B Tucker
Greetings everyone. For those of you how do not know me, I am a Level 1
DCI Judge and a Level 3 E-League Judge. I live and am starting to
participate in judging tournaments in the Denver and hope to start going
out of state for tournaments some day. I am 14 years old and have enjoyed
Magic off and on for the past five or six years. Now to my article...
Time. The terms "Time is up", "Round is over", or "Finish active player's
turn and please take an additional five turns, then report" can be a Magic
player's best friend or their demise. Such simple words can stir such
heated reactions and emotions.
We all have been in the situation where time has been called and we needed
just that sixth turn to kill your opponent, whether it be for Round 1 of
the finals of a Pro Tour. Trust me, I have as well. But this is not why
I am writing this article.
I am writing this article is desperate attempts to get judges of all
natures, Level 2 and Level 4, to please keep a very good track of time. I
have had some recent experiences recently to these player misforutunes,
and I now give you approximate quotes from the Denver Prophecy Prerelease:
"Time is up! Active player finish turn and take an additional five
turns!" Now, I was keeping track of time on my watch with a 50:00 timer
and realized it still read 5:00. Uh-oh. Lo and behold, and announcement
is made thirty seconds later:
"Sorry about that, 10 minutes are left in the round!" Watch now reads
4:30. Uh-oh^2. This did not bother me very gravely, as I was the new
judge on site, the person head judging was greater than a Level 1, and I
was still under a stupor from nine, yes nine, hours of driving training,
running my own draft. I then talked to a teenager in the draft I was
running and heard something that made me quite angry.
"Yeah, I went 2-1-2 today. I would've been 4-1 if I just had an extra
turn to kill them!"
Since I wasn't there for previous rounds, I cannot comment on if this, and
many other player's results, were affected by time not being called
correctly or not. But in an effort to stop potential problems like this
happening in the future, keep this in mind.
DCIr 1.5 has been released and it has a great timer feature in it, which
is accurate to my knowledge. Please use this or an egg timer (or
something or the same nature), not just looking at a clock, writing down
the time, and saying go.
Quoting from a movie, Ferris Buller's Day Off: "Life moves pretty fast. If
you don't stop to look around once in a while, you'll miss it." Please,
take your time, but not too much of it. Be careful when dealing with
issues of time, as they are very sensitive and can really make someone's
day very unpleasant, possibly even yours. I'm glad I finally got this
article written, and please take my words into consideration. Thank you,
and have a great day.
--
B Tucker
SleipOdin
"Je suis un anana..."
Level III E-League Judge
Level I DCI Judge
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