I was lurking and very occasionally posting on BD during it's existence, and I was here on the first iteration of TMD. I still like playing control decks that specialize in that most delicious of victory conditions (torture of your opponent until concession, preferably with high interaction. You have to give them hope or it's not fun.) and still violently remind people to test ideas before they start talkin'. I've judged tournaments containing a pile of people from the site over the years at cons and one at Altered States years and years ago. My handle has been the same all along, I'll have been using it for nearly twenty years here in the not too distant future.

Team MM was before Shadow even left Beyond Dominia -- there was a batch of us that always seemed to be around, the name was coined when someone asked the channel "Do any of you people ever bother to sleep?" and Shadow (I think) quipped, "Nah, we just make do with a mid morning nap."

I'm still remembering hating newnet for splits, and the debate about moving to efnet because of a lack of channel services.
Also? Team Midmorning *laughs*

I'm fairly certain that all of the side events at Origin's were run as straight swiss. Only the GPT's, AmNats and the PTQ's had cuts to anything. I'm going to push for a few at GenCon other than worlds even if it means me running them ... I"ll see what I can do. No promises yet though.

Generally speaking, I'll change any match result till the pairings are posted - I even explained all of this at the event. I'll also scrap a round and re-pair if it's a data entry error ... that's the staffs fault, not the players. Once the pairings are up though, the match result is final. The match result slip is the only definitive record we really have for the match ... we never have enough judges to watch every match, so we can't keep track of everything. This is done for a couple of reasons at a big convention - the largest is the time concerns when you've got a zillion and four events running. The second? Collusion. Which is why PES has it's match slip policy in play. If we allowed people to change a match slip after the match, then you could easily say that it was a mistake when it was filled out after having a little 'talk' away from the judges. Now, a pile of the people in my saturday event were people that I've met before and know a bit about - I didn't suspect that in any case whatsoever ... but it _is_ policy for the event and it's one that I agree with. The Midnight T1 event sounded like a disaster, and I'd really like anyone that could get in touch with the two players that had the warnings issued to PM me -- I'd like to get their take on the whole mess.

I've already spoken with the potential HJ for the T1 worlds at GenCon, and he actually plays T1 which is a bonus. I'm also planning a trip out looks like, so I'll be able to assist. Questions/Comments can be thrown to my private message file if you like, I'll answer questions as best as I can.

For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry about the events that happened at the 'con, it's not quite how I would have liked things to happen - and I'm already working on trying to fix things for GenCon.

I'm once again judging this year at Origins, will most likely finagle my way into running T1 events so I can joke around once again - be warned, Bricks will be on hand for those players who indulge in shady practices. Those of you who have seen me at Syracuse do, in fact, know I'm not joking. Happy Summer Con Season!

If random violence is what's required, I do happen to have many many large chunks of masonry to help administer such a beating ...

Carl's article covers a lot of the important parts of this last year, but the one big thing that wasn't explained out in the open is the crystalization of the T1 community. How many posters on this board have traveled near and far just to meet people? How many trades have been made via the posters here? How many people have made new friends - if they've met or not - via the Manadrain's forums and IRC channels? Even myself, who's normally a bit reclusive, I hit my regular con's this year and then went to the Manadrain event in Syracuse, not even to play really - though I had a deck - but to meet people.

It's a hobby we share, a good game and the love of compeitition. Here's to a friend filled fun time in 2004.

I even have my avatar in place, and I never even post! However, it is good to be home ... the crappy temp forums were most crappy indeed.