Advancing to Level 2

I've talked about it to people that I know quite well since Standard Champs in 2005; it'd been a year since L1 certification, and I had some good reasons to do it. I toyed around with the idea all the way until GP Madison (April 2006), when I completely dropped the idea. Now, with these new storefronts and the amount of questions and requests I've been getting relating to me being knowledgeable in DCI stuff, I've looking at L2 again. Maybe I should get more specific on this history.

Gen Con 2004 was where this started, and I know this because there was a disputed problem that day. It didn't have to do with that event (I've never gone to a major con), but rather the FNM before, as this was my first sanctioned event that I'd ever judged. Now, this was a regular FNM, but it took forever due to a problem with registering that's roots are disputed depending on who you ask. My memory of it has been and is now that I could never find the Local Player Database, and that the delay in that single problem caused all the problems. The TO for the event (who I couldn't talk to at the time and was at Gen Con) feels it was my problem for being too confident in the use of the software. Either way, this was my first, and worst-judged tournament.

After that event, I judged almost every week at the old Misty Mountain, both the last sanctioned event and first sanctioned event before and after their big move, respectively. I also judged at the CHK (though the cases the product came in said CoK) prerelease, which was quite fun. I then got the OK to take the L1 test at the upcoming Champs. I made the mistake to take that test after working at the bowling alley I worked at at that time. After being busy and on my feet for 9 hours, I took the L1 test, which itself took around 2 hours. Not the best time, and I did mess up on random things. I did squeak by, though, and all that changed in my judging is that I had this cool-looking card that said I was a judge.

Around Standard Champs 2005, I began feeling that I should start working on L2 for judging. Honestly, the only reason that I cared about was that I wouldn't have to play in tournaments anymore; my one complaint with judging is that it hurts my work for Magic Player Rewards; being a promo collector, being a L2 would mean that I'd get one of each token in each mailing, which would eliminate my need to play in occasional tournaments, instead of judging. This idea continued to flow in my mind until GP Madison, in March 2006 (I know I said April earlier). Then, I initially lost all desire for L2. This, being my first experience in a major event in any capacity, I saw just how far I needed to be within myself before going further. Note that this doesn't mean that a single or noticeable thing shot my ideas, but more of a greater view of the whole of the system changed that.

When this happened, though, I'd slowed down in tournaments that I'd been judging in, down almost exclusively to prereleases and Champs tournaments: the only two events that I'd really be willing to travel to go to. During this time, though, I'd started to look into and begin to run local events for a campus group which I joined shortly after coming here for school. This gave me a very different view of the DCI, and slowly instilled on me the different side that I was to what I should think of when I want to go to L2. The thing was, I began the first two years of competitive play within a large organization of judging groups, where I now feel that I received one aspect of what I should know when thinking about being a judge, or more globally, a representative of the DCI. I learned this when I started running my own tournaments, realizing the intricacies of the tournament process and knowing that there are people to turn to me, but no one (technically) for me to turn to. This has helped me immeasurably, especially when it comes to going back to Legion Events (the upper midwest group I'm also a part of) and being a normal judge again; I can get into an event now and understand how most of the tournament is working. It allows me to jump in on more roles, as well as be able to be more confident in my own answers. It also showed me a different way to approach the idea of advancement in judging, as it's now completely different for me.

Before: I felt that leveling up was more of an as-needed action for the area that I was at, in that the main thing that it would give me is the ability to run a larger, higher-setup tournament in terms of GPT-level.

After: I now feel that I fit a much more general idea of an L2, in that I bolster the Magic community in more ways than a single store; I work with multiple outlets of tournaments, both locally (one storefront currently, possibly two soon) and regionally (legion events). I provide a service to many people in the area to allow them to extend their Magic experience, both on the end of running and keeping an eye on tournaments and in the idea that they have someone to just come around and answer questions on subjects that they want to know more about.

Thus, at Champs this past weekend, I did some talking with the L3 there at the time (Ingrid Lind-Jahn <- She bakes cookies for us :) ) and it sounds like I've gotten the ball running on this, finally. Before this, the only discussion I had about advancing was a brief conversation after the Saturday of GP Madison with the other L3 in the area, Chris Richter. (who doesn't bake cookies, but helped me get up to L1) Either way that I go about getting up to L2, I think it'd be best for Eau Claire. Besides, it'd give me those tokens!


...now you know why I didn't make that post a while back twice as long talking about this along with my rant on DCIR v3 (shorthand for DCI Reporter Version 3)...

Tournament #2: My second tournament attempt with High Tide and a lesson to many on store dynamics...

Today was a pretty normal night for me, when it comes to a tournament. When it came to the tournament itself, the only problem came from the fact that the store owner wanted to run the event, so I was fine with showing him how to use the program. The tournament went pretty simply - 9 people, so 4 rounds of swiss to a t4 cut; my only complaint is that that thing lasted just over two hours. Round 1 was a bye, and round 2 I was paired against a friend with Affinity, which I already feel I don't like the matchup, and lose quite simply in two; one game I stalled him all the way to a turn-8 kill on his end, and I never drew anything to help my end. Round 3 was against Salvagers combo, which is another deck I don't like playing against; this one more, though, because this one deck can perfect-shoot a turn-2 kill that I barely stand a chance to combat. I lose in 3, first two games were fast and back-and-forth, the third game I lose to the turn one Therapy of the one FoW in hand (didn't counter it, as it wasn't worth it) and a turn 2 full-kill. Round three I got a scrub match and won out into a 2-2 end result, sneak into the t4 through tiebreakers. The top 4 contains the same 4 people that drove here from campus, so we decide that we should try to get a prize split out of it; first place was supposed to be an UNL Bayou, but none of us had much interest in that, so we ended up splitting free entry into another event and a pack. (...now I'm up to 38...)

Two of the other three people that I was talking with when it came to the split were conscientious of the amount of money that seemed to be getting thrown by the wayside in the differences of value of entry fees and prize support. It ended up being just under an 80% prize return, which was perfectly fine with me, especially given the low turnout. For those of you that think that's pretty bad, also take into account that these were Legacy players. Usually, you get a tournament of 20+ people and play for something bordering the P9 cards. Here, though, we were brought down to the normal structures, which the prize structure fit quite well.

... I really should go off on one of my rants that I have on the backburners...

A new store, some easy events, but a first experience at v3.

There are way to many things I'd want to talk about when it comes to Magic, but I'll just begin right now with the simple things in tonight and the first tournament I had at this new store.

This place was started not that long ago by a guy named Phil - he doesn't really care about Magic, but he seems to have a good understanding of the amount of income the single game can contribute to his total survival of the store. I fully understand this as well, coming from a small store (Dragon's Lair Games in Madison, WI) at one point, and knowing just what it takes for a smaller store to survive. Thankfully for this place, at every occasion that I've been there, there's always been reports of product been clean-out, while there is a known amount there earlier in the day; in other words, they're going through product much faster than they can get it in. This is so much that I was thinking of not bothering bringing my tradable packs (right now it's just the box I got from Champs), but I feel that they should be there in the situation that the store doesn't have a sufficient supply of boosters. (yes, they're doing _that_ well)

So, I get there and start working as if it was a normal tournament; after talking with Phil (the store owner) on and off for a bit, I pretty much get the OK to run the tournament as I feel it should be run. To me, that means that since this is a new store, the people that came out should really decide how they want their tournaments to be run. After some finagling (Firefox 2's spell checker FTW), we settle in for a 13-person Standard tournament having 4 rounds of Swiss, followed by single-elims on the top 4. (I'd personally rather do T8 at 13, but T4 works fine as well). Rounds go by without a hitch, and my only problems the whole night come with a single thing: I'd never run a complete tournament using only DCI Reporter version 3...

For those of you who don't know the story of DCI Reporter, here's the basics. DCI Reporter is the software coordinators use to run all DCI tournaments, from those little 8-man things to Worlds. Version 2 of the software had been out for several years (I think Win 98 was the up-to-date version of Windows when this came out...) and was sorely in need of a makeover. Now, the only problem I saw with the program was that it really didn't like doing draft pods in a decent way; you take a group of 21 people, and it splits them into pods of 10 and 11, instead of the MUCH better 8-7-6. Version 3 didn't fix this, so there's my first peeve. My second MAJOR peeve comes from V3's interface. As a person who is learning to be a programmer, I see so much wrong in a completely changed back-end (the code itself for non-geeks) that feels completely designed around the front-end (the interface) so that you can do the same motions in both v2 and v3 and get the same end result. I feel that so much could have been done to make the interface better, but they instead just hotwired a .NET framework-based program (another peeve) onto this program which really wasn't that bad before.

Egh, enough rambling and ranting about my dislike for that thing, and that doesn't even get into... I'll talk about Tournament Board later. My main problem when using the program today was that two people didn't have their DCI numbers. So, I try to figure out how they integrated the pin database (where all known DCI numbers are stored) into v3. (it was a separate program in v2) I still don't know how to do it, as I took out my laptop, loaded the database program from v2, and found the numbers from there. The other problem, though much simpler, came from the cut to top 4; this is the ONE THING different in the function of this tournament from v2 for me, and it bothered me that this was the one thing that was different. So, after 10 minutes of figuring out what the program actually does, I have the top 4 pairings in the program right, 10 minutes after I already know who should be playing who and get them started.

I don't think there was much of a problem with anything this tournament, though. I should've given out a warning on a situation, but didn't. (interesting, Firefox's spell checker has could've and would've in it's dictionary, but not should've...) I was able to get a feel for this place, which I got the feel that until Phil gets setup with the DCI and WotC to run tournaments and gain Premier Event store status, that I'll be cranking out the tournaments for him. I need to get him able to be running tournaments, not so much so that I can play, but so that I don't have to be there all the time. Honestly, it sounds like there is another place looking for a organizer and judge, so I may in high demand.

Got a pack for working, which I really didn't care about. I mean, I have 37 now, which I'll probably use zero of them until I get back to Madison, which by then Planar Chaos will begin to be spoiled.

-------------------------

Things to talk about later...

::: Advancing to Level 2

::: Notes on helping at a 226-person event with only 5 other judges.

::: Random other things. It's two in the morning, and I'm just ranting now. What am I doing when I'm sick?

...and so it begins

Sometimes you just feel like you should vent. I don't have anything to vent about, but I thought of something today. I thought that I really do something that's quite unusual for a college student; I am more-or-less the link in a small area of Wisconsin that connects the world of Magic players in the city to the DCI in Renton, WA. I've judged in several dozen tournaments, ranging from local store events, FNMs, GPTs, Champs (all three), PTQs, and the side events of a Grand Prix. I've also run almost a dozen local events, handling as few things as just the sanctioning to sanctioning, physical running of the tournament, and complete prize support. (both announced and unnanounced) I thought today that there would be several things that I could talk about when it comes to this, which may show people just what I do, think, and just so that I can actually vent about some of the things that I come across.