AuthorJames Elliott

Thursday, September 23rd – A fish out of water, judge James Elliot jumps into the arena of Grand Prix Portland after vowing to redeem his brethren.

Thursday, July 29th – July hails a new core set and new changes to the comprehensive rules. However, the scope of change is seldom limited to the comprehensive rules. and is often further reaching than you realize. Don’t be caught out!

Thursday, July 1st – One of the tricky issues for the greater judge community is the subject of compensation and rewarding judges for their efforts. I think most people are aware that judges get boosters from the latest set when judging a prerelease or local PTQ. Slightly less well known is the fact that judges get special foil cards each year – judge foils.

Friday, May 21st – If you’re like me, you’ve been drafting Rise of Eldrazi like there’s no tomorrow, or at least picking over the set for cards to give your Standard deck more umph! I’ve head judged a couple of Standard tournaments already and have seen some situations that are very likely to become staple judge calls for the summer.

Thursday, February 18th – As I write this, I’m currently killing time in the airport lounge of Phoenix, AZ, as I wait for my connecting flight back home to St Louis. I’ve just had three days of fun at GP: Oakland with the usual minimum sleep, so I thought jotting a few things down would help me stay awake to catch my flight and prevent me having another near cardiac arrest as another article deadline looms.

Wednesday, January 20th – Q: Player calls you over and says he’s in his post combat main phase and has only just remembered his Eldrazi Monument trigger. He has two 1/1 saproling tokens and a Vampire Nighthawk that he just cast this turn. What do you do?

Thursday, December 10th – At tournaments recently, a couple of players have remarked on the fact that I haven’t reported on my experiences at PT: Austin from a few months back when I was testing for Level 3. The reason for that was quite simple: too painful!

Thursday, November 5th – Now that we’re immersed in Zendikar, I really like this set. It’s a lot of fun, without having to be the most technically minded player at times. Fun sets like this usually have me thinking about building new decks, and that’s something that I haven’t done in over a year. However, when I think of construction I tend to be looking for cards that will fit into a Two-Headed Giant deck first and foremost.

Friday, October 2nd – While most judges have probably used the judge center at some stage to set up exams for themselves, there is nothing to stop you creating exams for other judges that you are actively mentoring. By generating the exams for the candidate, you automatically become ‘privy’ to the results and the answers they give.

Friday, August 28th – U.S. Nationals marked a year since my first attempt at Chicago to rise to Level 3 in the judge program. And in the last couple of months I’ve been asked by a lot of people whether I was going to try again anytime soon. To be honest I’m been seeking an all too elusive ‘quiet couple of months’ in which I could polish up on a few things before then setting my sights on a date.

Friday, July 24th – It’s been quite a month of change for the humble Magic player and judge alike. We’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into the new M10 rules (albeit I was caught saying aloud, “Before damage goes on the stack” by Mike Suire at the prerelease last Sunday- it seems that old habits die hard).

Thursday, June 25th – Hello everyone! The day my last article came out I was getting ready to start an epic journey. A tale that would take in four tournaments, in four weeks, and in four different states – Washington, Hawaii, Missouri, and Arkansas.

Thursday, May 28th – In my experience, Regionals tends to bring in a bunch of players with a wide range of ability. For some people this is the biggest tournament they will play in (unless a GP shows up close enough). With this in mind, I remind players that the Universal Tournament Rules states players must shuffle an opponent’s deck at the start of a game, and must at least cut a deck when presented after shuffling effects during a game.