Wow. What a link! You know i was at that Marvel Knights sneak preview and i have no idea what stacking is. That's okay, a judge was apparently unaware that characters in the hidden area cannot be equipped unless it's with "hidden equipment." While the equipping rule was well known to all of us (competitors, minus of course my opponent who must have been new to the game, which would explain his shiny new box of superman boosters) due to VS. Realms but somehow hadn't made it into the judges FAQ.

This is a direct quote from the Level 3 (Red striped shirt) judge at the Las Vegas 10k: "I'm not working so i can say this. The other judges are idiots." Wow. That's good to know. I mean that apparently all you need to be a level 3 judge is a buttload of arrogance and disrespect for your peers. Can UDE pick em' or what folks?! (Now i get to hear a nice post about how UDE isn't responsible for uh, their own judges at one of their own events.) *yawn* Save it. This judge did say one thing that i liked however and that was that he didn't even play this game. i really like that. Personally i feel that if you play VS. competitively you should not be allowed to be a judge period. It is a conflict of interest and it would be way too easy for one member of a team to be a judge and one to be a competitor. I already saw judges that were a little too friendly with certain folk and outright discriminatory to others!

Literal Example of discrimination: After playing my round of human bumper cars, read: Looking at pairings and finding my table i get to my 1 ft. square playing area (not a joke folks, bring a playmat to ensure your space because apparently playmat = not purple, dig?) AFTER the round was called to begin. Practically immediately another player finds/unearths his own wedge and takes his seat. A judge is on him like "white on rice." *ahem* The player gets a "minor warning" for not being at his seat and objects as he did not particularly enjoy round ONE of the human bumpercars, he stood back and decided to wait instead of wade. i inform the judge (while my opponent is looking at me like i'm mad) that i too deserve one (i hate to feel left out....) as well because i was late too. The judge ignores me and gives the player the warning. I was just as guilty as he was yet he is the only one punished.

The worst however was the second day when i showed up to sign up for the PCQ proper and was told that there weren't enough people to have it. I did something that i didn't have time to do the first day: eat. No kidding, no breaks during the 10K other than between rounds and hey, ya' don't wanna' get a warning and of course you can't bring outside food or drink into the Alexis Athena Ballroom. When i came back to sign up for the preview i found out that indeed there was a PCQ. Great. I spent $600 to be here so that i WOULDN'T play at the PCQ. riiiiiiiight.

JUDGE KUDOS: There was one judge, a really nice guy with a great sense of humor who kept using the phrase "Hey it's all about the fun anyway!" and was always on task, and always right so far as i am concerned, and more imortantly respectfull towards himself, the competitors, his peers, and the game. Give THIS guy the 5 boxes of Marvel Knights! I don't know his name but he was the main judge of the second Marvel Knights preview flight for sealed deck (y'know the one that all FOUR of us attended.....hey at least i got a t-shirt that time so now i can root for the Marvel side!)

Although i have a deck that could be pureblood Marvel and DC, i don't construct decks that are only from the last two expansions (waitaminute) okay well maybe i do, but my point is that when you limit peoples deck building choices (hey why worry about that, let's help the netdeckers some more!) to "keep it fresh" translation: "Doing whatever we can to sell cards." That type of marketing will probably ensure that even though i live in a city of almost 750,000 people that we never know if there will be a monday tournament because hey, that fourth person might not be there that week.

If UDE truly wanted to "keep it fresh" they would do something to discourage net-deckers. The next time x'd (my deck) comes within a hairs breadth of defeating "Angry, Angry young Titans...."(My own name for the Rob Leander build) i want Rob to know that, not some yutz that copied his Deck!

Please, just let us play the best that we can build. From what that post said, i'll be done perfecting a couple of my deck builds right about the time they become unusable! You guys are doing it right for the most part, just don't make our current investments into VS. system completely irrelevant a year down the road!

Maybe instead of looking towards new things, you should shore up the tournament scene as it is. That is, if you want there to BE a tournament scene....

yeah, i got the warning, and it blew my mind that i was even being given a warning to begin with, much less the fact that only maybe even 6 or so people seemed to have even heard the head judge say to start( which as i had stated i had not heard a start get called yet, and the judge that was issuing me the warning, but ignoring Xodarap, mind you, the head judge announces the start as this whole thing was even going on! which there were a couple of players that said it had been called before, but there more that said it had not.)

however, the amount of times that judges were on hand that could not seem to answer questions that were level one questions was kind of surprising. there were a few stumpers as well, that, i must say, would have taken quite a few of us who actually play the game more than a few moments to decipher, so with so many that didn't play it was less surprising after the fact that there was so much time wasted over all.