I am on the Thomas Jefferson programming committe. We have been looking into the idea of a Magic tournament to be held at Thomas Jefferson for residents of Thomas Jefferson. I am looking for your thoughts and opinions in the following areas:

FORMAT!
prizes
judging

I have been playing the game for a little more than ten years now and am well versed in the new rule format. So I could judge the tournament; however, if there is an actual DCI judge here, please contact me.

I am interested in any opinions on the subject.


PS!!! Just to clear up a couple of questions.

I am thinking that the tourney would have to involve people bringing their own decks. If I proposed a tournament, like a draft or sealed deck, then people would come only for thrds and have some friends come for the free cards too. Charging a fee for the tourney is not possible. No charges would apply to those in the tourney.

Aaron Craft

Sealed baby!!!
prizes... um... more cards...
judging.. i'm not technically a judge, only because i haven't had the time nor found a level 3 judge to become one. I could judge/help, I know the rules pretty much inside out. I spend a lot of time on the rulings forums at mtgnews.com and such. But yeah, magic tournaments are pimp.

Sealed is the one where you don't have to supply your own cards right? If thats the case then yeah, sealed.

a booster draft of darksteel would be neat.

You should make it open to the campus. I know I'd like to play but I obviously don't live in TJ anymore.

Question: Would TJ supply the cards or would we have to pay?

generally speaking, at a tournament you pay a price for the cards.

I added a couple things up top... in the origional message.

You could do the kind of tournament (either draft or sealed) where you don't keep the cards you open. You open the cards, write down the contents on a sheet of paper, and then at the end the winner(s) split up the cards (usually the winner chooses so many, then the second gets some and so on).

I am a certified judge and a registered TO (tournament organizer), but I am probably not much help to you anymore as far as being a warm body at the tournament. But I can provide some advice:

Sanctioning: You need only a registered TO and at least 8 people to sanction a tournament. To be a TO, you only need to be at least 18 and able to pass an online quiz that's between 5 and 10 questions (I forget how many). If you want to get it sanctioned, get whomever it is that's going to be your TO to take the quiz ASAP, because you'll wait like 10 days to 3 weeks from the business day after you pass the test to get your organizer password and other stuff (DCI Reporter software, new DCI member cards, etc.). You can do the application to be a TO here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/totestsignin
Whomever you get to be the TO (if any) should read the Magic Floor Rules (i.e. the tournament policies for Magic, not the rules to Magic itself), the Universal Tournament rules, and the Penalty Guidelines. All of those documents are linked from here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/utr/intro
Some people think the TO test is hard; I found it to be pretty easy. Like I said before, it's not a test of the rules to Magic itself; it is only a test over tournament policy and procedure.

Judges: Unless you want a tournament that will affect players' ratings more (which you probably don't), you don't need any certified judges to run the tournament, though they often do reassure the players. If Sutherlands is the same Sutherlands that posts on MTGNews, I can vouch for his knowledge of the rules (at least, until I stopped frequenting 'News in December or so). Make sure you weed out any charlatans; there are lots of people who think they know the rules but don't.

I have a little bit more info if you're interested, but I've gotta get to bed (a downside to being a working stiff).

Free cards are always good especially when drafting. If we have to bring our own deck I'm in favor of Type Fun, where broken things happen.(T1)

Because it's always more fun when the $500+ deck always wins...
Once again, It'd be nice if it were a campus event--we quadlings allow y'all to our stuff...

ok guys... he's said he doesn't want to do something where TJHA would have to supply the cards.. trust me, it'd be a real pain to do so. we (i'm on the programming committee too) can't ask you guys to pay an entry fee, and its usu. pretty hard to get TJHA to approve $ for individuals.

doing either a sealed or a draft would involve either making people bring some sort of entry fee, or asking TJHA to approve enough money to give individuals cards toplay with.

the idea to provide cards, but split them between winners is a great idea, but pretty much falls under the same problem. the prize would end up being worth about $30-40 or more, and they really don't like givin more than $5-10 tops to any one person.

all that said though... I'd suggest type 1.5 or extended.

1.5 opens it up quite a bit, while still stopping alot of the really high dollar cards that let people just buy victories.

extended is at a slightly lower power level than 1.5, and has alot of interesting and varied decks also... but thats just my two cents

also, i play alot of magic, and generally know the rules pretty well

If we did the idea to split up the cards between people, then each person would get approx $10 of cards to begin with (but wouldn't keep them) and depending on how many people showed up you could say that anyone who gets past the first round gets at least some cards, that way like each round you get past you would get an extra pack or something. That wouldn't be too horribly much to one person.

But if that's still not an option. I'd recommend 1.5. 1 is mostly card value, not deckbuilding. 1.5, while it still has some of that, gives people a lot of options. Extended wouldn't be that bad, but type 2 would be. I know I don't have hardly any type 2 cards, because i haven't bought any of the last 2 sets... but I guess that's just my slant.

There is a format that I've heard about called Type 0. Everything is unrestricted and you can't use cards over $15-$20. Another possibility is highlander, that's an extremely fun format where deckbuilding is the main focus. Just a thought.