It was only a few short years ago when we had to wait hours to get updates as to how the tournament was progressing. But now, as soon as the tournament begins information begins, information begins to flow out of it via Twitter and Facebook. From early matchups, to results, to pictures of competitors, etc. In many ways, it's like the age of radio coverage all over again. It's satisfying, but incomplete.

We, as consumers, feel entitled to immediate and complete information. Unfortunately though, speaking as a conduit that provides this information, it is not that simple. I have to play a delicate game of balancing the information I provide and not open a hole for unfairly influencing the tournament in any way.

For example, at Pro Tour San Diego I tweeted the contents of a player's hand because it was just a ridiculous grip of Magic. I felt sure that the twitter followers would appreciate it. Soon after I was found by a Wizards' employee and told me that that sort of tweet was not permitted out of fear for giving away secret information that would benefit his opponent.

At the time, I felt it was a safe tweet. For two important reasons:

• The players were well away from any area that an onlooker could easily communicate to the player's opponent
• By the time I finished typing the tweet the information was no longer 100% accurate.

Regardless, it did bring to my attention that I am doing a disservice to players by being reckless via Twitter. The power of Twitter must be carefully managed to prevent impacting the competitors in the game.

Sometimes I think we forget that we are talking about tournaments with major money on the line, not just a game that someone wants to be the winner.

At Pro Tour San Juan the Twitter reporting became a powder keg when people were clamoring for more information about the Kibler, Chapin, Ruben et al. deck that featured Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, Oracle of Mul Daya and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I had tweeted the colors of their deck early into the tournament, but people wanted to understand how exactly it won. It didn't help that Kibler was teasing them with tweets about dealing 30 points of damage in a turn, but not explaining how the deck worked. So people turned to @mananation and the other twitter person's doing coverage.

So, what do we do?

It was an interesting situation. I had toed the line of acceptable tweeting by even sharing deck colors and who was playing them. But now the audience was loudly and somewhat angrily demanding the full details about this deck and were very unhappy that they hadn't gotten details yet.

It's one of the few times I've been turned off by the twitter masses. My decision was that I explained that Brian was on twitter himself, and if he didn't want to spoil how the deck worked, who was I to do so? There were still seven or eight matches to go where Kibler would theoretically need the deck.

The argument for me to reveal and report how it worked was that scouting was already going to have taken place, so it was unlikely that the knowledge I shared via twitter would have any impact on a match for Brian. They would likely already know what they were going into. But while scouting is most definitely alive and active among pros, it is not a reason to break the news.

But what am I risking by reporting all this? I've illustrated the possible effect on other people, but what about for me and ManaNation?

Let's take a fictional event as I don't want my conjecturing to be mistaken for a belief in how any pro player might react. Let's say there's a pro named Milton. Milton has the secret deck tech and is burning up the tables. Twitter is already demanding information on what he's playing and how it works.

ManaNation would, in this universe, cover how it works and spread the word to the digital masses as quickly as possible. Then in the following round, Milton loses to a player who seemed to know exactly how his deck worked. Milton is also on Twitter and has seen that his tech is now out there and he knows that it was ManaNation that did it. Maybe his opponent got the information from ManaNation, maybe he got it from a friend who did some scouting. It doesn't really matter as long as Milton blames ManaNation.

Now, whenever I walk around the tournament, Milton hides his hand's contents from me and if I linger to watch the match he calls a judge to ask me to stop watching as he is not comfortable with me doing so. After the rounds I might try to snag an interview with Milton or any other player running his deck and suddenly I get the cold shoulder and no content out of it. What if people outside of Milton's ring of friends get to be nervous about what ManaNation might reveal about their strategy? Suddenly I'm blacklisted and my ability to do my job, get coverage and talk to pros about this game, is in jeopardy.

What if Milton and a number of his friends decide to be malicious and start demanding that I no longer be given Press credentials for events? Would Wizards listen? It doesn't matter. Reputation is everything in this business. If I'm blacklisted by pros it would be a quick end to my job. It would cause the collapse of the very open system that there currently exists between Pros and coverage, whether Wizards or third party.

Tourney coverage in the age of Twitter is not simple and straightforward. And it's a system still struggling to find any formal basis. The truth is that the access I'm given to the Pro Tour is a phenomenal gift that could be taken away at any time. Wizards loves having ManaNation around, the additional coverage at the big events is only a win for them - until it becomes a problem. And then it becomes a big problem.

So, what is the right amount of coverage? When is it okay to talk about how decks work? Well, Pro Tour San Juan solidified this as a rule for me. "Get permission to break the inner workings of their deck prior to the end of the format on Day 1." But even this isn't even complete as it doesn't take into account other people who are piloting the deck. Just because Player A feels comfortable with me tweeting something does not mean that Player B or Player C are good with it.

I've focused on the negative so far, here is an example from Zvi Mowshowitz and PT San Juan. He told me during Block on Day 1, several rounds before the first draft, "I'm going to level up for draft. And you can tweet that!" - He didn't care what his opponent's knew. He was confident that his strategy would hold strong and he could force his picks through.

I want to give you guys everything about an event. If I could wear a video camera on my shoulder as I walked the rows of matches, I totally would - but it obviously isn't feasible and even if it were, I'm not sure it's the right call. I mean, I have to use the bathroom sometime.

Now I'm tossing around the idea of having people - not me - covering big events when I can't be in attendance, like Pro Tour Amsterdam, but there are obvious concerns over this given the dangers of overtweeting at events and I'm going to have to weigh the risks to the rewards for it.

Twitter is still a volatile tool, much like fire, it provides great enlightenment but also makes it easier to get burned.

Continued Reading: The twitter discussions have been immense, but @mulldrifting, Lauren Lee, has an excellent follow up / response over on her blog. Please go read it as well.