Alternative to Power 9 Coverage: Mandatory Tourney Report

[rakso]

I'm saddened to hear Pete give his reasons for doing away with "live" coverage of Star City P9.

Pete, however, has always been fair and honest, and has never wavered in support of the format and its players. If he says he's not even making money directly off P9, and if he says he's forced by circumstance to do away with live coverage, then I believe him.

Still, what can we do to maximize the venue created by Star City P9?

I remember the Magic (or Duelist) Invitational, back when it was covered with more showmanship and when it was more novel. Participants were, at one point, required to make tourney reports.

Why don't we just do this?

Require a decent (not even Otter Driver-level spectacular) report before you get your power card. Something even as simple as your decklist, key notes and highlight plays of the day.

Otherwise, we regress back to scattered forum posts and the occasional report. I feel that organizing knowledge into "primers" or even my attempt at "featured match" articles was important to making Type I more accessible and readily vivid to beginning and even intermediate players.

That said, I'd like to say again that past coverage was always amazing, and that I'm sorry to see it end. Being on the other side of the world, it was one way to feel still somewhat connected to the community.

[Komatteru]

Good in theory, but awful in practice.  As much as I love reports, I don't see why we should make someone preform well at a tournament and then expect them to do something else for their prize.  Playing the game well is hard enough, and that's really the point of tournaments, no?  See who's better at playing, not who has time to write about the game.

[rakso]

Well, I was just hoping we could resurrect a little of that good ol' days spirit, when it was an honor to be asked to write a primer or report for BD because you were acknowledged as an expert. I was hoping it might not be seen as a burden, but part of the bragging rights.

Put it this way. Everyone has a little time to comment here about their deck and answer questions after each tourney, right? Everyone (myself especially) is busy, but if you just took the same time to organize your comments into an article instead of posting scattershot in the forums...

Of course, I recognize that you in particular would hestitate to write about something if you didn't have enough time to write something as thorough as you want it to be. But a lot of great articles are stillborn because of this.

One other note. You know, it's very rare to find someone who has time to both play and write, and do both well.

[Anusien]

Why not just encourage reports?  Hell, if SCG wanted they could say "If you write a tournament report that isn't written like ass, we'll publish it."  Or we as TMD just harass everyone until they write reports.

[Dozer]

Encouraging reports should be enough. Also, is there no person that comes to the tournaments but could cover instead of play? If s/he doesn't like to write, s/he could always do a nowadays oh-so-popular Podcast. Find some recording equipment and go do it. You can even do that between rounds if you play, because it takes so much less time to speak than to write. If you have something digital, you can even upload it directly... or publish the casts later instead of a report.
Like, if you take five minutes every round to ask one of the well-known and/or high-standing players how they are doing, and maybe telling a story that happened or how the tournament is going in general, you should be fine. I know not everybody is cut out to be a radio reporter, but keep it simple: Speak a little more slowly than you do in general, keep your sentences short, try not to use fill-words as much, and you should be fine. I think it might be great to hear voices of the community.

Just an idea that takes less time than a report and has as much coverage value. In that way, you could even cover matches, although podcast-covering a game of Magic is probably extremely difficult.

Dozer