The last Magic tournament of the season is usually a festive affair as Week #8 is usually low on Scouts and high on grim determination when it comes to the staff.  During the setup, a CIT was loafing and I asked him to help set-up or leave, he replied “and if I don’t?” to which I cocked my head to the side and said “we do it again next week.”  Doing so would be patently impossible, but the person in question knew I was a volunteer, and volunteers tend to do crazy things so he chose to start moving chairs than try his luck.

The event itself was unremarkable and I spent most of it asking overly probing questions to an adult to does XML metadata management for the Department of Justice and after 20 minutes of working specifically to do so I got him to say “there is nothing we do that directly benefits the public”.  I cut the price of all singles in half and a kid who’d been at an event earlier in the season noted:

Kid: If I wait even longer, will the prices go down again?
Me: At the end of the evening, I raise the price to twice an eight of their sell price.  So you better buy now.
Kid: *his eyes lit up* Yes.

The staff realized I had checked out when I started throwing product at staff members.  They, again, thought I was crazy but I set aside 5% of prize packs to give to staff who give up their Tuesdays to help.

All in all, about 300 kids participated in a tournament this year, bought $1800 in singles, and we had only 1 trip to the health lodge.  I don’t know why the kid went to the health lodge, just that week 5 a kid in the sealed draft event held up his product shaking and saying “can I go to the nurse?”

I’ve run tournaments at summer camp for 10 years now and I think this will have been my last one.  Thanks to the staff and campers that have made bringing Magic: The Gathering to Ockanickon Scout Reservation largely delightful and rewarding.  Joe, and Anthony, you’re machines.