Tournament reports for fun and profit

Tournament Reports for Fun and Profit

Alan Peng, L2, Auckland, NZ

A critical reflection and analysis of specific events or situations that you

encounter as a judge to provide a learning tool for other readers.

What are they, anyway?

Sharing your experiences

Start a discussion

Review situations that happened

Education/mentoring

Why write them?

5 tips for writing great

tournament reports

The more you take, the more material you can

work with.

Easier to discard extra notes than trying to recall

what happened!

1. Notes!

What were your biggest takeaways?

Did you learn something particularly useful or interesting that you would like to share?

2. Select a few interesting topics/themes

- Unexpected logistical challenges (such as seating arrangements)

- Investigations that resulted in unexpected outcomes

- Challenges and/or goals and how they were met/overcome

Examples

Go into more detail - enough for the audience to learn and give feedback

Focus on discussion and insight

3. Explore/elaborate on topics

Adrian is playing Splinter Twin in Modern and has a mountain, 2 islands and scalding tarn untapped. At the end of Nicole’s turn, Adrian casts Cryptic Command to bounce a creature and draw a card. After Adrian untaps he realized he could not cast the spell. They call you and you decide to rewind to the point of the error.

Roundtable time

The situation was [as occurred]. I decided to do a rewind, but in retrospect it was a mistake. I did not take into account that replacing a random card from Adrian’s hand means that he can crack the fetchland,

shuffle and draw a fresh card, especially as he was playing a combo deck that required specific cards,

which may damage the game state further than keeping it as is. Next time I am going to do a rewind, I will take possible game states that may occur in mind

when deciding whether to issue a rewind.

Example Paragraph

It’s important to have a good introduction and conclusion!

Introduce the audience to what you want to say in the report

Close out with thoughtful analysis

4. Round the report off

Remember - the report is about what happened to YOU

Share YOUR knowledge, what YOU learned, and how YOU did so!

5. Be Personal

Finally…

DON’T FORGET TO HAVE FUN!