So the three-judge system is going the way of the Dodo. Hmm, too bad.

I thought that GP Baglione's article on Wednesday was reasonably well thought-out and had to valuable suggestions, except for the fact that I think you miss the point people are making with their"bellyaching" - and I don't necessarily disagree with your characterization.

Whether the judge and Tournament Organizer are the same person or certified or not is irrelevant; the fact that you need nine people to attend, rather than eight is the relevant fact. Some places have trouble scraping up the extra warm body.

Now some may say that the community that can't find nine players doesn't deserve to have sanctioned play. I think that is patently idiotic, especially considering that we are talking about a decision that has a significant impact on the business. An eight-player sanctioned draft is worth about $100 in top line revenue to the host store - in the retail world, that's not a small amount, and then you can add the fact that they have to mail the prize foils back to Wizards. On top of that, the odds of getting eight players out the next week are significantly poorer, as confidence in the likelihood of a tournament actually happening drops.

And for Wizards - who relies on orders from a lot of small-town retail stores - this issue provides a real conundrum. But perhaps that's a bit of a fallacy. Maybe the thinking at Wizards is that those players who lose their local tournaments will turn to Magic Online for their fix. Definitely one of those things that makes you go"Hmmmm." It's certainly something I would consider doing in their shoes; my manufacturing and logistics costs go down, but I still charge the same amount for what has become a service, rather than a product. Not only are the eggs mine, but now I can keep the basket from cutting into my margins.

The only valid reason given for the abolition of the three-judge system was player frustration with discounted tournaments. Yes, that is annoying, but it's not the end of the world. Once you figure out how to run these events, they add a lot of value to the playing community - unless, of course, you'd really rather interact with a computer than a person.

Magic Online may be great for pros who want to get a lot of practice in before a big event, but to me the game is only partially about"the game." It's also about grabbing a slice and a pop and catching up with what's going on with in the lives of my friends. I don't track Magic by wins and losses (it would be way too depressing to do that); I track it by the friends I've been fortunate enough to make in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Vermont, Boston, France and of course here at home in Ottawa. For this reason, I have no interest in Magic Online at all. I have better things to do with my time and money.

As far as I'm concerned, the three-judge system has been a part of those friendships, at least locally, and I'll be sorry to see it go.

Alex Anderson
ajanderson@sympatico.ca