I was the Qualifying judge last year, so I knew how to do this. Marfram also gave specific instructions on what to write on the scorecards, so there was no confusion there.
There were a lot of players that were qualifying offstream. I and a few others were assigned to be the qualifying judges for the offstream stations. We each picked the rows that we were going to manage.
Most players already knew how this worked, but I let them know anyways that they needed to raise their hand to submit their scores and to not go past the rocket screen until the judge gave the okay.
When the countdown began, I had my phone ready to take pictures of the player’s scores.
The beginning of the run is when I had to be the most attentive because that’s when most score submissions happen. And then it becomes a bit easier at the end when players have submitted a high kicker at that point, it was only maxouts that I would need to write down on scorecards.
When there was a brief downtime, I quickly gave the cards to the stats team.
During the session, I heard the audience cheering whenever a player scores a maxout. One of the fans, CoreAlign, held up a large sign, cheering for Meme after she got a maxout. The nicely decorated sign said “Go Meme”. CoreAlign didn’t know she was holding the sign upside down until someone nearby told her.
How did some of the players do?
There were 5 players that I was responsible for getting their scores submitted: SaltedSofa, Hepps, GuardianPsycho, Doge, and 3arrett. I had to make sure I recorded their scores correctly, especially since their runs were not streamed.
SaltedSofa had an impressive run with 4 maxouts with the DAS playstyle. He would barely make the Gold Bracket as the #48 seed.
Hepps, who was using the Rolling playstyle, struggled to get maxouts in the first hour of the session. I was worried that he wasn’t going to make it into the Gold Bracket despite being a highly skilled player. He suddenly went pedal to the metal in the second hour, getting 7 maxouts to make the Gold Bracket as the #33 seed.
GuardianPsycho had quite a rough run as a roller. He couldn’t get a maxout, finishing the run with a 940K score, eventually placing him in the Silver Bracket.
Doge, another roller, had a few rough games where he would get 900K scores going into Level 29 Killscreen (Rollers can survive on this level), but couldn’t clear out enough lines to get a maxout. Despite those rough games, he got 6 maxouts.
When Doge finished his qualifying run, his fiance, Vivian, came up to him. She asked Doge how many maxouts he got, which Doge informed her. In a heartwarming moment, she congratulated Doge and they both embraced.
Barrett (3arrett), a hypertapper, scored a 900K early on in the run. The session ended with that score. He barely made the Silver bracket.
Third Qualifying Session
With another set of players practicing, I had a set of small name tag stickers to place on each of the player’s CRT TV.
As I explained to some players, the judges use this sticker to tally if they get a maxout.
As I wrote down the names on the stickers and placed them on the TV, I was able to remember some of the names so I didn’t have to ask. I would say out the names before I wrote it down for the sake of formality.
One of the players had really long hair, so I said the person’s name was Dekk, but it was Doodle, who had longer hair compared to the previous year. I turned out to be the third person to mistaken Doodle for Dekk.
By the time I finished placing name tag stickers on all of the CRTs, all of the judges for the session picked the row that they wanted to judge and scorekeep for. I picked the last row.
From there, I went over a few rules with them.
If the players want to submit their score, they have to raise their hand and not go past the rocket screen, which shows the score the player just got.
When time runs out, players are allowed to continue playing their current game, they just can’t start a new game.
As I loudly wished the players luck, a player asked if I was the one to countdown the session. I explained that the commentators on the main stage will do the countdown, that’s when the session starts.
Eventually, the session started and I needed to be ready to write down the scores.
As I was submitting the scores by filling out the scorecards and sending them to the Stats team, I quickly realized that I forgot to tell all the players to do a hard reset of the game by shutting down the console and turning it back on. This meant that I had to keep track of the player’s high score so that I know when they are about to submit their scores. I did that by writing down their highest scores on my phone.
The first hour of the session is hectic as always. When a player, TetrisRanger, had surpassed his score, I stood behind him ready to take a photo when the game ended. But then, another player, Sirepinski, raised their hand to submit their score, so someone nearby said my name to get my attention. So I went over to Sirepinski and wrote down his score on a scorecard. And then went back to TetrisRanger and submitted his score when he was done.
While I was watching all of the games, I saw TetrisRanger turn around. I thought he was submitting a score, but he was actually looking at his daughter’s (ChaoticHazel) game. He would look over at ChaoticHazel’s game from time to time throughout the session.
An Emotional Roller Coaster
One of the players was very close to beating their current high score of the session, but failed to do so. The player walked away in frustration before returning.
For another player, I didn’t see their game because they weren’t in my row, but they got emotional after finishing a game that they were not satisfied with. A player next to them consoled them. That player eventually pulled themselves together and continued on.
Screaming at the Players
I screamed as loud as I could, letting the players know when there were 10 minutes left, 5 minutes left, and 1 minute left.
Players mentioned that it was distracting, so I won’t be doing that at the next tournament.
Leaving the Venue to watch Wheel of Fortune
As the evening approached, I went left the venue. On my way back to my place, I looked at the Qualifying Rank and saw that I had a chance at making the Bronze bracket, but it was going to depend on how well the remaining players do in their Saturday qualifying session the next morning.
In the meantime, I ate pizza for dinner and watched the Season 42 finale of Wheel of Fortune.
