Welcome to the Europe North Winter 2018 judge conference! 

This conference is targeted at judges from the Europe North region. Judges from other regions are welcome to apply and will be accepted if budget allows. 

Registration

Participants must register by February 13th. All certified judges who register by this date will receive a packet of judge foils. In addition, all certified judges who attend (even if you did not register by the deadline, or were promoted at the conference itself) will receive a Rules Lawyer promo foil! 

We recommend that you make your travel arrangements as soon as you have registered! 

Judge testing

Judge testing for levels 1 and 2 will be available at this conference. 

Schedule

The day will begin at approximately 10:30 (exact time to be confirmed). The last presentation will finish by 18:00. 

Johanna Virtanen - State of the Region

Our illustrious RC tells us all about what has been going on for and in our region, as well as how changes to the wider judge program will affect us going forward.

Jonathan Johansen - Announcements at Regular REL

You are running an FNM with three draft pods and a Standard tournament. There are new Standard bans, a player who has never drafted before in one of the pods, and the store has a large Standard tournament next Saturday. What will you say? When? And to whom? 

This presentation will be about announcements, specifically at Regular REL - where the players have short attention spans and with multiple tournaments running in parallel. We will develop an easy to use framework for quickly deciding what to announce, covering almost every situation you will find yourself in as a Judge.

Patrik Fridland - Conflict Managment / How to Engage People

This presentation aims at providing some do’s and don’ts when engaging people, and how to handle some potential conflicts that can arise during an event.  

I will use the time to talk about some signals the other give and what not to force out of others, e.g. never force someone to look you in the eyes, come down to there physical level if able. Always remember: "As long as I try my best I have not failed."

Antti Koivisto - Serious Problems at Regular REL

Have you ever wondered whether the finals players at your FNM or prerelease discussing whether they should play it out or draw/concede are doing something they should not? Should you perhaps step in and say something about it, or even do something more? Could you possibly have done something to avoid this uncomfortable situation? And, heaven forbid, are we walking here on that fine line between fair play and Serious Problems?

If this is something you have encountered, or hope not to have to deal with in your local tournaments, you might want to come and hear about Serious Problems in Regular REL. We will talk about what these problems are, how a judge should deal with them if they ever occur, and how we can prevent them from emerging in our tournaments. We will also address one of the most likely yet most confusing problems, prize splitting and conceding a match, from the point of view of the players and the judge. The contents of the presentation are largely applicable to Competitive REL, too, so if that is your thing, you could also find this presentation helpful.

Aukusti Koivu- Card Alterations and Artistic Modifications

What are Altered Cards? 

Where and when can and can't players use them?

As a judge, how do I dealing with altered cards at my tournaments?

This presentation will explain it all!

Jonas Breindahl - Casting Spells

"No, it's not Wingardium Leviosaaaa, its Wingardium LeviOsa"

Usually when casting a spell it is pretty straight forward. Point Lightning Bolt at your Birds of Paradise, and you put it in the graveyard. But sometimes it's not as straight forward. This presentation will dig into the inner workings and steps of casting a spell, what pit falls to look for and a couple of edge cases that you will probably only see in very strange commander games!

Eskil Myrenberg & Asger Skovberg - Escape Room Experience

"Welcome to the historical GP Reykjavik!

As you well know, Johanna Virtanen, our Queen in the North, had to annex Wizards of the Coast to make this GP happen. Therefore it is important that we make it a smooth experience!

After all, what could possibly go wrong?!"

Join us for an experience unlike anything we've tried before! This will be similar to an Escape Room and done on a scale we don't even know if possible yet! Excitement!

Presenters

We are looking for presenters for this conference. If you would like to present, please fill out this form: https://goo.gl/forms/JSfBNUnOE4Oy8afv2 .

Your summary should give us a clear idea of what you plan to talk about. Presenters will be chosen by February 10th. Presenters will receive an extra foil pack for their efforts. 

Sample Presentation Summary - "Competitive Sealed tournaments"

"In this seminar, the idea is to look at the important parts to remember when handling a competitive sealed deck tournament. We'll look at how to plan your event, what can go wrong during registration and deck building, the common problems you encounter and some of the rules that come up most often in the current format. I’ll use about half of the time to explain what I do to plan an event and let the audience plan a few different sizes of events to discuss the differences between them. 

After that, I’ll have everyone discuss some common problems, both with rules- and policy. For example, I’ll bring up how to handle deck problems, the combat rules and where they normally go awry, looking at extra cards vs drawing extra cards and how players are allowed to store their sideboards and extra cards. I’m planning to have a slide each for the problems, explain them and then get discussions going in smaller groups before letting each group explain their conclusions.

I’m going to need either a projector or a printer. If we have a room where people can move around a bit to talk in smaller groups that would be ideal." 

Expectations for presenters

All presenters will be added to a JudgeApps project group. Presenters will be expected to post their works-in-progress to the group, and encouraged to provide feedback to others. Presenters are expected to post the first draft of their presentations approximately a month before the conference, and the almost-final version a week before the conference. The exact deadlines are to be confirmed.

Food and drink 

A light lunch will be provided. We will do our best to accommodate vegetarians/vegans, but those on a particularly strict diet may want to bring their own food. 

How to get there

The conference is held at the Maininki school in the backwoods of Espoo. The closest airport is of course Helsinki-Vantaa. Taxi is probably the easiest way to get there from the airport or downtown Helsinki, but public transportation is much cheaper. 

From downtown Helsinki: take the metro to Matinkylä (from any station - Kamppi or Rautatientori are likely options). Note that some trains only go as far as Tapiola, but you can transfer to a Matinkylä train there. In Matinkylä, transfer to a bus: alternatives include 147, 165 and 164. These take slightly different routes, so check www.reittiopas.fi for details. 

From the airport: you have several options to get to downtown Helsinki: trains (all trains go to Helsinki), city bus 615, and the Finnair bus (not recommended since it's not part of the same ticketing system as everything elese). From downtown Helsinki to the venue, see above. If going straight to the venue, another option is to take a train to Huopalahti, then transfer to a train going to Espoo station, and then take bus 542 to the venue. I would recommend taking the Helsinki route.

Public transportation tickets: Tickets are not sold onboard trains, so you must buy your ticket beforehand (bus drivers still sell tickets though). To go from Helsinki (or Vantaa) to Espoo, you will need a regional ticket. The most convenient way to buy tickets is to download the "HSL Mobiililippu" app on your phone and use that to buy tickets. 

Want to help? 

Have an idea about how to improve the conference? Are you short on ideas, but willing to help with set-up, clean-up or lunch preparation? Get in touch!