The following Document contains information originally provided by Brian Schenck.
1. The Candidate
Getting to know your candidate
Establish a rapport with your candidate, get to know him or her, what the candidate’s goals are, and how you can help.
Identify strong spots and weak spots in the candidate’s knowledge, prioritizing areas to work on, and distinguishing reasonable from unreasonable expectations.
Be frank with your candidate about knowledge and difficulty of the exam, and what it takes to prepare for the exam.
Help the candidate refine goals and develop ways to achieve those goals, integrating strengths and addressing weaknesses.
Be flexible in your approach, adjusting as necessary. Make sure to listen to your candidate.
Getting to know yourself
Identify what you know and what you can teach.
Identify those resources you can use, and what works best for your candidate.
Network with others to help your candidate achieve goals, whether another recent successful candidate or more experienced mentor.
Discard your own notions of success/failure, instead synchronizing with your candidate’s definition of success/failure.
Resources
Judge Wiki: Definition and requirements for Level 1 and Level 2, and appropriate guides.
Practice exams in the Judge Center.
- Easy Practice for Level 1.
- Hard Practice for Level 2.
- Rules Advisor for both Level 1 and Level 2.
- Level (N) Practice exam for actual Level (N) exam.
Basic Rulebook and Comprehensive Rules.
- Basic Rulebook is well-suited for Level 1.
- Comprehensive Rules is required for Level 2.
FAQs.
2. The Exam
The Level 1 exam
25 questions long: 17 rules questions, 8 policy questions.
Minimum passing score is 70%. Any score lower than this should not be accepted as a passing score.
- If you identify a question that seems incorrect, is missing information, or is otherwise inappropriate, submit feedback via the Judge Center.
Candidates should have read the Basic Rulebook, Judging at Regular REL Guide, and Magic Tournament Rules (Section 2, Section 10, and Appendix B).
General expectation for a Level 1 is to know the rules well enough to help players with basic questions, deal with serious problems, and otherwise help a tournament organizer run Friday Night Magic.
Important concepts to know:
- General game concepts.
- Zones.
- Turn structure.
- Combat phase.
- Casting spells and/or activating abilities.
- Handling triggered abilities.
- Resolving spells and/or abilities.
- Determining power and toughness of a creature.
- How do replacement and/or prevention effects work.
- Copying a creature.
- Two-Headed Giant.
- Keyword actions and/or abilities present in Standard.
- Fixing Common Errors.
- Handling Serious Problems.
- Sideboarding (Limited and Constructed) and match structure.
- Minimum requirements to sanction and run an event.
The Level 2 exam
50 questions long: 35 rules questions, 15 policy questions.
Minimum passing score is 80%. Any score lower than this should not be accepted as a passing score.
- If you identify a question that seems incorrect, is missing information, or is otherwise inappropriate, submit feedback via the Judge Center.
Candidates should have read the Comprehensive Rules, Magic Infraction Procedure Guide, and Magic Tournament Rules.
General expectation for a Level 2 is to know the rules well enough to help players with slightly more complicated questions, providing a “why” for an answer as necessary, proctor a Level 1 exam, and otherwise act as a Floor Judge at Competitive REL events, up to and including Extended-format events.
Important concepts to know:
- Turn structure.
- Combat phase.
- Casting spells and/or activating abilities.
- Handling triggered abilities.
- Resolving spells and/or abilities.
- Determining characteristics of a permanent.
- One-Shot effects.
- Continuous effects.
- Interaction of replacement and/or prevention effects.
- Handling state-based actions.
- Copying objects.
- Two-Headed Giant.
- Keyword actions and/or abilities present in Extended.
- Identifying an infraction, and assessing the appropriate penalty.
- Applying the appropriate remedy, if any, to an infraction.
- Policies applicable in a Competitive REL event.
- Policies on player communication and shortcuts.
- Sideboarding (Limited and Constructed) and match structure.
3. Preparatory Phase
Practice exam performance
Review/discuss with candidate how he or she performed on any practice exams. Go over selected answer versus correct answer, and flag any rules identified in the explanation. (Keep in mind any differentiation between the selected answer versus correct answer, to focus studying accordingly.)
Note broader areas of strength or weakness that may show as a pattern. If certain concepts keep coming up that are on the exam, help candidate adjust his or her plans to achieve desired goal.
Assess where the candidate should be studying or working. This doesn’t have to be a formal review, but should be in writing so the candidate can refer back to your assessment.
Event performance
Review/discuss with candidate how he or she judged at an event. Identify situations that could have been handled better and how/why the candidate may handle such a situation in the future.
Discuss your own successes and failures. Help the candidate identify the lessons you’ve learned and how you improved yourself as a judge. Remember your rapport with the candidate.
Meeting the prerequisites
A Level 1 candidate must:
- Have acted as a judge at 2 events in the last 6 months.
A Level 2 candidate must:
- Have written at least one review, which is entered in the Judge Center.
- Have judged at least one Competitive REL event with another judge.
- Have acted as a Head Judge at one event with another judge.
“Are you ready to test?”
Assess the quality of the candidate’s answer, and whether or not the candidate truly feels he or she is ready. Schedule a date and time that is reasonable, making sure the candidate has a few days advance notice and no conflicts.
4. Debriefing Phase
Debriefing the Exam
Go over all the questions. For any questions answered incorrectly, highlight the specific rule or policy that applies.
Discuss alternate scenarios for wrong answers, especially if the candidate doesn’t see why one answer was correct versus another.
The Interview
Make sure to refer to the proper exam ID# and score. Identify the correct candidate, using the candidate’s DCI#.
Cover those concepts the candidate did well with, and how he or she satisfies the requirements for Level 1 or Level 2.
Discuss those concepts the candidate needs to work on. Provide specific examples, as well as comments to direct the candidate on how to improve.
Provide and recommend any specific resources to help him or her improve.
5. Looking to the Future
Passing Candidate
Explain the next steps of the process: New membership, new benefits, new responsibilities.
Follow-up on the new membership in the Judge Center. It usually takes a couple of weeks, but make sure it hasn’t gotten lost.
Integrate the new Level 1 or Level 2 into the judge community.
Follow-up with the new Level 1 or Level 2 after a couple of months. Find out how things are, and make sure he or she has gotten everything he or she needed or wanted from the experience.
Identify future goals and objectives for the candidate. Does he or she want to judge a GP? A large event? Find a way to act as a sponsor for that judge.
Failing Candidate
Set a time table for reassessment.
Document specific rules and policies to work on before retesting. Discuss in the context of the original question, and related scenarios that might be applicable.
Identify new goals for the candidate to achieve and revisit what may or may not have worked when helping the candidate prepare.
Focus on future success, not on past failure. Set a positive tone for the candidate, especially that he or she can still judge and continue to work towards certification