After playing the game since early 2013, I finally ran my first tournament last weekend. I was the TO for the Dragon’s Lair Store Championship in Austin, TX last weekend. I wanted to share some of the trials and tribulations that I experienced so hopefully other TOs can learn from them.
First, I had printed the necessary FFG forms prior to the start. I downloaded the latest Cryodex and ran through some sample tournaments with it to make sure I was familiar with the software. I downloaded the latest FAQ and tournament rules and read them a few times prior. I had double checked with the store ahead of time to make sure we were set to start. I even bought and cut a dozen felt mats for players in the event that we did not have enough mats otherwise.
I arrived at the store early, setup and began taking squad sheets after players had registered. We were slated to start at 11am. I decided to wait until 11:15am to give some players a few more minutes. I made the cutoff and assigned matchups; we had 11 players and were set to start. We had someone show up just before the round started so I proceeded to accept them and assigned them to the person who was assigned a draw.
However, this person showed me that the store had marked their calendar for a 12pm start! I was puzzled because I was clear with the store organizer that we would start at 11am. Turns out, they meant that we would start taking registrations at 11am and the tournament at 12pm. However, they did not communicate that with me and assumed I knew that’s what they meant. I took all attendees that showed up late and gave them a few minutes to accommodate. In total, we had 15 attendees.
Now, here’s where I ran in to some problems. I couldn’t figure out how to add this new player in. I decided to give up on using Cryodex and calculate the MoV scores by hand. I didn’t want to do this but I figured it shouldn’t be too difficult with only 12 players. By time I had accepted 4 late arrivals, I was starting to regret having to do this by hand.
Everything seemed to be going smooth during the first round. Few questions popped up that I had prepared a ruling on (what happens when IG-88 draws Injured Pilot and can IG88-D measure the Segnor’s Loop before making a decision). After the round, it took 10 minutes to calculate the pairings and assign the next round. Someone then asked why they were placed further back even though they had won. Sure enough, I got the points assigned to this player and his opponent mixed up. Swapped the assignments and everything seemed peachy.
Just after the start of round 2 I noticed 2 players had setup using the debris. Since they had already started their third turn I offered three solutions: both players can continue to play as is only if both agree, they restart the match without the debris, or the simply replace the debris since there were two. Both players had to agree to the solution, and they both agreed to swap out the debris.
Round 2 and round 3 pass without any other issues. Players are having fun and I’m fielding tons of questions from observers.
Then I notice when doing the round 4 pairings that I had swapped 2 other players scores in round 1 as well. I panicked. I decided the only fair thing to do was to readjust them appropriately. They were both 2-1 with similar MoVs and it did not have much impact on their pairings. I knew that I could not go back and re-pair the players and I could not redo the previous rounds. This seemed like the only thing fair thing to do.
The fourth round finished and I announced the winners. I had trouble mentally sorting these players this time and someone found that I overlooked the 8th ranked player. Fortunately, one of the top ranked players gave back his dice bag prize for another player, so I didn’t have to take back any prizes. I handed out prize support to everyone who wanted something; we had plenty of prize kit supplies to offer.
As a TO, there is extra prize support for the organizer to keep or give out. Since we had an odd number of players, the last ranked player would receive a bye in the last round. In this case, this player was relatively new to the game. He had a great attitude all day and was fun to watch play. I decided to honor this player with my prize kit. He was grateful and said that he was interested in attending our league nights (Friday nights starting at 7pm until close at Dragon’s Lair in Austin).
This was one of the earlier wave 6 store championships. It was interesting to see a 4 Y-Wing Scum build go undefeated. This player is fun to watch and has a great attitude as well. His opponent was in the same boat at an earlier tournament (undefeated losing only to the winner in the last round).
I had several occasions where players wrote down the wrong information, such as points destroyed or opponent. That didn’t make it easier to keep it in order.
In the end, the mistakes I encountered stemmed from calculating the scores and ranks by hand. I will be doing many other simulations with Cryodex as to learn the software better. I will probably be running regionals as well, so I will make sure I have covered the bases much better. Everything else seemed to go smoothly and I hope players enjoyed attending.
I hope you enjoyed reading this battle report from the other side.