Dennis Bradford – Candidate for Regional Advocate 2025 – Northeast

Note: This is a candidate page for a Judge Foundry Election. Information on this page is provided by the candidate, and does not represent the opinions or positions of the Elections Committee or of Judge Foundry. For more information about this election, see the schedule and index for the Elections at the 2025 Annual Meeting.

Nomination Statement

For those who don’t know me, here’s a quick introduction:

• My name’s Dennis (he/him)
• I’m from Middletown, New Jersey.
• I’ve been playing Magic since I was very young.
• I became an L1 judge in 2018, at the tail end of the original judge program.
• I spent a few years as an in-store judge.
• Covid happened.
• Summer of 2023 I decided I wanted to actually make use of my certification (and justify my judge dues) and so I reached out to Dave Unni.
• With Dave’s help I started judging local events, and I got to L2 at the start of 2025!
• Shortly thereafter I became the Area Communicator for New Jersey.

I don’t have the wherewithal to travel to a large convention-style event every month, so I’ve been keeping mostly to events I can drive to. Because of this I haven’t gotten to know nearly as many other judges as I’d like to. I’ve reached out to lots of folks online but it’s just not the same as meeting someone face-to-face!

This past spring I organized a “Judge Info Session” aimed at players in the Central Jersey area who are interested in judging. It wasn’t as well attended as I’d hoped it would be, but it did result in two new L1s getting certified!

I’ve also been helping write exam questions for the L1 test and am on the Judge Foundry Election Committee.

Let me be frank: I wasn’t my first choice for the Northeast Regional Advocate. There are many other judges in the region with more experience, judges who have worked more events, who know more people. In lieu of other nominations for the role, however, I was asked if I could fill in. As I’d much rather there be a Northeast RA than leave the position vacant, here I am.

What I can offer to the judges in the region is my time, if nothing else. If you reach out to me I will help you as best I can.

Q1: Judge Program Direction

Question: This year, many members are uncertain about our future due to Wizards of the Coast’s announcement of a new Judge Program Manager role. How will you support your region through this uncertainty and potential transition?

Assuming that WoTC does in fact take back the reins of the judge program, this will be the third such program transition in six years. It’s been tumultuous; the requirements for maintaining a certification have changed each time, and our digital information hubs keep migrating. A lot of good judges have decided that keeping up with all the change isn’t worth the hassle; at the Eastern PA Winter Conference this last January, it came to light that a number of the attendees hadn’t even heard of Judge Foundry until a few weeks prior. If you’re reading this, you’re almost certainly aware of the news that WoTC is hiring a Judge Manager, and it might feel like everyone knows about it. I guarantee you they don’t.

Therefore, I think the best way to support the region right now—and the program by extension—is to just keep people in the loop. As much as possible. If you know someone who stepped away from judging in 2019, please, send them a text and let them know what’s going on. As an RA, I’ll be making a concerted effort to make sure there’s information coming via as many avenues as possible; on Facebook, JudgeApps, Discord, Bluesky—hell, I’ll start an email newsletter. And if you have another source for your judging news, please let me know.

Q2: Local Judges and Judging

Question: As a Regional Advocate, how will you support local judges and encourage local judging in your region?

First and foremost, I’ll perform the duties of the Regional Advocate as best I can: informing the Board of Directors and relevant project managers of issues pertaining to judges in the northeast, recognizing exceptional contributions made by members in the region, helping conference organizers find quality presenters, requesting exemptions for testing or maintenance requirements on behalf of a member, and mediating disputes between judges in the region (if necessary). In the event that a member in the region is working on L4 or L5, I’ll probably need help providing “information on a candidate’s regional involvement to the panel lead during the candidate’s advancement process”, but that’s a bridge to cross when I come to it.

Regional Advocates aren’t responsible for making sure that each judge has a mentor or exam proctor—ultimately that lies on the judge themself to find a mentor/proctor. That said, I’ll make a reasonable effort to help judges and judge candidates form these connections. I’ll be relying heavily on Area Communicators to help with this in the parts of the region I’m unfamiliar with.

Q3: Programs and Projects

Question: How do you plan to use Conferences and other major projects like Exemplar or this year’s Review Competition to support and grow your region?

Look, I think Exemplar and the Review Competition are awesome projects and I very much looking forward to writing reviews for people and making Exemplar recommendations. If you’ve done either of those things, kudos to you, please keep doing so!!!

Having been mostly a local judge working solo events this past year and a half, though, it does occur to me that for local judges, opportunities to work with other judges are few and far between. From that perspective, Exemplar and the Review Competition seem oriented toward judges who have the opportunity to travel to larger events.

As RA, I’ll be focusing more on conferences and projects like Knowledge Pool. The 2025 Online Judge Foundry US Northeast Conference got postponed indefinitely this past winter; I’ll be talking to Dave to see if I can get that back on track. I’d like to see some in-person conferences happening in the region as well, so please, if you’re thinking about planning a judge conference in the northeast, send me a DM on Discord or an email at dennisbradford42@gmail and I’ll try to help you wrangle some presenters and get a conference application processed.

Knowledge Pool has been revived over on the JudgeApps forums. I think this is a great way for judges to get practice discussing policy, and I’ll be adding a channel to the US Northeast Judge Foundry Discord for members to dig into the details of Knowledge Pool scenarios. (This is one of several ideas I have to increase engagement on that Discord server.)