Greetings!

After a MagicCon we all want to sleep.  Instead, we plan to make you play Magic and figure out what problems people can have playing Magic.

Welcome to the Minneapolis Monday Mock Tournament.

This will be held on Monday, May 8th after MagicCon Minneapolis.  We aren’t associated with the MagicCon, so acceptance or declines will be entirely unrelated to MagicCon acceptance and declines.

We have 60 total slots, so please don’t feel slighted if you are not accepted.

Our acceptance priority is:
1 – Midwest judges with lower tournament experience that need training.
2 – Midwest scorekeepers with lower tournament experience that need training.
3 – Experienced judges or scorekeepers that can provide training and feedback in a mock tournament setting.
4 – Experienced judges or scorekeepers that have significant play experience at competitive events that can provide training and feedback in a mock tournament setting.

Our structural plan for this event is:
This event will be run in MTG Melee.
There will be a total of 4 events, run at Competitive REL, but with rounds as best-of-one for faster round turnovers. There will be two events in each of the two timeslots, for judges of different experience levels. Each judge will have the chance to play in one of these, either first timeslot or second, and the chance to take calls in one timeslot.
The two events will be divided up by judge experience, and will have calls roughly calibrated to that experience level.
We also need scorekeepers for these events – some of the issues with the events will be bad results entries or other similar issues.  We want people to fail to scorekeep these so they can succeed at scorekeeping store events.

So, to break that down:
At 10am we will have a welcome, and deck registration for events codenamed RED 1 and GOLD 1.  RED 1 will be for less experienced judges, and GOLD 1 will be for more experienced judges.
The player meeting for each event will begin at 1030am.  Shortly after, we will seat Round 1.  This will be a 30 minute best-of-1 round.  Both tournaments will run separately and run their own clock.
Rounds 2 and 3 will begin as soon as rounds are turned over for their respective events.
Once both events are done with 3 rounds, we will have what should be a 1 hour lunch.  People are encouraged to talk about the events, and what went well and poorly and what calls went well and poorly.
At 2pm, we will sit for player meetings for RED 2 and GOLD 2.  If you were a judge in a 1 event, then you will be playing in a 2 event and vice-versa.  You may end up crossing over into the other RED vs GOLD event, who knows!
The time structure is again 30 minute best-of-1 rounds.
Once both events are done, we will have a brief gathering, a rundown of the day, and then people will get foils.
The expectation is that this will end at approximately 5pm.

YOU ARE EXPECTED TO BRING A DECK TO THIS EVENT.
Everyone will be both doing operations and playing in these events other than a small number of people doing the overall conference administration or in a set feedback role.  (We may have a Deck Checks Czar or Scorekeeper Czar that just provides planning on those roles, for instance.)
You can share this deck with someone in the “other half” of the event, but be aware that we will have finite ability to move people between Part 1 and Part 2 based on educational needs, so you might end up without this ability.  We will try to have event divvies up with some notice so that you can plan around this, though.

We are setting the format to “Legacy” so that you can do things like cut down a Commander deck or bring a Pioneer or Modern or limited deck you have sitting around.  The expectation is not that your deck will be a competent Legacy deck, just that it will be a legal one.  Part of the goal is to get experience with Melee from both a judge and player side, so we will be taking Melee decklist submissions.  You will be obligated to enter your deck into Melee for your play slot, and there will be deck checks done on your deck.

YOU ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE ACCESS TO A SMARTPHONE WITH INTERNET ACCESS FOR THIS EVENT.

We will have some amount of internet-enabled devices for deck checks, but you will be expected to access pairings and match reporting via Melee.
Part of the educational goal is to understand Melee from a player perspective so that when asked you can provide on-floor help for players in larger competitive events using Melee.
The store may have public wifi (there are some current issues, the goal is for it to be fixed by then) for those that have a smart device and no internet access, and we will be posting paper pairings as well.

NON-JUDGE NON-PLAYER ROLES

We need a certain amount of Czars.  I don’t want to call these leads, so there is no confusion between people doing roles within the tournament itself.  These people would be working the conference all day, managing their zones and on the hook to provide feedback within their space.

Deck Check Czar (1)

There will be Deck Check Leads, but this person makes sure those leads are handling checks, will handle “how is this mock event doing things” questions, and will provide feedback to the leads on checks and on their team management.  They will know the scripted deck check issues we hand out, so if things go very wrong they can assist with issues.  There will be one of these, covering both sides.

Scorekeeper Czar (1)

There will be Scorekeepers for each event.  This person is responsible for providing them training and feedback on issues related to scorekeeping, and collecting feedback to be provided to Melee if we encounter any issues that the Melee team should address on an application level.  There will be one of these, covering both sides.

Staff Czar (2)

The events will have Judges and Head Judges (there may be multiple Head Judges) per event.  This person will keep an eye on the people in the Head Judge and Floor Judge roles taking calls and appeals, provide feedback to the judges taking calls, and keep things on track if the Head Judges run into more problems than they can handle. There will be a total of two of these, one for RED and one for GOLD.

Player Czar (2)

This person will be responsible for getting the issues assigned out to players to have happen during the event, will make sure that players are sticking within their bounds, and will provide feedback to players if anything is handled wrong from their end.  There will be a total of two of these, one for RED and one for GOLD.

COVER LETTER INSTRUCTIONS

If you are a L2+ judge that feels you bring strong experience to this event, we really want to hear from you!

Please include the following info in a cover letter if you are an experienced judge:

• What specific experience you have that is useful for mock events.
• What specific event experience you have that can be applied.
• Any special skills or prepared content you have done that may be applicable (for instance if you have built a deck checks seminar or done a Melee presentation or run another mock tournament).
• If you feel you would be especially useful in any of the Czar roles, that would also be helpful – these are the “presenter” slots for this event, and will have more work and more focus on them than just the call taking and player roles.

Please include the following info in a cover letter if you are an inexperienced judge:

• What kinds of area you are judging in right now.
• What types of events you are looking forward to judging in the future.
• Your favorite event type to play in.

I hope to see you there, and I hope to see you fail a call and learn from it here at this mock tournament rather than doing so out in a live call.