Subject: JR SS: A Different Perspective
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 10:41:26 -0700
From: Andrea Kunstt
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

I'd like to start by saying that I applaud Toby and the others who wrote to
the Dojo with their concerns about the Junior Super Series events.  Unlike
many of the Pro Tour postings, nearly every Junior wrote clearly and
maturely and made
very good requests/points about the JSS.  While I agree with Toby
completely on nearly every point in his article, I would like to present a
little more information on what is going on with the Junior events - at
least as far as has been my experience.

My perspective on the Junior Super Series is this:  I head judged the
Challenge at Grand Prix San Francisco, I head judged the Open and Western
Divisional
Championships at Pro Tour - Los Angeles, and I wrote the coverage for the
Duelist Sideboard for the Open at Pro Tour - New York.  In addition, I
judged many of the Junior Pro Tour events back in the early days of the Pro
Tours.

The Wizards representative coordinating the Junior Super Series events is
Diane Brass.  I talked to Diane quite a bit at Pro Tour - Los Angeles.  She
genuinely cares about the event and the people playing in it and was very
careful to ensure that I, as well as my judges, treated all the competitors
professionally and with respect as befitting a PT class event. She
emphasized many times that the JSS was not a "give the starving dog a bone"
type of event but was something very important to Wizards and something
they stood behind completely.  Diane put a lot of hard work and time into
ensuring that the Western Divisional championships meant something - I
think it is important for the Juniors to realize that there are Wizards
people who care about the Super Series and stand behind it as one of their
premiere, professional level marquee events.

Unfortunately, Diane does not have authority over items like coverage in
the Sideboard and the Duelist - a recurring complaint in the posts to the
Dojo.  There was very little or no coverage in Los Angeles because, quite
frankly, it was not placed at a high priority and given to a Wizards
staffer who didn't have time to follow the event.  There were several PR
people from Wizards pulling players to do interviews; unfortunately, the PR
people don't really know the juniors and ended up asking the judges about
anyone thought to be newsworthy.  I have never understood how Wizards can
promote a product they know nothing about - but then, I imagine the Pro
Tour will always be the first priority.

At PT New York, I was asked by Jack Stanton (who was coordinating the
Pro Tour webcoverage for the Sideboard), to do a write up on the Junior
Super Series Open on Saturday.  I personally knew many of the Juniors
competing in the event (including Toby) and had even played several in
Friday night's $500 Type II tournament (and was knocked out by one).
When I wrote the original overview, I focused on several players including
local
favorites like Toby and out-of-towners like Tony Lau (who flew in from
Idaho).  In the Sideboard article, I wanted to highlight the excitement of
the JSS events by following one game briefly (Tony, playing Steel Necro,
faced a very interesting deck containing Tombstone Stairwell, green
weenies, and Goblin Bombardments) and use that to demonstrate there are many
professional players in the Junior Super Series and that it isn't full of
new players bringing Dojo decks and making hundreds of mistakes yet still
winning on luck - as has been often assumed.

I mentioned specific names in the article and described the match.  I toned
down the language and gave a play-by-play account - something the Dojo has
always excelled in but the Sideboard has not (who needs another boring
overview?).  After I finished the article on the Sideboard laptop, I left
to watch more juniors play.  I came back later and asked the editors what
they thought of the article.  I was told that I focused too much on the
players and what they were playing.  Most of what I had written about Tony,
Toby, and the others had been cut out.  You can see the final
result on the Wizards Sideboard webpage under "Saturday Preview."

Even more frustrating was when I explained to the editor that I wanted to
make the JSS accessible and showcase the rising stars of the event on a
name-by-
name basis.  I was told bluntly that the Sideboard and Wizards do not
want to focus on "stars" in the SS event - only the Pro Tour.  And so I
wrote the Day One overview with very little focus on individuals and more
on the various decks out there.  That article did not noticeably change
from the original draft when published.

I asked Sunday if they wished me to continue writing about the JSS.  I
was told "no", that they had it covered.  That was frustrating to me as
well, since I knew the event, I knew the people in it, and I had invested
my time to write about it.  I guess to further the problem, the Day One
overview is buried somewhere under the PT
 sections - Junior SS didn't even get its own area of coverage on the
web page.  I imagine that by writing this, I am probably killing any more
chances to write about the Juniors in the Sideboard and that is a pity.  I
would really like to see the JSS get real coverage by people who know and
care about the event.

The Duelist Sideboard has a new editor and he doesn't have any experience
on the Pro Tour or Super Series - so he needs you to write to him and tell
him what you did or did not like about the coverage. If no one bothers to
write, he will assume that no one cares and juniors will still have poor or
no coverage.

Once again, I want to emphasize that that Wizards people running the Junior
Super Series events (and in particular Diane Brass) really feel the
JSS is a Professional-level event.  Keep writing to the Dojo or send mail
to Diane Brass if you think the current method of having the
Open contain so many slots for the Divisional championships is wrong.
Wizards does listen, I've found.

As for my personal experience with the Juniors - I actually found the Type
II format not as dependent on "Dojo Decks" as many people have assumed.
When I walked around the Open, there were many, many interesting deck
variations.  To be honest, if the 60 or so Juniors playing all had "Dojo
Decks", it would have been a simple matter to metagame against them.  What
I saw, with people like Tony who was playing a Steel Necro deck, is that
the Dojo decks often lost to some very inventive and wild decks that their
sideboards could not address efficiently.  The SS competition was that much
harder than a PT, where you always see the same 8 decks in whatever
constructed format for that event.  Juniors have to think on their feet
as they played and revise the strategies of their decks accordingly.  Often,
it wasn't until the second game that players figured out the design of
their opponents' decks and how to defeat it.

Having judged the Pro Tour and the JSS events, I have found that both
have strong and weak players.  I also believe that the level of play in the
SS would surprise many people, including the Pro Tour players.

Once again, thank you to Toby and the other juniors who wrote such lucid
and logical posts to the Dojo.  It is posts like Toby's that help solve
problems and frustrations with events like the JSS and help make it a
professional calibre event on par with its older sibling, the Pro Tour.

Andrea Kunstt
Level III Certified Judge
Magic: The Gathering Playtester