Judging the JTL Northridge Planetary Qualifier at Fire & Dice Games
2025/06/21: Floor judge 1 from 9:45AM-end of Swiss.
Table of Contents
Video variant of this post + some additional context for some parts (Direct link: https://youtu.be/oO4cGyJT8RY)
2025/06/21 - Fire & Dice Games (and Photo Dump)
(All pics/videos were provided by someone else)
Format: Bo3, 7 Swiss rounds, 113 players, Top Cut to 8 players;
https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/287325
Neither of us played. Alyssa still went to hang out and whatnot. She and a few others (both non-playing CBG’rs and dropped CBG’rs) were playing Mario Kart World and they later went out for KBBQ AYCE. There was also a side event that FAD later held.
Side Note on Why We Didn’t Play
We pre-registered on 2025/04/11.
Alyssa: Because Alyssa later got her GC Day 1 bye from JTL Escondido PQ (2025/05/25), she didn’t really have to play this PQ anymore. We also don’t need more JTL packs at this point.
Jerry: On 2025/05/16, I saw an announcement post on Fire and Dice’s Discord asking for judges. I messaged the poster and expressed interest. But they were looking for L1 judges at the time (I’m an L0 judge), so they said that they’ll reach out again if they’re looking for L0 judges.
On 2025/05/27, I got a message back with the open judging position details.
This was my first time being a formal judge. I’ve judged at my local’s weeklies, but that’s a very low stakes environment.
Side Note of the Event Itself
This PQ event experience was overall great and went pretty smoothly.
The Good Stuff:
There was a full prizing breakdown in the listing!
The restroom was pretty clean (at least in the beginning, idk about later).
The table play space surface area was good and the seats were cushioned.
The two timers were large and visible.
The time in between rounds was very minimal.
The Not-So-Good Stuff:
[Minor/Resolved] The restroom door doesn’t auto-close, and players had a habit of not closing the door behind them when going/leaving them. I had to close the door on their behalf multiple times. I brought this up to the HJ. I suggested to either make an announcement or post signs on the door to close them. The HJ ended up using the back of the deck list papers to write a message and taped them to the doors. This helped tremendously.
The restroom sometimes had long lines (5+ people) as it only had two stalls and the urinal(s) were non-operational.
[Minor/Resolved] I got one feedback with the timer (from a non-player lol) with how it showing the milliseconds is a bit anxiety inducing. I brought this up to the HJ and FJ2 at the end of the Swiss rounds. For Top Cut, the timers were adjusted to be just HH:MM:SS, instead of MM:SS:MS.
Judging Staff
Head Judge (HJ): Georges (the one in the FAD jersey)
Floor Judge 1 [FJ1]: Me (normal clothing, the SWU Judge shirts has been OOS since it’s been sold out back in October 2024)
Floor Judge 2 [FJ2]: Francisco (the one in the SWU Judge shirt)
There was another FAD employee there, but was more of an EO, and not actively involved with the answering judge calls aspect.
Some of the Judge Calls
This was the first judge call of the event during Round 1:
Both players started drawing their opening hand and started/finished resourcing.
The player noticed that a card in their Gamegenic’s Double Deck Pod’s Slide Card Case is a card that was supposed to be in their main deck.
Resolution: I checked and I said to the player that this is most likely a game loss and escalated penalty. I called the other FJ for a second opinion and they agreed.
Afterwards, I brought it up to the HJ and they logged the penalty to the player’s profile. Not gonna lie, I didn’t feel good issuing this penalty as the very first judge call of the event. Make sure to double check your deck before the event!
Player A’s Stolen AT-Hauler was defeated this phase. What happens if Player A plays SHD Qi’ra and names Stolen AT-Hauler?
Resolution: Player B can still play Stolen AT-Hauler for free.
[The other FJ called me over for a second opinion] Player A’s SOR Han Solo leader attacked, but the player forgot to put the top card of their deck as a resource. Player B played Bazine Netal and discarded a card. Player A drew a card and then realized they missed SOR Han Solo’s trigger.
Resolution: We decided to fix the error by having the player put the newly drawn card down as a resource and draw a new card.
A card fell out of the deck when they picked up a portion of the deck to deal out their starting hand (before they looked at their hand).
Resolution: Put the card back into the deck and shuffle a new hand.
Player A has a No Glory, Only Results in their hand. Player B has a Snoke and a damaged SOR Darth Vader unit with <= 2HP left. If Player A plays No Glory, Only Results on Snoke, would that also defeat the SOR Darth Vader unit?
Resolution: Yes.
At the resource 5 or 6 turn, Player A realized that they had drawn one fewer card at some point. We all counted the cards that existed on the board and hand, noted that were no card drawing effects, and there was indeed a discrepancy, but no clue on when this discrepancy started.
Resolution: Fix the issue by having Player A draw one extra card.
There were about two judge calls that I answered regarding the whether a damage effect (e.g. Overwhelming Barrage) can damage JTL Chewbacca.
Resolution: Yes.
There were two total judge calls that I answered regarding the interaction between No Glory, Only Results and a piloted JTL Luke Skywalker unit.
Resolution: The player playing No Glory, Only Results doesn’t grant the player control of the JTL Luke Skywalker pilot upgrade, so the owner gets to utilize the effect.
TWI Anakin Skywalker leader unit with a Jedi Lightsaber attacking into a 2/2 unit, what happens with the overwhelm damage?
Resolution: Straight to base.
[There were a few simple Krayt Dragon related questions.]
Player A wants to play Suriprise Strike while Player B has a Krayt Dragon. When does the Krayt Dragon’s effect happen?
After the Surprise Strike fully resolves (the unit buffed with Surprise Strike attacks), the two damage can be allocated somewhere.
Player A wants to Palpatine’s Return while Player B has a Krayt Dragon. How much damage would Krayt Dragon do?
Card cost refers to the printed cost on the top left corner, regardless if the card was played for free/discounted. Krayt Dragon would do 6 damage + whatever the unit’s cost is.
Player A has JTL Thrawn deployed and an Onyx Squadron Brute. Player A asked if they played Superlaser Blast, would they be able to double trigger the Onyx Squadron Brute’s `When Defeated`?
No. Similar to SHD Bossk leader unit, JTL Thrawn leader unit would need to be alive to double trigger a `When Defeated.`
The most complicated ruling where all three of us were involved and had to consult with the Judge Discord:
Player A is JTL Thrawn (not deployed) and controls Ruthless Raider. Player A has 27 damage on their 30HP base.
Player B controls a Krayt Dragon. Player B has 29 damage on their 33HP Data Vault base.
Player A wants to play No Glory, Only Results their own Ruthless Raider, and then double trigger the Ruthless Raider’s `When Defeated` to win via JTL Thrawn's effect.
Is there at any point where Krayt Dragon can resolve before JTL Thrawn’s effect resolves?
As long as the active player (Player A) decides to resolve their effects first, then Player A would win. The JTL Thrawn trigger is a nested trigger, which would need to be resolved before resolving Krayt Dragon.
Miscellaneous Judge Stuff
Before the event, I was helping out with checking in people. A few people came up to us to ask some ruling and policy questions. Two players came up for a paper deck list sheet.
In the first two rounds, we passed out the promo card and OP packs (Set 1-Set 4).
There were random deck checks that happened through the Swiss rounds, though I didn’t participate in any of those checks.
There were a few games where I was a bit suspicious of players main-decking certain cards, so I checked their deck list, but it was all good.
Starting at around Round 5, I mainly only patrolled the first three table rows.
In between the Swiss rounds and Top Cut, I believe two players were told to re-sleeve their decks (they were given free Dragon Shield Dual Matte sleeves).
Conclusion
Overall, I appreciate given the privilege of judging a PQ. I got asked a few times why I was judging instead of playing and if I already got a PQ win (Lol, I wish haha).
It was quite tiring on my feet (though I wasn’t really sitting down when I could have) by Round 6.
Answering the card ruling questions is the easy part, but questions regarding policies is a bit harder.
I also intentionally didn’t spectate games that involved a CBG’r behind their opponents too long, as I don’t want any type of accusations of me helping them cheat in some way arise.
Anyways, pretty fun experience, I learned a lot, would do it again.
Thanks for the report, and for working! Judging is an underappreciated and important part of having these large events be successful, I'm glad it was fulfilling for you