championship, and n-iary purposes including giving judges opportunities to learn, hosting a plethora of side events, and generally having an excellent time.

I recommend newcomers start with the last item on the list and work their way up to the front.

From a judging perspective, Nationals has more collective player and judge experience than any other non-Pro Tour event. Hall of Famers, Level 5 judges, and more gravy trainers and judge trainers than you can shake a stick at. We've got judges from France, Poland, Greece, and even Canada.

The passphrase for the event, among judges, seems to be: "Did you bring an EDH deck with you?" Format creator (and Ask the Judge elder statesman) Sheldon Menery was heard lamenting that he doesn't get royalties on the format.

Every judge, it seems, has broken out their best hypotheticals and implausible rules corner cases. It's "But he shuffled it into the wrong library!" here, and "Okay, now what if the third land is Gaea's Cradle?" there, and "What exactly does 'significant or exceptional' mean to you?" across the room. It's music to my ears.

Play starts early at US Nats. Thursday is a steady stream of single-elimination qualifiers, or "grinders", in the parlance. The top four players from each grinder earn invites to play through the weekend (or through Saturday, at least, with the promise of Sunday play luring them on). Side events run Thursday morning in a variety of Draft, Sealed, and Constructed forms. The Nats main event starts Friday; while JSS has last minute qualifiers on Friday and starts properly on Saturday.

It's a lot of Magic.

And through it all runs one of the most complicated triumphs of scheduling you're likely to run into this side of a city traffic plan. Sides, judge training (Level 3 interviews, tests, and seminars), JSS, Nats, and grinders, grinders, grinders. And for the most part, all of us do everything (to the extent possible—only Levels 3 and higher participate in interviews). Generally, we get to spend a day on each event, which is a nice way to keep yourself fresh.

It's also a great way to meet a lot of different judges. And there are a lot of different judges to meet. We have a staff of roughly fifty judges. While I've worked with about thirty of these judges before, that still leaves twenty new co-workers to meet and get to know. And that is one of my highest priorities for the weekend. Today's fresh-faced, newly-promoted Level 2 is tomorrow's grizzled L3. Working Magic events has surprised me; I've a much better capacity for remembering judges than I expected. I'm working this week with several judges that I met at my first international events, several years ago, and haven't seen since. It's a great sense of community you get, at times like these.

While there's plenty of time on the floor for chatting about Magic with my new aquaintances, one of the real pleasures of tournaments like these is dining in the evening, when there's more time for good, old-fashioned, getting-to-know-you chats. Which is where I'm headed now. If you see me on the floor, be sure to say hi.

Until next time, keep shufflin'. Next week, birthday boy and good guy Lee Sharpe is in the corner.

Seamus (falling asleep on the job so you don't have to)