After an exhausting Sunday, we have finally concluded WMCQ #2 (Modern) with Jeffrey Chan as Singapore’s 3rd representative in the World Magic Cup in Barcelona, Spain, on December 11–13.

 

Congradulations to Jeffery Chan!

Round 1 begins!

Players into the spirit of competition...

Many Firsts

In the many large scale premier events that we have organized for this couple of years, this WMCQ comes to me as one of the most memorable due to a couple of 'Firsts' that we have encountered from this event:

1. We were honored to have Wearn Chong to be our Head Judge for the first time (Wearn Chong is our South East Asia regional coordinator for the Magic Judge Program). Although Wearn Chong has previously judged for Games Haven for the first WMCQ. we were still thrilled to have him judging for us nonetheless.

WMCQ #2 Judge Team! From Left: Chuan Jie, Andrew Teo, Dennis Xiao, Wearn Chong, Maxwell Li, David and Kwok Yang

 

2. This was the first time that we held our large scale premier events (Pro Tour Qualifiers, World Magic Cup Qualifiers) not in PSB academy.

Leaving a location that was so familiar to both players and organizers meant new challenges and problems for the organizers to face.

 

PSB was an excellent location with adequate facilities - tables and chairs were provided in the classrooms as well as projectors and audio equipment.

However in Sengkang Community, everything has to be externally sourced.

 

The event hall rented did not come with tables and chairs. We had to source for external vendors for tables and chairs which did not come cheap unfortunately. This meant an increase in overall costing of up to 200%. Also, vendors only provided the hardware but not the manpower to arrange the tables. We had to spend Saturday night moving tables and chairs into the venue hall as well as arranging them.

The Night before WMCQ #2 (1)

The Night before WMCQ #2 (2)

3. Unfortunately, this was also the first time that we have encountered an unrecoverable software error from Wizard Event Reporter (WER) the tournament software from wizards of the coast.

The software unexpectedly crashed before round three began.

Despite valiant efforts from our scorekeeper Clifford, the WER refused to accept the backup files which he had carefully done after every round.

Ultimately we had to resort to manual backup - Manually entering all pairings and results during round one and round two.

That was the reason we had to give players an hour lunch break after round two as we need that amount of time to restore the software.

Man of the Match: Clifford

That was also the reason we had to play the last round of swiss in Ponggol Park Community Center. The software issue had caused a considerable amount of delay which meant that the original plan of ending the swiss rounds at 6pm and transporting all the players for the top 8 playoffs at Dueller’s Point was now impossible. We had to find alternatives.

Luckily, the kind folks at Ponggol Park Community Center acceded our last minute request for the booking of two rooms. With that, the last round of swiss could be done. We also did an impromptu decision to increase the payout to all players as an appreciation for their patience with us.

Last Round of Swiss at Ponggol Park Community Center

Conclusion

All in all, WMCQ #2 could be counted as a successful event despite the inconveniences that we had. Players were happy with the ‘care packages’ that were given to them which consisted of the promo, 5 dollars store credit in the form of tokens and the Thaila promo itself.

 

Tokens with store credits!

The event ended at approximately 9pm which was 2 hours earlier than the one we held last year which ended at 11pm.

 

All these would not be possible without the help of the staff and the judges and all our friends who had volunteered to help us in anyway we can.

Special thanks to our scorekeeper Clifford - He showed calm and composure when the WER crashed unexpectedly and then proceeded to do all the original pairings manually.

 

Finally a big thank you to all the players that have participated in WMCQ #2. I do hope that it was a enjoyable event and do hope to see you again in our next major event which will be the Battle of Zendikar Pre-Release Party.

 

Till next time!

 

Kwok Yang

 

Dueller’s Point

 

* Top 8 decklist of WMCQ #2 will be released soon, so stay tuned!