Judge!

Hello!

Well the last couple-three weeks or so have been filled with ... not a lot of playing Magic. I've been pretty active doing "Judge" stuff though. I've worked a PTQ in Green Bay (Gnome Games East .. great store!), and a Star City Games Standard Open. I've also been doing FNM at Mox Mania (well, except the last couple weeks when I've been out of town on travel), and I even helped out with my Level 2 mentor's Judge Class that he's been running. I'm definitely on the Level 2 path, and I'm really enjoying it.

So yeah, I wanted to talk about the SCG event in more detail, because that was a great experience. I roomed and teamed up with a new Level 3 Judge from Minnesota, and he was an endless well of knowledge and information and philosophy. I wish I could just spend a week with him picking his brain. I found out about the recent history of missed triggers, and the philosophy of gambling as related to tournament organization and rules (such as why it's a DQ at all levels if you roll a die to determine the winner of a sanctioned match).

The event itself was hard work. That's another thing about Judging .. it's not just answering rules questions. It's a job, like working at Target, or a coffee shop. I'm there to help, but when I'm not fielding questions from players, I'm tidying up and making myself available. Or helping out with logistics .. running little errands for the scorekeeper and Head Judge, handling match slips, collecting obsolete table numbers, etc.

But it's very rewarding. I love helping out, and I love rules. And I get paid! I think this is a good gig for me.

I definitely need to tighten up my policy knowledge, though. I didn't bungle anything big at tournament, but there were a few things I wasn't sure about. I took a Level 2 Practice Test recently, and though I passed, there were a couple-three policy questions I would have gotten right had I been more familiar with some of the details of how we handle certain things.

As far as playing goes ... Well, I ran my Blood Baron deck a couple more times. And though it's great fun when it's working, it's a little frustrating when it's not. Control seems like a not-great matchup .. even when I brought in at least half my sideboard, I just couldn't seal the deal after he landed his first (and second) Sphinx's Revelation. But you know, his reaction when he Apptetite for Brains'd me and saw the Tibalt in my hand .. that was priceless. Funny thing was, he really wanted to take that Tibalt, but couldn't. So he had to Dissipate it instead. Frowning face. But yeah, he killed all my Blood Barons, Sphinx's'd, and AEtherling'd me to death.

I think I wanna move on to something else, though. Tibalt is hilarious, so I still wanna jam him in the sideboard of some deck, and I love Boros Reckoners and whatnot, so I think I'm gonna jam some Naya. Probably midrange, with a little ramp, some Domri, some Voices, and .. yeah. Kind of a "good stuff" deck. And I should probably up the number of Tibalts in my sideboard. Yeah, definitely more Tibalts.

Okay, well thanks for reading! Until next time ...