A Reflection on GP Melbourne

The eternal events at GP Melbourne this year were an extremely positive experience. It was great to see all the players who travel from around Australia that you only get to see at these larger events. I had the pleasure of squaring off against both the always lovely David Brotchie and the best barbeque chef I know Socrates in the Vintage event. I also had plenty of conversations with the likes of the Canberra and Brisbane crews. There are just too many of you guys and girls out there that I cannot name you all and it means a lot to me even to just say “Hi”.

There was a different atmosphere at the GP venue this year. This GP was the first Australian GP run by Chain Link events and it was also, once again, the largest Australian main event which nearly reached its cap of 1,100 players. The main event, from what I saw, ran smoothly and I did not see any major flaws in its running. I did not play in the main event, so my opinion may be somewhat distant from those who were playing in the event and may be missing many of those small details. CL events were also very generous with a playmat given to every competitor in the side events, in addition to those who played in the main event. This was a fantastic and unexpected addition to the tournaments.

Any judge calls were swiftly attended and dealt with in a professional manner. It was also good to see the judges using the Magic Judges Twitter at many of the strange and wonderful board states not just in the side events but continually throughout the weekend. I personally had my game against my Dredge opponent when I Pyroblasted his Bazaar of Baghdad in game two.

(Lachlan) "Pyroblast your Bazaar." Just a regular old Vintage match. pic.twitter.com/qwIOh2Ppxx

— Magic Judges (@MagicJudges) 5 March 2016

However, some aspects of the side events a lot of room for improvement in their structure and execution. I will be writing a letter to CL events in a more concise manner but there were some aspects of the side events that did not meet my expectations. I understand that this was the first event in Australia for CL Events and they proved very responsive to feedback prior to the event regarding the scheduling of an additional Highlander event so I am sure that with enough encouragement, at least some of these will be addressed before their next GP, which I am sure will be bigger and better than Melbourne.

The areas in which the side events did not meet my expectations were:
The Queue
The Rules Enforcement Level
The Round Cap
The Timing
The Multiple Restarts

In order to sign up for the side events there was a rather long and unruly line. Stretching across the hall floor it was slow, taking over an hour and twenty minutes to traverse it, and was constantly being cut through and crossed by hundreds of people every minute. Perhaps signing up online would have been the better option but as I had changed my mind to sign up for the Friday Highlander event at the last minute that was not an option for me. I really feel that splitting the lines into days or specific events would have been a much more efficient use of time and floor space. At the very least it should have snaked along a wall as to ensure it was not being cut through. It was especially dreadful for me as within 15 minutes of being in line I had a roaring migraine which I had to endure for the entire trip. Once at the front of the line I was told that I had to go away and fill out a form, which could have been supplied at the start. Once I had completed the form the same gentleman serving me told me that I had not needed it, checked his computer for 5 minutes before asking for it from me again. This was particularly infuriating given my headache at this point and I was just asking to be put through as quickly as possible. 

I was also shocked after I signed up to find that many of the side events such as the Highlander and legacy events were run at Regular REL. I was really surprised to find such a large event with real prize support and prestige on the line run as a regular REL event. All other events of this nature around Australia in the past have been run at Competitive REL. This was also especially disappointing for the Highlander Rules Committee because they use the decklists, which are not required at Regular REL, to determine the direction of the format as a whole. There was also confusion on the Saturday as at least one of the staff taking registrations for the event was advising competitors that the event was to be run at Regular REL causing confusion as some players had not written decklists based on this information. This was quite distressing to myself as I have kept the decklists from every large Vintage event in Australia since 2011 as I was quite worried that it would be downgraded to Regular REL to accommodate this.

The Round Cap was personally, the largest area in which I feel that CL Events dropped the ball. Having all the side events capped at 5 rounds, with no top 8 was completely unheard of at Australian GP’s. Even the 64 player Legacy event was capped at five rounds would not have even been enough to determine an undefeated player. At best these events were Swiss +1 and at worse not enough for a viable Swiss tournament structure. This structure left many players, including myself, feeling deeply dissatisfied with the quality of the tournament being run. Similar events have been run worldwide but for a country with such a deeply rooted and established eternal scene it felt like we were being disrespected in the eyes of the TO. While I am sure that this was not the case, I hope that this will be improved in the upcoming GP’s run by CL Events.

The next two items are somewhat linked to each other and they are the timing of the rounds and the multiple restarts and repairings. Before the Vintage event I rushed to write a decklist down for one Nicholas Chmielewski. Ten minutes before the tournament I was extremely worried as his deck had not been finalised and I was helping him complete the final steps. My worry was unwarranted as the event did not start until 25 minutes after the scheduled start of the event. This was compounded by the multiple restarts over the weekend for repairing etc. One Legacy tournament was restarted at total of four times in a single round. Multiple players dropped from the Legacy and the Vintage had some players rumble discontentedly at this.

However, I don’t want this to be taken as a negative overview of the GP Experience as hosted by CL Events. I had a truly amazing time which would have not been possible without the hard work and dedication that the staff and judges put into this event. Having run my events myself I know some of the Herculean task it is to put up a great event and the work put in by the organisers should be celebrated. The comments above are only the major areas that I saw easy improvement that would turn this great GP into a truly memorable experience.