So, you got to HJ your first event with multiple judges. Congratulations! That’s quite a feather in the cap.

You got your briefing out before the event, took a couple appeals, and guided the event through the Swiss rounds. You even remembered to take some notes so you’re ready to write a review or two for your fellow judges. Great!

There’s only one thing left: getting the Top8 started.

This is an important part of running a larger event. Smoothly transitioning from the Swiss rounds to the Quarterfinals will make it look easy, but there’s a lot of ways to let something slip through the cracks. This is a spot to show the TO and the players that you’re an expert, a real professional…or not.

Before The Rain

There’s a great line in the deeply underrated movie “Spy Game” where Robert Redford, an aging spy on his last day with some alphabet agency or another, is summoned for a little chat with his bosses. Concerned, he gets some files out, then hands them to his secretary to hide, so they won’t be found if some goons come search his office.
“Are we feeling a little paranoid on our last day?” asks the secretary, Gladys.
“When did Noah build the ark, Gladys?” Redford asks rhetorically. “Before the rain. Before the rain.”

That’s the time to make your preparations – before they’re required. If you don’t have a plan and think about these things in advance, any small bump in the road becomes a real issue. If you have some sort of issue pop up – you can’t find the TO to ask a necessary question, the promos aren’t exactly where they were supposed to be, or whatever else – if it’s two rounds before the end of the Swiss, then its no big deal if it takes an extra ten minutes. If you aren’t thinking about these things until the moment they’re required, that same ten minutes is now delaying your players.

So remember, the time to think about all these things is: “Before the rain.”

Setting Up

When you get to the cut, players are going to need somewhere to play. If the event is an RCQ at the local game store, that might not need anything special. But when you’re running something a little larger, perhaps at a Con, there might be more to coordinate.

Where are the players going to play? Oftentimes, by the time you get to the Top8, things at a Con are starting to wrap up and some teardown is starting to happen. You might want to move the Quarterfinals of your event to another location in the hall so the players aren’t distracted by banging tables and beeping forklifts. If you’re near the end of the judges’ shifts, you may also want to move locations so that you can release the rest of your troops, but still be near another judge or two in case you need a sanity check, bathroom break, etc.

How are the players going to be seated? If the event has coverage, those folks get first dibs on whichever matches they want. After they’re satisfied, you have to get the remaining players seated correctly. This means you’re going to need a bracket!

This is a standard bracket, and will get you through all your constructed event Top8 needs. (For limited, seat the players randomly for the draft, then they play the person 4 seats away – higher seed has choice of play/draw but it doesn’t affect pairings)

It’s a good idea to get a printout or picture or something of your standings as the Swiss ends. Some tournament software leaves a little to be desired and will update the standings as the Top8 goes. Depending on what screen you’re looking at and which software and how close the rankings were, it is possible that two Quarterfinals winners will trade rankings as they move to the Top4, which shouldn’t happen. For determining play/draw and pairings, standings are locked in at the end of the Swiss, and hold true until the tournament is over.

Another consideration here – try to give the players some elbow room, if possible. Seating the players in every other chair instead of right next to each other will help make the Top8 feel more prestigious to the players and any spectators, give you a seat to sit in while watching Magic, and generally make the players more comfortable.

Lastly, you should give some thought to whether you’ll begin the semifinals as soon as one side of the bracket is ready, or wait until all the top4 is ready to go together.

Prizes

One of the most important things to get a handle on, because you’re going to have to know and the players will ask about, is prizing. There’s more to this than just knowing “5th-8th get $50, 3rd-4th get $100,” and so on.

Some questions to consider:
– Are there prizes for 9th place and lower?
– Who is going to be handling prizing players out?
– Is there anything the players need to do to collect their prizes?
– Does the tournament organizer need anything from the players, like tax forms?
– Are there any non-physical prizes to give out, like leaderboard points or qualifications?

Some events are going to have prizes only for the Top8 and be pretty easy to handle alone, but others are going to need more coordination. Sometimes you send players 9-64 over to the prize wall to get their winnings and you should have a couple announcements about that on the microphone (but only after you’ve given the prize wall a printout of the standings). Sometimes players will get paid in cash, by the TO, at 8pm, and other times they will get an email, from WotC, in two weeks. It’s good to stay ahead of the questions by having a full picture of how prizing is going to work by the time the Swiss rounds are wrapping up so you can answer players’ questions.

Prize Splits

If there are prizes, it’s a safe bet players will ask about splitting them. It’s one of the few sure things in life, right up there with death, taxes, and Death and Taxes*.

What’s legal, what isn’t, and why could be a full post by itself, so for now I’ll just link to the MTR and encourage you to read section 5. Legality aside, there are still several things to get right when talking to the Top8.

It is best if the decision to split or not is a silent, anonymous process. We don’t want six players to say out loud they want to split, then all turn expectantly toward the last two, who were really hoping to play it out. It’s best to steer away from that kind of social pressure. Instead, many TOs will have prepared forms that spell out the relevant numbers, then have a large YES and NO, and players can just circle their choice and hand the paper back to you facedown. If the TO doesn’t have something like that prepared, you can do something similar by getting eight basic lands of one type, and eight of another, and instructing the players to give you a particular basic if they would like to split and the other if they want to duke it out.

Another consideration with Top8 splits is going to be if any Magic is still going to happen. Sometimes the TO provides a trophy or other prizes, if the players play it out for the cameras. It might be that the players can change around some of the prizes, but the trophy/qualification/etc is still left on the table to play for. If the split is ending the tournament, it’s possible the coverage folks still need a picture of the “winner.” Speaking of coverage…

Coverage

If the event has coverage, there may be some things to coordinate. The coverage squad might need the players to fill out some info forms or take pictures before play can begin. If there is video coverage, that will dictate where you set up the rest of your Top8 matches.

Knowing what coverage needs can influence some other decisions. For example, if the coverage team will need a bunch of pictures and info from the players and they’ll be out of your hair for a bit, you can use that time to have a debrief with your floor judges. That can be a good time to discuss interesting calls of the day and hand out a recognition or two. If that natural break isn’t going to be built into the day then it may make more sense to give those kinds of kudos during the event.

Personally, I’m a fan of giving something physical with a recognition for great work at the end of the day, but that’s not everyone’s bailiwick.

None of this is particularly difficult to get set up, but it does require a bit of preparation. If you find yourself getting flustered as the players pepper you with questions you can’t answer, it’s a good sign the rain was already falling when you started building your boat.

Coordinating things with the coverage team, tournament organizer, and any other relevant parties to make sure the cut to Top8 happens smoothly is one of the best ways to make a good impression when head judging. Give this stuff a bit of thought before the end of the Swiss rounds so you’re prepared, and the TO and players alike will see you as a real professional.

Good luck, and happy Top8ing!

*The deck name Death and Taxes goes back to the ’90s, when the common joke was that only three things were sure in life – death, taxes, and someone would show up to any given tournament playing a bunch of little white creatures.