This thread is for discussing the article Running the Paper Team by David de la Iglesia and Carlos Rada.

Edited Evan Cherry (April 30, 2013 11:13:51 AM)

Great article!

Not really sure who to direct this question to, but are there any plans on creating an app for tournament players?

Results will probably have to stick to paper for now, but information such as next match location, delays in the game with extra turns, timing, etc throughout the event would be extremely helpful.

I think there are probably a large number of higher-priority feature requests for WER.

I very much doubt we'll be in a position to require players to have a smart phone / device to accept pairings, standings and for result entry for a very long time, so for many years we will still need a paper team.

I don't think we'll be getting rid of the paper team any time soon, but there's no reason the two systems can't work in conjunction.

Originally posted by Adam Zakreski:

I don't think we'll be getting rid of the paper team any time soon, but there's no reason the two systems can't work in conjunction.

I asked this of a scorekeeper at a recent GP and was advised that that there are licensing issues preventing Wizards from posting DCIR pairings online for players to view in lieu of looking at pairings boards. As WER is some time away from being usable at GPs, the online solution probably isn't likely to happen soon. (It's probably the #1 suggestion in the suggestion box at European GPs.)

I support the idea of trying to provide a GP app, though. Even if just 40% of players are able to use it, that is 40% less traffic at the pairing boards, giving everyone a better experience.

I'm firmly in the “why not both” camp.

I'm not technically savvy enough, but I believe the licensing issue could easily be circumvented by converting the DCIR pairings (in whatever file format) to a format easily displayable by a mobile app or web interface, e.g. upon putting it into a special folder (this should be manageable by the SK), and a script would take care of the rest (upload, convert, etc.). To avoid COPPA problems, the app would need to ask for DCI# and password (interfacing in some way with Planeswalkerpoints.com) and only show pairings for the matching DCI#. I estimate an initial cost of $2-3 per unique user, plus maintenance cost. WotC, open your wallet! :)

Best, Stefan



Am 18.06.2013 um 08:29 schrieb Thomas Ralph <forum-4025-9ca5@apps.magicjudges.org>:

I recently attended GP Houston, and through some sort of witchcraft the event was able to post pairings for each round onto a website that I could easily check from my smart phone. The online pairings were usually up at the same time as the paper team left the stage with the paper pairings, so checking them online was the obvious choice, and it seemed to clear the pairings board at least some. I'm not exactly sure how the system worked, or how much it helped the judge staff but the players that I talked with all seemed to love it. I believe the privacy issues were handled by the media waiver each entrant had to sign.

It definitely makes sense to have both mediums available for checking
pairings, between paper postings and either posting on Twitter (like SCG
does) or on a web site. Enough people have smart phones that it will help
to alleviate the crush at the pairings boards. But I've been in enough
convention centers to know that sometimes there's no Wi-Fi available and
sometimes, you just don't get service inside of a big concrete box that's
half underground.

Bring a server and wifi that is set up to always go to the page with the pairings when you connect to that wifi network*, legal problem solved, lack of wifi solved.
*The same way you go to a login page at a hotels wifi.

Edited Kenny Koornneef (June 20, 2013 05:35:34 AM)

Most WIFI routers have a theoretical limit of 255 connections. In reality the usable limit is much lower than that. This could work for PTQs but not GPs.

We've moved way off topic - this is for comments on the article.