With the release of Exemplar Wave 14 fast approaching  you will all be able to read through all the kind words of gratitude and inspiration highlighting all the best judges of the world do to make our community and our game better. So, now it is a perfect time to show you the Vanguard of this wave. Selected through a not-so-complicated process described in this blog entry please meet Travis Lauro!

Travis Lauro is a level 2 judge from USA – Southwest region that is also featured in this week’s Judge of the Week Interview.  Once you are done reading about Travis, you can continue here to read the nomination we selected for Wave 14th Vanguard and get a preview of this Wave’s token.  Here is the nomination Travis received from Eliana Rabinowitz:

“The feedback you gave to other judges at GP Dallas was exceptional. I went into the weekend planning to write you a review for your work as my ODE team lead, so I paid a lot of attention to how things were going, and we ended up jointly giving feedback to two of the judges we worked with. Feedback given in person can be difficult, because you have to have just the right balance between giving constructive criticism and making sure the recipient walks away feeling good about the experience. The feedback you gave was really insightful and showed an understanding for why the judges did what they did at the event. The method you used to deliver that feedback, of asking directed questions about how and why certain things happened and how they felt in different situations, did a great job of letting the recipient of the feedback control the conversation and come to the right conclusions themselves. This meant that they were very receptive to the feedback, and you were able to provide suggestions for what to focus on in order to improve. It was an impressive showing of understanding other judges and how they think, and I honestly think you made a significant positive difference to those judges.”

The Judge Program strives to improve the quality of the judge community. Feedback, through peer-to-peer reviews, has always been a cornerstone of the Judge Program used to promote judge growth. Feedback is an efficient and powerful tool at our disposal to raise the quality of the judges globally, and is a skill that should be promoted.

With that said, providing feedback is not an easy task to do. It is a very, very delicate activity that requires a lot of efforts in observation and planning and requires a decent level of diplomacy. If done poorly, it can demotivate a judge or even create a grudge. If done well, it is an inspiring and educating experience for the person receiving it. Excellence in the execution described in the Eliana’s nomination for Travis is why the Exemplar team has chosen to highlight it for Vanguard.

For these reasons, we selected Travis as the Wave 14 Vanguard.  For this wave, Travis selected to be represented as an Artifact Creature – Construct.  If you wish to read more about Travis, you can read the new Judge of the Week interview featuring Travis here.

As a reminder, Exemplar Wave 15 closes on Tuesday Nov. 20th at 23:59 PST