 |
 |
||||
| MAGICTHEGATHERING.COM | ARTICLES | TOURNAMENTS | MAGIC ONLINE | GATHERER |
Bill Guerin Site - Crystal Inn, Midvale The day started with me hopping on the bus and TRAX (Salt Lake's new light rail system) to get to the venue at 7:50am, and find I am the first one there. Soon after, Rob rolls in and after fixing his printer, we register people. When we get to 10:30am, we have 50 people registered, and 6 come in late and are allowed to register. We started at 10:30 because there were people that went to our former event site which we are no longer using. Deck registration lasts about 45 minutes to allow those who came in late to register the decks they received. Meanwhile, we check about 15 of the decks, and about 8 of them had errors, which we corrected. We then sit down and Karl B. gives his spiel about how the only way you can get DQ'd for an illegal deck is to not write down 40 cards in the used column (more on this later). We then begin deck building, and one person who comes in at this time is allowed in, and I register his deck. Fastest I've ever registered a deck too - 8 1/2 minutes with no errors (which is also amazing for me - when I play, I usually receive a penalty for misrecording). I then get to hand out land, and 1 person forgets to put his name on his list, which we don't catch and give him a warning for in the first round. This process goes relatively smoothly, and we get to the first round. The first round starts, and my task for this round is to check the deck lists for decks with less than 40 cards and to alphabetize the lists. I start through the lists and about a third of the way through, I find a 39 card deck. I hand it to Karl P., then to Karl B., who both verify that there are only 39 cards listed. We cringe at the name, as it is one of the more outspoken players, and Karl B. goes to stop their game and DQ the player. The player is a little vocal about it, but takes it better than we thought he would. I then continue looking through the lists, and find 2 more that have less than 40 cards (one with 39, one with 38). I hand them as I find them to Rob, then Karl B., who both verify my counts. These players have already finished their rounds and gone to lunch, however, so we can't tell them right away. [When I got to the third one, as I counted a sub-40 card deck, I say to Rob, "Is this another one, or am I just running on too little sleep?" He says that it could be another one, which it was. I am amazed that we have 3 people that we have to DQ, as it is relatively easy to write 40 cards down.] After people find out that there were 3 people DQ'd, they ask me if their list was OK. I say that it was, as I had finished the lists by then. The players then have 45 minutes for lunch (as no food is allowed in the room), and we get to round 2. Nothing of significance happens from rounds 2-4, and we get to the situation in round 5 where 4 people double-ID into the top 8. At this point (round 5), I take these people into the back of the room for their final deck check, which they all pass. Rounds 5 and 6 also run smoothly, and we get to the draft after a 40 minute dinner break. Chris gets to run the draft, which he does amazingly smoothly, and I remind a few people to put their cards in 1 pile. During the third pack, I have to stop a pair of people from fooling around. They were spreading their cards haphazardly around, instead of counting them into one neat stack. I also have to kick a spectator from the table for talking after repeated warnings [this person happens to be the vocal player that we DQ'd in round 1], and he leaves. We then spread the players out to build and record their decks, and remind the spectators not to talk to them, and this goes smoothly. The 4 of us judges who weren't doing anything (Karl P. was running side drafts at this point) get to each watch a match, and I pick the one between the 2 Johns - John G. (who I will call "Professor" at this point - he is a professor at BYU, where I attend) and John T. [I also take out the duel tracking form that I found in the CD with dcir 1.41 - in the handbook, page 102 in the acrobat version, if you want to look at it. I wanted to see how it would work.] John (T.) wins the roll, and Professor takes a mulligan while John is still deciding. I caution Professor that he has to wait until John has resolved all mulligans before taking his. John takes one, and both players stop there. The game runs smoothly for a while, and John gets a Mercadian Atlas down. A couple of turns later, John says "Go" and then attempts to draw from the Atlas. Professor objects, and I don't allow John to draw from the Atlas. John asks why, and I tell him that saying "go" is implicit to yielding priority all the way to the end of the turn, which takes him through his end step without drawing for the Atlas (which is a may). He asks how he could do it correctly, and I suggest "I yield priority through the second main phase." After a while, I find him just saying, while pointing to the Atlas, "Draw from the Atlas," which I allow. John wins 2-0, and eventually wins the tournament. He still had problems with the Atlas in the finals, along with a Kyren Sniper. One key play during the finals though had John casting a Volcanic Wind, and targeting his opponent's creatures with 1 more damage than the toughness that was printed on the card. I am puzzled by this, and a spectator says "I owe you a foil common." I then remember the Spidersilk Armor that the opponent had down. All in all, it was a good tournament. I get out of the site about 1:30am, and head home. What went well - What I could change - Nothing for this tournament. I thought everything went quite well. See you at the Nemesis Pre-Release!! Bill Guerin | |
|
WHAT'S NEW | WHERE TO BUY | HELP |
 |
© 1995-2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
