Saturday, June 20, 2015

Setting Goals and Situations - From the floor of SCG Columbus Modern Open

SCG Columbus (Modern Open, Standard and Legacy IQ)

Cast:
    The Head Judges
Modern Open Head Judge - Federico Donner - L3 - Montevideo, Uruguay
Standard Premier IQ Head Judge - Jeremy Behunin - L3 - Ogden, UT
Legacy Premier IQ Head Judge - Jon Goud - L2 - Dartmouth, Canada

    My Team Leads
Floor Team Lead - Michael McCliment – L2 – Montreal, Canada
Shared Deck Check Lead – Abraham Corson – L3 – Alexandria, Virginia

    Other Awesome judges I got into really good conversations with.
Karl Weisling – L2 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
David Hanson – L1 – Sparta, Wisconsin

    Expectations

    This particular event marked a few firsts for myself, and as a result I tried to anticipate some of the differences I might encounter. First, this marks the first time I have traveled to an event that was more than simply Magic, related. This particular weekend held host to the Origins Game Fair. Probably among the top gaming shows focused on board and card games. I anticipated that being part of such a larger event would be slightly awesome, as well as significantly larger than some prior Opens I've been to.

    It also feels somewhat odd to admit that this was my first multi-day event. My expectations for this piece of the puzzle was somewhat more negative. I expected to be much more tired, my feet to hurt more, and my performance as a whole to suffer over the weekend. Fortunately, while I must admit that this was at least partially true, I found myself coping much better than I thought I would. Through personal pacing and good management of judges from team leads and SCG staff, I had a very good experience over the weekend, and would do it again without any worries.

    Also of note, this was also the first time I have worked an SCG Invitational weekend. Fortunately (or not) the events were well segregated (on opposite ends of the hall), and I did not interact with any of the invitational related festivities.

    Setting Goals

    Early in the day Michael challenged myself, as well as others on our team to come up with a specific aspect of judging, and what we could do (specifically) to improve/ work on said aspect. It was a great approach that allowed me to focus my efforts, and provide a framework through which I can reflect and appraise my own work.

    So the aspect of judging that I tagged for myself this weekend was communication with players, specifically the customer service angle. The items on my agenda were to ask good questions to identify the situation or problem at hand; and also to provide a good closure to any call.

    Situations

    The Player who calls me to the table informs me that they just played a land, but have not yet drawn a card. My gut reaction is call this out of order sequencing. This is probably due to my exposure to a lot of casual play where the exact sequence of untap-upkeep-draw, play a land is often done out of order. Also at REG REL we don't impart any penalties for such minor errors. Here at competitive REL this exact situation is a game rules violation. Simply because there are game rules about the sequencing of the phases of the turn. While I ended up going with that initial impression, this is one situation that I look back on and wonder if I didn't make a mistake, or simply could have done better.

    The Player who calls me to the table has just cast an Ornithopter, and his opponent has attempted to Lightning Bolt it. The problem is the active player has priority after any spell or ability resolves, and in this case wants to do something with it (cast another spell – to turn on Metalcraft for Mox Opal). Depending on what's been going on previously with these two and the details this can be either a GPE-GRV, or simply a communication problem (Not a TE-CPV). I opt for the former.

    The most frequently asked rules question during the modern event involves the interaction between Spellskite and Kolaghan's Command. Spellskite's ability only changes a single target of a spell with multiple targets. Each mode of Kolaghan's Command requires the controller to choose a target, but because the word 'target' is used in each mode the same object can be legally chosen for multiple modes as long as it is legal for both. Thus if A uses Kolaghan's Command to 'destroy target artifact' choosing N's mox opal, and deal 2 damage to N's Ornithopter that is legal. It is also legal for N to activate Spellskite once to change one of those modes to target Spellskite, and even activate it again to change the target of the remaining mode to Spellskite.

    The most curious rules question I fielded on the weekend came out of the 2HG sealed deck on Saturday. This interaction has nothing to do with the fact that a 2HG game was being played. So one player (N) has a face-up Jeskai infiltrator on the battlefield which reads in part 'When Jeskai Infiltrator deals combat damage to a player, exile it and the top card of your library in a face-down pile, shuffle that pile, then manifest those cards.' An opponent (A) asks if he casts Mob Rule choosing 'Gain control of all creatures with power 3 or less until end of turn. Untap those creatures. They gain haste until end of turn.' and manages to trigger the infiltrator, what will happen?

    It's actually a rather easy ruling. As the player who now controls the Infiltrator, (A) would also control the trigger, and the be the player to manifest cards. As added bonus, because the trigger exiles the Infiltrator and brings it back to the battlefield, it is no longer the same object, and (A) essentially gets to keep the Infiltrator until it dies. What I found most peculiar about this scenario is that when we exile (N)'s infiltrator and the top card of (A)'s library and shuffle them, we end up with a game state where everyone knows where the Infiltrator is because (A) and (N)'s sleeves differ. A slightly awkward result of the way the card is designed and the fact that people tend to play with sleeves.

    Observations and Reflections

    Sometimes asking good questions involves repeating back to the player what they have just told you (to the best of your understanding). This can be especially helpful if some of the original situation was given to you out of sequence. Also repeating questions to both players can give you a better idea of their mutual game state.

    Closure is not a hard thing. Certainly it seems easier than investigating a judge call. I found a simple phrase such as “You guys are good to go.” or simply thanking the players for calling a judge before leaving the table is adequate enough. Yet it remains something that I don't see a lot of other judges doing.

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