Over the weekend, I head judged a Preliminary PTQ for one of the stores here in New York, Montasy Comics.

In addition to enjoying judging, I also really like actually playing Magic. Montasy is conveniently located in midtown Manhattan, fairly close to where I work. Depending on my schedule, I usually have time to play in at least one Regular REL event at Montasy every week, sometimes two. (If you want to get updates about when I’m playing in events or what I think about the various formats, you should follow me on Facebook!)

For me, this is a big change from when I was going to school in New Haven, which (oddly enough) doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar Magic shop. Although I did organize a weekly Magic get-together through Yale’s gaming club, we just met in a classroom to draft or play EDH, which has a very different feel from a permanent, physical location like a game store. It was also challenging to hold Constructed events, since few people were interested in playing Standard or investing in a non-rotating format like Modern.

One of the big advantages of being a regular at Montasy is that I see the owner, Jimmy, fairly frequently. The first time I went to an event there, I made sure to chat with Jimmy to let him know that, since I was going to be in New York for a while, I’d be happy to help out with any of their upcoming events. So, a few weeks ago, he formally asked me if I’d be interested in Head Judging Montasy’s upcoming PPTQ, which would be held in their store. After confirming a few details like the maximum attendance and whether there would be another floor judge, I happily agreed. It’s useful to have these discussions with your TO before the event begins, to ensure you’re on the same page — or, if you discover that something is lacking, give you an opportunity to shift expectations when there’s still plenty of time to make changes.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to have any of these dreaded difficult conversations with Montasy. Montasy has run plenty of Competitive REL events in their store, so I knew ahead of time that they’re very organized, have great store staff, and own all of the basic items you need to run a tournament: computer, printer, tape, table numbers, and so on.

As a consequence, my discussion with Jimmy mainly focused on staffing issues. Specifically, I asked whether the store’s main L1 judge would be floor judging with me, if the store staff would be taking care of scorekeeping, and if any of the store staff would be able to help with deck checks if needed. The answers to these questions turned out to be yes, yes, and yes, all of which made my life much easier.

The tournament itself was also very easy, mostly by virtue of only drawing 20 players (although we had space and were prepared for up to 64). Although nothing particularly crazy happened, it was still a productive event. In fact, one of the most interesting decisions I made actually happened before the event even started.

The event was scheduled to start at 10am, but around 9:45am, Jimmy asked me if it would be OK to delay the start of the event by a few minutes. We had around 15 players at that point, and some of the people who had preregistered hadn’t shown up yet. I explained to Jimmy that delaying the start of the event was his prerogative as the tournament organizer, but I added that the players would probably be OK with waiting 5-10 minutes.

At about 9:55am, Jimmy got the players’ attention and announced his decision to delay the start of the event to allow the pre-registered players time to arrive. No one seemed to mind, and sure enough, a few folks straggled in shortly after 10. Ultimately, I started the event proper at about 10:10.

Although very simple, I like this story because it neatly highlights the distinction between elements of the event are under the TO’s control and those that are the responsibility of judges.

As a judge, you’ll find that TO’s often ask you questions for which the judge program and Wizards have no specific policies, like “can we delay the start of the event?” or “what do you think about this prize structure?” For these sorts of questions, my role as a judge is threefold: clarifying that these decisions are ultimately up to the TO, serving as an advocate for the players, and informing the TO of any applicable best practices.

To ensure that my language is clear, let me take a minute to define the terms I’m using. “Best practices” are distinct from “policies” in that policies are mandatory requirements you have to follow, whereas best practices represent the commonly agreed-upon ideal way to do something. For example, when it comes to prize structure, judges have to enforce specific policies about bribery, collusion, and splits. However, there are no specific policies that actually dictate how big the prize pool should be, or which records should result in which prize. Nonetheless, a common best practice is to ensure that the prizes for an X-0-1 record are the average of the prizes for an X-0 and an X-1 record, which avoids any incentive to collude.

When Jimmy asked me if it was OK to delay the start of the event, it was clear to me that there were no policies that forbade doing so, only best practices and common sense. However, this fact was probably less clear to Jimmy; after all, one of the reasons tournament organizers hire judges is so that their events comply with all the relevant requirements. I also appreciated that Jimmy obviously valued my advice and input, rather than making decisions unilaterally. Even though I personally dislike deviating from announced start times, I felt that the benefit of accommodating the handful of late players far outweighed the minor inconvenience to the players who were on time.

As I said, the tournament went quite smoothly. My floor judge, Mani Cavalieri, did a great job watching matches, swooping for deck checks, and chatting with players about various rulings. The event also went quickly; the finals, a nail-biter between Abzan Aggro and U/W Heroic, finished at 5:30pm. Afterwards, Mani and I joined many of the other New York-area judges at a Super Bowl party hosted by Chase Culpon, because obviously the best way of unwinding after a day of judging Magic is to play Commander with your friends. The party was an absolute blast, and I’m super grateful to Chase for organizing it!

I hope you enjoyed this big-picture perspective of how judges can help TO’s run better events. What are your thoughts on the distinction between “best practices” and “policies”? Are there any best practices that you believe should be more widespread? Let us know in the comments!