MC Fraught

Folks, I have spent literally the entire day trying to get someone at AOL to unlock my email. For the last eight hours, I have been told that the issue has been escalated to supervisors who would contact me. I haven't heard a thing. You would think that, since I'm one of the last human beings on the face of the Earth still using AOL, they would take care of this. You'd be wrong. So, once this gets resolved, hopefully before the next presidential election, I'm dropping them. (I kept them this long out of convenience, but now I have no reason to keep them.) I'll see you on the radio at 6 p.m., at which time I will address this further.

This is a very long post and vent about #RCStuttgart. Tournament starts, I’m nervous but also excited. Though I do wish I had played Jayce for event. Anyway, round one I get paired against Jayce and I’m on kaisa. During game one, I feel like my opponent is taking a really long time on his turns. I start watching the clock and confirm he’s taking around 2 to 4 minutes per turn. I ask him to please play faster. Another 3 or so minutes go by and nothing changes, so I call a judge over and ask if he can watch the pace of play. He says he can. I’m still watching the clock during my opponent’s turns and he’s continuing to take 2 to 4 minutes. I look over at the judge and make a hand gesture like “what’s going on?” He assures me he’s watching and then walks around the table and sits beside my opponent. During game one, the judge tells my opponent on two separate occasions to make a play. I assume these are warnings. Eventually my opponent gets to 5 points and has the Garbage Grabber recycle Dragons setup. I concede with around 5 minutes left on the clock to try and get another game in. We also have about a 13 minute time extension. Game two starts and my opponent is still playing slowly. The judge tells him to make a play, and he tanks for another minute before finally doing so. Another 10 minutes go by and our extra time is almost up. The judge tells my opponent to make a play for the FOURTH time. At this point I’m getting really upset because I’m having to play my own turns in 30 seconds to a minute just to have a chance at finishing the game. I see a red shirt judge (head judge) and ask if I can speak with him away from the table. The blue shirt judge follows us. I explain what’s been happening and even confirm with the blue shirt judge that my opponent has been taking 2 to 4 minute turns and has been told to make a play four different times. I ask the head judge, isn’t this a PRO REL event? Aren’t the rules for this supposed to be more strict? He confirms that it is and explains that a third warning for the same infraction results in a game loss. Then the blue shirt judge says he hasn’t actually issued my opponent any warnings. He’s just been telling him to play faster. I’m genuinely upset at this point because I feel like I’m being robbed of my tournament. I ask how someone can take 2 to 4 minutes per turn, be told to make a play FOUR separate times, and somehow not receive a single warning? They tell me they’ll discuss it and ask me to return to the table. I go back, and the blue shirt judge eventually comes over and issues my opponent a warning. We end up going to turns and I lose the match, even though I’ve banished two of his Dragons and feel like I’m very likely to win that game if we have enough time. I’m honestly just sad and upset. I explain to the head judge how I feel like I’ve been robbed of a match at the biggest event of the year. To his credit, the head judge was great. He listened to my frustration, understood where I was coming from, and explained that there wasn’t really anything he could do at that point but he would talk to other judges about this. He let me take a walk to try and cool off and gave me a time extension for my next round. Unfortunately, even after walking around, I’m still pretty upset. I play poorly in round two and lose. Whatever. On to round three. Round three is a super close match, but a great one. Then round four comes around and I’m playing against Riven. My opponent wins game one. Game two comes down to him needing to ready with Astral Heron at base to win. I cast Piercing Light, dealing 4 damage to my own unit and 4 to his Heron. It resolves. I then cast Decree of Rage to deal another 4 damage to Heron. He responds with Decree of Focus to give it +4 Might. I cast Thousand Tailed Watcher and point at his Heron. He tells me it survives at 1. Now, this part is my fault. For whatever reason, I thought green Decree gave +5 Might like blue Decree/Punch. 1/3

Pope Leo XIV met with American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in a private audience on Wednesday, November 4.