Do you ever dream that you have woken up? I had one such dream at Worlds last year. It was Sunday morning, after three 12-hour work days (plus a few hours of drafts and EDH), and I was really beat. I dreamt I woke up, fumbled for my glasses, then staggered into the bathroom. I pulled aside the shower curtain, and… A judge leaped out, shouting “Battlewand Oak with Lignify, Runed Stalactite, and a +1/+1 counter on it — quick, what’s its power and toughness?”
Then I woke up. Just a dream. Maybe not a dream most of you have, but one I wanted to do something about. Doing something about it has been a big part of my prep for Pro Tour: Honolulu.
The source of that dream, and some bad times at events, has been a series of higher level judges whose idea of training is to put people on the spot by asking questions — often tough questions — about various areas of the rules. This typically happens at large events. In one case, our team lead followed this approach, and I noticed that, by the late rounds, my fellow judges were dreading the team meetings.
Judge training is important. Judges need to train each other. That means we have to find areas which other judges may not fully understand, and then teach them. This is critical — more so now because players have fewer questions. This may be because of MTGO, or more information, or better reminder text, or whatever, but judges take far fewer judge calls than in the past. This means that we need to question each other and train each other even more, to make up for it.
But there are ways, and there are ways. One of my goals for the PT was to work on other, less stressful ways of doing judge training. We still need to be tested on what we know, and stretched, but I want to find fun ways of doing that. Ways of sugar-coating the bitter pill, as it were.
Of course, you can modify the way you ask a question. Here’s an example. Assume you are the lead of a six-judge team, and you want to talk about the difference between Drawing Extra Cards and Game Play Error — Game Rule Violations that draw cards. You can start that conversation in several ways. Some examples:
1) Ask a specific judge “Player A plays a Cryptic Command choosing to bounce a Troll Ascetic and draw a card. Troll is not a legal target, but the player resolves the rest of the spell. What’s the infraction?”
This is about a stressful as it gets. You have put that judge on the spot, and given no hints. Yes, there are times when putting a judge on the spot, but in front of a group of other judges, just to get a discussion started? Not so good.
2) Ask the group “A player targets an illegal target with Cryptic Command, and draws a card. How many of you think it is a drawing extra cards penalty, and how many think it is a game play error — game rule infraction?”
This is a bit better. You are giving some information, and some hints on possible responses. You are not singling anyone out. However, we all know how this will go. Unless someone is sure of the answer, everyone is going to be tentative and tend to raise their hands slowly, only when others are doing the same.
3) Say to the group “This question came up earlier. A player targets an illegal target with Cryptic Command, and draws a card. Clearly, he drew a card when he shouldn’t have — which would be drawing extra cards. However, this was the result of a game play error — incorrectly targeting a shroud creature, which would be GPE-GRV. I’ll give you my thoughts later — after we discuss it a bit. What do you think?”
This is probably the least stressful way of asking the question. You are not putting people on the spot — in fact, you are implying that other judges may have argued about the question. If others disagreed, that implies it is okay to be uncertain (but it also implies that judges should learn the answer.)
The third option is okay, but I kept thinking that there must be a better method of training — something that would actually make questions not just palatable, but enjoyable. After all, games like Trivial Pursuit are fun. How about that?
I considered making up a Judge game like Trivial Pursuit — or at least a set of questions to play on a Trivial Pursuit board. It would be a slightly more fun method of asking a lot of questions. The downside would be that the players would probably tend to keep playing, instead of stopping the game to do some education when a player/judge gets an answer wrong. Since the purpose is supposed to be educational, the game might not be the best option.
Besides, recreating Trivial Pursuit would require a ton of questions, and printing cards with questions on one side and answers on the other is tricky — and a pain when answers can change when the Comp. Rules or other documents change. Besides, halfway through planning Trivial Pursuit: Judge Edition, I had a better idea.
Judge Jeopardy!
It would work like the TV game show. Each round would have five or six categories of questions, and there would a series of increasingly harder questions in each category, worth increasing numbers of points. It could be a lot of fun — best of all, I could write lots of clever / punny names for categories, and so forth. Maybe I could even be the host, and have even more chances to inflict my wit on people. Here’s sort of what I envisioned.
Contestant: I’ll take Comprehension Rules! for 20, please.
MC: The answer is: “These are typically identified by the words “when,” “whenever,” or “at.”‘”
Contestant: The question is: “What are Triggered Abilities?”
MC: Correct.
Contestant: I’ll take Bad Player! No Cookie! for 30, please.
MC: The answer is “This penalty is imposed when a player has sideboard cards in his or her deck at the beginning of a subsequent match.”
Contestant #1: “What is Failure to Desideboard?”
MC: Oh, I’m sorry — that penalty was eliminated over a year ago.
Contestant #2: “What is Deck/Decklist Mismatch?”
MC: That’s right. 30 points.
The concept is pretty simple: ask lots of questions and have teams of judges compete to answer them. I figured I would choose three teams of mixed L0s, L1s and L2s judges — maybe three to a team. The teams would be small — everyone else would be the audience. After all, part of the fun of watching a game show like Jeopardy is seeing if you know more answers than the contestants.
Team with the last correct answer chooses the next question. Everyone gets to answer – first hand up gets to answer first. L3s could watch and decide which hand goes up first if it is close — watching hands is good practice. Judges have to watch hands, to prevent deck stacking and manipulation. We could have higher level judges act as referees, if an answer get’s appealed. Some other high level judges would be watching, and keeping track of what areas stumped what judges. Afterward, they could do some education and remedial training.
The downside of this approach is that it requires getting a bunch of judges together at the same place and time. That’s hard at a big event — most of the time, most of the judges are on the floor, working. It might be a fun sort of seminar, but Judge Jeopardy seems like it would be best at a training retreat. It would be perfect over lunch — most of the judges watch and eat, while a few teams play. The players would change over time – if an individual answers four questions correctly, an audience member takes his/her place.
It was a cool idea, but not right for a Pro Tour or other big event. Ingrid came up with an idea that worked better: Judge Bingo. We tried this at GP: LA.
All judges attending were given Bingo cards, with the columns headed J, U, D, G, and E. Certain high-level judges were given questions. You went to those judges, and they asked you a question. If you got it right, you got a box checked. Check enough boxes and you won a prize.
Judge Bingo at GP: LA worked, but it had some teething pains. The high level judges could answer the questions, and train / educate people that got questions wrong, but they were busy doing lots of other stuff. We also had problems with judges working the GP main floor meeting up with judges working the public events.
We have learned. This time will be a bit different.
This time, every judge will get a bingo card. Each bingo card will have one or two questions on the back.
During the event, judges can go up to one another, when they have a moment free, and ask for a question. If they get the question right, they get the number. If that number is on thier card, they can check that box.
I’ll probably spring for prizes. A bingo may be worth a booster pack, or a lesser judge foil. If someone can get their entire card checked, that’s worth a draft set. Or maybe I should do this by level: Prize for a bingo is three boosters, divided by the judge’s level. After all, an L3 should have a lot less trouble getting the answers right than an L1, so the L1 should get a bigger reward.
I have a week to finish working out the prizes. It will give me something to do on the endless flight to Hawaii.
Ingrid was the inspiration behind judge bingo, but she asked me to help with questions. I said yes. Mistake. It’s not easy to come up with 75+ questions, in various flavors appropriate to the different judge levels. You see, the judges not only need to be able to know the answer, but be able to explain the issue for judges that get the question wrong. That requires some finesse.
In addition to creating the question, we also had to type out the answer, check it, and provide the rules / DCI document references.
Here are a few examples of questions that were either cut, or that I invented for this article, but they give you an idea of the type of thing that we will ask.
A question for a Level One judge: What state based effects cause things to cease to exist?
Answer: 1) A token in a zone other than the in-play zone ceases to exist. AND 2) If a copy of a spell is in a zone other than the stack, it ceases to exist. If a copy of a card is in any zone other than the stack or the in-play zone, it ceases to exist. (Comprehensive Rules 420.5f & 420.5j)
Even a Level 1 judge should know what SBEs are, and what they do. S/he should be able to explain them to another judge. However, we cut this question because the wording “cease to exist” is direct from the rules, but people don’t expect to have to interpret it literally. They tend to think that destroying a card, or putting one in the graveyard, counts. If judge thinks carefully about the exact wording, they will get it right. In casual usage, however — well, this tends to feel like a “gotcha” question, and that isn’t much fun.
A question for an experienced L2 or L3: What does the logistics team do?
Any judge with some Pro Tour experience knows this one. We dumped it because it was a bit open ended. We don’t want answers to go on endlessly — after all, judges have work to do.
Here are a couple extra questions, if you want to test your mettle. The answers are at the end of the article, but I left the rules citations in case you want to look them up.
Question: Name three limited formats. (Magic Floor Rules, paragraph 101.)
Question: What is Horsemanship? (CR 502.17)
Question: What is the REL of FNM? (PG — Appendix D)
Question: The DCI strongly recommends that at least X % of decks be checked every tournament. What is X? (UTR 38)
Sure, these questions are a bit picky, but they are no worse that “I just Bit Blasted your only dude, cascaded into Bloodbraid, then into Blightning to empty your hand. How can you possibly win now?” At least my questions have an answer.
This week has been insane, so the article will be a bit short. For example — well, here was my Saturday. The local Public TV auction is happening, and I’m involved in that.
Midnight: I’m at auction, managing the volunteers that handle the merchandise, set up the stage, etc. A volunteer didn’t show, so we are short staffed, and the show is running a half hour late because some of the auctioneers cannot stick to the script.
1:30am: done, everything wrapped up — skipping the post production pizza tonight to get some sleep.
2am: Finally home.
6:30am: Dogs get me up. They are used to being outside an hour earlier than this, and really need to go out. I get up, get dressed, get them out. Fire up the computer and try to work on the article, and bingo, and my seminar, all at once. Also, since no one else is up, I fire up MTGO and try a draft. I doze off briefly during pack #2. Lost in round 1. My online rating has dropped 75 points this week. This is partly because the weekly Nix Tix format is Shadowmoor / Eventide, and I have pretty much forgotten how to draft that. In the finals once, and blown out in round 1 twice.
8:30am: Other members of the family stirring. Ingrid’s folks are visiting / taking care of the dogs while we are at Auction. I shut down the computer and talk for a bit.
9:00am: Others are showering, etc. The weather has broken, so I sneak out and plant potatoes in the garden. This weekend is pretty much my last chance.
9:30am: Inside for breakfast, chance to talk.
10am: Headed for Auction again. Half hour drive in uneventful. Ingrid and I flip to see who drives, and who sleeps. I lost.
10:30am: In the studio. Time to set everything up, run over the shooting script, make fixes and solve problems, then train the volunteers. Auction has been running since Tuesday. It’s going strong. I’m not.
Noon: On air. I’ve got some good volunteers — with experience. Yay! We solve 14 of 15 serious problems before anyone can notice, and the fifteenth is minor (just a typo on an item, corrected by the time the camera came back, but still…).
6:40pm: I have told volunteers not to cut through a particular curtain, because if someone has moved a monitor cart, it could cause problems. Should have told myself — I was in a rush, cut through, the cart had been moved, and the steel shelf hit me squarely in the eye – hard. My regular glasses are safety glasses, so I do not need one of those fashionable pirate eye patches, but my glasses break.
6:50pm: My glasses are now held together with packaging tape. Clear — at least. Back in business.
8:00pm: Home. Ingrid’s folks have cooked us a meal, and we can relax a bit. Good meal. I try to find some old glasses. No luck. I only wear glasses to see with, so I’m wearing tape.
9:30pm: Get changed and head back to Auction. Ingrid and I are both going to be on air, as Auctioneers. The taped-up glasses should look perfect. Yes, we are shooting in HD.
10:30pm: On air. We are scheduled to go off air about 1am. The previous auctioneers have left us a present, though: we are more than half an hour behind the script. Going to be a late night.
Midnight: We have done everything we can, but we are still over 20 minutes behind. Going to be a really late night. I’m hoping that we can get home before 3 (no such luck) and that the dogs sleep in a bit (yes, thankfully) on Sunday.
The whole last week has been like that. I could really use a vacation.
A Hawaii kind of vacation….
PRJ
“one million words” in Hawaii, on the beach, with a Mai-Tai, by the time you read this.
…
Answer: Sealed Deck, Booster Draft, Rochester Draft (yes, it still exists, at least in the rules.)
Answer: Horsemanship is an evasion ability that modifies the rules of combat.
Answer: FNM are played at the Regular REL.
Answer: The DCI recommends that 10% of decks be checked every event.