Ask the Judge, 09/01/2006: Feature Friday

A Tale Of Two Tournaments

Welcome back, readers, to a new month and a fresh cycle of Feature Friday. It's been a wild, busy month for me, and I've got plenty to share with you: stories of US Nationals and the Dreamblade 20k at Gencon. We're going to look at how I prepared for these two very different large events; how they went; and what I learned. I think the judges out there will find some useful tips and thoughts on event preparation and what goes into high-level event judging.

But before we move on to the dual Howitzers that are US Nationals and GenCon, something that totally slipped my mind last month. August 1st marked my one-year anniversary as Ask the Judge editor. It's been a good year! While I miss seeing Honorary Ask The Judge Editor For Life And Famous Floating Head Sheldon Menery writing in this space as much as anyone, I'm thrilled that I've been able to bring new blood in, in the exceptionally competent form of Nick Fang and Johanna Virtanen. Lee Sharpe and are still going strong, and Chris Richter is still answering every single question you people send him. Since MagicTheGathering.com's Saturday School column finished it's run at the beginning of the summer, I don't think there's any question that AtJ is the rules and judging content outlet on the web (I hesitate to say "the Internet", as I think the oft-mentioned #mtgjudge is comparable... but that's due in large part to the efforts of your AtJ writers, so I'm not bothered to admit it).

But enough about your not-entirely-humble narrator and editor. Let's get to the shows.

This was my second year at US Nationals, and my first year at GenCon. Nationals, as I wrote last week, is the biggest, craziest weekend of Magic outside the Pro Tour. GenCon, it turns out, is pretty much the biggest, craziest weekend of gaming, period. That's a strong statement, but even just hefting the 300-page program, and thumbing through the 100+ pages of small print event listings, is enough to give a feel for the event. That feel is: woah. I could write several columns on just the experience of being a GenCon attendee. Unfortunately, I don't have time.

I had a certain set of expectations for each event. For the Magic tournaments, I expected things to go much like last year's Nats, from the smoothness of the main event, to the mild turbulence of the Junior Super Series Championship, to the stupefying humidity. My role would be the same as most of the other Level 3 judges attending: lead by example, whether from the front (as team lead) or the rear (supporting a less experienced team lead); collect and give useful feedback; engage other judges in discussions of rules and policy; smile at players; possibly participate in one or more Level 3 interviews... The slight wrinkles from any other high-level event (like a Grand Prix or Pro Tour) are that Nationals runs a little longer, we run a couple different formats over the weekend, and we've got the JSS Championship thrown in for good measure (like last year, ably piloted by fantastic L4 judge Jason Ness). To a significant degree, that lot is exactly what I got. I think I did a decent job, though I confess that I'm not finished with the paperwork end of things; there's always room for improvement, and I imagine that I'll do a better job next time. I sat on a Level 3 interview panel, which is always fascinating; participated in some fun role-playing seminars; and I got to call a high-level draft for the first time, which went smoothly enough that a player asked Head Judge Mike Guptil (during the draft) if they'd switched to a prerecorded draft call.

For the Dreamblade event, my expectations were much less well defined. It's currently looking like I'll have the opportunity later this year to head judge a Dreamblade 10k. I'd played the tiniest bit of the game, and studied enough to pass an online rules test. However, since the game is new, it's hard to consider oneself an 'expert' at the game, if you haven't been working in Wizards of the Coast Research and Development for the last year. My belief going into the tournament was that, at least for the 10k down the road, my Magic experience would be sufficient to get me through most of the mechanics of head judging a competitive gaming tournament, and to the extent that I wasn't totally on top of the rules, I'd be able to lean on my support staff. After the 20k experience, I still think that's true, to a point, but not as much as I used to. More on the specifics of that below.

Further, I didn't know what to expect from the event itself. At Nationals, Dreamblade OP Manager Scott Larabee told me that he expected 250 or so players for the Dreamblade tournament. The morning of the tournament, we were wondering if we'd hit 500. It's not often that you have an opportunity to work at a tournament that's close to double expected attendance. It presents all kinds of challenges.

The two main events had very, very different feels to them. US Nationals is several hundred experienced competitors, playing a game they know very well, at an event overstaffed by judges and WotC folks who have done this kind of thing over and over again. The air is quiet; the staff are attentive, but relaxed. You are in the middle of the most important thing going on, and everyone is clearly taking it very seriously. We had less than two hundred players, and generally a staff of probably about 20.

GenCon, on the other hand, is a huge, many-headed beast, and the Dreamblade event just one of those heads. Not the wildest head, or the biggest... but not that far off, either. We had 436 players and 13 judges. Most of those players probably hadn't played the game before the weekend of GenCon. An awful lot of them might have never played in a gaming tournament with cash on the line. It was like Pro Tour: Prerelease, in a lot of ways.

I think the best way to contrast these events is by listing some of the similarities and differences:

Similarities

• Judge and Staff Experience: We were not mighty in number, especially compared to the horde of players, but we were certainly experienced. The bulk of the staff were Level 3 Magic judges. With only a couple of exceptions, including a member of WotC R&D, and the most experienced judge on the D&D minis circuit, we were at least L2-certified DCI judges.
• Goals: As staff, we're always shooting for the same thing at a gaming event. We want to have an environment which is accessible, fair, and creates the opportunity for players to have fun. We do that in the same way at every event, as well, by being responsive, polite, attentive to potential problems, and doing our best at all times to do things the right way.
• Magic Judging Intuition: Since most of us were Magic judges at the Dreamblade event, we were applying the intuition about how to handle novel situations that we'd learned through years of practice. For the most part, it served us well. We all knew most of the rules of the game, and we were often able to interpolate to the answers we didn't know, often by analogy to Magic.

Differences

• Player Experience Level: There's no question about it, the experience level of the players in the Dreamblade event was lower than any large event I've ever worked, Magic Prereleases included. Players were unfamiliar with the game, the rules, the pieces, registration sheets, tournament etiquette... You name it, there were people asking about it.
• The Floor: A direct corollary of the previous point is that there was a constant, steady, unyielding stream of questions from the players, particularly in the early rounds. This doesn't happen at US Nationals. Heck, it doesn't happen at my prereleases. My normal routine of chatting with judges to collect feedback material and watching games to learn the set and observe gameplay was significantly disrupted by question after question after question. Which is fun, but drives home the point that I can't rest on my Magic knowledge at these events. Even if I am supremely qualified to handle difficult issues like players disagreeing with each other, or disqualifications, that stuff doesn't matter if I can't smoothly and confidently handle the flow of mundane, easy questions.
• Observing Game State: As I walk the floor of a tournament, I do my best to catch issues that players may not be aware of, by observing games in progress and figuring out what's going on. I can't do this effectively at a Dreamblade tournament, yet, since I can't quickly identify pieces or what they do. It's also a huge challenge in watching for or applying Slow Play penalties, since I don't have a solid feel for the flow of the game or the decisionmaking process.
• Penalties: While many of the penalizable infractions and their remedies for Dreamblade will be very similar to Magic, there are some significant differences, and many unsettled issues. Dreamblade is played with single game matches, which effectively rules out a middle tier of penalties. Some Magic penalties (Drawing Extra Cards, for instance) just don't apply at all. Others, like decklist penalties, may seem at first blush to be similar, but on reflection, may not be handled well if we apply our Magic experience. We had a lot of good conversation and thought about this at GenCon, and I trust that eventually we'll have a Penalty Guidelines that are of comparable quality

In the end, my expectations going into US Nationals were about met. Dreamblade was another story. I believe that to be an acceptable head judge for a large Dreamblade event, I'm going to have to be more comfortable and more of an expert than I previously thought. That's okay; the game is fun and it's not going to be a chore keeping up with it. It's also a good lesson to learn. I know that my Magic judging experience is valuable and has much broader applications than just judging Magic. Learning where the general subject matter expertise ends and the specifics begin is very, very useful.

That's it for this week; hope you enjoyed hearing about my GenCon/Nationals experience. See you next month. Have a great time at the Time Spiral prerelease. If you're in Portland, I always like to chat with readers.

Until then, keep shufflin'.