Portland, Oregon | Standard
Time: Friday December 7th – Sunday December 9th
Players: 1768 Winner: Tyler Putnam

Friday – Last Chance Trials


What Team am I Leading Again?
I was excited to be team lead on the Friday UMA PTQ, team leading on the PTQ is kind of like real team leading but smaller. Unfortunately it only ended up being about 300 players, and with a total staff of about 7 judges there weren't all that many to lead in total. The HJ asked me and the other lead what we'd like, either deck checks or everything else. I was pretty nervous tanked, and the other lead snapped up the “non-deck checks” jobs. So I ended up on checks. The HJ didn't assign us specific judges, he just told us to grab people that were available. While this seemed efficient, it kind of meant I didn't really feel like I was a team lead any more, which was a little disappointing. During build I conscripted one of my fellow judges to sort lists as they were collected, and he did a pretty good job of developing a system to do that efficiently. We ended up missing a few lists, after consulting with some of the FJs we realized that some players had been moved around during registration to make for better pairs, and therefore the table number on their corresponding lists was incorrect. After resolving the missing lists, I was immediately told to not do any deck checks. As the deck check team lead, this was obviously a little frustrating, I had effectively gone from one job on this event to zero jobs on this event. By round 5 I think I finally got to do my first deck check. Overall my role on the PTQ felt a lot less like team leading and a lot more like... not team leading.

To Be Marked or Not To Be Marked
While working the PTQ I noticed that many cards from the UMA packs were bent or damaged in some random way. During registration a player called me over to issue some proxies. I asked him if he'd be using sleeves, he nodded. I asked him to put a card in a sleeve, I examined the sleeve shrugged, and let him know it seemed fine and that proxies would not be needed. He looked at me oddly. I stared back at him oddly. It was a very weird interaction. He looked down at the cards and then handed me back the most bent one without saying anything. I turned it over in my hand, bent the corner back and said, once again, that it seemed fine and like no proxies were needed. He kind of stared back at me for a good 10-20 seconds, eventually I asked him he was unhappy with the ruling and would like to speak with the HJ. He replied with, “I think that would be best.” I brought the HJ over who happily issued the proxies. I spoke with the HJ afterwards and he said that it was mostly a customer service vs practicality issue, perhaps the cards would be fine in sleeves, but then the player may feel like other players were gaining an advantage this way and might be uneasy all day. This was kind of an interesting take, since I feel like issuing proxies is pretty disruptive and always jarring for the opponent.

Famous For All the Wrong Reasons
Later on in the day a spectator came up to me and noted that the missed trigger no warning I had just issued was to much beloved player, Alex Bertoncini. The trigger in question was the “put a card on the bottom of target players libary” line of text on Vessel of Endless Rest. I had issued the ruling and as with all 'no warning' triggers, had checked out the board to see what was going on. The only thing in a graveyard was Alex's own Kodama's Reach, I thought about reasons why one would want to keep a Kodama's Reach in the GY and not have it back in the library and didn't have any great ideas, and decided that no further investigation was required. The spectator then mentioned that Alex was playing with both Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise, and that having cards in the GY could be quite advantageous. I thought about it for a moment, and then escalated it to my HJ. He did a little investigation, interviewed the player as well as the spectator, but ultimately decided that no foul play had occurred.

Saturday – Main Event - Slips


Company Players Are the Most Appealing
AP cast Collected Company, tapping a Windswept Heath for mana, and had looked at the top 6 cards and then called for a judge. I proposed a backup, consisting of shuffling the cards back in and untapping the lands, the opponent seemed a little uneasy with this, mentioning that AP was basically getting a “reroll” on his Collected Company. I thought about it, and tossed around the idea of simply having him fetch mid-company, the problems there were, one, I wasn't authorized to deviate like that, and two, if his only fetchable land was in the company it would put the player in a really awkward spot of randomly revealing information to his opponent. For some reason, I didn't even consider GRV no backup, which, upon reflection is much more correct than backing up. I decided to grab the HJ, who also said that this was a situation where it was better to GRV no fix than to backup, however instead of doing that he decided to deviate in having the playing fetch a land mid-company.

Sunday – PTQ - Slips


When Mistakes Happen
I made a pretty crummy call on Bridge From Below about halfway through the day, in that it was a rules question where I read the card, saw the “intervening if” clause and then somehow completely ignored it and ruled as if it wasn't there at all. The player even tried to negotiate the correct answer with me and I just kind of ruled wrong. It was a really weird and dumb moment and I felt pretty silly about 4 minutes later while I was reflecting on the call and decided to actually look it up, and realized what I had done. I felt pretty crummy, and knew that going back to talk to the players wasn't going to be easy, since it was the player who wasn't playing bridge that seemed to have the right idea of how it worked. I remember having a similar experience at Denver, where a crummy call kind of wrecked my day. I was determined to not let it do that this time. I went back over and corrected things with the players and afterwards, thankfully, I actually managed to have a pretty good day.

Dance of Shadows
For this PTQ we had about 9 judges when the day started, and the event was Modern with only 350 players. We were aggressively overstaffed, I therefore decided to spend a good deal of the day shadowing another judge, which is not something I've spent a ton of time doing, She was planning on taking her L2 exam later that day, and let me know she would appreciate a review and some mentoring. It was kind of interesting, watching another judge take calls, I had to work very hard not to completely abduct calls, instead keeping my mouth shut, and event telling a player to stop for a moment to listen to one of her rulings. Overall I think it was a pretty neat experience for both of us and I also got a little practice writing a non-advancement review.

Judge! Can You Rewind Through This Cut?
I walked over to the table and AP said, “Judge, I activated Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, grabbed a card, put my deck down and then my opponent cut it without thinking.”
I looked over at the opponent who nodded, shrugged and said, “Yeah a deck got put onto the table and I just, I just cut it reflexively” I thought for a moment about how to fix this. Clearly this was a problem, but it felt kind of weird to file under any of the infraction categories, GPE-GRV was eligible here, but the entire situation felt kind of corner-casey and kind of unimportant to document, I decided to worry about how to fix it first and how to fill out paperwork later. I took the Azcanta player aside and asked him the approximate contents of his last two Azcanta's and if he'd done any scrying. He let me know that only the bottom 7 cards of his deck were 'set'. One Azcanta had been a whiff on four lands. He rattled off a pretty accurate idea of what the cards were, I found the cut and uncut the deck, I put it back on the table, issued the extension, made fun of the opponent and walked away. Another judge came up to me and asked why I hadn't issued a warning, I thought about it and said that it seemed kind of like a non issue in that no advantage could be gained here. The other judge then mentioned that if the opponent snap-picked a card from Azcanta, or whiffed, that perhaps it meant there was a high density of lands in those cards and that it would be advantageous for them to be shuffled back in. I nodded and then replied that as an avenue for cheating that felt pretty slim. However perhaps a warning would've been a more technically correct choice in this scenario.

Very Cryptic Combat
I walked up to the table, AP had declared their attackers, and NAP said he had wanted to cast the Cryptic Command in his hand before the attackers were declared. I spoke to both players a little and it became pretty immediately apparent that there was a large discrepancy as to whether AP had said “declare attacks” before, you know, actually declaring attacks. I separated both players and got both of their assessments of what happened, but I was a little lost as to what kinds of questions I should be asking here. After my brief I wasn't really sure on what had happened, both players seemed pretty convinced of their version of events, I was leaning lightly to the Cryptic Command players version of things because it seemed that, based on what was in his hand, there weren't really other lines he could take here, and as he was dead on board, the only option for him at this point was casting Cryptic Command to not die. I ruled in his favor but kind of knew that no matter what happened I was going to get appealed. One of the things the HJ did after coming over to the table and separating them was ask them about their understanding of combat, to determine how clearly the steps had actually been. It seemed that AP didn't have a great understanding of the logistics of combat, and based on that assessment the HJ decided that perhaps steps had not been clearly defined, and therefore the Cryptic Command player should get the opportunity to cast his spell.

A Void In Pre-Game Procedures
I walked over to the table and AP said, “I mulled, kept my hand, played a land made a motion to pass, then went 'oop!' and put my Leyline of the Void into play,” the opponent agreed that this pretty much happened, though neither player was certain whether the word “pass” had actually been said. The opponent had went to draw his card, but had not yet. I thought for a moment, and decided to apply the new MTR backup rule, allowing AP to put his leyline into play. The opponent seemed uneasy about the new rule, likely a veteran much more familiar with the previously stricter policy on small player instigated backups, and appealed. The HJ discussed it with me for a bit, mentioning that the 'motion to pass' put this in a very borderline place, and that if cards had been drawn by the opponent there was no way the small backup would apply, but in this particular case, he felt it was fine and upheld my ruling.

Celestial Cremation
I walked over to a table where two players were staring at a face down card in the middle of the table. They both looked mildly stressed out. When I arrived they hurriedly told me that they weren't sure where the card had come from, it was either from the bottom of the library or the graveyard, and they were both very quick to let me know that neither of them had seen it and were too afraid of LEC to look at the darn thing. I thought for a moment, and asked a few strange questions like “did you think you saw a card flip over from the graveyard when the deck was moved,” the players both seemed a little flustered and eventually the player who's card it was began shuffling around in his GY and mentioned that it looked like a Celestial Collonade was missing, and they both agreed at least one should be in there. I picked up the card and looked at it secretly, confirming it's identity as the offending Collonade, I then flipped it over, dropped it in the GY, issued the time extension and left.

...In Conclusion
Portland was busier GP than most, as a large number of the expected player counts were slight exceeded, but luckily they weren't exceeded by much. Modern, I still insist, is a format that generates the largest percentage of judge calls, and Portland was no exception, I had a pretty good time working the event, it was just busy enough to keep me entertained, and Modern is a super fun format to judge and watch. I felt pretty confident in most of my rulings all weekend, and aside from the call I splattered on Sunday and the company call I mucked up on Saturday my success rate was quite high, I rarely feel this confident on an event with such a high density of rulings, so it was a nice change from normal. I also got to reconnect with many familiar faces on the circuit which was a bit of a pleasant Christmas gift! I'm very excited for the final Grand Prix in my hometown of Vancouver in two weeks and and looking forward to all the challenges scorekeeping sides will bring me!