Registration
“So let me get this straight. You’re going to work for free? They are only paying for your tickets? You must be doing something wrong… I should be your manager!”
A few days earlier Elias Chountalas had contacted me, asking for my assistance to the first WMCQ in Athens, on 19th of June. It was unexpected to say the least, since there were a few L2 judges in Athens, but apparently they chose to play instead. The timing of the request also hit to me as a bit desperate call for help, and who can say no to such a call!? I always wanted to judge with Elias and a WMCQ is always an interesting event to judge, so I signed up as soon as my compensation was arranged. About that… it was a tricky situation, since I really wanted to help but I couldn’t be expected to pay for my travel expenses (which were quite a lot, given the time I had to book the tickets). Still, I was willing to judge “for free”, if the above expenses were to be covered. So, I ended up essentially getting paid more than the rest of the judges (70 euro and a booster box), while not getting paid at all (hence my mom’s quote up there)
Seatings – Ares
“You are a judge? Awesome! Can I be a judge too? What must I do?”
So there I was, Sunday morning, at the hotel where the event was to take place. I arrived at around 9:00 with two friends, players from Heraklion, and after some wandering and asking around we managed to find the tournament room. A few minutes after, a couple players arrived, asking for trade binders once they realized we were involved in Magic as well. I still had to find the TO though (whom I had never met before). Luckily enough, the first person that approached after I had that thought, was indeed the person I was looking for! When I introduced myself to the organizer, the player that was looking at my binder at the time realized I was a judge (Yes, Ares, and yes, that’s his quote up there! Good job!). In case you’re wondering, Ares is currently reading the very helpful PDF located in the file section of the Greek Judges Facebook group, concerning those interested in becoming Level 1 judges.
Round 1 – Elias
“I haven’t judged with you before, it’s going to be the coolest WMCQ ever!”
Yes, that’s an awesome way to invite someone to your tournament, although sadly you can use it only once with each judge. And yes, it was indeed the coolest WMCQ I judged so far! What Elias made me realize there was that the mentality of approaching a situation is very important. Having the right attitude is usually all you need to deal with almost anything! For example, I had mentioned to Elias that I had plans to go camping this weekend with my girlfriend, maybe attend the Matala beach festival, which is quite a big deal here in Crete (you should come next year). So naturally when he saw me on Sunday morning, he asked me how my girlfriend reacted to the cancellation of our plans. Although he surely wasn’t expecting the answer “Oh, we broke up”, my attitude towards the situation gave both of us a good laugh.
Round 2 – Panayiotis Zacharias
“Is the air conditioning working? Find out where you turn on the lights from! Did you see the other room we’ve booked? We need more tables!”
Who said the organizer’s job is easy during such an event? It was somewhere between these questions that I realized that Panayiotis (is that his first name? or Zacharias? I never asked) wasn’t going to do anything judge related that day, and it was up to Elias, me, and Fotis Maroulis to deliver a smooth WMCQ. Everything worked perfectly in the end, the attendance was 96 people and we didn’t need the second conference room, since with the addition of a couple last minute tables we increased the capacity of the first room to 98 seats. Talking about proactivity!
Round 3 – Hangarback Walker
“judge!”
Time for some actual magic related content! So my first call occurred as early as in the first round, where the active player had declared blocks with his one Hangarback Walker, activated his ability putting a +1/+1 counter on it, then decided to change his block, which resulted in his opponent calling for me. When I asked him to explain what happened exactly and why he believed he should be allowed to take back his block, he said that his opponent didn’t confirm the resolution of walker’s ability, so he thought he was still in declare blockers step. Naturally then I asked if he was confirming every resolution of the ability so far in the game, which the answer of course was no. It was at that point that I made him realize that he was wrong and accepted my ruling of not backing up without complaint. I personally have this goal in every situation I get called, to be able to convince the offender that he is actually wrong, not just accept the decision because I told him so.
Round 3 – Wrong Pairings!
“Wrong pairings! Wrong pairings!”
If I had to choose a signature phrase for the day, that would be it. To our defense, it only happened once, at the beginning of the second round, and was fixed quite fast. Then why would someone yell it every time we posted pairings for the rest of the day? Well, it was funny, for some (I won’t lie, including me), having people looking for their tables, then pausing for a second after hearing that dreaded phrase, only to realize it was, again, only a joke. We didn’t pay much attention to it; there was no actual disruption to the tournament, although one could easily argue that the judge team’s reputation could be harmed with this joke. What do you think?
Round 4 – Appeal
“You can appeal of course, do you want to? Let me get the Head Judge for you.”
Generally, getting overruled from your Head Judge via an appeal is not the best thing that can happen to you. Unless you actually want him to. Well here’s what happened: I was watching a game in the last round (7th round), where the winner would enter the Top 8. Active player has a Hangarback Walker, a Sylvan Advocate and a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar on board. He casts Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and proceeds to activate the second ability, putting a +1/+1 counter on all his creatures. He puts a counter on Hangarback Walker, and before putting a counter on Sylvan Advocate, he says: “actually, let me do it in the correct order”, and activates Gideon’s ability that makes him a creature (so he’ll get a +1/+1 counter as well). For reasons unknown I held my peace at that moment, probably too absorbed in the game to notice something amiss. When a spectator asked if that was allowed, the inactive player presumed that since I said nothing since I was watching the game, it was. At that moment I realized that I might have made a mistake, but it was not too late! I somehow started explaining the reasoning of my decision (which funnily enough was made without me realizing) that since the player didn’t finish resolving the ability, should be able to take it back. Even while saying the words out loud made me feel uneasy, and the inactive player’s discomfort made it even worse. At that point I had two options; one of them would be to change my ruling in favor to the unhappy inactive player. Even if the ruling would be correct, the reasons behind my change of mind could be misinterpreted, since it would seem that it was actually the inactive player’s influence that changed my mind. I decided to go for option number 2, the appeal! Funny fact: After explaining the situation to Elias, he told me he’s used that trick himself as well.
Prizes
-Did you know Papadakis is here? He came from Crete, to judge.
+I’ve known him from the Grand Prix in London. He’s good.
-Yeah, he’s good.
Mothers are rarely wrong, no need to tell you that. But this was one of the few times that mine was wrong. For me at least, this discussion I heard at some point that day was all the payment I wanted. Thanks for reading!