Level Two - Lesson 8

Tournament Regulations - Limited Event Structure

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Hello there!

Welcome back to the level two lessons for the Star Wars™: Unlimited Judge Program!

As always, I’m your host Jonah, and today we’re going to continue our lessons on the Tournament Regulations and related concepts. This lesson is going to discuss limited formats - both draft and sealed, and what sorts of logistical concerns you need to keep an eye out for. Limited tournaments have a lot more logistical overhead than constructed format events, because the players aren’t the ones bringing the decks. You have to distribute product, allow time for deck construction, and manage some things that simply don’t exist with constructed events.

However, limited events are also often more accessible, because you don’t need to come prepared with a meta deck, and everyone is on a level playing field.

Let’s just dive on in, and start talking about some of the fundamental differences.

It’s definitely weird to say Limited Unlimited, but that’s the name of the format type used across many other TCGs, and so developing new language would be working against decades of habit.

It’s called limited, because players must construct a deck from a limited pool of cards - usually the fully random sealed or the slightly more controlled nature of draft. However, there are other formats that come from the same place that also fall into the limited bucket, but they are relatively esoteric and not key for this understanding.

There are several elements that separate limited play from constructed play, from the perspective of judges.

Distribution

One of the most obvious elements that separates limited events from constructed is just how much stuff you have to hand out to players. With a constructed event, you’ll often hand out a promo to each player and... that’s it!

For sealed, you need to ensure that each player gets a prerelease kit or six packs, and for draft, you need to ensure that the whole draft process happens appropriately.

At the local level and at casual tier, you can simply hand packs to players as they register, but it is important to remind them to not open their packs until instructed to do so. This is because players are entitled to 30 minutes for deck construction, and if players have more time with their cards, they may have an unfair advantage.

For larger events or if you choose to run a competitive tier sealed event, it is recommended that players are in their seats for deck construction before you begin to distribute product. This minimizes the possibilities for players to manipulate their pool. While that can still happen at smaller and more local events, there is less incentive, and with a smaller number of players its easier to keep an eye on everyone.

For draft, sit players according to the software. If you have more than eleven players, it will generate multiple pods. Drafting and consequently booster packs are intended for eight-player pods. When drafting, each player will see most packs twice, but only some packs once. With a smaller pod, you may see some packs three times, and with larger pods, you’ll see most packs only once, which significantly changes the dynamics. Tournament software will generally try to make the greatest number of eight-player pods, while creating the smallest number of worse experience pods. If, for example, you have eighteen players, you’ll get an eight-player pod and a ten-player pod - this minimizes byes you would have from having two nine-player pods, and creates one ideal experience, instead of three six-player pods.

Each pod of players is usually a self-contained unit, with players playing only against other competitors that they drafted with, rather than playing any player in the event.

Players should also be in the appropriate seat within their pod. Melee currently assigns a pod and seat within pod, but not a table number.

In a standard eight-player pod, players who have seats one, two, three, and four sit in a row on one side of the table, and seated across from them are players eight, seven, six and five, creating a C or horseshoe shape.

This seating is important because each player’s first opponent is the player who is seated furthest from them during the draft. Player one will play against five, two and six, three against seven, and four against eight. This is sometimes referred to as “big X, little X”, as if you draw lines from each player to their first-round opponent, it will create a cross pattern. Similarly, each player’s second-round opponent will generally be a player seated one seat away from them, and the first time a player can play someone who sat next to them during the draft occurs during the finals (although that’s not necessarily who they’ll play, as pairings are still based on record).

Leader Draft

Once everyone is seated and has their boosters, have each player open their packs, one at a time, and remove the leaders. Players should not be looking at the contents of these packs, but should verify which side has the leader, then put the pack face down, and remove the leader, so that they don’t see the face of any other cards in the pack.

Most of the time, if a player does accidentally see a card, it’ll be the common base, which isn’t critical for the draft, as players are allowed to use any common base they want and are not limited to the ones they draft.

Once the leaders have been extracted from the pack, players will do a micro-draft with their three leaders. They’ll look at and select one of the three, and pass the other two to the right. Then draft from the two that are passed to them, and then take their final leader. These leaders should remain visible to all players during the draft, and the opened packs should remain separate.

Draft Process

Once leaders have been selected, the draft process begins in earnest. Each player selects one of their packs, looks at the contents, removes the common base/token, and then selects a card to add to their pool.

They then pass the pack in the appropriate direction, then receive a pack and repeat the process.

The first pack is passed left, the second passed right, and the third is passed to the left. While drafting, there are three “zones” that each player is interacting with - the cards the player is currently holding, the cards that they are passing to the next player and the cards that are being passed to them. Only one set of cards should exist in a given zone at a given time. That means, that if a player has passed cards, but the next drafter has not picked up those cards, the player should not pass a second set of cards. This minimizes the chances of packs getting mixed up.

Similarly, players may look at their previous selections, but not while they’re looking at a pack.

For competitive-level drafts, more rigour and precise timing may be required. Furthermore, drafting should generally be a silent process. At casual tier, some players may have idle banter, but it is important not to discuss the contents of the packs - the unknown information is a part of the strategy involved.

Sealed

For casual tier sealed events, players may open their packs and begin deck construction immediately.

However, for more competitive events, you may want to do pool registration or pool and deck registration. This should not be done for casual tier events.

The best way to register pools is to have someone other than the player register pools. Begin by seating players for this process - do not seat them alphabetically, and do not use round one pairings. To ensure accuracy and integrity, it is recommended that you have half of your event (usually players sitting on one side of your tables) open their packs, and quickly reveal the contents to the player seated across from them, particularly so that the opponent can see the rares (especially if there are multiple in a pack). This is not a time for sorting or deliberation. After all players on one side of the table have revealed their packs, players on the other side do the same.

We have the sides of the table do this at separate times, because if they were both opening packs at the same time, they wouldn’t be giving any attention to what the other player was opening, much less their full attention.

Once all the packs have been opened, players then pass the packs across the table to the player who observed them. That player then registers the contents of the pool. Because this player saw the packs opened, they can verify the integrity of the pool, especially if a player opened a statistically unlikely number of rares and legendaries.

Once registration is complete, the cards are returned in a single face-down, sorted pile to the player who opened them. Like with drafting, this registration process should be silent and players should not be constructing decks or discussing what cards are good. With pre-printed registration sheets that includes all card names for cards in the set, sorted by collector number, this process should take roughly twenty to thirty minutes.

If there’s a missing player, they should simply integrate into a neighboring pair, and one player can observe two players opening their packs, and players can pass cards in a triangle for registration.

This process allows for players to keep and play with the cards they opened, but has protection for players who may attempt to sneak in outside cards.

Deck Construction

Next comes deck construction! This is timed and limited to thirty minutes.

At casual tier events, because players are explicitly allowed to change their deck (including leader and base) between every game and every match, some amount of chatter is appropriate and acceptable, especially at events like prereleases.

At more competitive events, like with the other steps, deck construction should be a generally silent process. If players are registering their decks, they should do that as well, on the deck sheet that also includes their verified pool.

Players are limited to using leaders that they either drafted or were in their pool, with the exception of also being allowed to use the prerelease promo leaders during prerelease events.

Players are not restricted only to the bases they drafted. They’re allowed to use any common bases from the set (or their functional equivalents).

Players are also not restricted to card limits, other than those printed on cards (like Swarming Vulture Droid) and what they acquired. If a player drafted twelve Warzone Lieutenant’s, they’re allowed to play all of them!

Finally, players are only allowed to play with cards from their card pool - they can’t use cards they otherwise own, and can’t trade for cards from other players within the event.

Depth of Card Pool

With decks constructed, pairings for round one can be made available and the tournament functions very similarly to a constructed tournament, with two more quick notes that I want to touch on.

The first is that of the card pool. While the card pool is limited only to the cards from the set (or sets, if multiple sets are drafted), it can actually result in a higher number of different cards being played.

There are those cards, that when you read them, look strictly worse than another card or are something you would never put in your premier deck. However, you sometimes also just need a thirtieth card that’s in your aspects, or you need a space unit and Correllian freighter is the only thing that you have access to that works.

As a consequence for judges, this means that there will be cards that you’re potentially less familiar with seeing, and may result in new interactions. Most of the time cards end up as primarily drafted cards due to fewer mechanics and abilities, so most of the time they don’t generate questions, but that’s not always the case.

Tournament Duration

The other noticeable impact is the length of the tournament. For a competitive event, with a forty-player tournament, you’ll be playing six rounds, with a cut to top-eight, just like you would with a constructed event.

But you also spent probably close to an hour on pool registration and deck construction, and if your top eight has new decks, you’re spending that time again.

Even with a casual tier event like a prerelease, going from four best-of-one rounds to four rounds and thirty minutes for deck construction increases the total length of the tournament by twenty-five percent for no additional matches played.

For larger tournaments that are playing seven or eight rounds in a single day, this can make what is already a long day even more intense.

There isn’t much to do about it - the processes for maintaining integrity and creating decks are fundamental to the format - but it is important to be aware of, and to just be a bit more vigilant with trying to run an efficient event.

In any case, that’s all for now. The next lesson will start to dive into player communication and presentation! If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more level two lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us Tuesdays and Fridays on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.

As always, good luck, and have fun.

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