As the thread that already discuss GPT at Regular REL is (O)fficial only, I figured I wanted to make a new topic regarding my question so we can debate it further. My question was:

“Since GPTs are run at Regular, can I play in a side-event and trade cards with my friends while HJ'ing the GPT? With a GPT at Regular I feel I don't need to supervise the event with falcon eyes.”

The response from Scott Marshall:

Can you? Yes. Would I be happy, if I were your RC, and I heard about this? No, not one bit.
We require an L1+ for GPTs because we feel these events deserve that level of attention.

And from my RC, Johanna Virtanen:

Lars, no.

While I will ultimately respect both of your decisions, I want to challenge your mindset as I hope you are not aware of the implications. Let me start by quoting from the JAR:

Most Magic™ players play for fun and see a tournament as a social event. Regular REL (Rules Enforcement
Level) encourages a welcoming atmosphere and friendly competition. As judges, we should be friendly and
involved, sometimes playing in events ourselves. Like players, we are encouraged to help at appropriate
times, such as during deck construction or between matches. Judges are the last word when a dispute or
question arises, and we should be as impartial and diplomatic as possible.

Look at that first sentence: “Most Magic™ players play for fun…”. Can you guess who's not having fun at a Regular GPT? Me - the Judge.

I love Magic! In fact, I love it so much that I have devoted some significant portion of my life to the game. I enjoy playing and I enjoy judging. I may even enjoy watching other people play a game or two - but not watching games for 8-11 hours straight!

When GPT's are Competetive the time flies away while judging. I have deck checks, observing matches and training myself for future Competetive events. Most GPT's have very low compensation (around $30 in Norway if you take into consideration our box prices versus US box prices), but they were necessary for getting training in Competetive REL for those of us that wanted to do more in the program.

When GPT's are Regular REL we are stuck to observing and occasionaly let somebody know “please don't do that again” and have some education. Yes, we can do deckchecks and demand decklists, but do you think the players have fun while you check their deck?

I would say that I look at GPT's the same way as Game Day. While I understand that we should not play in the GPT in order to remain diplomatic and objective, I really would like to do something while the event is playing. I remain in the same room and I'm just a judge-call away, just like in every other Regular REL-event.

An average Constructed GPT takes about 8-9 hours, while an average Limited GPT takes about 10-11 hours. I can't speak for anyone, but I just can't see myself observing games for a whole saturday or sunday for a very meager compensation.

“If you feel it's not worth it, then don't do it” you might say. Well, I hope I'm not alone on feeling this way and that most L1 feel it's not worth their time. What are you stuck with then? Store owners and store affiliates that happens to be L1 as well. Well guess what - they don't have time to observe the event for 8-11 hours, they have stuff to sell, shelves to stock and other customers to attend to.

If you still don't see my point of view I believe you have distanced yourselves from the mainstay of the Judge Program - us, the L1's - and I would like to challenge you. Apply to be the HJ for that next Regular GPT. And to the next one after that. If you come back after those two events and said you had the time of your life, well - I guess we have different point of views.

You might not agree with my statements, but this is my take on the situation and I would like to have a healthy debate about this. This is a new situation after all and I believe we should talk about it. I mean this for all of you - if you're L1 - L2 - L3, it doesn't matter - what are your thoughts about engaging in side-activities while HJ a Regular GPT?

Best Regards,
Lars Harald Nordli

Edited Lars Harald Nordli (July 19, 2016 03:34:19 PM)

I am not sure why the lack of deck checks suddenly results in a complete change of priorities for you. You can still observe games, that's why the GPT still requires a judge! You can still resolve problems and answer rules questions.

Yes, some GPTs are/will be judged by store employees who are also serving other customers. No, I don't expect your attention to be on the event 100% of the time. Nobody is going to mind if you spend 5 minutes doing a trade with a friend. But enrolling in a side event or spending hours making deals is not acceptable. If you're doing something else for the whole day, then you're not fulfilling the requirement for judge presence. As for where the line is - use your judgment.

Finally, I understand the hours/compensation thing is not a great deal for you. If the change from Comp to Regular really makes a huge difference, then focusing on the other local competitive events might be the right choice for you.

Originally posted by Lars Harald Nordli:

Store owners and store affiliates that happens to be L1 as well. Well guess what - they don't have time to observe the event for 8-11 hours, they have stuff to sell, shelves to stock and other customers to attend to.

Since when has “Others might do a poor job at being a judge for an event ” ever been an excuse to do a bad job?

- There are still a lot of things you can do to make sure the tournament runs well and is not boring (to anyone): Watch matches, talk with players, actively look out for mistakes, watch matches (yes, I put it in twice because its worth it).
- You can still use Decklist + Deckcheck (personally, I'd recommend it)

Last but not least: Why would you want to do something that is boring for you? If you don't like it, don't do it :)

I think you might be significantly underestimating how much time and attention judging takes, even at Regular. If you're playing in side events or are otherwise occupied in non-Judging activities, your attention is going to be split between that activity and the GPT you're supposed to be running. For small events that don't take much attention in the first place, like an FNM with a dozen players, that's no big deal, but you mentioned that GPTs in your area average 8-11 hours (format-depending), which means they're somewhere north of 64-128 players, and there is no possible way you are going to be able to pay sufficient attention to your duties to take proper care of that many players if you're busy with something completely unrelated to your event, no matter the REL.

Playing in side events seems especially problematic, because then not only are you not paying sufficient attention to the event you're supposed to be judging, but you're also delaying the progress of the side event by having to leave your table regularly and potentially for long periods of time to perform judge duties.

If no L1 wishes to judge GPTs in your area under the new system, then that's a problem for the local store owners to solve, perhaps by increasing compensation until the local L1s feel that they're being fairly compensated for their time and skill.

Hello Lars,
let's consider the player's point of view when you are of playing in another tournament while HJing their tournament. First of all you give those players the impression that you do not care about their tournament and if you as an official show them that the tournament is of no importance they will also not consider it important. Which leads to the players not calling you when stuff goes wrong and them not improving in their ability to play. Just consider a school class that is playing soccer and their PE teacher disapears. What will happen? The children will start playing acording to their own rules. Will the children have a good time? Probably, unless one or two of them start abusing the teachers absence.
The message that you send out is “I do not care.” Which to the players reads as “We do not have to care”. Which can lead to players thinking that “a little shady stuff should not matter because nobody cares”. While we actually have a tournament with a reward that can be quite valuable to some players.

Originally posted by Lars Harald Nordli:

Look at that first sentence: “Most Magic™ players play for fun…”. Can you guess who's not having fun at a Regular GPT? Me - the Judge.

IF you are not having fun judging maybe you should reconsider your approach. Find what is making judging fun for you and work more of that into your experience. For example I always try to get a second judge into all my events so I have somebody to train and to talk to. This can mean that the two of us take a hit on compensation but as long as we are willing to work for amount x this is fine.

Originally posted by Lars Harald Nordli:

When GPT's are Competetive the time flies away while judging. I have deck checks, observing matches and training myself for future Competetive events. Most GPT's … were necessary for getting training in Competetive REL for those of us that wanted to do more in the program.

If you are training for future competitive events you can still do that at regular events. Just ask yourself how you would handle a given situation at Competitive. This works even better if you have a second judge to talk about the situation.
As for the compensation. If you believe the training for future events was part of your compensation I can only tell you that it was not supposed to be and if the compensation without proper training is too little for you inform your TO and try to work out a better deal. If this does not work you can always just play in the event instead of judging it and let the TO look for another judge. Just because you are a judge does not mean that you have to judge everything or that you are responsible for tournaments happening or not. That is the TOs responsibility.

I very rarely play in my events full stop regardless of REL. Judges regardless of the official rules should use there common sense. For example regardless of REL if you have an event if you event had 20+ players you should not be playing has this will have an impact on the smooth running of the event. If you are doing other duties such has score keeping this is doubly so. My opinion is if you want to be a judge you give up your right to play if you don't like that don't volunteer to judge at all.

On the second point of being adequately compensated this is a difficult issue. The problem is in general Gpts have declined in importance and consequently numbers have declined unless the TO is offering a large prize pool. It is now common to have gpt in low double figures at least in my area. Common sense tells everyone involved it is difficult to make these events economic especially if a judge has to be employed. My fear is that TO will just avoid running these events entirely which seems to be what is happening because the number of advance stores is increasing, therefore the number of PPTQs is increasing. The schedule is now so full there is hardly any room for GPTs at all.

Graham

Sent from my iPhone

Hi Lars,

thanks for starting the discussion. It is always a good idea to talk things through in public in case of such major changes. It helps to converge different views on the change and build consensus in the community.

Apart from what others have said, I would also like to add one more point of view.

GPTs are a privilege granted by WPN to Advanced and Advanced+ stores. As they are granted, there are some extra requirements for these events. One of the requirements from WPN to the store is that they will acquire a DCI certified judge to cover the event. I can't speak for WPN, but I feel that the main reason for having a certified judge present is to ensure some basic level of integrity and to show their customers (i.e. the players in the GPT) that they are important and provided a good customer service. I can imagine that a player could feel treated badly if you just started the event and then let it go and do your own stuff.

What I really like about the change to Regular REL is that it allows TO's to tailor the GPT experience more to their player community. They can keep the old settings and run their GPTs more in a Competitive way (higher prestige/prizes, decklists, IPG and stuff). Or, if the local community is really casual, they can do it the way they do their Game Days. No extra stress to the players and just fun above all.

Originally posted by Lars Harald Nordli:

When GPT's are Competetive the time flies away while judging. I have deck checks, observing matches and training myself for future Competetive events. Most GPT's have very low compensation (around $30 in Norway if you take into consideration our box prices versus US box prices), but they were necessary for getting training in Competetive REL for those of us that wanted to do more in the program.

So if I understand correctly, a lot of the value of a competitive GPT is it's educational value for a judge that wants to get experience at competitive REL. That's what made it worth doing them and the new system takes that away.
Under the old system, once you have enough experience and are an L2 etc., would you at that time still want to do GPTs or would they have not enough value in that scenario as well?

Simon Ahrens
If you are training for future competitive events you can still do that at regular events. Just ask yourself how you would handle a given situation at Competitive. This works even better if you have a second judge to talk about the situation.

I disagree here somewhat. There is no substitute for the real deal. Interacting live with two persons is different from letting a scenario play out in your head. You can use that as training to a certain degree, but the value is lessened significantly.

Edited Toby Hazes (July 19, 2016 06:59:26 PM)

Originally posted by Toby Hazes:

Simon Ahrens
If you are training for future competitive events you can still do that at regular events. Just ask yourself how you would handle a given situation at Competitive. This works even better if you have a second judge to talk about the situation.

I disagree here somewhat. There is no substitute for the real deal. Interacting live with two persons is different from letting a scenario play out in your head. You can use them as training to a certain degree, but that value is lessened significantly.

I also agree here where we all know that players do not behave the same way at different Rules Enforcement Levels.

Thanks for all the inputs so far people, I appreciate it! :)

@ Johanna Virtanen - Thank you for your reply. I see that you have judged a lot of big events. Can you perhaps take my challenge and judge two GPT's and see if my statement is something you would consider possible?

It is not as much as change of prioritizing, but I'm finding observing matches at Regular REL a bit boring after the first 1-2 hours.

Why is it not acceptable to play Commander or a non-timed draft, where I am as readily available for the GPT-players as I'm doing the same thing at FNM? Being away from the event the whole day can be problematic as you say, but being constantly on the event observing is not for me. I would say that playing at a more casual side-event is no problem - at least for me.


@ Jeremie Granat - Thank you for your reply. I see that you have judged a lot of big events. Can you perhaps take my challenge and judge two GPT's and see if my statement is something you would consider possible?


@ Callum Milne - Thank you for your reply. I see that you have judged a lot of big events. Can you perhaps take my challenge and judge two GPT's and see if my statement is something you would consider possible?

In addition I must point out that I frequently judge Regular REL while playing in them. Last this weekend where I was HJ, Scorekeeping and playing in Eldritch Moon prerelease with 24 player, 18 player 2HG and 8 player Sunday Sealed. My compensation was free entry in the event and most importantly - I had fun while judging. A lot of players were personally saying “thank you for a great event” after it was over. In fact, I would say that I am one heck of a great judge! :) At Regular REL problems are much easier solved then at Comp REL, often it is fixing what is wrong and saying “please don't do it again”.

Our GPT's has been in the range of 10-18 players. Sealed Deck with 10 players was over in 9 hours (1 hour registration + deckreg/building, 4 hours swiss rounds, 1 hour draft, 3 hour top 8), so you don't have to get into the high 64+ players to see the time consumption you think.


@ Simon Ahrens - Thank you for your reply. I see that you have judged a lot of big events. Can you perhaps take my challenge and judge two GPT's and see if my statement is something you would consider possible?

Will you say that at a Game Day when you are playing that the other players see the event as less important? In fact, it should be more problematic at Game Days as you can be perceived as subjective in regards to rulings?

I have fun while judging, but spending 8-10 hours on a saturday/sunday wathing other people play can be a bit…boring. Taking in a second judge at the event would be fine, but compensation would go way down as you mention. Would you not rather not judge that GPT and instead judge something at Comp REL or Regular REL where you can also have more fun?

I do not think that training is some sort of compensation, but I know several judges that use GPT at COMP as a training ground for L1's that wants to do more for the Judge Program.


@ Graham Theobalds - Thank you for your reply.

I must point out that I frequently judge Regular REL while playing in them. Last this weekend where I was HJ, Scorekeeping and playing in Eldritch Moon prerelease with 24 player, 18 player 2HG and 8 player Sunday Sealed. My compensation was free entry in the event and most importantly - I had fun while judging. A lot of players were personally saying “thank you for a great event” after it was over. In fact, I would say that I am one heck of a great judge! :) At Regular REL problems are much easier solved then at Comp REL, often it is fixing what is wrong and saying “please don't do it again”.

I share your fear in that the TO's might not run GPT's if it is not economical. That's why playing in side-events and having fun could be some sort of compensation for the HJ?


@ Milan Majerčík - Ah, some recognition at last! :) Thank you for your reply and for seeing the value in discussing the subject.

I'm not saying that I'm letting the event go and disappear? I am always in the same room and can attend all Judge Calls at a moment's notice as I do in all other Regular RELS?

My first reaction was “this is bullsh*t”, but then I gave it a bit more thought. Many local players are a bit daunted by Comp. REL. Having GPT at Regular can hopefully lead to better attended events, which historically seems to be the achilles heel of GPT's around the world.


@ Toby Hazes - Thank you for your reply. I see that you have judged a lot of big events. Can you perhaps take my challenge and judge two GPT's and see if my statement is something you would consider possible?

If you look at my profile I have judged a lot of Comp REL and are probably overdue to qualify for the L2 test. I've even contacted my RC to schedule it. When I become an L2 I would still judge GPT at Comp because of the training at Comp REL. I agree with your statement in regards to Simens suggestion.

Edited Lars Harald Nordli (July 19, 2016 07:41:30 PM)

Judging and playing an event is very different to judging one event and playing in another. When you're playing in the same event your time and focus is always dedicated to that event, when time on the round has finished it's easy to move from player to scorekeeper/judge and get the next round started. If you play in a separate event unless you get the round times correct you face still playing when the round finishes, what do you do then in terms of End of Round do you just shout 5 turns and hope they finish. What about when the round is finished, do you wait till you finish your game, turn, thought process until you go and enter the results, print the next round, make sure it starts ok or do you do it straight away. Do you keep your players waiting for the next round which will happen some amount more than normal, as well as your opponent waiting for you, is it fair on any of these groups of people?

Also don't forget your compensation for these events will be different, your pre-release you get free entry for the GPT you're getting a box (I'm assuming from your comments) this increase in payment puts a higher expectation on you from the TO because ultimately you are being employed by them for the event, how would you feel if you were a TO and half the time the judge you're paying wasn't attending to your event? Personally even as a Head Judge I'd be annoyed at that judge.

@ Gareth Tanner - Thank you for your reply. I see that you have judged a lot of big events. Can you perhaps take my challenge and judge two GPT's and see if my statement is something you would consider possible?

What if I play in a Commander event with no timed rounds? What if I play a casual draft with no timed rounds? I understand that if I sign up for a Eternal Masters Single Elimination draft with a high prize output and timed rounds, that's a no-go.

Normal compensation in Norway is about 1/3 of a box for GPT's, and I would expect to get the same for Regular GPT's or better - free entry to side-events. I'm still forced to stay in the shop to HJ the GPT and time is what is valuable for me. When downgrading the GPT from Competetive to Regular you are saying at the same time that it's a more relaxed tournament - a setting where I am confident that I can succesfully run the tournament but do other things at the same time.

I won't judge a GPT and play another event. Too stressful for me, too little attention paid to the event I'm supposedly judging. And you're being compensated (compensation is not just tangible things) for your time and duties.

If it is a matter of money, you can discuss it with the TO. You are free to choose not to judge an event, for any reason, and money is just one of those. Keep in mind that GPTs are usually not very well-attended, even for local GPs, and TOs have to make a huge effort on prize/attendance issues.

Although it is too soon, I believe that a lot of TOs will want their GPTs still be Competitive. If they have to pay a judge anyways, I think the playerbase of these kind of events would like a higher REL. At least decklists/DCs are going to be demanded. You're not going to be bored, at least not significantly more than before this compulsory REL update :)

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

I won't judge a GPT and play another event.

Thank you for your reply. I see on your profile that you are the Judge Manager for a lot of GPT's, but that the Head Judge for each event is another judge. Can I ask you how long since you actually judged a GPT? I'm being a bit sharp here and I apologize, but the answers I have got so far from most of you are of high-level judges that doesn't seem to work at the lower level events as judges. I then have to question how much insight you actually have in the subject you are speaking?

I have discussed with other local judges about Regular/Competetive GPT's, and it seems like we're going to try for å higher entry fee with a bigger prize pool (display to the winner) in order to run them at Competetive as that REL is what seems like the GPT-players want to practice on.

It seems that it works out ok for me (continue to run GPT's at Competetive) but I like the discussion we're having, although no one else seems to share my point of view… :rolleyes:

I usually play in my FNM's and prereleases. My local players are relatively experienced, and will generally call me when something comes up. I have also been a dedicated floor judge without playing in Regular events, either when player numbers were higher (32+ prerelease) or when training L1 candidates. Your suggestion to judge the next two GPT's is unfortunately unfeasible for me as no GPT's are firing in a reasonable travelling distance, but I feel I have the experience judging both with and without playing in regular events to comment.

One important difference I noticed is that players are far more likely to actually ask you questions when you are actively covering the floor. A situation that players would solve between themselves gets asked to you when you're walking past, particularly if you've made it clear in your opening announcements that you'll get bored out of your mind if players don't ask you questions. Also, don't be afraid to interact with your players.You really can make their day a lot more awesome by simply talking to them.

I think you might be underestimating how much you can actually do during a regular event where you are not playing. That being said, if you feel that headjudging without playing in a Regular event really is not worth your time, then “If you feel it's not worth it, then don't do it” really is my answer. I believe that there will be judges who are interested in judging these events (though perhaps not at compensation levels the TO's are currently offering).

Of course it is feasible for a judge to play in a different event while headjudging a GPT. However, I feel the experience for the players will be a lot better if the judge is dedicated to judging the event, particularly because a GPT will generally feel more serious to players then an FNM or GameDay.