Judging the SEC Pasadena Planetary Qualifier at Odyssey Games
2026/01/03: Floor judge to the end of Swiss.
My TCGPlayer link to support: https://partner.tcgplayer.com/LumiMouse
Table of Contents
2026/01/03 - Odyssey Games
Format: Bo3, 7 Swiss rounds, 114 players, Top Cut to 8 players;
https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/383341
Alyssa went 4-3, placing 39th.
Side Note of the Event Itself
For context, this is the third PQ that Odyssey Games has hosted. The prior two PQ events went smoothly from the player perspective. So, I had high expectations going into this event.
![[Alyssa] Top 16 Set 3 Pasadena Planetary Qualifier 🔥](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Wy_!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5383a4b0-09cd-4c7b-ac23-e1f5045d909e_939x1247.jpeg)
Judging Staff
1 HJ + 4 total floor judges (two of whom came mid-event)
The Good Stuff:
Prizing structure was known ahead of time.
Pizza provided for lunch! 🍕
Three clean restrooms.
Raffles: Two booster boxes & one Carbonite box.
The Not-So-Good Stuff:
Dang, what a bumpy start to the event. Here’s the general timeline:
As a judge, I was informed to show up at 9AM (10AM is the scheduled round 1 start). However, the store didn’t open until ~9:45AM, so everyone was just gathering outside beforehand. I’m pretty sure this was the store’s fault, but idk.
The tables and chairs weren’t setup. Shortly after the store was open, the HJ and someone else came back with Home Depot’s tables and chairs. People started helping stack the wargaming tables at the back of the room.
When the store opened, none of these were pushed back and stacked. There weren’t enough table numbers, so we (the judges + a volunteer spectator) helped write them on blank paper. There also weren’t enough stands, so I taped the remaining numbers to the table.
Though considering all of the setbacks, we handled them pretty well and we ended up starting round 1 at 10:30AM.
There were no round timers. There were several judge calls that were just asking for the remaining time (this is especially relevant in a Data Vault / control meta).
The participation packs were passed out early in the event, but the PQ participation promo (Galen Erso) wasn’t passed out until later to the point that some dropped players may have missed them.
It was also very apparent how short-staffed we were for how much was being done. There were delays in between some rounds caused by the HJ handling the payments for selling singles and, later on, handling the payments for side events. There were times where I was waiting for the HJ to be available so I could inform them that we were ready to pair for the next round (after checking that every match has been reported). There were a few times where I reminded the HJ to start the round timer.
These were things that I didn’t really have to be aware of when I judged for the Northridge and Redlands PQs.
In hindsight, I/another judge could’ve stepped up and handled some of these processes without the HJ. Now I know for future events.
Some of the Judge Calls/Rulings
Simple/straightforward:
Scenario: Player A’s SOR Luke Skywalker debuffed Player B’s unit that also had a buff that lasted until the end of phase. What happens?
Answer: Because both debuff and buff expire at the end of the phase, they fall off at the same time regardless of who has the initiative. If the unit still has >0 HP afterwards, it survives.
Scenario: Player B’s Unrefusable Offer is on Player A’s Kelleran Beq.
If Player A plays another Kelleran Beq, what happens to the bounty?
Answer: The unique rule would come into effect. If Player A defeats the bountied Kelleran Beq, Player B would be able to claim the bounty.
Player B plays Arrest on the bountied Kelleran Beq, what happens?
Answer: Player B’s base would capture the bountied Kelleran Beq, then Player B has the option to claim the bounty which would allow them to play Kelleran Beq and its “When Played” would trigger.
Scenario: Player A has taken control of Player B’s Stolen AT-Hauler. It gets defeated. Does Player A have to choose Player B?
Answer: Yes.
Scenario: Does a unit being captured enable Yoda leader’s effect?
Answer: Yes, a unit being captured is treated as leaving play.
Scenario: Player A has an existing JTL Devastator. They want to play another JTL Devastator, but wants to keep the existing JTL Devastator.
Answer: Yup, they’re allowed to do that. They can play the second JTL Devastator, defeat the newly played one, and still resolve its “When Played” effect.
Scenario: Player A played TWI Cad Bane capturing Player B’s unit and a unit that was stolen by Player B’s SOR Palpatine leader unit’s effect. Player B played No Glory, Only Results on the TWI Cad Bane. What happens to the captured units?
Answer: Captured units return to their respective owner.
Scenario: Yoda player overdrew by 1 card during the regroup phase.
Answer: Determine what is known deck info, such as via Yoda leader’s effect of sending cards to the bottom of the deck, set that aside. Yoda player reveals their hand, opponent selects one card to be shuffled back to the deck, then put any set aside cards back, if any.
Warning issued to the player.
Scenario: Player A’s Fireball with a JTL Chewbacca pilot was Traitorous’d. Player A wanted to know how the interaction worked if they played Bamboozle on it.
Answer: Bamboozle would first exhaust the unit, then return both the JTL Chewbacca pilot and Traitorous back to their respective owner’s hand. This would mean that Fireball would return to Player A’s side of the field.
Sidenote: A thing players should be aware of is that they can speak to the judge away from the table if they don’t want to reveal any strategic information. When I first approached this call, my opponent was whispering and pointing to a card in their hand. I asked them if they wanted to talk away from the table and we did so.
Scenario: SHD Han player asked what the interaction was if they used the leader’s effect when playing Itinerant Warrior.
Answer: The 2 dmg would resolve first, then comes the shield, so it’d be a shielded 4/2 unit.
Scenario: Player A deployed their leader and played Tala Durith via plot. Does the leader get hidden as well?
Answer: Yes, the leader also gets the benefit of hidden.
Scenario: [There were at least two judge calls relating to this.]
Player A controls Val and Lurking TIE Phantom. If Val gets defeated, can the bounty’s 3 damage be used to defeat the Lurking TIE Phantom?
Answer: No, because even though the bounty is on a friendly unit to Player A, the bounty is regarded as an enemy ability.
Sidenote: I initially gave the wrong ruling to the first judge call on this situation, but luckily the other judge was there to correct me. I looked it up to verify and I can recall reading about this interaction before, but I had forgotten about it.
[This was caught on the recording table.]
Scenario: I saw a player deploy their leader and showed Sudden Ferocity. They equipped it to one of their units. Then they proceeded to show another plot card.
This is when I stepped in saying how they can’t show and resolve any more plot cards, because they missed the timing window.
Sidenote: Another judge was watching and we talked about it away from the table afterwards. I mentioned how some players don’t seem to know how plot works - specifically that the player must show all plot cards first and then choose whether to resolve them or not. The other judge responded saying how the reason could be that players treat as smuggle, so they trigger/resolve one at a time. But the issue is that I feel that this gameplay error can easily go unreported, but idk how to educate players better about this.
This error also occurred in one of FAD SEC PQ gameplay videos (see the chapters):
More Complicated:
[This happened in a game I was spectating when walking by.]
Scenario: Sabe player has an SOR Millennium Falcon. I saw no exhausted resource and they did an action.
I asked if they paid the Falcon tax. They responded no.
At this point, technically they missed the timing window so it should be returned back to hand. However, I wanted to see if there was any leeway in this situation, so I asked some additional questions:
The Sabe player had initiative and they did the first action of the phase. This means that the opponent hasn’t done any actions yet, so the presence of the SOR Millennium Falcon has no influence on the opponent.
I asked the opponent if their resourcing decision was influenced at all by SOR Millennium Falcon. They responded no.
Then I proposed the resolution of letting the Sabe player to decide to pay the tax or return it back to hand. Both players agreed to it.
I issued a warning to the Sabe player for inaccurate mandatory ability infraction.
[This happened during a deck check.]
A player’s deck had four Snowtrooper Lieutenant (should’ve been three) and missing one Shuttle ST-149 (should’ve been two).
The player was called over and I explained the situation to them.
After removing the extra Snowtrooper Lieutenant, the deck size was 49 cards. To repair this, I had the player roll two D6 dice to randomly select a card from their 10 card side deck (any dice roll above 10 is a reroll). I edited their deck list and the randomly selected card was now part of their main deck going forward for the rest of the event.
I issued them a game one loss.
Player A deployed their SEC Cassian leader, didn’t say anything and reached for their resources and showed a Sudden Ferocity. During this timeframe, Player B played LOF Anakin Skywalker.
At some point after the Player B’s unit being played, Player A also showed a Cinta Kaz via plot.
I asked if there was a pause between Player A deploying their leader and Player B playing their unit. Player B said that there wasn’t a “long pause.” But it didn’t seem to me like it was a snap play.
At this point, I felt that this was a “he said, she said” situation, so I called the other floor judge for help. Away from the table, we ended up agreeing to rewind back to the leader deploy action.
I recommended to both players to better communicate next time to prevent these types of situations.
I issued a warning to both players. This was probably the hardest judge call I’ve ever had to deal with due to how fuzzy the situation was.
[This happened in a game I was spectating when walking by.]
During the regroup phase, a Yoda player accidentally picked up three cards, and placed the third card back on top of the deck. They made no mention of it.
I was able see what aspect the third card has, so I was suspicious of the player catching a glimpse of the card as well. So, I was a bit stunned when they made no mention of it and I was just thinking about how to bring it up.
I asked if they saw what the top card was. They responded no.
Now, I was considering whether to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I ended up stepping in again, explained to both players what I saw. I wanted to shuffle the card just to be on the safe side.
We determined the known deck info (bottom four cards were known via Yoda’s leader effect) and set those aside. I had the player shuffle their deck and returned the set aside cards back.
I issued a warning to the player.
Miscellaneous Judge Stuff
I didn’t see anyone use proxy leaders/bases.
An early judge call was made. As I approached the table, I saw that it involved Alyssa, so I asked the other floor judge to take the call. I wanted to avoid any perception of bias/conflict of interest.
We did deck checks every round.
IIRC there was a round where it had to be re-paired due to Melee dropping a player for some reason.
Players got to read the Melee listing, all of the info is there 😩:
Multiple players asked me if there was going to be a lunch break. I told them that there were no designated lunch break, but feel free to confirm with the HJ.
Multiple players asked me what the prizing was. I either referred them to check the Melee page or showed them on my phone.
Conclusion
This is now my 5th PQ that I’ve judged at. Despite the challenges, they were good learning opportunities in that they helped prepare me in case something similar happens in future events.
Basically, a copy paste of my previous PQ judging Substack posts:
Overall, I appreciate being given the privilege of judging a PQ and the store allowing me to record both the gameplays as well as the 360° footage.
It was quite tiring on my feet (as expected).
Answering card ruling questions is easy, but questions regarding policies are a bit harder.
Pretty fun experience seeing familiar and new faces all gathered in one spot, I learned a lot, would do it again.
Doing a plug for someone from CBG who got me these pins, their social https://www.instagram.com/riot_dolls_:
Reran the scraping code early Jan 2026. SEC numbers are lower than TWI across the board so far:
https://github.com/jerrylshen/melee.gg-scraper/tree/main/StarWarsUnlimited