During my time doing Twitter coverage for @ManaNationLive, I received a number of questions that I couldn't exactly answer in the 140 characters that Twitter allows. This article will address the questions regarding the Grand Prix itself.

One thing a lot of people don't understand about the official coverage is just how long it takes to do. Wizards had 2 people doing official coverage at GP Sydney, Ray Walkinshaw (@blisterguy) and his understudy Pip Hunn (@pip_hunn). Between those two, they have to cover a feature match every round starting in round 4 (unless another awesome pairing happens before then). They usually take it in turns doing the feature match each round. While one is doing feature matches, the other is doing the side stories like the quick questions, building sealed deck articles, and general interest ones (The Harbour House), or even finishing up writing feature matches from previous rounds. Ray is also maintaining the @magicprotour Twitter feed.

Writing coverage for feature matches can be rather ugly. If you've ever seen a feature match live in person at a GP or 5K, you'll know how fast the Pros can play. The poor coverage people have to try and keep up with the Pros while they play. They really do not have the time to correct their writing as they go. I saw a rough cut of the LSV vs. Isaac Egan write up and its riddled with spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and incorrect card names. Now, that's not the fault of the coverage writers. They were playing at some pace and there were so many things going on during each turn. I left the venue at 10pm Sunday night and the coverage guys were still doing their write ups on site.

The chain of each article usually follows this:

1. The coverage writer takes notes and writes the match as it goes.
2. The coverage writer takes his notes and cleans it up and corrects spelling as it goes.
3. The head coverage writer (Ray) proofreads and edits the article.
4. The coverage gets sent to the Wizards server person in the US to get formatted for their page layouts.
5. The coverage gets uploaded to the servers and all the correct links are put in place.
6. The coverage is now live for you guys to see.

That is a very long chain of events that need to occur. The problem with the speed is usually on the Wizards' server end. So while the event is going on, the server people could potentially be asleep or busy thus creating a bottleneck. The only reason why people notice the delay in these times is due to instantaneous notification services such as Twitter. I am tweeting the feature match every round, and the results of the previous round's feature match among other interesting factoids. I never timed the delay but it can potentially be upwards of 3-4 hours in some cases. So, the delay becomes more obvious and exacerbated as the actual coverage is far more interesting than what anyone could possibly write in 140 characters.

I've never really noticed the limitations of Twitter any more than I did during my time doing the coverage. There were so many things I wanted to say but couldn't due to the message limits. It really teaches you to be concise and to the point, although the skill hasn't exactly translated to my other writing just yet. I had two options: tweet within the limits or have people complain about flooding the feeds trying to write about more interesting things. Clearly, I stuck to my limitations.

People asked me about doing play-by-plays while I was watching a match, but unfortunately the phone and connection I used weren't exactly conducive to speed tweeting. I'm certain other coverage people couldn't keep up with a play-by-play sequence on Twitter. [The only example I know of, is mine done during Top 8 of the US Nationals this year. -- Trick] I can only hope the speed and type of coverage was to players' satisfaction. From the kudos I received after the event, it sure seemed like it was.

As I was still playing in the event, there were a number of things I couldn't really do due to the time necessary to play my rounds. I was tweeting the feature matches and previous results as I was walking from the pairings board to my seat and sending tweets while my opponent was shuffling up. I wish I was able to scout the pairings board thoroughly and tweet every awesome match up each round. I wish I was able to bird and send live tweets as the feature matches were going, but my games went horridly long. The final round of my PTQ started just as the semi-finals were beginning and LSV's match was a true epic that you really had to be there to appreciate just what was going on.

The way they had the venue set up was really something amazing, though it had its shortcomings, took advantage of the space to create a special atmosphere. The Byron Kennedy Hall, where the GP was staged, has a large dome structure in the centre with pillars surrounding it. The event staff arranged the tables so that the top 40 tables would all be arranged under the centre dome with the feature match table in the centre of the ring of tables. Every day two rounds took place under the dome, which had an extensive lighting system to support it and allowed for the very dramatic photos that showed up on the WotC coverage courtesy of Ray.

As I mentioned before the set up had some shortcomings, the lights were extremely bright. Enough so that it was unbearably bright to the point of blinding opponents. Players with sunglasses were a common enough sight during the course of the weekend, and the temperature under the dome probably peaked at around 30ºC which definitely was uncomfortable for the players and the spectators. Stories of players running to their seats to get a better position, forcing their opponents to sit in the worst of the light and associated heat were told throughout the weekend.

I've heard a lot of stories from Australian judges who have had the fortune of being selected to judge at GPs overseas and they've told me that the environment that the Australian TOs provide for the GP is second-to-none, compared to overseas. We had 11 Last Chance GP Trials fire on the Friday of the event. All our grinders (even for Nationals) are like the queues on Magic Online, they get enough players (16 for constructed, 32 for Sealed), they fire and they begin to take sign ups for the next one. 11 trials on a Friday that wasn't a holiday of any sort is rather impressive.

The public events coordinator for the GP (who is the Sydney area Premier TO), scheduled a plethora of events throughout the weekend, including a Super FNM with over 50 players (where a playset of Jace, the Mind Sculptors was given away), the State Legacy championships and then even sponsored a free barbecue for all the people at the venue on the Friday. Nothing helps get people kudos more than free food. Two Standard tournaments, an Extended event, Metagame Sealed (1 pack of every Standard legal set and an extra SOM pack), sponsored EDH and even a 2HG Draft event all happened in addition to the GP, PTQ and on-demand 8 man Standard/Draft queues. My point is we know how to run a good Magic weekend to help make the choice easier for players to make the trip up.

The whole weekend was capped off by an invite only winner takes all full Scars foil Rotisserie draft, seeing the whole set in foil on the table was something quite special. For a country with as few Magic players as Australia (in relative comparison to much of the world), we certainly know how to jam a lot of Magic into a weekend. Even if you don't win the big money, you're still guaranteed a great time as there was always something to do here. I've heard judge stories of events where the Friday was just dead, they ran a limited number of trials and not much else. Here, we're playing Magic from 11am Friday, until 10pm on Sunday (except when we're sleeping of course) and while we haven't had a PT (yet...), its still one of the best times you can have playing Magic.

I hope this piece has been enlightening about GP Sydney in general. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments or follow me on Twitter at @thatdamnaussie.

-- Barry