My tournament performance in both the Legacy Champs and Vintage Champs was abysmal, but to echo everyone else's comments, the tournament hall and setup was great. I do not often get a chance to travel out east for Magic, but plan to do so more because of the awesome tournaments run by Mr. Coss (and Detwiler). It was great to see tons of people, be introduced to many new ones, and to play a couple of dozen pickup games with the great Randy Buehler. In the future I need to dedicate more time at these events to hang out with people other than who I usually do, so if you see me and want to grab a drink please let me know!
My day ended on a low note - I was unfairly targeted by the judging staff. i was deck checked in round 5, and then deck checked again in round 7. The second time the judge claimed to be able to cut to several cards in my deck which he considered "marked" although when I asked him to demostrate this he failed miserably in five attempts. I appealed, and they spent over a half hour playing around with my deck trying to make it do some kind of David Blane magic trick and were unable to do it without really trying hard. Considering my opponents get the last touch on my deck after every shuffle if they couldn't just casually cut to the "marked" cards I dont see how it had any effect on the game. It took all my energy to avoid going into total rage mode which would have certainy ended with me being forcibly removed from the tournament site. Obviously Magic cards that are 20 years old and have been played in hundreds of tournaments are going to have bit of a bend to them - this isn't Standard.
They still gave me the total BS game loss, and I won the round the round despite being on massive tilt.
I would love to hear more from you about this, as I heard something about you being given a game loss for a couple of marked cards that one judge was unable to prove, and others judges were said to be able to repeatedly cut to Black Lotus and another card (hence the game loss issued). Any info you could provide about that and these questions would be interesting to hear:
1) Why were you deck checked in two different rounds, and did one lead to the other, or were any issues found in the prior deck check?
2) Is this the same Black Lotus in question from the notorious cut heard 'round the world against Rich Shay, in which a judge was also called over because of a suspicion of a marked card?
If a card
is marked and can be cut to there is definitely a strategic advantage to be had. For every X times your opponent does not cut to it, there are increased non-trivial odds that they may if it
is marked a certain way, which will lead to increased positive outcomes for the owner of a marked card over a longer period of time, just from a numbers standpoint. No, it may not be every time, but even a small percentage increase could and would be notable.
