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Close Calls,
Tournament Plans, and Double Bad Play!
As much as we hate it,
in any competitive environment ethics seem to sneak
their way in. I guess that can be said about most
anything. This past weekend we had two minor
problems in our Junior Super Series event that
caused me to double check myself on a moral level.
To protect the innocent,
I won't use any names of the players involved in
either scenario.
In scenario one, player
A had an outburst. It was a foul language issue.
More specifically, Payer A dropped the "f-bomb."
Player A was apparently playing a match with Payer B
who is a friend. Player B was not offended.
However, it was loud enough that other parents and
players heard it. Now, if this were an adult, I
could have given Player A a simple reprimand
accompanied by a warning. However, after discussing
it with two other judges, it was greed upon, based
on the situation, that the outburst deserved a game
loss for usportsmanlike conduct-major. This was due
to the profanity, the disruption of the tournament,
and the fact that the player was only 12 years or
so.
Now, that being said,
age isn't really covered in the rulebook and in many
cases probably shouldn't be taken into account.
Player A did end up making the Top 8, so no major
harm was done. But, in this scenario, it was a
child that shouldn't using profanity anyway giving
and obvious, loud outburst of the f-bomb.
Scenario two is a bit
different. This situation involves players Alpha,
Beta, and Zeta. Player Alpha is overheard
discussing a prize split that he wishes to offer to
Player Zeta if they win the finals. However, a the
point of the discussion, Alpha is speaking as though
its already agreed upon. What's worse is that one
of the judges is a friend of Alpha and is just
shaking his head at this point. Obviously, I had to
step in. I pull Alpha side and ask him what he
agreed to as far as a prize split. Alpha lets me
know that there was no formal split other than the
fact that a week ago Zeta and Alpha had agree to do
a product split in the finals, so one of them could
just get the scholarship. I have to call in Beta
and find out Beta's part of the story involvement.
The reason this was a
little strange, is because Beta is playing Alpha in
the semifinals and Zeta is playing someone else. At
this point neither Alpha nor Zeta is guaranteed the
finals. Beta explains that he was just going to
drop and give Alpha the finals slot so that Alpha
could get qualified. Beta apparently already got
second at one of these events, so it was not an
issue. Beta, as to not risk getting in trouble,
didn't agree to anything or offer anything. Beta
was willing to take his half box and his foils and
go home.
Next, I had to speak
with Zeta. The whole time, these guys were
separated, so I'm pretty sure there is no way for
them to collaborate their stories. Zeta lets me
know that nothing was discussed during the
tournament about anyone conceding and nothing was
discussed at all about anything other than a
potential prize split.
In the end, I only gave
Alpha a verbal warning. His verbal outburst
basically caused confusion for no reason. Now, had
these been older players, I may have pursue it and
tried to get one of them to slip up and then could
have ended up DQ'ing two players for collusion.
After my discussions and concurring with other
judges, it was obvious that at least two of the
players had no real idea where the good and the bad
lines were as far as collusion is concerned. It is
suspected that the third wasn't totally sure either,
but it ended up not mattering.
In both scenarios, I let
age and/or experience level get involved. Now, I'm
pretty sure that if either situation had been clear
cut, like a rules violation, or a player cheating,
or anything along those lines, it wouldn't be as big
of an issue. The problem only really seems to come
down to the gray areas. These are just more
examples to show that too much is riding on
inexperience in the JSS events.
Here is another bonus
scenario. Lets say that you are at your local game
store and they have a policy against you selling
cards in the store. This could be modified to
anything....say, if they have a policy that you can
only sell something they don't have in stock. My
store for instance has a policy that you can only
sell something that we don't have AND the store gets
20% of the sale. That's just the way it goes.
Either way, knowing your stores local policy, if you
want/need a card, are you going to attempt to buy
off of the person that has it while you are at their
establishment? If you do decide to go through with
the deal, are you going to let the store owner
know? Are you going to compensate the store? Or do
you just do nothing and wait to see if they even
notice?
Disobeying the policies
of the place you play at, gather with friends at,
and general support your gaming habit is not a smart
thing to do. I don't allow smoking in my house. If
someone were to come over and start smoking in my
home, it would be equally as bad in my eyes. There
are several other comparisons that you could make,
but that's just a start.
But now that I've given
some things to think about, let's talk about some
happier things...like big tournaments. As much of a
pain in the butt as they are to play through, they
do tend to be extremely fun and have a lot to
offer. Even the casual players turn up to all of
the spring and summer Magic events. If you don't,
you are definitely missing out on some good
experiences. You should set about $25 aside per
month and be all set to play in each of the events
as they come around. There are several events
coming around.
First off, there are
team sealed Pro Tour Qualifiers for Seattle coming
around. These are greet. You grab two buddies and
you head to the PTQ to rip open a bunch of product
and build three decks to play with. Besides, these
events qualify you for Seattle which is an
affordable trip. Also, its cheaper for a team to
play in these events than it is for each player to
play sealed deck singles competitions.
Next in line would be
Regionals. Regionals has become the busiest day of
Magic here in the United States. Each region draws
and average of 300+ players, with some regions
drawing over 800 players. It's definitely an all
day event. There is plenty of fun to be had t
Regionals every year. I think that your mindset
just has to be right going into it, so you don't get
too frustrated. It's easy to get worn down, when
you are playing tough competitors for 10 round of
tournament play over the course of one long day.
Then there is
Nationals. This is an invite only event. However,
WotC turns it into a full production. They have
last chance qualifiers that run all day prior to the
event. They are both sealed deck and constructed
events, so you get multiple chances in multiple
formats to qualify in. WotC always goes out of
their way to make sure that tournaments, demos, and
artist signings are scheduled as well. The JSS runs
along side Nationals every year as well. This
leaves something for players of all ages to do.
This year, the festivities take place in Kansas
City.
And as if this isn't
enough, each regional tournament organizer seems to
have some events of their own. Here in Texas, we
have the Event Horizons Invitational every year and
we also have the Texas $5,000 Challenge. I know
that other reasons do store and regional challenges
as well. I would look around and inquire about
these events and about how you can participate.
More stuff to cover
still, so stick with me here.
My card of the week this
week is Dark Banishing. The play value of this card
just keeps slowly rising. With artifact creatures
popping up all over the place, this card is great.
It's splashable. It kills almost every important
creature in the format right now. It's also an
instant. I think this is just another card that
gets overlooked in the deckbuilding process. There
are so many good cards out there right now, that
it's easy to forget about this little gem. The best
part is that this card is a common and it's still
legal in every format. Obviously, it should be in
EVERY deck, but if you are hard up for some removal,
you might want to give it a second look.
We need a strategy tip
this week also don't we? This one is simple. I
think I may have even covered this before. It's big
enough that we need to go over it again anyway. PAY
ATTENTION! That's the message. Plain and simple,
pay attention. In the past three months, I've
watched more mistakes happen than I care to
mention. This isn't really because the players were
just terrible. It's more due to the fact that the
players involved were just ignoring some parts of
the game state. I watched a player just simple not
pay for mana leak with a ton of extra mana open. I
watched a player die to a creature with fear, with a
Solemn Simulacrum on their side of the table. I
watched a player scoop up his cards, because he
miscounted his own permanents before trying to
resolve a
Mesmeric Orb. I've even watched a player keep a
one land hand, because he was talking and said,
"I'll keep," before actually getting a good look at
his cards.
Anything can be a cause
for a mistake. I personally caught myself make a
couple of minor mistakes at a PTQ in Austin
recently. Fortunately for me, they didn't cost me
any matches. Regardless, they are still mistakes
that could have been avoided if I were paying closer
attention at those points in my match. Just because
a mistake doesn't cost you a game, doesn't make it
any less negative. The truth is, you don't want to
practice bad habits. If you do, and you keep making
mistakes, those habits are going to come back to
haunt you when you least expect it.
But with that behind us,
I guess I can make a segue into Good and Bad plays
of the week :)
Truth be told, this
week, I had two fun Bad Plays of the week. The
first is one that was sent to me, the other is one
that I witness, but makes for interesting
storytelling.
Bad Play One comes from
Alex Davey:
Not that I'm
particularly proud of this play especially since it
was at a tournament. I was playing monoblack suicide
deck and my opponent was playing some sort of white
weenie deck. He attacks with all of his creatures
and has a Serra angel to block with next turn. His
attack leaves me at 1 life and I'm just short of
finishing him off by about 2 damage. I draw my card
for the turn... a
Vampiric Spirit and I somehow get the
notion into my head that casting the spirit will
allow me to block the
Serra Angel. I play the vampiric and my
opponent handily points out to me that this kills
me. The worst thing about this is that it's turned
into a legend down in these parts and has even
spawned the vampiric spirit award for bad play of
the day at
www.suffolksci-fi.com. It
seems I'll never get away from it.
I thought this was a
good one because he got an award for it. Alex will
be receiving some Darksteel product and a card or
two from my store for his poor play skills. If when
you lose you can still be a winner!
This other one is a bit
more detailed, so please bear with me.
This exchange involves
multiple bad plays from both players. The two
perpetrators are Chase Lakey and Chad Koss. This is
basically the last turn of the game. Chad has out a
TWO Mesmeric Orb,
Isochron Scepter with
Boomerang imprinted on it on the board. He has
a few lands with
Wrath of God and
Brain Freeze in hand. Chad has enough land in
hand to enough mana to cast Wrath of God and either
activate the Isochron Scepter OR cast Brain Freeze.
Chase's board position is completely tapped. He has
Goblin Pildriver and
Goblin Sledder tapped from the previous attack
step and an untapped
Goblin Sharpshooter. The two major problems
here is that Chase only has 20 cards left in his
library. With six lands tapped on his side of the
board, plus his two creatures, he is going lose
during his draw step due to the Mesmeric Orbs. Chad
is only at five life, so he has to do something
about the Goblin Sharpshooter.
The situation gets a
little more complex. Chad knows that Chase has at
least one Patriarch's
Bidding in hand most likely. If Chase can
survive, he can possibly cast it and win on the next
turn. However, Chase only has one black source of
mana on the table. Just for the record, it turns
out Chase has TWO biddings in hand and was waiting
to cast them all game. Chad counts Chase's deck
multiple times out loud. The crowd at hand is
watching everything unfold. Chad, trying to stay
alive and stay in the game decides to cast Wrath of
God to clear away the immediate goblin threat.
Chase hits Chad with some shooter damage on the way
out. With his two remaining mana, Chad decides to
cast Brain Freeze targeting Chase with both it and
the storm copy. Chase overturns six cards and is
left with 14 cards in the deck.
Chase thinks for a few
seconds and does some math and then starts scooping
up his cards and extends the hand. All of the
players watching give condolences to Chase for a
rough first game. I remind them that Chase could
have one that one. People want to argue with
me...then I point out the math.
Chase was only going to
overturn 12 cards. This would leave two cards. All
he had on his side of the board were six tapped
lands. His creatures were gone due to the Wrath of
God. Also, when he was overturning, his last two
cards were
City of Brass and a Swamp. This means that with
Chad tapped out and a whole host of goblin in
Chase's graveyard, Chase would have had an easy
win. Also, Chase was worrying for no reason. He
could have saved himself a few cards by simply
sacrificing his creatures to his Goblin Sledder if
need be. As if this wasn't enough, after the WoG,
Chad should have activated the Isochron Scepter to
Boomerang Chase's one Swamp back into his hand.
This would prevent Chase from ever casting a
Patriarch's Bidding which was the only spell in his
deck that could win the game. Both players were
quite shocked when I pointed this out to them.
The funny part is that
goblins wins so much in that matchup, that Chase
still came back and quickly and easily won the next
two. It's easy to tell why this happened. Both
players got wrapped up in the card count of Chase's
library. Both players were so distracted by this
one item, that both failed to pay attention to the
other points of the game state around them. Funny
as it is, both players had to acknowledge the WoG
and Chase even had to physically pick up his cards
and put them in the graveyard. This just goes to
show you how easily you can get distracted in the
middle of a game or match.
Well, here I my last bit
of standard fare:
My alternate game of the
week is Duel Masters. It's a new CCG. As a matter
of fact, it doesn't even release until next week if
I am correct. However, several stores are
participating in the demo program and you can even
get FREE product from these stores. It's a solid
game. It's very interesting. It also carries a lot
of similarities to Magic. And best of all, it is
run by Wizards of the Coast, so you know it will
have the proper backing and tournament support. You
should do yourself a favor and at least check it
out.
Wow, I'm glad that I'm
ending on a positive note. I felt like I've been
really negative this week in my writing. At least I
got to give away some prizes, right?
Keep those good and bad
plays of the week coming. I've got a ton of prizes
to give away still.
Until next time,
DeQuan Watson
a.k.a. PowrDragn
PowrDragn on IRC
PowrDragn on MODO
See a pattern here?
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