Introductory Scorekeeping - Lesson 3
Running An Event
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Hello there!
Welcome to the Cascade Games Scorekeeper Lessons. As always, I’m your host Jonah. In the last lesson, we put all the pieces of your tournament together to get it ready to launch. Now this is scorekeeping! Today we’re going to walk through the steps of running an event, step by step.
Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Swiss Only
Head to the Matches screen and select Match Actions > Match Players/Teams for Round 1:
Once Melee has finished creating the matches, you’ll be able to see the info about who should play who at which table, as well as any random byes, which do not require a table:
These matches will be automatically published to players - all they’ll have to do is check their player controller for the information.
Prereleases and Sealed
Now, if your event requires that players assemble a deck before getting to their matches, we must let them know where to sit for that process.
These are not Matches, but Seatings. The process to generate them is pretty much the same:
Please notice that Seatings are NOT published automatically, so make sure you do that:
Draft
Finally, Drafts also require Seatings for build, but before that players must, well, draft.
Head to Podded Phases and Generate Pods. The Podded Phases menu will only appear if you have a Draft phase. If it does not appear at first, you can try setting a pod size at the Phases screen.
Once pods are generated, that’s what you’ll see:
Order Within Pod indicates how players should sit within the pod. When passing cards to the left, player one will pass to player two who pass to player three who passes to player four and so on, until player eight is passing to player one.
This means when you have eight players seated across from each other at a rectangular table, one is opposite eight, two is opposite seven, three opposite six and four opposite five.
Printing Things
Once the Pairings, Seatings or Pods have been published, most players should have received them and be on their way to their places. However, we always take into consideration that someone may not have data, their phone may have died, or they lost access to their Melee account, for example. For this reason (and some others, including a hardcopy backup), we usually print a copy of these Pairings on paper. Let’s check how to do it!
From any screen at the Tournament Controller, click on the top right-side button, ‘Tournament Actions’, and choose ‘Paper printing’:
From the printing overlay, you’ll have access to all the pre-formatted papers that Melee offers. Just choose the ones you’d like to print, send them to the right-side column and ‘Print All’. This content will open on a different tab in your browser, then, you can send it to a physical printer or save it as a .pdf file.
Note that most options come with two versions, ‘by Name’ and ‘by Table/Pods’. That’s because they have different goals! Players will usually be interested in the versions indexed ‘by Name‘, so they can find their own information. But judges who are responsible for checking who has received their Prerelease kits and promos, for example, or who’s missing from some Draft, will make a better use of the ‘by Table’/’by Pod’ versions:
Additional Printouts
Besides the ones discussed above, there are other papers (that’s what we call them) that help both judges and players.
Event Signs (also known as Tournament Covers, Round Signs and others) let players know when the round ends. They’re posted next to the paper pairings, helping players know which of the pairings belong to which event and may also contain extra information. Event Signs are printed, ideally, before the start of the tournaments of the day. Remember these will be filled by hand and must be read from some distance, so big letters and big spaces are recommended.
Other printouts include brackets for Single Elimination events, No-Show and Time Extension slips and Match Slips. These last ones can be generated through Melee:
Files for these printouts are available on the resources page.
Managing Information
While judges post, cut, and distribute the papers we’ve produced, let’s explore how we can interact with Melee.
Columns and Visibility
A good first step is configuring what we want to see. Melee is a powerful tool but we must filter the tons of information it provides so we can better utilize it.
Most of the Tournament Controller’s screen have ‘Filter’ and ‘Visibility’ options. They all work similarly, but the context of each menu changes according to what information is being treated.
The most commonly used filter is shown here: matches without results. After applying this filter, matches with results will disappear, allowing you to quickly assess how far the round is from ending.
Under Visibility > Column Visibility you can choose what kind of information is important for you. Maybe you don’t want a column showing of a match was reported ‘cause you’ve already used a filter; maybe your event has no Decklists so they don’t matter… These choices can vary widely, according to the event characteristics, personal preferences and even to what device you’re using.
Here are examples of what a Scorekeeper using a computer might choose and what a judge of the EOR team using their phone might prefer:
Results
Although most results will come directly from players, every now and then they’ll have to be recorded by you or judges. On the left side of each match, you may click on the cog symbol, then ‘Edit Match Result’ or use the pen and paper shortcut ‘Result Entry’:
The desktop version of this overlay offers quick access to all matches, keyboard hotkeys for quick insert and additional information about the selected match. You can also drop a player directly from here and insert an Intentional Draw with a single click:
The phone version of this overlay features only big, touch-friendly buttons:
Dropping a Player
Finally, if you need to drop a player but a result has already been submitted, you can do it another way: just click on the player’s name to access the Player Card overlay (the same we used for Fixed Tables) and edit their Status to Dropped. Remember to save your change!
Supporting your Players
Everything a player usually needs during their tournament can be found on the Player Controller - their version of the Tournament Controller:
Under the ‘Current Match’ heading, a player can find their Table and opponent’s name. They can also submit their results here. If they would like to drop, they can just use the first heading, ‘Tournament & Player Details’, click on the red button and confirm.
Once every match in a round has a result, you can just click on the next Round and match it, just like before.
Melee will end your tournament automatically once all results for the last round have been submitted - but there may be more to it. Check with your judge team if they would like you to print Standings - you remember how to print things, right? Maybe you’ll need to fix some results (more on that in the next lesson) or fill some spreadsheets your Organizer may need.
Be prepared to hand off standings to the tournament organizer or someone who is processing prizes. While they have access to that information through their own tournament controller, they may want a hard copy to reference.
But with that done, the event has drawn to a close. Join us in the fourth and final introductory scorekeeping lesson where discuss a few common issues and how to resolve them.
If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us after new lessons 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.
Until next time, good luck and have fun!