The Spanish Nationals Tournament Report
October 9, 2023
Hello! Welcome to the Spanish National Report, a story about a great tournament and some nice people having fun.
Well, first things first, my name is Antonio Ferreiro, now L2 from Granada, Spain, and I will be your storyteller. With me are the unique and famous Riccardo Tessitori, L1 from Madrid (yes, we have imported him), and Laura Lobato, the greatest photographer of LSS’s OP Team. They will be helping me tell you all this tale.
The Day Before - The Preparation
Who Likes Taking Notes?
A day before the tournament, in Dracarys, a store in Alcobendas, Madrid, there was a Judge Conference for Spanish Judges, organized by Mónica, and I was one of the presenters.
First, Mónica had a gift for all of us: a notebook specially created for the Spanish Nationals. She is awesome.
The Conferences
The conferences held three great presentations at different levels: “How to give a ruling” by Ángel Cordero, “Using GEM” by Jorge Expósito and “PPG Changes” by myself. You can watch them here. They are in Spanish, but if you want them in English just drop me a message.
The first two were great because they were like a group chat, where all of us talked about the topics. We put forth a lot of scenarios, and discussed how to approach every case with lots of humor and in a deep way.
Then, it was my turn. It was my first time presenting in person, but I wasn’t nervous. In some way I wasn’t even surprised; I felt like I was surrounded by my friends, in my house, just talking about a game. I just met half of them for the first time, but they were like family already. It went exactly like the other two presentations. I peppered in lots of humor, and mused deep thoughts on the PPG, how to maintain the principles, and why Missed Trigger were changed to the new policy.
And after that, a lot later than expected, the first in-person Spanish Conference was over and we went to have our well-deserved dinner. If you’ve been in Spain, you would know we do eat really well here, hehe. And If you haven’t been here… what are you waiting for? Worlds is coming up in November, come on over!
Day One - The Tournament
The Dream Team
So, we had a briefing first… Oh, wait, I haven’t told you who was on the team!
- First, as HJ, and loved by players and judges alike, Mónica González. Judge Community Representative Lead of Europe and first L2 in Spain. Have I already said she is awesome?
- José Ramón Botella Guardiola, L1 and our Scorekeeper. He had limited experience in this position but he did a really great job.
- Riccardo Tessitori. Well, what to say about him… L1 in FaB and the most experienced judge in the event. He is known worldwide as a model judge to follow. If you haven’t had the opportunity to meet him, I strongly encourage you to do so. He was in charge of the Papers and Breaks.
- Arturo Salcedo, another L1 from Madrid. Great person to chat with. Loves discussing, like me, so we spent some fantastic moments sharing thoughts. He was in charge of the Deck Checks.
- Vicent Vilar i Cifre, L1 from Valencia. He, like me, was looking to reach L2 in the Nationals. He is the one in charge of judging the events on the East side of Spain. He was in charge of the End of Round.
- Me, Antonio Ferreiro, L1 at the time. I usually judge in the South of Spain and this was my first event in a team in FaB. I was so excited for it. I was in charge of the Draft Logistics.
The team worked as great as it could be. But I’ll tell you more about that later… Now, to introduce the real protagonists…
Who Is Missing?
Well, the big day has come. All players were ready at the entrance, waiting patiently for us to let them in and get seated for the first round, to find out who was missing.
We didn’t want long queues for registering, so the TO (Tournament Organizer) had all the players registered ahead of time. After generating the first round, we could see the tables with missing players and then manually pair the players without an opponent, after dropping the players that didn’t show up.
It took less than 30 seconds for a judge on the floor to ask a player to move and write the two names of the players who were being paired. Then, the judge went to the scorekeeper and said, for example, “I moved Antonio from table 20 to table 14, and the opponent is Riccardo”; the SK would then remove Antonio’s and Riccardo’s opponents from round 1.
The First Call
Do you remember that on Friday I presented a seminar about Missed Trigger? Guess what? Immediately in round 1, in the feature match on camera… a call about a Missed Trigger. “Oh, dear, this looks great,” was my first thought. It couldn’t be an easier one:
Tyler activates Grasp of Arknight, creating a Runechant. They play Force of Nature, then attack. Nick defends and, after that, Tyler remembers that he forgot to trigger the Runechant.
My first thought: “OK, 3 options: Fix, Rewind or Nothing”. Fixing would put Nick in a worse situation. I asked Nick, “If I rewind, would you have pitched to prevent the Runechant damage?”. They said they wouldn’t. Therefore, there wasn’t any difference. Nick accepted the arcane damage and the Runechant was destroyed. Nick wasn’t too happy with the resolution but accepted it. Later, when the round was over and we had more time to explain, I looked for them and talked about the ruling with them, to help the player understand the ruling better. Nick was expecting me to destroy the Runechant without the damage. I told him that didn’t make any sense, since the resolution is to destroy and damage. The options were “destroy and damage”, or “let the Runechant there”. But they were thinking that the competitive environment should apply a more severe sanction, like “losing the Runechant”.
What do you think? Should the policy be different for professional players? Should it be more like before the last change and letting him decide when it is put on stack?
Time Passes By
The tournament started off at a great pace. The first round just went a couple minutes over the round time. The TO opted to use result slips – a topic we discussed about during preparation, days before. I thought it would notably affect End of Round turnover time and thought that using GEM would be better, but it actually worked fine and it wasn’t too disruptive.
The next call I had was a GRV where a player used his Quiver while frozen. Luckily, when they figured out the mistake it still was easily rewound, so I did it, gave him the penalty and left the table. About 5 seconds later, they were calling me again. The same player had drawn one extra card by mistake at the end of turn. The player was so embarrassed, and their opponent just wanted me to be the least disruptive possible, since they felt bad. It was quite impressive how nice they can be with each other in this community.
Mass Draft is Coming
After the three Classic Constructed rounds, it was my turn, since I was in charge of the Draft Logistics. I used a document made by Mónica (you can see it here), and adapted it for our tournament and team. Everyone knew their duties and it all started with GEM and PurpleFox.
Since GEM doesn’t assign a table for the deck construction, we used this feature made by Aurélie Violette (author of PurpleFox). I did some tests with GEM and PurpleFox days before the tournament, but it always gave me some conflicts that I had to fix manually.
Thankfully, there were 88 players playing the draft, it was so easy for everyone. Eleven 8-player pods. Heaven on Earth. No need to fix anything. Every pod was the same. Just great. We printed the pods’ seatings for each table from PurpleFox, so every player could see on their table the seating in the pod, and also the table number where they would construct their decks. And we bring them to the pods along with 8 blank decklists for construction.
Everyone took their positions and committed to their roles. After an instructions announcement by Mónica, we all started to bring the sealed boxes to the pods. We decided to open the sealed box in front of the players, so they could see there were no mixing boosters from different boxes and, after everyone got their boosters, Arturo started to call the draft. It was up to all of us to ensure that every player was looking straight and drafting in silence. Riccardo and I grabbed a couple boxes and started to clean pack wrappers from all the tables.
It was like being in some kind of religious ritual, with silent people focused on what they were doing. When someone gave an order, the room’s movements were performed as one… It had this relaxing component, like repeating a mantra.
The first draft procedure was successful. Mónica told them the whole process: take one of the blank decklists from the pod and cover the cards with the paper in a way that the card couldn’t move out the package. Then, take a look at their build table and move there, in silence. When everybody was at their build tables, they exchanged their package with the person in front for registration. After that, they built their decks.
Everything went smoothly, except for one person who didn’t give us their decklist. It seems there was some kind of misunderstanding between the judge and the player when they needed to go to the toilet. The player asked their friends to give the decklist to a judge, but somehow they forgot it, or maybe it was him. Sadly, the decklist wasn’t where it should be at the time of start playing and the player got a penalty. All this situation was handled by Arturo, who will explain it better later in this article.
Spanish Food
We played one round before the general lunch break. In Spain, we usually have lunch between 2pm and 3pm, so the timing was quite good for our break. That moment was another great time to create synergy as a team, bonding and make friendship. We ate at the venue and we talked about different situations during the event up till now, and how we approached them. If you have the chance to take your breaks with a mate, don’t hesitate. These are probably the best moments.
Another Rules Exercise
After the break, we had two more rounds, when we received an interesting question:
- Tyler (Boltyn) attacks with Express Lightning (red) and charges a card.
- Nick defends with a 3{d} attack.
- Tyler reacts, activating Boltyn’s ability.
Nick calls us because they want to know if Blinding Beam will deny or not the go again from the Boltyn’s ability.
What do you think? Will it or not? I’ll give you some time to think about it, and answer this later.
Second Parts Are Better
Then came the second draft. This time it was a bit different. We already had some drops and the number of players was not as perfectly divisible as the first draft, so we ended up having a pod with 10 people. It was the last table; the players called it “la divertimesa”, which should roughly translate to “the for-fun table” in English.
Here, we did the same procedure as last time, but this time we had an incident at one of the tables. Riccardo went to help and we all watched how an experienced judge steps in and solves a draft problem in seconds, without affecting the mass draft and with a minimum impact on that table. A player counted a card more than he should get – I think it was 8 instead of 7 – and called us. The way to solve it was that every player counted their cards to see what was going on.
It was quickly determined that it was the player himself who had forgotten to pick a card from the booster he was passing, so it was a very easy and fast fix. Since it took some seconds to correct, they were desynced from the mass draft, so Riccardo asked them to wait till the next pick to be synched again with just one pick less than the other pods. They would then continue drafting together with the other pods, with 5 seconds less than the others. What counts is that all eight players in the pod draft under the same conditions, as they would be paired against opponents who had the same time for each pick. Arturo and I, next to him, obtained invaluable lessons there.
Since the players were familiar with the draft process, they became more relaxed – and we were more tense. I didn’t want any infractions, so I reminded them several times to be quiet and draft in silence. Fortunately, they were good players and shut up.
The next rounds we had two problems important enough to mention. The first one was about the venue: one of the air conditioning machines got broken, and it started to get really hot in one section of the venue. The players were sweating and having a bad experience. Mónica was informed and she renumbered the tables to another part of the hall where they could play in a cooler section. It’s important to hear the players and notice when there is a problem, even when they don’t report it to you directly.
The second one concerned a miscommunication with the people managing the stream. It seems they had some issues during one of the rounds and they gave the players extra time for those issues, but they didn’t tell anything to the judges, or write it down anywhere. Then, when the end of the round came, we told them we were out of time. Luckily they told us what happened and we could verify the situation with the streamers. Remember, when you speak to the streamers, make sure they know that they have to inform the judges about any situations that may impact the round during broadcast.
And that’s it. Way sooner than expected, the first day of the Spanish Nationals ended. Or, that’s what I thought when Mónica and I were talking and a player came to us with a last question. And it was a good one…
Oh, I almost forgot. Boltyn’s ability won’t give go again if the target attack power is less than its base power.
Guess Who's Dead?
He came to us and asked:
“Let’s say both of us are at 1 life. I attack with a 7{p} and my opponent cannot block. But he has a Spectral Shield and a Merciful Retribution. What happens?”
I said “You win, because your opponent would be dead by the time the Merciful Retribution triggers”. And he shook his head, looking down. He asked me to go to a table. There, both players had already cleared up the table and had their decks in their bags. His opponent thought the triggers would have killed him before the damage from the attack would be actually dealt, so they ended up thinking it was his victory. The result slip had not yet been filled out, and after speaking with them at the table and explaining the whole situation with the triggers/replacements, I said the victory was for the attacker.
What do you think? Should I have let the game as it was because everything was cleared up and both accepted that? Indeed, the player was not happy with that and he appealed. Mónica, as HJ, just said the same as me.
I think I would have done the same, even if the slip was already filled. Because the situation was clear, one of them would win and the other would lose, nothing could change that since there were no other possible actions for any player. So I had to resolve that in the fairest way. I rewound to the moment of the mistake, and applied the replacement effect and damage correctly. It didn’t matter that they had already cleared the area, we didn’t need decks, zones or anything else to get to the right ending.
A quite unbelievable way to end the first day.
Feedback is Caring
To wrap up the day, we had a debrief. Mónica started it as HJ, and we all had some time to speak about the aspects of the day that were more important or memorable for each of us and give feedback. That was also great because I got a vision of myself from them, which I could easily recognize and I shifted a little in the day to adequate to my teammates. DO NOT FORGET TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK!
For dinner, I went with some players. That was another of my goals, to create bonds with players. We went to dinner and talked about how the tournament was going, from their perspective as players, and mine as a judge.
Day Two - The Top
Way To Start The Day
After some rest, we were ready for the last three rounds and the top cut. Since the drafts were over, my role was more relaxed and I focused on helping my teammates every way I could.
We went to a churreria to have breakfast together. As Riccardo says, breakfast with the other judges is a key moment of the weekend!
Before the top 8, we had two situations worth mentioning:
Players Do Matter
First, a player got in a really sad mood. He was crying and had a really bad moment. He was about to play a win-and-in game, and his nerves went out of control when he was paired against a teammate, knowing that only one of them would make it to the top 8. Mónica and I were nearby and we talked to him trying to calm him down. We gave him a bottle of water and offered him some fresh air to calm down and gave some extra time to that table. Both players went out together and they came back just a couple minutes later, in a much better mood.
There's Aren't the Cards You're Looking For
The second one was during a deck check. Every round, we had a different pair of judges performing a deck check, in order to increase the collaboration among the team members and have everyone get at least a little experience in each aspect of the tournament. This time Vicent and I were together. He came back with both deck boxes and I got the decklists ready. When we started, he noticed the deck box of the player he was checking had extra cards, legal for that hero (Iyslander), that weren’t in the decklist. Those cards were placed apart, in a kind of drawer in the deck box, but in the same sleeves. Vicent asked me what we should do, and I told him to inform Mónica about it, because this would need an investigation.
I knew the player. And I guessed he wasn’t cheating. He went to the Super Armory organized by the TO that Friday. He tested his deck there with awful results – so awful that he changed the deck on Friday for Nationals. He actually told me that on Friday night, because I knew him. But, since he only had that one deck box with him, he left the unused cards there. He should have left those in the hotel room. But I couldn’t be sure in my judgment, so I stayed away from the investigation.
Mónica started the investigation and he learnt that lesson the hard way. Luckily for him, she, as an experienced judge, started looking for proof. She talked to his previous opponents to make sure he didn’t use any of those cards. She asked him in different ways, and looked for reasoning why he would do such a thing. Finally, after a lot of questions, she believed him and he got off with just an IP2.
Later, when the players were playing again, I told Mónica that I knew him and I wanted to recuse myself, but I told her my version of the story; it matched. She was relieved because, as judges, we are almost never 100% sure in an investigation and, although she was quite sure it was just a bad decision by that player, that confirmation of the story from me calmed her doubts.
Top 8
And, with that, we cut to top 8. Riccardo and I looked for the tables with the best lightning and enough space for spectators without bothering the players, and relayed the information to Mónica. The players went to take some photos with their top 8 prizes and we took some photos too as a team. You already saw that picture at the beginning of this article!
Soon, the top 8 was set to begin. I decided to sit next to two of the tables and focus on one of them. Nothing remarkable happened. However, I can’t say the same for top 4…
The First Scar
Something happened during the streaming of one of the semifinals. Mónica was watching it in the stream. I was near the table. One of the players played Encase, and it dealt damage. The player told the opponent that the card would freeze the card in Arsenal. That was, obviously, wrong. His opponent read the card and he understood the same. And I, myself, also thought that was the text. So, the three people there were so confident that everything was correct. The opponent started his turn and used Lexi’s ability to turn face up the frozen card (which actually was a Falcon Wing), and also got a resource from his Tunic. Then, Mónica came to me and asked me to stop the game, since there was a GRV.
At first I was so confused, I didn’t see any. Then I went to the table and read the Encase. Oh, well… We have a situation.
At that moment I was quite nervous. It was a semifinal and I was watching it so focused, without noticing anything wrong. I felt embarrassed, to be honest. I told the players what was wrong and I started my ruling as usual. GRV, 3 options: Fix, Rewind, Nothing. But this time I thought of something better. There were just two games and there were six judges there. Let’s talk about this a bit.
At that moment, I already discarded the rewind options. The player with Iyslander had already used their card in the arsenal, revealing information, and also the Lexi player. But, what about a fix? Mónica, Riccardo and I spoke about it and it was pretty obvious that a fix would be the best.
Then I was back at the table and thought: OK, equipment and hero should be frozen… But the hero ability was already used, and the equipment too… Why did he use Lexi’s ability? To have another arsenal slot. If Lexi was frozen, the player would have played Falcon Wing, leaving the slot open anyway. So, that probably doesn’t matter.
What about the equipment? The only ability used from equipment was the Tunic. And the resource from that hadn’t been used yet, so having the counters back on Tunic, removing a resource and freezing it would be enough too.
Unfortunately for my mental health, I didn’t apply any fixes to the Tunic resource. The rest of the fix ended up near to what the expected situation would be if the correct cards had been frozen, but forgetting the Tunic fix was going to hammer my mind as I think I didn’t respect the equity of the fix, causing the Lexi player to be in a better position. A couple turns later, the Iyslander player won the game. Both players told me after the game that they understood the ruling, but the regret will still live in my mind. I actually like that, because that scar will remind me to check twice, and will make me more agile and focused in a situation like that. There are two types of judges, the ones who committed a mistake, and the ones who will do it. Scars are good things to have, just don’t hurt yourself.
The Finals
It would be quite soon that the change in mindset would help me. I was completely focused during the final game. This time, the Iyslander player made another GRV: he didn’t draw when resolving a Cold Snap from arsenal. But this time, I was ready. I stopped the game, made him draw, and warned him it was his second Warning for a GRV.
It was some kind of joke by the universe to have the same exact players, a day before, call me for GRV and HEC all in about 10 seconds, but for the other player.
The game ended without any other infraction. Max Dieckmann won the Spanish Nationals playing Lexi, and Chema Mellado was the runner-up with Iyslander.
Time for congratulations, photos, opening the Gold Cold Foils, happiness and good desires for everybody.
The Days After - Reviews
In the days after the event, I spoke to my teammates, to players, and to friends; and I found myself repeating the same thing: it was a great experience. My goals before the event were to learn, meet new people, put a face to a lot of people I speak to everyday online, and figure out if I was ready to reach L2.
I think I accomplished everything I wanted, way more than I expected. I had an unbelievable experience that I strongly recommend to all of you to apply and try it for yourself. And I won’t ever be thankful enough to Mónica and Riccardo for helping me then, and every single day. You two are absolutely the best!
Some Words from the Team
I asked my fellow judges some questions so they could also get the chance of sharing a moment of their tournament experience with you.
Vicent
What memory of the tournament would you like to share?
I would like to share the good synergy that we had as a team, how well we worked together and the great environment that we had. The job was done in a very professional way and fun.
Also I want to add how much I learnt, these high level tournaments and with this number of players are great opportunities to learn.
Arturo
What memory of the tournament would you like to share?
There was a guy that didn’t give a draft deck list and I had to issue him an IP2, and his friends complained. Later, in the PTI side tournament, when I did him a deck check, he was playing with 53 cards plus 4 blue Wrecker Romp, so I had to give him a GL and his friends didn’t say a word then. Now it was impossible to defend, hehe. Everything just happened in good manners and it was quite funny for everyone. We were joking some time about why I had to be the judge in both cases and that everytime I gave him a penalty was heavier. When he saw me it was like “omg, you again?” He looked obviously like a clueless and nice guy, without any malice or cheating mood.
Mónica
What memory of the tournament would you like to share?
What I liked the best was watching how a team of judges who didn’t know each other were capable of working as a team and helping each other. We built that bond in just 2 days.
How was your experience as HJ? Would you do it again?
The experience has been amazing. It’s too much responsibility to prepare the top tournament for the players in a country, and that responsibility also generates much anxiety. Watching how the players leave the venue happy, and having fun in a tournament in good conditions is a great reward. Also it’s a plus to have the opportunity of learning and helping less experienced judges to develop.
Riccardo
What memory of the tournament would you like to share?
My favorite definition of a successful event is “when everyone goes out from the exit in the evening with a smile, already planning their next event”.
The atmosphere has been extremely relaxed during the entire weekend, and I was happy to see on Sunday evening the effect of a very enjoyable experience on several groups of people: the organizer was very concentrated on the start of the weekend, and got more and more relaxed with time passing; the judges got to know each other, formed nice bonds and shared their gaming and life experiences; players were saying goodbye with a “See you in Barcelona” (where the World championship will take place after just two months) like it was a frequent meeting among a group of friends; Antonio was thrilled about the experience and looking forward to start writing his report (at the moment I am writing my lines here, GoogleDrive says that it’s page 20!); I was really looking forward to the next Flesh and Blood event with the judges, players and fellow translators I met.
Sunday evening was my usual mix of sadness (because a very nice weekend had ended) and happiness (because I had a very good time, and I know that there will be many more events in the future).
Some Words from the Champion
Finally, I had some questions for the winner of the tournament, Max Dieckmann, who was more than happy to answer:
The second national tournament you won in a row… Do you see yourself winning the third?
I still hardly believe this really happened. The truth is that you always need a lot of luck to win a tournament like this and that it has happened twice is a miracle. But, obviously I am capable of winning the national and next year I will try to do the hat trick.
Any memory of the tournament would you like to share?
Looking back at the tournament I figured out that 6 of my games were against just two players (Chema and Josep).
Did you have any Missed Triggers?
I don’t remember any Missed Trigger, but maybe nobody noticed it! Anyway I always try to play the fairest way possible and putting a counter on Tunic is now like a reflex action so I always do it, no matter if I’m playing FaB, Magic or UNO.
How did you feel with the judges?
Very well. I don’t know why, but in my first game against Chema I left my head in the yard and I played a very messy game. We had two judge calls in about 30 seconds because of my fault, but with the support of the judges it was possible to fix the situation without impacting on the result of the game. In general I’m very grateful for having so many nice people ready to sacrifice their weekends to make these tournaments possible. It wouldn’t be possible without them!
Antonio Ferriero is a Level 2 judge from Spain. He is a member of the Content & Information Team. The opinions and views expressed in this article are his own and are not necessarily those of the Flesh & Blood Judge Program or Legend Story Studios.