Meet the 'Level 3s'

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It would help to mention that his name is Robert Harder (thank you Ctrl+F).

Nice interview and keep up the good work. We look forward to your continued input around here.
 
I should have gotten an interview, ;). Stupid me taking the L3 test up in NY in May off no sleep and allowing myself only an hour to take it (a tournament I was signed up for was starting at that time). Oli knows what I'm talking about, I barely failed it actually... so that wasn't all that bad considering all the things that were going on that weekend and not to mention that I was definitely distracted by the VS events for weeks coming up to it and during that weekend.

Anyways man, nice interview.
 
Nice interview. Could I ask one question for clarification? When you state:
Does any one event stick out in your mind?

"Yes, I call it "˜Anti-Spell versus Wave-Motion Cannon.'



"This happened at a Cybernetic Revolution prerelease tournament. To make a long story short, time was called in a match, so the game went to "˜sudden death.' Player A wanted to use Wave-Motion Cannon to finish the game and Player B wanted to chain with Anti-Spell to stop the Wave-Motion Cannon. David Buzzelli (another Level 3 judge) and I began talking about the game mechanics, discussing whether or not you could play it, due to timing. Needless to say, Bryan, a Level 1 judge, walked by and said, "˜It removes spell counters.' We both had forgotten to read the entire card, which would have shown that Wave-Motion Cannon doesn't use spell counters."
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Removing spell counters is an activation requirement not an effect so it wouldn't have anything to do with the counters on Wave Motion Cannon. Just couldn't put together how the situation came down. Did you mean Exhausting Spell?
 
OK, now here's a question: P1 controls Royal Magical Library with one counter. P2 plays Wave Motion Cannon (let's get MFC - ish!). Now, can P1 negate it with Anti-Spell? Or does the counter not come on until the spell resolves, and as such, P1 would not be able to pay the cost?
-pssvr
 
Guys... did any of you notice that at the start of it it says that it happened at a CRV Sneak Preview...

Ok... how is Wave-Motion Cannon being played in the Sneak Preview? I'm starting to believe that that may have been a typo more than anything else.
 
Does any one event stick out in your mind?

"Yes, I call it "˜Anti-Spell versus Wave-Motion Cannon.'



"This happened at a Cybernetic Revolution prerelease tournament. To make a long story short, time was called in a match, so the game went to "˜sudden death.' Player A wanted to use Wave-Motion Cannon to finish the game and Player B wanted to chain with Anti-Spell to stop the Wave-Motion Cannon. David Buzzelli (another Level 3 judge) and I began talking about the game mechanics, discussing whether or not you could play it, due to timing. Needless to say, Bryan, a Level 1 judge, walked by and said, "˜It removes spell counters.' We both had forgotten to read the entire card, which would have shown that Wave-Motion Cannon doesn't use spell counters."
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Yeah, looks to me like everyone was tired and didn't really read any of the card effects involved. I was thinking Exhausting Spell too. That would have made the whole scenario make sense, but then who runs Exhausting Spell in a tournament? Maybe Anti-Spell's player had a Wvae-Motion Cannon, but I digress.
 
I'm still confused because now as I read it, it looks like they were trying to use Anti-Spell to negate Wave-Motion Cannon. Reading it now the sentence that sticks out to me is "Player A wanted to use Wave-Motion Cannon to finish the game and Player B wanted to chain with Anti-Spell to stop the Wave-Motion Cannon."

Yeah, if you read that, it would appear that this was the game state.

Wave-Motion Cannon had already been activated prior in the game and the player was now declaring that they were going to sacrifice it to inflict damage to the opposing player (and since it was sudden death that would end the game). The opposing player however wanted to know if they could use Anti-Spell to negate Wave-Motion Cannon.

That's the way I'm reading it and the obvious answer if that's the scenerio is that you can't use Anti-Spell to negate Wave-Motion Cannon.

But yeah, I wasn't sure what you guys were talking about here anyways, I haven't paid attention to YGO in almost a year (well I pay attention, just not to the extent I used to), but that's what it looks like to me by what's posted there.
 
To me, the way it reads initially is that Player B wanted to chain Anti-Spell to Wave-Motion Cannon being sent to the Graveyard and the discussion that ensues is whether the timing was correct.

Then it appears that another judge walks by and points out that Wave-Motion Cannon doesn't use counters ... and thats where they loose us.

Obviously, the timing to negate the Cannon was wrong as it was already active on the field for at least one turn. But the questions that arise are when the Level 1 walks by and says this. I mean, sure Wave-Motion Cannon doesn't use counters, but how would that have anything to do with Anti-Spell's cost? PLayer B would have had to remove Spell Counters from HIS side of the field, not player A's side. So that's a confuses things a little.

In any case, asumming Player B had the Spell Counters to remove for Anti-Spell's cost, he was much to late to negate a Wave-Motion Cannon being sent to the Graveyard.
 
TheOne said:
Metagame recently recently interviewed the Level 3 Judges. Finding this VERY helpful since not many people know who we are and more often than NOT I get told I am NOT a Level 3 judge.
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From a player perspective I can see how this would actually be very useful. From a TO/PTO perspective, I believe, finally, that most are starting to realize that even being a L3 isn't worth much when it comes to staffing. Only UDE, actually, finds using L3s to be some kind of status symbol.

However, from experience, L3s do not have any more experience or softskills than most L1 (or even non-certified) judges. And, also from experience, I'd much rather bring in judges that have more people skills and less rulings knowledge than the other way around. And, like most things in this game, the certification is merely unbalanced to the point of (to borrow a phrase from Batman Begins) sacrificing sure footing for the killing stroke. Anyone can hand out rulings. But not everyone can actually hand out rulings in a way that players understand, the game environment is not disrupted and the level of competance is raised by their presence on the judging staff.

If anything, this move by Metagame merely provided me with names of judges as the beginning* of my "who I would avoid when arranging a high level event" list.

Oh. Wait. EGI does arrange high level events.


*I said 'beginning' and there are obviously major exceptions to this since there are several L3s that I consider to not only be personal friends but the backbone of competancy in this game. Most of them are already in this community and working very hard to increase the community's knowledge and professionalism on a daily basis. THESE are judges that do not need a certification or a status symbol.
 
Digital Jedi said:
To me, the way it reads initially is that Player B wanted to chain Anti-Spell to Wave-Motion Cannon being sent to the Graveyard and the discussion that ensues is whether the timing was correct.

Then it appears that another judge walks by and points out that Wave-Motion Cannon doesn't use counters ... and thats where they loose us.

Obviously, the timing to negate the Cannon was wrong as it was already active on the field for at least one turn. But the questions that arise are when the Level 1 walks by and says this. I mean, sure Wave-Motion Cannon doesn't use counters, but how would that have anything to do with Anti-Spell's cost? PLayer B would have had to remove Spell Counters from HIS side of the field, not player A's side. So that's a confuses things a little.

In any case, asumming Player B had the Spell Counters to remove for Anti-Spell's cost, he was much to late to negate a Wave-Motion Cannon being sent to the Graveyard.
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True, the timing is what I'm talking about when I say "no". You can't Magic Jammer a Wave-Motion Cannon when it's sent to the graveyard for it's effect, so you surely can't Anti-Spell it (same effect, the cost of activating it is only different).

Maybe it was this, the person who played the Anti-Spell didn't have any cards with spell counters on his side of the field and the judges who were called over at first didn't take this into account. Then the other judge who walked by pointed it out and this would mean that they didn't really need to give a definitive answer on how it would resolve since activating Anti-Spell was an illegal play in the first place.

That's the only thing that can really come from this all when you look at what was presented. In fact, I'm pretty much 95% positive (I always allow myself a margin of error just in case, even if I feel 100% right) that that is the case presented here.

I guess the main point is that it just shows that some judges will overlook something that simple when trying to explain something to the players. And that you should probably make sure that all cards that were put on the chain met the criteria that was required for them to be activated, whether it's only during a certain phase, or has an additional cost before you look into the chain resolving and explaining to your players the how/why of the chain.
 
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