Season Zero Evaluation Overview

Over the ten days the October wave of Season Zero applications were up, we had a lot of interest and applications, with over 750 applications during that time spread over the three large georegions that will have PQs in October.

Of course, many people asked what their score was as well as how we’d be evaluating candidates and making recommendations. For the former, we’re not going to be releasing scores, as we’re evaluating candidates on a localized curve - as there is no “passing” score. We’re going to look for the best judges who applied to a given event and recommend them.

We’ll generally be recommending two to three candidates for Head Judges as several Floor Judges. Once we make those recommendations, stores will reach out to judges for staffing purposes. We’re also not looking solely at scores. If one candidate got twenty of the questions correct and another got nineteen, but has been running a community sports league and acting as a referee for a decade, we’re likely going to value that practical experience pretty heavily.

Rules

Okay - with that out of the way, let’s dive into the questions and explanations!

Question: Alex claims the initiative. Nico plays Death Star Stormtrooper, then Cell Block Guard, and passes. What best describes what happens?
Answer: The round ends and the game moves to the Regroup phase.
Explanation: Because Alex has taken the initiative, they automatically pass whenever it is their turn for the remainder of the round. The way it will play out in full is as follows: Nico plays Death Star Stormtrooper, Alex passes automatically. Nico plays Cell Block Guard, Alex passes automatically. Nico passes, and since both players have passed in succession, the game moves to Regroup. This question is testing to see if the candidate understands the game structure.

Question: Alex attacks with a Wampa, attacking Nico’s Liberated Slaves, which have two damage on them. What best describes what happens?
Answer: The Wampa deals three damage to the Liberated Slaves and one damage to Nico’s base.
Explanation: When a unit with overwhelm deals damage to a unit during an attack, it deals enough damage to defeat the unit to the defending unit, and then all excess damage to the base. In this case, the Liberated Slaves have three remaining HP, and so are dealt three damage. There is one excess damage, which is dealt to Nico’s base. This question is testing understanding of one of the more complex keywords.

Question: Alex attacks with Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, attacking Nico’s Wilderness Fighter, which has a shield token. Alex chooses to deal two damage to Nico’s Wilderness Fighter with Darth Vader’s On Attack triggered ability. What best describes what happens?
Answer: The damage from the trigger is prevented by the shield. Then the damage from the attack occurs. The Wilderness Fighter is defeated.
Explanation: Damage is broken into three steps. The first step is to declare the attack, and any “On Attack” triggers will trigger and resolve fully. Then, after that, combat damage occurs in the next step. Because of this, Darth Vader’s attack trigger will cause the shield to be defeated, and then during combat damage, will deal five damage to the Wilderness Fighter. This question is testing the understanding of the steps of declaring an attack.

Question: Alex plays Rival’s Fall, and neither player has any units in play. What best describes what happens?
Answer: Alex exhausts six resources to pay for Rival’s Fall. Rival’s Fall is placed in Alex’s discard pile. It has no effect.
Explanation: One of the golden rules of the game is “Do as much as you can”. Players are allowed to take actions that would have no effect, as long as the action itself changes the game state. In this case, Alex can play Rival’s fall for no effect, as the exhausted resources and the card going from hand to discard are both changes in the game state. This question is testing an understanding the limitations of playing events or activating abilities.

Question: Alex controls Crosshair. Can Alex activate Crosshair’s first ability two times in a single action?
Answer: No. Each use of an action ability is an action, even if the unit could repeat the action.
Explanation: The “Use an Action Ability” action takes a player’s turn and they must wait until their next turn to be able to use it again. Even if an action could be used multiple times in a round, unless an ability or effect instructs a player, they can only take one action per turn. This question is testing the understanding of game structure.

Question: Alex controls a Gideon Hask and plays Change of Heart on Nico’s Desperado Freighter. Later in the Action Phase, the Desperado Freighter is defeated. What best describes what happens?
Answer: Gideon Hask does not trigger. At the start of the Regroup Phase, Change of Heart’s ability does nothing, and Desperado Freighter remains in Nico’s discard pile.
Explanation: Triggers that look for when a unit is defeated look back to the game state when the unit was defeated. At the time Desperado was defeated, it was a friendly unit to Alex, and therefore would not trigger Gideon. Units are considered friendly to a player if they are controlled by the player, no matter who owns the card. This question is testing an understanding of both triggers and friendly/enemy classifications.

Question: Which of the following are considered Open Information?
Answer: The printed power of a unit in play. The total modified power of a unit in play. The number of experience tokens on a unit in play.
Explanation: The attributes of cards in play are open information, which includes a card’s printed and modified attributes, as well as the number of upgrades attached to it. A card in a player’s hand is hidden information. As you may guess, this question is testing an understanding of open and hidden information.

Question: Alex attacks Nico’s base with Bendu. Then, Nico plays Qi’ra, Playing Her Part, naming Moment of Peace. If Alex then plays Moment of Peace, how much does it cost to play?
Answer: Two
Explanation: Our first math question! We generally try to avoid questions that are testing math, but some mechanics inevitably require it. To determine the cost of a card, you start with the printed cost, in this case: one. Then you add any cost increases, in this case three, bringing the total to four, and finally include any cost decreases, in this case two, which brings the total to two. This is testing an understanding of cost increases and reductions.

Question: Alex has Nite Owl Skirmisher and four other cards as ready resources. What best describes what happens if Alex attempts to play Nite Owl Skirmisher with Smuggle?
Answer: Alex reveals Nite Owl Skirmisher, exhausts all five resources, including Nite Owl Skirmisher. Nite Owl Skirmisher comes into play exhausted and the top card of Alex’s deck is put in the resource zone exhausted.
Explanation: Cards don’t leave the zone they are in until they are paid, so cards can be exhausted to pay their own smuggle cost. It is not replaced in the resource zone until it is played. This is testing to see if candidates are aware of newer mechanics - focusing on smuggle in this question.

Question: Alex attacks with an Incinerator Trooper, attacking Nico’s Scout Bike Pursuer. Neither unit has any damage on them. What best describes what happens after the Incinerator Trooper deals two damage to the Scout Bike Pursuer?
Answer: Scout Bike Pursuer deals three damage to Incinerator Trooper.
Explanation: Grit is a constant ability, and updates as soon as damage is assigned to a unit. Because Incinerator Trooper deals its damage first, two damage is placed on the Scout Bike Pursuer, and its power increases to three then it’s damage is dealt. The Incinerator Trooper does not deal damage a second time. This question is testing both an understanding of the Grit keyword as well as the structure of combat.

Question: Alex plays Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and chooses Nico’s Lurking TIE Phantom with the When Played ability. What best describes what happens?
Answer: The Lurking TIE Phantom gets -3/-3, and therefore has -1 HP and is defeated.
Explanation: Lurking TIE Phantom is a card that many players have questions about. In this case, it has -1 HP, and because a reduction in HP is not capturing, damaging, or defeating it. Then it is defeated by the game rules, not by a card ability.

Question: Alex plays Cunning. What best describes what happens?
Answer: Alex chooses one mode, resolves it, then chooses and resolves any other mode.
Explanation: This one was the hardest rules question, with the majority of candidates getting it wrong, so if you didn’t get it correct, don’t feel bad at all. This isn’t covered clearly by the comprehensive rules but has been clarified by one of the developers, however, generally in the game, you resolve things one step at a time, and aren’t locked into decisions. This was looking to see if the candidate either had a good intuitive understanding of the rules, was importing rules from other games or is very aware of secondary sources of information. Cascade now hosts a repository of such clarifications and updates.

Question: Alex controls a Unit Leader Iden Versio, and has used Traitorous to take control of Nico’s Distant Patroller. The Distant Patroller is defeated. What best describes what happens?
Answer: Distant Patroller triggers, but Iden Versio does not. Alex chooses a unit to give a shield token.
Explanation: Alex controls the Distant Patroller when it is defeated, and so they resolve the trigger and decide where the shield token goes. However, because they control the Patroller, that means it is a friendly unit, not an enemy, so Iden Versio doesn’t trigger. This is another question looking at triggers and friendly/enemy classification.

Question: Alex uses Sneak Attack to play Millennium Falcon, Piece of Junk. What best describes what happens at the end of the round?
Answer: The Start of Regroup occurs before the Ready step and the Millennium Falcon is defeated before Alex chooses whether or not to pay 1.
Explanation: The first thing that happens during the regroup phase is start of regroup and delayed effects, like the one created by Sneak Attack occur. After that, players draw cards, then play resources and then finally ready cards, at which point the Millenium Falcon would trigger if it were still around. This question tests not only an understanding of turn structure during the regroup phase, but how comfortable a judge is when cards don’t work the way you would expect from a flavor perspective (no, seriously!).

Question: Alex controls Bossk, Deadly Stalker, and Nico controls a Consular Security Force and an HWK-290 with no damage on either. Alex then plays Takedown. Which are possible outcomes?
Answer: Alex chooses to defeat the HWK-290 with Takedown. Then Bossk’s trigger resolves and Alex chooses to deal two damage to the Consular Security Force. AND Alex chooses to defeat Bossk with Takedown. Then Bossk’s trigger resolves and Alex chooses to deal two damage to the Consular Security Force.
Explanation: There are a few things at play here, but the most important is from CR 3.3.6 - If a triggered ability has the triggering condition “When you play an event” the event ability must be resolved as completely as possible before resolving the triggered ability. This means that Takedown can not defeat an undamaged Consular Security Force. A player is also allowed to choose their own units with Takedown or any other ability that says “unit” and does not specify “enemy unit.” Even though Bossk will be defeated by Takedown before the triggered ability resolves, it still will have triggered and will do as much as it can, even without Bossk in play. This question is testing both triggered abilities (again!) and an understanding of how abilities are played and resolved.

Policy and Operations

Okay - this is where things get a bit more complicated. The rules for Unlimited are generally clear and have exact answers. These questions... not so much. A lot of these questions are trying to determine the candidates' approach to running events, and how they can meet the goals of tournament play. These goals are that players play games of Unlimited to determine who is best at the game and that it is a fun, fair, and safe environment for everyone. This is balanced by some logistical realities - we can’t have every player have a match against every other player and some decisions need to be made so that a small tournament ends on the same day that it started, and not at two in the morning in the diner across the street. Some of these questions don’t have answers in the documentation, but the ideas behind them are important for judges to consider, so as to run the best event. One of the challenges here is that it is impossible to account for everything that a human can do, so there is always an exception or clarification that can be made. You’ll see that the explanations here are longer than the explanations above, and even then might not be wholly encompassing.

Question: You are the Head Judge of a seven-round Planetary Qualifier. Round 5 ends with fifteen minutes remaining. How do you handle the start of round six?
Answer: Begin round 6 immediately, but do not begin to track time for tardiness penalties until the fifteen minutes have elapsed.
Explanation: We immediately have a challenging question. In this scenario, all matches have finished. This means that all players are available to start the next round, so there’s no reason to delay the event by fifteen minutes and not do anything. However, it’s important to not penalize players who are abiding by the expectations you set out for them. It’s very possible that a player finished their round quickly, saw that they had thirty minutes left in the round, and went across the street to grab some food. As long as they return before the next round would have started, they’re not actually delaying the event, and so you should not track tardiness until players are later than when they were told that they need to return. This one was mostly testing a mix of general tournament operations awareness and fairness to players.

Question: You are the Head Judge of a Planetary Qualifier. After the final round of Swiss matches, before cut to top-8, two players are tied for the eighth slot. How do you determine which player makes the top cut?
Answer: Using the tournament’s scorekeeping software, the player in eighth place in the standings, determined by the tiebreakers makes the top cut.
Explanation: The Tournament Regulations lay out how players for a top cut are selected, and what tie-breakers should be used. These tie-breakers will be part of the tournament’s scorekeeping software. Randomly determining which player makes the cut is strictly prohibited, as it can be considered a form of gambling and changes how the game as a whole can be played in various countries and territories. Looking at players’ head-to-head record is not one of the official tie-breakers. Playing an additional match, in addition to not being an official tie-breaker can also delay the event up to an hour. This one is testing awareness of tournament tie-breaking policy and how to fairly determine the top eight.

Question: You are the Head Judge of a 120-player Planetary Qualifier. After pairings for the first round have been posted and players have been seated, a player comes up to you and lets you know that they are not on the pairings. You are able to confirm with the Tournament Organizer that the player did register, but through no fault of the player they were not added to the tournament software. What is the best way to address this situation?
Answer: If you have another player with a bye for round 1, pair them against that player. If you don’t issue the player with a bye.
Explanation: This player has done their due diligence in trying to join the event. They registered for the event and were present for round one, so should not be penalized. At a 10-20 player event, that is playing only a few rounds, repairing the whole tournament has a minimal impact on tournament flow, and a bye is significant with fewer rounds, and so repairing is something you can consider. At an event of this scale, players may have already shuffled and presented decks, revealed leaders, drawn opening hands and concluded mulligan procedure. Getting all 120 players to pack everything up, shuffle around the room, and sit down again will delay the event a noticeable amount. Furthermore, this player has not been selected in any particular way - they are effectively a random player. If you’re pairing them against the bye player, you’re only disrupting one player, rather than over a hundred, and it is still a random player. If you issue them a bye, you are not disrupting tournament flow and a random player received the bye. Again, we’re looking at how you would run an event. These questions are not easy and are not available in documentation. One of the goals of Cascade Games is to provide education on these best practices that have developed over decades to folks who are newer to TCGs and event management.

Question: After finishing a judge call, how much of a time extension should you issue?
Answer: The amount of time used for the call rounded up to the minute.
Explanation: As mentioned above, the goal of policy is to make sure that players are on an even playing field. Players should be able to play a full match of Unlimited. Time limits are required so that events don’t go endlessly, but players are entitled to that time, so whenever a judge call takes some time away from players, it should be returned to them. Furthermore, sometimes the length of the call is out of the players’ hands. Sometimes the judge is busy handling another call, or they need to spend time clarifying the answer with the rules, or consulting with another judge. Furthermore, if one player made an error, and the other player caught it, taking time away from the match may cost the player that caught the error and disincentivize them from calling a judge in the future. Ideally time extensions are kept short, but they should be issued, and players should expect to be able to play for the full fifty-five minutes.

Question: You are judging a competitive tier event on your own. Towards the end of any given round, how should you generally prioritize the following tasks?
Answer:

Seek out unreported matches that have finished playing, to get them reported
Ensure players in ongoing matches are aware when their time is up
Be nearby and observe ongoing matches that complex rules calls or intense player
Observe matches that you find interesting

Explanation: You can begin to track down unreported matches before the round ends, and these matches, if they remain unreported, can cause serious delays to the event, so generally starting with this is ideal, especially so that the task is done before the next task. After you’ve gotten outstanding results, making sure players know when their time is up is key. Players will sometimes not hear your announcement, and if there isn’t a verification, some matches may play several rounds more than they should - this not only delays the tournament, but may result in a different outcome than if they had been held to the same time that other matches were allotted. Next is keeping an eye on matches that may need your intervention. Being nearby or watching these matches that are more likely to have a call means that you’ll be able to already know what is happening in the game, and can more quickly assist the players should the need arise. Finally, watching any match is helpful, and you should be watching a match until all matches are observed by a judge or all results are in. That way if there is a question at one of the last tables, there is minimal disruption to the event flow. However, if another judge is already watching the match, unless it is a higher priority match (for abovementioned reasons), having more judges watching the game may make players nervous or uncomfortable, and we don’t need to apply that pressure.

Question: During a deck check, it is discovered that Alex has some cards that are marked. All of the cards marked in this way are foil. They are a random assortment of cards, and all cards that are foil also have non-foil copies in the deck. What is the best way to remedy this situation?
Answer: Have Alex replace the marked cards with unmarked copies of the same cards.
Explanation: While players are not allowed to knowingly have marked cards in their deck, it is very common for cards to become warped through regular play and storage, and players frequently unknowingly have cards that are marked. The player can not play with those cards, but must continue to play with the deck they registered and must find unmarked copies of the cards.

Question: What is the best way to handle players colluding or improperly determining a winner?
Answer: Announce that players are not allowed to offer anything in exchange for a match result or ask for a concession, and must determine the winner of their match by playing games of Star Wars Unlimited at both the beginning of the tournament and in later rounds.
Explanation: Collusion and improperly determining a winner are things that should be avoided. Any easy way to improve the integrity of the tournament is to let players know about these, just as quick reminders. Having one announcement at the start of the event means that you can make sure that all players are informed, and repeating it in the later rounds serves as a reminder for players who are playing at tables that are in contention for a top cut. Part of what we’re looking for here is to see how proactive candidates are at helping players understand what tournament policy is. Of course, it’s not reasonable to read the entire tournament regulations and master event document to players, but things like asking for concession or rolling a die to determine a winner are sometimes done in at-home play or in other games. With such major consequences for breaking these policies, it’s important for players to be informed.

Question: During round three of a Planetary Qualifier, on turn five with six ready resources, Alex plays Syndicate Lackeys, exhausting four resources instead of the required five. They then attack and defeat Nico’s Battlefield Marine. Nico plays The Emperor’s Legion but does not resolve it. At this point, they realize Alex’s error. What is the best way to remedy this situation?
Answer: Resolve now. Instruct Alex to exhaust a resource now. Instruct the players to continue playing.
Explanation: This is relatively straightforward. Alex has the resources to be able to pay the cost of the card they played so it can be exhausted to get the game to its natural game state. Furthermore, if the game is rewound, Alex gained information about what Nico’s follow-up action may be, and this might change Alex’s play, whereas if an additional resource is exhausted for Alex (as is correct), Nico’s play is unlikely to change. This question is testing a candidate's judgment about where games can be rewound and where the situation can just be resolved.

Question: During round six of a Planetary Qualifier, on turn five, Alex controls a unit Grand Moff Tarkin, Oversector Governor and a Gideon Hask. They attack with Grand Moff Tarkin and defeat Nico’s Warzone Lieutenant, and place an experience counter on Gideon Hask from Grand Moff Tarkin’s On Attack trigger, but do not resolve Gideon Hask’s triggered ability. Nico then attacks Gideon Hask with an AT-ST. When the players go to resolve combat damage, they realize Alex’s error. What is the best way to remedy this situation?
Answer: Rewind to the point of error by undoing the attack of the AT-ST, and then resolving Gideon Hask’s ability. Then instruct the players to continue playing.
Explanation: Resolving now changes the outcome of the attack significantly - instead of Gideon Hask being defeated and the AT-ST surviving, Gideon would survive and the AT-ST would be defeated, so resolving now is not a good solution. Rewinding, on the other hand, is relatively straightforward. There are no random elements and no cards were revealed, so no player has gained information. This question is testing a candidate's judgment about where games can be rewound and where the situation can just be resolved.

Question: During the quarter-finals of a Planetary Qualifier top-8, when players are instructed to swap decklists, Alex’s opponent discovers that Alex registered 3x Vigilance twice, representing six total copies. There are fifty-three cards registered on Alex’s list and Alex’s deck matches the list, except it only has three copies of Vigilance. What is the best way to remedy this situation?
Answer: This is an error with the Deck List. Remove the extraneous three cards from Alex’s deck list, then issue Alex a game loss for this match. Instruct the players continue the match.
Explanation: This is an issue with the deck list because having 6 copies of a card registered is not legal. It is not an issue with the deck, because even though the deck doesn’t match the deck list, the deck itself is otherwise legal. This is during a round of the tournament, and so the penalty is a game loss. This question is looking to see how thoroughly candidates have read and understood the tournament documents.

Alright, so hopefully that answers any questions you may have, and you’re able to compare your answers to the answers listed above. Now that the test answers are public, you can feel free to discuss them with other members of your community or in the official Discord.