This rubric is going to talk briefly about how Tournament Reports are evaluated for the L3 advancement process. The metrics and heuristics described here are not expected of Tournament Reports that are written for non-advancement purposes.
Tournament Reports are covered more philosophically in the Level 3 Lesson, and we recommend starting there.
We’re looking broadly at three categories: game state, investigation, and decision. Each category is rated as deficient, adequate, or exceptional. All categories must be rated as adequate or exceptional for the tournament report to be accepted.
While you can cover one call in detail with your game state, investigation, and decision, it can also be several different processes. You’ll also notice that these can apply to other operations, other than just judge calls. You can talk about your logistical decisions or interactions with other judges to demonstrate your proficiency.
Language
As a general reminder, you should write tournament reports in the language you’re most comfortable in. While our current processing happens in English, we will use various translation tools and resources to be able to read any non-English submissions. This does come with the caveat that the processing time may be longer, as we may also need to ask clarifying questions to ensure that your intent is clear.
Ability to Describe Game States
It is important to be able to describe a game such that somebody who is not present is able to understand the relevant cards and status of those cards. Keep in mind that too much detail can be as problematic as not enough detail.
Deficient
A deficient explanation of game state does not include information to know with confidence what should have happened from the description or too much information to sift through to understanding the relevant portions.
Example: AP played Vader and then attacked with it even though they weren’t supposed to.
Example: AP has Liberty - Draw Their Fire!, Guerilla Solider and The Mandalorian - Cleaning Up Nevarro resourced, with an exhausted The Master Codebreaker - High Stakes in play, with Leader Lando Calrissian - Full Sabacc and two damage on their Lake Country Base. NAP is playing the leader Luke Skywalker - Hero of Yavin with Data Vault, which doesn’t have any damage. Lando is exhausted but Luke is ready. AP played a Faith in Your Friends exhausting two resources and resolved it, revealing another Faith in Your Friends, Rose Tico - Now It’s Worth It and Stolen AT-Hauler and creating the tokens appropriately. Then NAP attacks AP’s base with Phoenix Squadron A-Wing and dealt three damage to Lake Country. When AP begins to play their second Faith in Your Friends, they realized that they did it wrong. At that point they called a judge.
Adequate
An adequate explanation of game state includes enough identifying information so that readers know what happens, and it is presented in an orderly manner that is not overwhelming.
Example: AP played Darth Vader (SOR) and attacked NAP’s Grogu (LOF) even though it was just played.
Example: AP plays Obi-Wan from SEC, discarding Anakin - Champion of Mortis from their opponents' deck. NAP also had a Sith Holocron (LOF) and Jedi Lightsaber (SOR) in their discard. AP only had Ahsoka Tano (JTL) in their discard. Later in the round when AP played Anakin, they resolved both abilities.
Exceptional
An exceptional explanation not only provides the identifying information, but highlights the key game elements or relevant text of the cards.
Example: In round five at table one, on resource turn seven, P1 played Grogu (LOF) which has hidden. Both players took several actions, including attacks from P2, and more plays from P1. Then P2 played Darth Vader (SOR) and ambushed NAP’s Grogu, and defeated it. NAP realized the issue while AP was resolving the search effect from Darth Vader.
Explaining Your Investigation
You don’t need to document a cheating investigation for a Tournament Report, but you do need to demonstrate your ability to ask questions and get information. You should not begin a cheating investigation just to have “better” material for a tournament report. Asking questions to determine what happened during the course of a game to give a good resolution for a gameplay disruption is more than sufficient.
Deficient
A deficient explanation handwaves the questions or line of inquiry, or demonstrates an inability to get useful information from your investigation.
Example: Neither player was sure why AP had an extra card in hand, so I just issued a HCME.
Example: I asked the players to walk through the actions of the round. They didn’t remember, so I decided that two damage had been dealt and not three.
Adequate
An adequate explanation shows the line of inquiry and what information was gained.
Example: A player reported that they hadn’t received their participation booster pack, but had gotten their promo. I asked them where they sat for round one - table 29. I handled the back half of the room so I asked my Floor Judge if they had handed booster packs to everyone. They said that they did promos first and definitely got everyone, but a couple players had finished by the time they did packs. They thought that they had tracked everyone down but agreed that it was possible that they had missed someone.
Exceptional
Exceptional investigation reporting not only covers the questions that were asked, but demonstrates a high quality of investigation.
Example: When asked, AP said that they definitely had four copies of Lepi Lookout in their pool and weren’t sure why their pool registration sheet said they had three. The player showed us that they didn’t have any other cards with them. Counting the list confirmed that there were the correct total number of cards registered. There were two Latts Razzi registered, but only one in the pool. We verified with the player who registered the pool, and they remembered four Lepi Lookouts.
Decision-Making Process
Deficient
The decisions made are not clear, are based on clearly incorrect foundations, or the conclusions drawn are incorrect.
Example: The opponent said that they were confident that the extra card had not touched the hand, but I believed that they may have looked away, and so I issued HCME instead OCME.
Example: The TO had told me that we were expecting some players to show up late, so I handled that when they arrived.
Example: Other judges had told me that deck registration took longer than policy recommended, so I announced that it was an hour long. After a half hour, players were generally done, but I had everyone wait until the hour was completed.
Adequate
Adequate decisions are those that have an apparent line of thinking that results in a clear and reasonable outcome.
Example: When asked, AP told me that this was their first time playing limited with the set and only started playing the game a month ago. Effects that persist often cause a lot of questions for new players and even confuse some judges, so it felt reasonable that they believed that Lawbringer’s When Played would apply to all units that their opponent played for the rest of the round, not just ones already in play. This helped me rule out cheating.
Exceptional
Exceptionally explained decisions include not just the primary thought process, but also other considerations that were not acted on and why.
Example: Our live stream team asked if we could have someone build their deck on camera. I was hesitant because it pulled someone away from the rest of the card pool verification process, and would put them at a strategic disadvantage for the rest of the event. I definitely didn’t want them to open and register their own pool, even if it was on camera (although that adds a layer of security that is maybe higher than anyone else in the event, it has some perception issues.
I could send two players over, but the feature team wanted to show a high profile content creator, and I didn’t want to force a random player to also have to build on camera in a more intense situation. I could also pre-register a pool, but because one of my judges was sick and a store employee had stepped up despite not really knowing the game, bandwidth was a little low.
In the end, I spoke with the stream team, and let them know I’d do what I can. Because we were short a judge, distribution took longer than my announcements, which gave me time to go and speak with the player who would be registering the featured player’s pool. They were actually excited to participate, and so I ended up having two featured players for the limited portion.
Other Best Practices
These aren’t requirements, and won’t be looked for explicitly in submitted tournament reports. Consider this more general guidance for educationally focused tournament reports, and which make the report more valuable for other readers.
Include tournament details: Format, player count, judge staff and your role. This helps provide context for everything you talk about. An Eternal PQ HJ tournament report is going to read very differently than one from a Floor Judge at a destination event who mostly spent their time doing draft ODEs and sealed scheduled events.
Include context for any given call or decision - which round, how far into the round, and if relevant, player records - especially if you’re covering a call where you considered cheating, this information can all be relevant to how you thought about the interaction.
Have fun with it! You can tell stories of weird or fun things - this is an opportunity to share a hobby that you enjoy with other judges. Did a player have a slice of pizza in their deckbox instead of their deck? Did your team lead come up with a fun game that made you engage more with watching games and conversation with your team?
Think about what you learned and what you wish you knew before the event. If you have that knowledge, you can share it with others and help them out. Similarly, if there are questions that you left the event still having, this is an opportunity to ask them. You can express uncertainty or doubt in yourself or how you handled a situation and take the chance to learn from the experiences of other judges.
Finally, if you’re discussing an investigation or potentially other intense topic, please be respectful of everyone involved. This may mean being more vague with regard to details to avoid identifying a player - even though Tournament Reports are only semi-public, any L1+ can view them.
These examples aren’t the only way to write a Tournament Report, and certainly not the only way to provide feedback. If you’re a Level Two judge and are interested in submitting a Tournament Report for the L3 process you can navigate to your profile, select “View My Applications” and then select the L2 Tournament Report when it becomes available.
That’s all for this one! As always, good luck and have fun!