My girlfriend and I flew out to NYC this weekend for the 10K, what a debacle. I for one was astonished to find out that of the 4 judges to run this event, 3 of them had just learned to play the game that morning! Inconsistent rulings and the complete and total lack of rules enforcement such as; cheating, stalling, profanity, etc., made this event a horrible experience. Justin Cohen is [... repeated personal attacks and threat removed] The times for the events were off by quit a bit. For example, the wizards website said that pre-registration started at 9:00 AM, but the convention didn’t even open until 10:30 AM. This left 60 or so DreamBlade players in sub-freezing (11 degrees on Saturday w/wind chill) temperature lines for over 2 hours. My buddy Barry’s hands were so cold, he couldn’t even write his deck on the registration sheet. We even booked our flights, driver reservations, and hotels around this start time. The second day 1K event didn’t even cut to a top four! Over 50 people played in this 1K and about halfway through they announced “we will not be cutting to a top 4 because the convention is closing”. Evidentially, the folks who organized this tournament failed 6th grade math. How hard is it to see that there are only 6 hours of convention time, therefore a 6 round tournament is too long? I read the article on the wizards website about game-rounds no longer taking as long, since Kitsune has been banned. Who wrote that?! Were you even at the tournament? Every single round, in both the 10K and the 1K had several (at least 3) games being called by time. One person for this was a girl named Jenna, who had 2 timed wins during the 1K and one during the 10K. But at no time would a judge give a stalling DQ, caution, or warning. The times that judges were called over to make a ruling would often result in more confusion than the actual question itself. Twice we had to explain the full situation to a judge, and then make recommendations on how to rule. In one case the judge got so angry that we (both my opponent and me) were tying to help him, he threatened to give us cautions for telling him how to do his job. Needless to say, we stopped asking for rulings and started to roll a d6 to see who got their way. This convention was amazing, but the DreamBlade events were the palpable, gross sores of the entire weekend. I feel sorry for players like me who spent hundreds of dollars to travel, and thousands of dollars to buy mini’s, only to have to deal with event coordinators, and judges who have no clue as to what they are doing. What a very disappointing experience. On a good note, I will say that Sam Black, Robert Hatch, and John Fanjoy are awesome people. If you have not had the pleasure of their company, you are missing out! Sam took several minutes to show us his build between rounds and describe each piece’s function in great detail. Very stand-up guys, I hope I see all of you at the 10K in Kansas (Midwest).
Thaddeus Chenoweth
Colorado Springs, Colorado
[edited by LCS]
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