I am sharing my Magic: the Gathering tournament report on the recent event that I became part of the Judges team and that is the Into the Core by Laruan Atbp. I had yet to do some final edits on its content before officially submitting it to the MTG Judges forums so please bear with me.

Into the Core by Laruan atbp.
Standard Players: 30
Sealed Players: 20
Format: Standard, M14 Sealed
Venue: University Hotel, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Floor Judge
Date: July 27, 2019

Pre-Tournament:

I arrived the day before the event and rented a place that is somewhat near the venue. This is to give me a time allowance in case there would be problems with the flight schedule and also to give me extra time to relax and for my other transactions in the metro.

Come Saturday, I went to the University Hotel at past 8 am and saw that the other judges and our head judge were already there setting up the tables and the corresponding table numbers. The TO and the staff were also there at the product booth and registration table. The event is composed of two parts: Standard tournament starting in the morning and Coreset 2020 Sealed in the afternoon. The Head Judge, Reuben, then gathered the judges for the orientation of tasks. My assignment was the floor judge, to cover and quickly respond to calls, inquiries, and other assistance if needed. I am also handling the End-of-Round procedure, where I will be in charge of the drop sheet and the time extension sheet for the matches that had undergone deck techs.

There was a slight delay at the start of the Standard event as the WER software had problems connecting to the internet. The venue’s wifi got disconnected and so we had to resort to tethered connection. We eventually got it online and held the player meeting and printed the Round 1 pairings.

Tournament Notes:

I took a few notes during the event which I think should be included in my report.

There were a few judge calls with regard to the rules that I have answered. I responded to a rules question on the effect of Feather with God’s Willing being cast at the end step. Another one is on using Blast Zone with one counter on it to destroy Zombie tokens. Unfortunately, these tokens are of zero casting cost so blasting them for one won’t have any effect.

The time extensions were listed in 10 minutes as per the round-by-round deck checks conducted by my fellow L1 judge.

At the end of Round 3, there is a match report error submitted but we were able to correct it after double-checking the match results slip with the players involved.

The transfer from the Standard to the Sealed event with the players dropping from the initial event went smoothly as the players were added to the initial list of registered participants.  The event started with 20 players in which they were seated alphabetically at the higher tables. Instructions from the head judge followed and then the M20 booster packs were distributed for them to sort out and checklist each card in the sheet provided.  We followed the Sydney Sealed procedure on sealed pool registration and swapping.  The deck building then was next and lasted for about 50 minutes. This was simultaneous with the ongoing last rounds of Swiss in the Standard event.

After the Standard Swiss rounds, we rearranged part of the floor tables for the seating of the Top 8 matches. After the Top8 announcement and a few photo-ops, the players then settled to start their quarterfinals matches.

There were a few rules questions during the games on the Sealed event, and it was handled well. One notable instance was one player called the judge after drawing a card that is not supposed to be in his main deck. We discussed with fellow judges the proper infraction to be implemented which is a game loss and told the player to remove the card from the deck.

The Standard Top 8 matches up to the Finals match finished in a considerable amount of time, though the last game was very intense and finished with a top deck card from the winning player.

After the Sealed Swiss rounds, we gathered some of the organizer’s stuff as we prepared to transfer to the Laruan Atbp local game store shop. It was a short journey from the UP venue and we encountered heavy rain and traffic.

There was another slight delay as we had trouble opening the laptop used for the WER program. We had to wait for the Tournament Organizer to unlock it for us. We then have the Top 8 players seated for their draft positions and started the draft in an informal pattern. Meaning we didn’t officially announce the time of the picks but rather have the players sort it out by themselves while also observing and guiding them. We then separated some of them to the other tables for the deck building. After the Top 8 pairings were announced, they gathered back to the tables they used for the draft. The Top 8 matches ran smoothly while we the judges observed each particular game.

Conclusion:

We ended the day with a small talk with the TO on the recap and summary of the tournament and we also provided our feedback and suggestions for improvements if needed for future events.

Props: Big thanks to our Head Judge Reuben and our TO Sir Gary for giving me the chance to judge Competitive REL events like this given that I would need to fly from Iloilo and it was a learning experience to handle two simultaneous events. Also special mention to my fellow Floor judges who did a great job in their respective roles.

That is a wrap for this tournament report. Thanks for reading and until next time.