Alex Charsky was the head judge for yesterday’s 10K tournament, and is the Tournament Commissioner for Upper Deck. But that’s not all he does! “While my job consists of investigating tournament fraud and suspending players from our systems, I also have the task of creating and managing the rules team for Vs. System TCG,” Alex said. That means he gets to keep things fair and balanced for the rest of us.
Running a large TCG tournament is never easy. The tournament yesterday was the largest Vs. System tournament in the history of the game, with over 200 people registered to play. It concluded somewhere around 3 AM Sunday after getting started at 11:30 AM Saturday. “I would say the tournament was about a 6 out of 10,” Alex commented. “I am a bit sick this weekend, so I started to lose my voice towards the end of the tournament.” It was quite difficult for Alex to yell and be heard above the noise of the crowd. He also mentioned the judging staff, noting, “The staff was slightly inexperienced – which is to be expected, since the game is so new – but they have a lot of heart.”
Even though some players may have found major problems with the tournament yesterday, Alex remained optimistic about the future of high-level Vs. System play. “Some of the smaller things [we could do] would be starting the tournament at an earlier time and not simultaneously with Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Nationals. I also can't wait for the judge staff to get some more [experience] – they will go from great to amazing.” Alex was quick to emphasize that he had a great deal of confidence in the abilities of the judging staff. Certainly, things can only get better with practice.
Alex has been involved with Vs. System since “the Vs. System TCG power-ups were +5/+5.” It seems that he ended up with the head judge position because of his combination of experience running tournaments and his working knowledge of the Vs. System rules.
Alex attended Portland State University and majored in math, with the intent to teach. How did he end up working for a game company? “So then I heard that Jeff [Donais] moved to San Diego and I asked him for a job. His response was, ‘Sold. When can you move?’ I started at the beginning of September.” Here’s hoping that things continue to improve with Vs. System organized play, due to Alex’s hard work.