YCS Austin

It has indeed been a week after the event. It was to once again work with a bunch of fellow judges. Compared to the regional I just ran, it was a lot smoother and fun. Maybe it was because I wasn't in a "leadership" role, but it was much more organized. I am super grateful for having these types of events around and not lose my mind. I now understand, especially after having to run a regional, how the HJ and the TO feel about an event during it occurs. It is quite hectic.

What did I think was gonna win, it was gonna be water OR MacroRabbit (or anything that could run Macro). I think the water has good matchups against a lot of deck because it becomes huge beaters and forces the opponent to use some sort of removal, which most decks now lack. Also, we can add to the fact that a lot of players were running water (more like more than 50%). I wasn't surprised when 50% of the players in the top 32 was water, but it was still interesting. What was more interesting was the people that weren't playing water. Read more here.

As for my experience, I blew a casket you can say... During round 2, a player went into time and then the match ended in a draw. He proceeded to complain about how it became a "draw" and that the system is stupid. I then threw back, maybe if you didn't slow play so much, you'd have time to play out the match. This was me stressed from the previous weekend... He then proceeded to request to talk to the HJ, I followed up with an apology as I knew my head wasn't in the right place. WOW, I can't believe I did that. This was definitely a sign that I needed to get out the judging scene for a bit, but I can't help it, it's so much fun with the people I work with. As for customer service, I don't know if I can continue with such hard work. I'm not quitting, no. I want to continue this expedition, but I want a break :\

What can I say? That wasn't a good customer experience for that player and I do apologize for that. Especially making Konami look bad in front of other players and especially making that person's experience not very welcoming. I as a well experienced judge, should have known what to do and should have said the right things, however, I was out of my mind... We shall see how things turn out in the future. :\

Besides all this, here's some pictures from Austin :]

First meal in TX

Water fall pool... I keep forgetting to get swimming trunks. 

Working hard to make the place clean!

Lining up for judge dinner! BBQ!

Lobby on the 10th floor?

The was a fire place... LOL

Outside the convention center, so many stairs!

From the 18th floor! GOSH it is high...

Jadges

Cool looking building

Someone stole my iPod

Congrats on making Day 2 Galo!

BOSTON!

HJing my first event!

Ahhh, it has been almost 2 weeks since this event, have been super busy about this YGO thing. Let us say that it wasn't the most pleasant experience that I've had in a while. It is due to the fact that it was the first regional in the Massachusetts area for over 1.5 years. I applied as a judge and I became the Head Judge because I was the "most experienced". This wasn't the fact for the Tournament Organizer (TO) as he believed that he didn't need my help. I didn't offer it. Instead, I took it into my own hands. I contacted the potential judges and talked to them about what was expected and tried to prepare them for what is needed.

The HJing experience was one of the most difficult due to the fact of the lack of experience coming from me, and especially the TO. Coming from me, I understand what HJ is supposed to do, however, I had little to no experience of how to do it. Player management was one of things I wanted to work on. Luckily another judge volunteered for the event and was really helpful. Thank goodness. Overall, not going into too much detail, we, the judges, saved this fiasco of a Regional and we got through and got all the results at the end.

What did I learn from this? A LOT. Judges don't want to read the material, players don't want to listen, TOs need their materials to have the tournament run much more smoothly. I had to become TO, Scorekeeper, and HJ at this moment. The TO/Scorekeeper was too busy cleaning up after and selling products to the players. Anyways, I hope that we all learned something because I definitely have over the 1 year judging at premiere events.