Yokomoto
Congrats on the finish. Since this was my first tourney in a while, it was really good to get out and play against some really friendly opponents, and have some interesting matches (except my T4 loss, which was turn 3 and turn 1 tinker>darksteel, time walk).
Unfortunately, these experiences contrasted with the overall tournament, which was handled poorly. First, and I remember this from last time, the owners aren't good with directions, making it difficult for people to find the store once they're lost (this was exacerbated by mapquest's ineptitude). Second, they capped entry because they didn't want to run more than six rounds of swiss. They could argue that they were out of space, but there was a back room that was completely unused. This caused a few people, including a friend of mine, who drove hours out of his way, to waste a Saturday afternoon. The rounds themselves went rather smoothely, except that they didn't have any judging. Fortunately Moobius was there from our group, but they even limited how much help he could offer. Lastly, the infinite proxy rule, while interesting in theory, only works when people bring recognizable proxies. I saw one deck that was 60 basic lands that were all sharpied up. That is completely unacceptable, and I feel bad for his opponents.
Lastly, and this is more of an annoyance than anything, the owner doesn't allow people to bring food and drink into the store. Its his establishment, and its his choice to run the ship how he wants, but given the lousy selection of food he had there, you would think he'd make more options available to people who are staying at the store for 5+ hours. I even saw him come over to Eastman, and take a 1/2 full bottle of rootbeer from him while enforcing this rule. There were like two chugs left!!! Who does that sort of thing? It was Seinfeldian.
Anyway, given how many of these things I've been to, and how many choices we have here in NE (like the extremely well run event the following day in W.Springfield), I wanted to make people aware of what they're getting into in Brockton.
