As a Magic player and as a judge, I’m fortunate to live in the Pacific Northwest. This is the birthplace of commercial Magic: The Gathering, and the communities have always been strong. Wizards of the Coast is headquartered in Renton, Washington, a twenty-minute drive from where I sit at this very moment. The player base supports 4-5 different FNM events within 10-20 minutes of each other across a good deal of the Puget Sound area. If I were willing to drive an hour for an FNM, I could play every week for months and not go to the same shop twice. This of course isn’t the case everywhere. There are many places around the country and world that can say the same, but this is not the average, and we certainly have more “community” than is strictly needed to sustain a healthy environment.
Before I really get going on this article, I want to point out that although the information contained here is mostly relevant to judges, this is also great information for players. Arguably, you can play Magic without judges, but we can’t really judge without players, and some cross-population understanding benefits us all.
Judges are of course a smaller subset of the players, but there are many players among our ranks. Around here when we have a large Prerelease event, a PTQ, a 5K, or even a GP, we have more judges volunteering to help at the events than we have space for them. However, this isn’t an indication that we have too many judges. There are still some local shops that have no certified judge for their events, and no matter how many we might have in the community, we can always use more.
A larger quantity of judges and more judges of quality and certification are something that every Magic community needs. Few understand this as well as Tim Shields of Cascade Games.
Earlier this year during the weekend of June 25th-27th, Cascade Games (the Premier Tournament Organizer for Washington, Oregon, Utah, and more) arranged, at their own expense, to hold a judge conference with the express goal of education and community building. All told we had 29 judges attend the various talks with nineteen of us already certified to level one or higher. These kinds of events do happen from time to time, usually at the larger events, but seldom are there chances to attend one with the caliber of presenters we had available.
With the hopes that it might end up being useful, I recorded all the talks that I attended. It’s because of these presenters and the amount/quality of the information we had available to us that I was compelled to arrange and present it for the benefit of all. As John Carter said at this very event, “Judging is a communicable disease…” and to grow and better the program, we need to spread it around.
So everyone abandon your hand sanitizer, and link hands as I present you with the goings on of our Judge Conference Weekend.
Making the Most of Event Travel
The talks were led off on Friday evening by the honorable judge Tony Mayer. Tony is a level 3 judge out of Bothell, Washington, and since he works for AAA, we were thematically presented with a talk on the subject of travel. Tony’s opening anecdote about his near brush with William Shatner was quickly overshadowed by some topics which are of great interest to many judges and aspiring judges.
1.  How wonderful it is to travel for Magic
In addition to countless PTQs and Prereleases, Tony has judged at 16+ Grand Prix, seven Pro Tours, four Nationals, and one Worlds. In the beginning of his judging career, he, like many of us, paid for all his own travel expenses. Most judges who work these events pay their own way in order to be involved and participate in the large spectacle type tournaments. The judging experiences differ greatly depending on the type of event, be it a local shop, PTQ, or a Pro Tour. Aside from the official tournament responsibilities, traveling to Magic events around the country and world brings many opportunities to make friends and be a part of a semi-exclusive global community. One quick trip for global travelers; taking the red-eye flight doesn’t make your trip longer (perceived waking hours) or save you any actual time.
2.  How to get WotC to pay for said travel
Wizards of the Coast assigns a mystery dollar amount to account for a judge’s compensated travel expenses. Note that this is a cost they assign, not a time frame. If you’re lucky enough to have some or all of your travel expenses sponsored, fly in early, and enjoy the sights of the new city before the marathon weekend event kicks off. This will allow you to adjust to the time zone, and you won’t be mentally and physically destroyed like you will be following the weekend. Any room sponsorship will only be for a certain number of days, but arranging for some extra hotel stay or to crash with a local judge (or even players) is usually pretty easy to arrange.
The rule of thumb for sponsorship qualification is generally level 1 for Nationals and level 2 for Pro Tours. That said, the best judging experiences are had at Grand Prix. Nowhere else will you find the diversity and scale of tasks and responsibilities like at a Grand Prix. Pro Tours are great but highly scripted, and there’s always a lot of staff. The fluidity and sometimes the chaos of a Grand Prix can be a far more fulfilling experience.
“Getting noticed” is a big part of the selection process for sponsorship. To gain experience and to increase your visibility in the community, solicit feedback throughout the day. Then at the end of the event, request that a written judge review be submitted to the DCI Judge Center. These reviews are written to and about the judge in question and aren’t used as a review process by the DCI. They’re a tool for the person being reviewed. Also, send in your own reviews of fellow judges, both good and bad.
We need to help our fellow judges to improve, and we can’t do that by keeping silent. Writing these reviews raises your public profile. When you go to request sponsorship, your visible activity in the community is a large part of the reason you might be selected. Also, when the sponsorship request is made, don’t be shy about bragging. You need to let them know why they should take you to the event both for what you’ll bring to the event, and for what you’ll get out of it. Another way to improve your chances of getting your travel sponsored is to ask only for either the flight or the hotel if you can afford the other on your own.
If there’s an event coming up, and you’d like to be on the judging staff, contact the event coordinator as early as you can. Six months or more is ideal. Travel to as many events on your own dime as you can, and remember that other large events such as those run by StarCityGames.com, Pastimes, Legion Events, and other large organizers also need staff and offer great experience.
The sponsorship window for Pro Tours is about 10-14 weeks, and Grand Prix are usually 8+ weeks. Grand Prix sponsorship comes from the Premier Tournament Organizer, though, and not Wizards, so each have their own time frame and financial matters to consider. For example, the judge application window for Grand Prix Portland held in September opened up in the previous January (and filled up fast). Tim Shields was able to sponsor some for the judges, but since it was a Grand Prix, there was no financial subsidy from Wizards for travel.
The DCI Family
Next on our Friday night agenda, John Carter (yes,
the
John Carter) spoke with us a bit about what the dcifamily.org website is and means. John Carter is a level 3 judge out of Renton, Washington. A recent employee of Wizards of the Coast, John is responsible for much in the structure and nature of the judging program and in fact, all tournament play. He’s a great and odd fellow, and it was an honor to have him at the conference and to learn from his vast array of off-color experience.
The dcifamily.org website was started by John Carter and is administered (and coded) by Adam Shaw, a level 4 judge from Manchester, Connecticut. The intent and purpose of the site is to have a judge-centered portal that’s run by judges and for judges. The site is outside of Wizards’ direct control, but is approved by them. I encourage all judges to register for the site and take a look around. The site is an informational resource, an event tracker, and a communication center for judges around the world. They have everything from integrated IRC channels for rules and/or judge questions to profiles, exclusive articles, blogs, and event and judge databases. Carter is working on some testing curriculum both for general learning and for certifications. He’s also working on an Xbox style achievement structure that would allow judges to rack up the points.
It’s an invaluable resource that all judges should experience and take part in building. Since the judging community is largely self-governing, it’s important that we all take an active role.
Pizza and Drafting
The night rounded out with Tim getting us all pizza and sodas while providing us with the boosters to have our own private draft. Sometime after being split into pods, I seem to recall that Carter ended up winning with a R/W Levelers deck.
What is a PTO (Premier Tournament Organizer)?
The man, the myth, the legend Tim Shields himself presented the first of the lectures held on Saturday morning. Tim is the managing partner of Cascade Games LLC based out of Portland, Oregon, and runs their premier level Magic events in Washington, Oregon, Utah, and San Diego, as well as the major events for Yu-Gi-Oh! and the World of Warcraft TCG in various locations. Tim’s active role in the player and judging community has been a blessing for those of us fortunate to be under his wing.
A Premier Tournament Organizer is a Tournament Organizer who has access to running the higher-level events such as Pro Tour Qualifiers, Grand Prix, Nationals, National Qualifiers, and convention-type events like PAX Prime or Gen Con. Although nearly any regular Joe with reason and motivation to do so can probably become a tournament organizer, there’s no escalation path from TO to PTO. A TO is typically someone such as a storeowner or maybe one of their staff members. All in all there are about forty “PTOs” who can run PTQs and due to geography, less than twelve that run GPs.
Once upon a time, PTOs would bid to Wizards for the right to run these large events. Although I don’t know the exact current process, I know that the PTOs are trusted partners selected by Wizards of the Coast. Tim also noted that if you’re interested in judging at an event run by a PTO, there’s generally contact information to that effect available on their websites.
The process that a PTO goes through to bring us the events we know and love can be a complicated and daunting process. First, Wizards sends out the details of the upcoming events such as the number and type of events to be run as well as a host of restrictions. These restrictions mostly have to do with the timing of the events. For example, a PTQ can’t be run on a GP or Prerelease weekend but must all be run within a certain window of time. Next the PTO will check to see what venues are available to them on the days which aren’t restricted. Some of the smaller PTOs can be held in shops, but the bigger events generally require large conference rooms or convention centers. Once the potential venues have been lined up, the PTOs contact each other and work together to make sure that there isn’t too much overlap in event timings. This process has been condensed, so that it’s easier to understand, but as with so many other things, it’s easier said than done.
All in all there are about forty “PTOs” who can run PTQs and less than twelve that can run GPs. At this point, there are probably more PTOs than Magic tournament economy can support. Since Prereleases are now also store level events and Grand Prix Trials can be run by a TO who’s at the level of Advanced, some of the market and therefore income has been taken away from the organizers who had relied on it. The loss of the GPTs is likely actually a benefit, and although an overall boost to the community, the Prerelease change was a pretty big hit to the PTOs.
As Tim noted “the quality of judges is better now than ever” and “the quality of store-based play is dramatically improved.” These changes also mean that in the areas that have a strong judging community, there are fewer available events and therefore slots for PTOs to give to judges to learn from the experiences we all want to.
We’re Good Right?
The discussion following Tim Shields was hosted by the inestimable Aaron Hamer who is a level 3 judge out of Portland, Oregon, and can generally be seen at any event where Tim is present. Aaron is a big part of why I personally stayed in the judging community and became a level 1 judge.
Aaron presented us with the topic of how to avoid some of the snares and pitfalls judges can get caught up in while trying to conclude a ruling and to move on with their tasks. The discussions ended up moving a bit more toward how to handle specific kinds of problems, but all the conversations were helpful in learning to shorten judge/player interaction time.
Frequently when a judge interacts with a player, the players want to continue the conversation longer than is appropriate. A player may want to continue the dialogue about the ruling, but since judges tend to be busy, and since the players are there to play, it’s best that the conversation transition in such a way that the players begin playing their games again.
The more seasoned judges out there have probably already adopted their own styles for these issues, but here are some general tips for the newer judges on how to avoid unnecessarily long interactions. Even the best judges may be able to pick up a trick or two.
1.   Be confident and be careful
Players will have more respect for a confident ruling than an unconfident one. Most of us want everything to be perfect, and so sometimes we might not speak our rulings in ways that inspire confidence in that ruling. This doesn’t mean that we should confidently give the wrong ruling, but speaking with confidence has a positive effect on shortening the length of time with some player interactions. Also be careful not to let your confidence make you believe you can “fix” or “rewind” the game state. Trying to do so can be a lot more harmful than a simple solution. It’s not a good idea to mess with the time/space continuum.
2.  Never fill out the penalty slip at the table
Once you’ve made your ruling, it’s best to ask players to continue playing and then to move away from their table to fill out the results slip with the penalty information. Players may be too inclined to watch what you’re writing and keep the conversation going if you’re right there in front of them.
3.  Suggest that the player come find you after the match
The key to this one is to walk the line between authority and accessibility. When a player wishes to continue the conversation for longer than is appropriate, it may be a good idea to ask them to come and find you after the match. As judges, we need to stay approachable because we don’t want players to ever hesitate in calling on us. That being said, they have a game to play, and we have judging to do.
4.  If you have a good solution to a problem, go with it
If you’re facing a complex ruling, it’s usually better to go with the first solution that resolves it instead of taking the time to work out all the possible solutions and pick from that list. A correct and concisely given ruling is what to strive for and excessive evaluations can take a lot of time and disrupt the games too much.
5.  Always get the context
If you’re approached about the ruling another judge made, always get the full context of that ruling. Was it at this same event? Which judge made it? We don’t want to step on the toes of our fellow volunteers, and quite often the full story isn’t recounted when a player is looking for sympathy, vindication, or a fix in the ruling. The appeals process is there for a reason and was available at the time of the original ruling.
6.  Mimic the style of those asking the questions
Often when a player asks a question, the style they use to ask it is an indication of how they want the reply. If they’re asking about a specific interaction, “Does X + Y = Z?” they want a quick and decisive answer. If they ask a rambling and branching question then they probably want to have a more detailed answer. If you adopt a strategy of mimicking the style of their questions, or always giving the shorter answer first, you can minimize the amount of time that interactions take. If you get a question such as “How does Luminarch Ascension work in Two-Headed Giant?” you might reply with something like, “It’s much better in Two-Headed Giant,” and that’s enough information. Â
Or “How does Angelheart Vial work in Two-Headed Giant?” You could reply with, “It’s much worse in Two-Headed Giant.”
Often the phrases “works better” and “works worse” is enough to let players know the interaction without a long discussion.
7.  Be right
If you’re unsure about the ruling, penalty, or interaction, it’s appropriate to ask the help of a fellow judge. It’s always okay to say, “I’m going to double-check something,” and it comes off as more confident than to say, “I’m not sure; I’ll check.”
8.  Watch the time
Noting the time when you take a judge call is a good habit to get into. This will let you know if you’re taking too long, if you need to pull in some help, and/or how long to give on a time extension.
What followed all this was a little player/judge role-playing sample that I wish I could repeat verbatim, but I don’t want to recount that much player-on-player swearing. It was hilarious, and I’m keeping my audio recording of it forever. The gist of it was that Player A was casting dispersions on the rentability of Player B’s wife. It quickly dissolved into comic (and not too useful) antics where the ruling was mitigated by the fact that Player A had in fact hired out Player B’s wife for the price of two Rafiq of the Many cards. Judges can have fun, too.
Adding Value Off the Floor
Next, James Lee led the conversation on how to add value to the judging community while you’re not on the floor or even at an event. James has been a level 3 judge forever (citation required) and is often scorekeeping at the major events in the Seattle/Portland area. He also is the organizer of the local events at one of the best shop in the Northwest, Uncle’s Games. His gaming related career includes everything from helping create and administer the Magic judging program to working as a consultant for other game companies. I’d need a full article to go over his bio, and in the end, you wouldn’t believe me.
In between some thoughts on a Chinese-occupied Taiwan, James started out by breaking us into five groups to talk over a series of questions.
1.  What are the names of each group member?
2.  What does each group member do when not judging Magic?
3.  What does each group member think this session is supposed to be about?
I’ll spare you from the details of the resulting answers and move into the 4th question.
4.  What is the thing that you’re most disappointed about in your judging experience?
What followed was a series of common and easy to understand complaints and realities, along with some very good dialogue about how these issues might be addressed. In no particular order, here are the grievances we voiced to James on question 4.
- Geographies with limited judging opportunities
- Geographies with an exclusive group of PTQ event judges
- Difficult to get the experience needed to advance as a judge
- Poor educational resources for judges
- Certification expiration notification
- Lack of a merit-based advancement program (instead of a test)
- Geographies with too few judges, and geographies with too many
- Geographies with no higher level judges available to sponsor newer judges to the higher levels
- DCI reporter and Wizards Event Reporter issues
- Frustrations that the judge program isn’t more structured and formulaic
- Frustrated that no one travels around to investigate the “bad stores”
- Judge level advancement is too difficult
- Stores often don’t have the ability to compensate judges in exchange for their attendance
- Inequity of the Wizards programs
Much of what was discussed revolved around how to solve some of these issues applied to more than one topic, so I’ll let you the reader play connect the dots. The following was the resultant conversations to the above issues.
Areas which seem to be isolated might not be as bad off as you might think. Most judges from other areas are more than happy to help sponsor you to higher levels if you ask them. You can find the closest judge or even any judge on the DCI website. It’s okay to pick one at random and get in contact with them for sponsorship.
Most shop owners would be more than happy to have an actual judge there for the events if they have the perspective that you’ll be running the event for them, and they’ll be able to focus on selling product. I personally judge at a local shop for no compensation at all, but many shops would love to have a judge on board in exchange for your entry into the events, some product, or other compensation. Help them to understand how having a certified judge would help attendance and therefore their business.
If there are no events at all in your area, you can go to a local coffee shop or pizza shop and get the okay for a weekly gathering of customers. Even if you don’t have sanctioned events, you can start to build the community and create your own judging opportunities. Building a destination like this is about consistency. As long as you show up at the same time week after week you can take it from a casual group to one day suggesting a draft and so on.
“Be the change,” they say.
We’d all like to have more structure in the judge program, and I think that in time the dcifamily.org website will bring that to us. In the meantime I’d like to detail out the levels of progression available to us right now.
Levels 1, 2, and 3 are attained by testing on some relatively easily measured skill sets. The material may be a bit dry, but the comprehensive rules, tournament rules, and infraction procedure guides are available for all to see.
Level 3 is the last of the merit-based levels possible to attain. However, just as with levels 4 and 5, you have to know the right people in order to ascend. Your primary tool for this is to display your abilities at large events and write judge reviews, in other words, to be noticed for your good deeds and competency.
The advice we received at the conference is that if you plan on trying to attain anything past level 3, forget about it, and just go for level 3. Levels 4 and 5 are only attained by someone offering it to you. There’s no application or test. Â There are no criteria for being a level 4 or level 5 judge. 4’s and 5’s are basically administrators, and there’s no need for overlapping opinions and voices among them.
Level 3s have a high level of trust and a high level of independence whereas a level 4 is very restricted because their words and actions can set a strong precedence.
If you have aspirations of becoming the best judge you can be, do so by aspire to becoming a level 3 and by doing things in the community that make you happy and keep you fulfilled.
Community Building in Plain English
Once again the talk was hosted by John Carter, this time with the topic of how to build your local community.
“How do you get more judges? How do you get more players?” asked Carter. “You have to make it fun and sexy.”
I feel a bit dubious about the “sexy” claim, but if Carter said it, it must be true.
Whatever your style is, you should just go with it. Whether you like to keep all the official announcements really brief, or you like to give them some more color, doing things with your own style makes you more comfortable and therefore relaxed and therefore more attractive to judges and players. There are of course some lines that shouldn’t to be crossed, but adding some of yourself to your words and actions is usually a good idea.
Always be on the lookout for new judges. When at an event, some of the potential new judges are the guys that are actively asking rules questions. Another potential is the guy that tries to keep you online for questions after the delivery of a ruling. If you tell them to follow up after the match, and they actually do, it’s a giant red flag that this person could be a judge. Also the guy who, at the beginning of an event asks, “Do you need any help with anything?” is a good potential candidate for becoming a judge. The person that the players go to in order to ask questions at the local events is a potential judge.
This was noted above, but it bears repeating. The reason there are many geographies with lots of judges and many with few judges is because “judging is a communicable disease.” We learn judging from other judges. You can sit and wait for people to approach you directly to become a judge or go out and find them. If you’re just waiting around, it’s going to take a long time.
Once identified, an easy knack to getting a potential judge involved in the program and community is to ask what their favorite format is, Constructed or Limited. Whichever one they say, offer to show them the ropes at an event featuring the other format (be specific, and don’t make up an event). Let them know that it’d be an opportunity for them to get involved in another side Magic but not at the expense of the events they like best to play in.
Simply instructing people to read a ton of dry materials such as the comprehensive rules and the IPG doesn’t help in recruitment.
Also keep in mind that there’s no better way to draw a potential judge into the community and make them feel involved than by remembering their name and using it a few times in the conversations you have with them. Another great trick is to actively arrange for the judges to go out to dinner after an event and invite the judge prospect along.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I wasn’t able to attend the Sunday lectures, nor was I able to receive a copy of anyone’s notes from that day of the event. Per the schedule of talks, I can tell you that Aaron Hamer discussed getting what people might want to get out of judging, and then Nick Fang (a level 3 judge out of Redmond, Washington) led a talk on how to handle mistakes made while judging. This was followed by the attending judges’ personal anecdotes of mistakes (but as we all know, judges don’t make mistakes).
I can also let you in on Nick’s conclusions, “Everything will be just fine.”
I hope you all received information you can use in the above article, and I hope it inspires you to action. I also hope it inspires you to run your own local seminars. They don’t need to be fully sponsored multi-day events and instead can be held at someone’s home. There are likely judges of many levels that would love to give a talk to a group of new judges. Perhaps you can get permission from the Judge List moderator to call out to those who might be interested, or ask for some assistance on dcifamily.org or the judge IRC channel. All of us have valuable knowledge to pass onto the community and 2-3 talks with a draft or a game of EDH has the makings of a great Saturday. Start your local chapter of Judges Anonymous today.
I hope to see many of you across the tables, silently judging players, and then making rulings.
Chris McNutt
Magic Analyst
Level 1 Judge
@FateCreatr on Twitter
See also:
http://www.quietspeculation.com/biographies/chris-mcnutt/
http://www.thestarkingtonpost.com/articles/by/Chris_McNutt