What I Learned From FNM Last Week

So, this post might be a little late in actually appearing, but it's backdated properly, so there's that. My apologies, things have been busy in the real world and blogging had to take a back seat.

Last week's Standard-format FNM saw half of our attendance from the previous week, which was somewhat expected but also kind of disappointing, that we couldn't maintain the attendance from the release party. I have a feeling that Limited really just is a more inclusive format for casual players, which is probably true. Even with an environment where most players don't play serious decks that you might find at a Grand Prix, more casual players have attached a stigma to competitive Constructed play, even at REL-0.

The hard part with this as a judge is that it's not really your job to try and maintain attendance. The other side of the coin is the fact that before I was a judge at my LGS, I was a player at said LGS, one of the two who were involved in bringing FNM events to the store. That leaves me with what I feel to be a small obligation to have an effect on the attendance of events at the store, because I'm invested in the whole thing as a founding player. I will point out though that a good number of players at the store are friends of mine from outside the game, who mostly came back to competitive play because I convinced them to try out the Return to Ravnica pre-release, and got them hooked again.

As for what I actually learned from last week's FNM, I spent the entire week trying to discern a lesson from the night as a judge, and came up wanting. Instead, I learned something as more of a player. Attending an FNM doesn't have to be for the explicit purpose of participating in whichever nightly event your LGS is hosting. You can show up, and just play Magic on the side with whoever's free if you so desire, and your store has room for you to play alongside those participating in FNM.

If you happen to be a more casual Magic player, and happen to be reading this blog (and for that, thank you, because this blog is brand new,) try looking up your local game store's FNM events, and just go out with any deck and see if anyone wants to sling spells. You'll more than likely have a good bit of fun playing Magic, and who knows, you might see that your local store's FNM atmosphere is quite laid back, and you might actually want to participate the next week, which might be your first step towards one day playing on the Pro Tour. (I'll admit, I'm watching Pro Tour Journey Into Nyx coverage while writing this post.)

As for my lessons from this week, as it's Draft night, I'm hoping to just have fun, and actually have something meaningful to learn from for next week's post.

What I Learned From FNM Last Week

This hopefully weekly blog post will revolve around my experiences with judging FNM and other various REL-0 events, and the things I learn from them to grow as a judge. Since my current aspiration is to move up to being certified as a level 2 Magic judge, I feel that self-reflection is necessary to identify what I'm learning, and what else I need to learn to continue to grow as a judge.

This past week, my LGS had a Journey Into Nyx release party, executed as a Sealed Deck event using the remainder of our Prerelease product as the pools. Our pre-release had much lower than expected attendance, which set us up for expecting another small turnout for the following Friday. Things didn't turn out that way.

We ended up registering 22 players, close to our logistical capacity for attendance, and I quickly realized that my usual system of calling out pairings and letting players find their own play-spaces was not going to work this time around. The only solution I thought would work effectively would be to arbitrarily assign table numbers to the tables we had available, and point people in the right direction.

Now, this is slightly more difficult than it sounded, mostly due to the fact my store doesn't have table numbers handy, nor did I have the materials available to jury-rig some up for the event. The key to making up a table-numbering system on the fly is pretty simple: make the system obvious. By numbering the tables in a consistent order, and moving from one side of the room to the other, as long as a percentage of your players catch on to how you're executing the system, everyone should fall into place naturally, especially if you only have exactly the right number of tables for your player count.

With everyone seated at a recognizably numbered table, the second thing that became easier for me was recording match results, and being able to identify outstanding matches to spectate and ensure that they move along to keep the tournament flowing. My store's FNM is primarily attended by newer, more casual players, who have a tendency to allow games to run long due to taking their time to avoid making incorrect decisions for themselves.

I find that one of the harder things to do as a judge is having to encourage players to play at a more reasonable pace, especially when the game has already gone to time. Many newer players can feel pressurized in that kind of situation, especially as the play-group's mentality is to crowd around the active games remaining to watch, and the players themselves may not have the comfort level to request that spectators move away from the table, outside of the attending judge. Generally, I tend to simply let these games run out without asking players to make their decisions faster, unless they are absolutely appearing to stall for no reason.

On that note, I'll leave off with some hopes for this week. As it's a Standard week at our store (we rotate formats weekly), I hope that our attendance stays higher than it has been for FNM through the winter and early spring, and I hope that the night brings me something to learn from and post about next week.

Modern Mondays!

Our local game store, Magic Stronghold just moved, and is starting modern events on Monday nights. Unfortunately, today we didn't get enough players to have an actual tournament. Instead we tried J's Bant Ally deck against Soul Sisters and Mono G Tron (it didn't do very well).

Then we got into a Two-Headed Giant Match with Soul Sisters and Allies vs UWR Control and Affinity. We played three games, and managed to go 1-2. One of the games was a total wash, they beat us with poison from an Inkmoth Nexus. The second game, we won off the back of Serra Ascendant and hordes of Allies. The last game was pretty close, but in the end their Cranial Plating'd Vault Skirge got through. UWR took a back seat, only being there to counter our win conditions or our removal. In retrospect we probably should have gone with Soul Sisters and Melira Pod, but hey, it was fun!
Hopefully next week we get enough players for an event.

Post-script by Jordan:

I should point out something about the Bant Allies deck. The original deck concept came from Zendikar-Scars of Mirrodin Standard, and most of the list ported in directly with very minor additions from the Modern pool. The list also lacks removal of any way, shape, or form, and decided to play the Xenograft/Turntimber Ranger combo which in retrospect, is nearly impossible to execute when you only set the list at 21 lands. Watch this space in the future to see how I develop the deck from its current shell into something that may resemble a Tier-2 Modern list.

Day three: The Collection Challenge

Day three! Today we conquered the first bag of junk.

Today's hauls were really exciting for me, as I was planning to start building modern Affinity. Two Cranial Platings, two Welding Jars. Also some more Zendikar basics. The pair of Urza's Tower and Reliquary Tower is pretty sweet, too. Also pictured: gold bordered Gainsay from one of the world championships.

Other than those it was quite a lot of junk. I also realized at this point that the lighting in this room is really bad and all my shots are coming out fuzzy. Starting thursday, I'll be using my DSLR and get some real focus on the cards.

Day two: The Collection Challenge

Day two of the collection challenge!
Today we got through a pretty substantial portion of the first bag.

We actually found quite a bit of money, too. Cloudpost, Lim-Dul's Vault, Wild Nacatl, Thousand-Year Elixir, Serum Visions, Fairie Conclave, Ancient Den.

We found more un-cards and Zendikar basics
The Serum Visions was the most exciting find yet. Really hope we find more hidden gems like this.

Day one: The collection challenge

Day 1: The great sorting project! The two of us were handed three shopping bags full of cards, ranging from Unlimited to Innistrad block. This was just what we found on the first day. We sorted them into old border and modern, plus by colour. Later on we plan to go through and look for money cards with more care.

A lot of the collection is just junk uncommons and commons, but even on the first day we found some cool cards from Magic's history.

One really exciting find for me, as a collector of basic lands. Two Zendikar Mountains, and a Japanese 4th Edition mountain that is black bordered. Back then, white borders were for subsequent printings in that language.

We also found a couple of un cards!

The only money cards we found weren't very exciting, but it whetted our appetite for more.

This was starting to get exciting, but also daunting. On the first day we only got through about a quarter of the first bag.

Welcome to the Blog!

This blog will be an all-purpose Magic: The Gathering blog, with posts about Friday Night Magic, Modern Magic, and especially Magic Judging. There are two authors, both Level 1 judges.
Aleria:
I have been playing Magic for about a year and a half. I started during Return to Ravnica, but I really love the history of magic - modern sets like Kamigawa, Innistrad and Shards block as well as older stuff. I attended my first event at the M14 prerelease, was invited to judge a prerelease the next day, and then was certified at Theros prerelease.
I currently play Soul Sisters in modern, and also have a casual group that plays EDH and multiplayer.
Jordan:
My history with the game dates back to Unlimited, as my father got into the game from his local hobby shop while purchasing Warhammer 40,000 figurines (or was it D&D? I forget now, that was over 20 years ago.) As a kid, I played from Unlimited until Weatherlight, and then took a hiatus until M11, when some co-workers decided to start drafting at work, and got me back into the game. Now, I'm a level 1 judge, running one of my LGS's FNM and Prerelease events, along with being a semi-competitive player. For Modern, I'm a man of many decks, but primarily I play either Melira-Pod, or Mono-Green Tron.