{"id":6835,"date":"2017-03-22T13:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T18:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/?p=6835"},"modified":"2017-03-22T08:44:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T13:44:07","slug":"judgecast-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/judgecast-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"JudgeCast of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re doing something a little different this week. Last month we interviewed the hosts of JudgeCast on their show, and now we have taken the question and answer portion and transcribed it especially for you, our readers. Check it out and learn more about JudgeCast past, present, and future, as well as some fun details about the hosts Bryan Prillaman<\/a><\/span><\/span>, CJ Shrader<\/a><\/span><\/span>, and Jess Dunks<\/a><\/span><\/span>!<\/p>\n

Alternately, you can listen to the entire episode in the original, audio format by going to http:\/\/judgecast.com\/?p=1067<\/a><\/p>\n

Special thanks to Judge of the Week members Matt Hoskins<\/a><\/span><\/span>, Matt Karr<\/a><\/span><\/span>, Megan Linscott<\/a><\/span><\/span>, and Raoul Mowatt<\/a><\/span><\/span>, all of whom assisted with the monumental task of transcribing this interview.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: CJ, for those who might not be familiar, what is JudgeCast? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> So, y\u2019know, it\u2019s kinda funny, \u2018cause I think on the website you\u2019ll see JudgeCast has a little slogan of \u2018a Magic rules podcast by judges for judges\u2019 and it\u2019s never really been just that, right? It\u2019s been a podcast with three judges on who have a deep interest in the rules, have a deep interest in the policy, and we talk about kinda judge-related topics, but a lot of it has player overlap and we\u2019ve seen that time and time again. Simply enough, we would not have the listener base we have if it was solely judges. We also try to keep in mind that people just interested in the rules, just interested in\u2026 sometimes even becoming a better Magic player\u2026 listen as well. It\u2019s basically the \u2018rules-focused\u2019 podcast.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Jess, you talked about this earlier, how long has your team been doing JudgeCast? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That\u2019s a great question. CJ and I started with episode #34 on March 14th 2012, and very quickly thereafter BPrill came on as a guest and then soon became just a host that was on the show all the time only a couple of episodes later. I point out that it was episode 34 because, even though we\u2019ve been doing this for almost five years now, there were 33 episodes of JudgeCast before CJ and I took the reins of it and kind of pointed the project in a new direction. Prior to that, it had been run by Sean Catanese<\/a><\/span><\/span>, Riki Hayashi<\/a><\/span><\/span>, and Jose Boveda<\/a><\/span><\/span>, and they did great stuff, they had some really good episodes – they\u2019re a little out of date now, but they have good episodes – but they were wrapped up in a lot of different projects and other things and weren\u2019t able to necessarily do it every week. It kinda fell by the wayside for them. We picked it up and kind of ran with it in a new direction, and we\u2019ve been doing it for about five years now, which is insane. I never would have guessed that, five years later, I would still be doing this podcast, or that we would ever even still be able to have content to talk about five years later.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Aw come on. We still have lists in that topic spreadsheet that we\u2019ve never touched.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah, I can\u2019t remember the last time I looked at it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> But there are things in there!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: It sounds like it\u2019s not a fair question to ask of BPrill, so we\u2019ll stick with you Jess. What inspired you to get started? Or was it CJ that had the inspiration? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It was actually kind of both! CJ and I had never met each other before episode 34 of JudgeCast. What happened here was CJ and I had independently expressed interest in taking over JudgeCast to Sean and he went \u201cI think you guys could do this together\u201d and he put us both on an episode. And both of us were basically like \u201coh, who the heck does this guy think he is?\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> …was I?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> No, I\u2019m being a little facetious there. I think both of us really wanted to do this thing, we didn\u2019t know who this other host was, and we didn\u2019t know if it was going to work out well. We just went into it and did it, and it turned out great. But the reason that – I\u2019m sorry, what was your initial question?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>What inspired you to get started?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It was a combination of things. Partly, I wanted to find a new way to give back to the community. Partly, I wanted JudgeCast as a concept to be one that – I liked the concept of a podcast for judges, but I also knew that it wasn\u2019t happening regularly and I thought that it could. I also just, at the time, I was trying to find more ways to become involved in the Magic judge community and I felt like this was one. It turns out it was, although in completely different ways than I expected, which I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll get into later. My inspiration was, I was looking for something to get involved with, and this was something that seemed like I could really get my teeth into.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, my answers around the same as Jess\u2019. I was just a big fan of JudgeCast, JudgeCast didn\u2019t exist anymore, and I wanted JudgeCast to exist again. And so if that meant I had to be one of the ones doing it, no problem.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> CJ is the original JudgeCast Superfan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I am!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Right.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> And no one can ever take that away.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> But I do want to ask Bryan, why did Bryan stick around?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah! Yeah, Bryan\u2026?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> He didn\u2019t have to!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So around this particular point in time, I had a podcast focused on casual Magic, kitchen table Magic, that had come to an end. And I enjoyed it and judging was something I thought that I was okay at. We\u2019d actually also thought about reviving JudgeCast and recorded an episode with Ben McDole<\/a><\/span><\/span> and Deborah Freeland<\/a><\/span><\/span>. We talked about, I think it was lapsing triggers? And we just – straight off-topic and it never came to fruition. When CJ started it up, he was like \u201cHey, you\u2019ve done this before! Do you want to come on and be a guest? You\u2019ve done some relevant stuff.\u201d And I did it, and CJ was a good guy, this Dunks guy was\u2026 pretty okay. So I just, y\u2019know, stuck around and – I followed them home and they kept me. For a while it was just them leaving a little bowl outside their door and they\u2019d come out in the morning and the food would be gone, and they were like \u201coh, he\u2019s still here!\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yup, must still be Bryan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Must still be Bryan. And then I started leaving little dead birds on their porch, and they were like \u201coh, maybe we should have him on a podcast some more.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Well fantastic. I can say I really appreciate the product that you guys put out. So Bryan, we all hear the finished product, but we never actually hear about what goes on behind the scenes. What all is involved in making a typical episode of JudgeCast behind just you guys talking into a microphone over a Skype call or what-have-you? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> It\u2019s an exercise in controlled chaos. Off the air…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It\u2019s more like gently-guided chaos.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Sure. Typically what\u2019ll happen is, we run the gamut from having a series of episodes planned out six weeks in advance to the day before it\u2019ll be \u201chey we don\u2019t have a topic yet, what do you guys want to talk about?\u201d A lot of times there\u2019s a lot of things that are very set on schedules, like the FAQ episodes, the policy updates, sometimes there\u2019s a big happening the Magic community that we want to talk about or there\u2019s a guest that we want to schedule. So we\u2019ll do those kind of things far in advance and we\u2019ll talk about them. Other things are\u2026 we will address in a very short term, \u201chey, let\u2019s talk about combat\u201d and CJ spends about an hour or two writing up the show notes. We\u2019ll go in and add our own flair\/comments to it and then just run the show from there. What we typically do is, it\u2019s 9 o\u2019clock every Tuesday\u2026 every other Tuesday, we\u2019ll begin with technical difficulties, like tonight. The software that records isn\u2019t necessarily working, or somebody has to reboot, or someone\u2019s microphone doesn\u2019t work, or something along those lines.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Just to jump in on that, I have two programs recording right now, and Bryan do you have one going?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I do have one.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Is that so you don\u2019t potentially drop an episode?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yes, because it\u2019s happened.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah, that actually happened once, and since then multiple backups have been put in place. We recorded an entire episode once to find out that —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> It was release notes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> — yeah, it was a release notes episode where we\u2019d gone through a whole lot of information, and it was relatively time-sensitive. Found out at the end of the episode that we just didn\u2019t record.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>I remember listening to that episode and hearing about that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> And then we had to re-record it again the next night, and it was sad because it wasn\u2019t as good the second time. Honestly, it wasn\u2019t as good, \u2018cause a lot of the stuff we do, a lot of the jokes we do or just conversation we have is just very spontaneous, so to have it again kind of felt awkward.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So this is all reasonably off the cuff, right, guys? You don\u2019t do any kind of rehearsals, there\u2019s no script associated with this? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> There\u2019s no script.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Well, the show notes —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> We do have a set of notes that we go off of for a topic. The notes can be very in detail for topics that we really need a lot of detail about, or they can be very, very brief, kind of just footnotes for things. It depends on…I\u2019m trying to think of a good example. If we have what Bryan likes to call a \u201crules-y\u201d episode, we\u2019re going to have a lot of notes because obviously we\u2019re going to hit all these rules. If we talk about state-based actions, we have to make sure we hit all the state-based actions, or what\u2019s the point? But if you go to what Bryan would call a \u201chugs-y\u201d episode…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I like to call them hugs-y episodes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> We have rules-y episodes and hugs-y episodes. And this would be a hugs-y episode we\u2019re having right now, right? The hugs-y episodes are ones where we\u2019ll have somebody on but we\u2019re not talking about a Magic rules thing or a policy change. We\u2019re just talking about a particular topic. And those tend to be a lot more free-form.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> We do policy, rules-y episodes, hugs-y episodes. Also, community falls in the hugs-y stuff. Hugs-y.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure. Sure. So the last question —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to say hugs-y one more time for the person transcribing this<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Hugs-y.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So they have to figure out how to spell it?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Well, h-u-g-s-y.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>There you go. Thank you for helping. So last question that\u2019s —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I hope they\u2019ve spelled it, like, five times before they get to that point.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Or when they type out the fact that I spelled it, if they do h dash u dash g dash\u2026 and now they\u2019ve got to type that out.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>And now they have to type out d-a-s-h —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Okay. Alright. We\u2019ve got a lot we have to wipe out, so —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: We\u2019ve got to move on. Last question for people who aren\u2019t listening, I guess: Where do you publish and advertise your completed episodes, presumably because people who are listening find these, and who takes care of that publishing and advertising? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I think I\u2019ll tackle this. We started on MTGCast.com and after that, we got our own domain, which is kind of its own story. Because for a while, we were, was it MTGJudgeCast.com?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yes we were, because JudgeCast was a taken domain. We didn\u2019t know who owned it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, and we were mad, like who has this domain, and why can\u2019t we have it? And one day Jose Boveda comes out of nowhere and he said, \u201cOh, I have that domain. You guys want it?\u201d And we\u2019re like yeah, we want that domain. So we got the JudgeCast.com domain. JudgeCast.com is our primary place to find it. But we also post on mtgcast.com. From JudgeCast, it automatically posts to Facebook on our Facebook group. Twitter. It posts to iTunes from our RSS feed. It posts to the Zune store, I believe, still. Stitcher radio —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Do people still use Zune?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know, man. I set that up a long time ago. I don\u2019t know if it ever went away.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Fair enough.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> And Stitcher Radio. So those are all automatic, not MTGCast. And then we —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That reminds me. I saw you can get podcasts on Spotify now. We need to figure that one out.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Oooh.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Okay, yes, we do. And Google Play.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Let me ask this: Did we get JudgeCast in response to, do you remember MTGCast started putting ads at the beginning of every podcast?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yes, yes, that actually did happen. We used to be only hosted on the mtgcast.com website. And when they had a change in management\u2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Actually, it was before the change in management.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Oh yeah yeah, I\u2019m sorry, you\u2019re right. It was before that. But they were trying to advertise more, and so they said they were going to start putting an advertisement at the beginning of every podcast that was published on their site. And we went, \u201cWell, we don\u2019t feel comfortable with that because we don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to be advertising\u201d and went and got our own site. Fortunately, that didn\u2019t last very long because we weren\u2019t the only podcast that felt that way. So now we publish in both locations.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Cool.<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s always been\u2026 for advertising it\u2019s always been – or sponsorship or something – it\u2019s always been this weird relationship or thought process we\u2019ve had where we don\u2019t want to necessarily feel beholden to any specific sponsor, yet at the same time, boy, we could use the money.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> This is something we\u2019ve done for five years for free, by the way.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yup, yup.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So it\u2019s like —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Not for free. At a loss to Jess.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That\u2019s true, actually.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Jess pays the server cost. We don\u2019t bring that up enough.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Oh, okay. Well thank you, Jess.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yes, thank you Jess.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> You\u2019re welcome.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> To finish answering that question, we also post on the judge forums, we update a blog on the judge website that I don\u2019t even know how to find, but we update it. We post on reddit, mtgjudge reddit. \u2026 I think that\u2019s everywhere.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> We\u2019ll occasionally cross-post if the episode is one that is specifically of interest to players, we\u2019ll put in the main magictcg reddit.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So the second part of this question was who takes care of those things. So when you\u2019re saying \u201cwe,\u201d which of you takes care of publishing on these platforms, or do you split it up? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It\u2019s historically almost always been CJ, although a number of those things are automatically handled. As soon as we post it on the JudgeCast website, they are automatically sent to several places and the rest of it is done manually. Although all of us have done it at some point.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> CJ wrote us instructions.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Which included the words, \u201cIf you are reading this, I am probably dead.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: That does not surprise me. So moving on, Bryan, this is possibly a bit of a loaded question, given the content of this episode: How long does a typical recording session for JudgeCast take? And do you have multiple sessions or do you try to power through whatever the content, just hammer through in a single session? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> A typical recording session, we get online at 9. We typically start recording around 9:20 to 9:30. It might stretch to 9:40 if we\u2019re being excessively chatty. And then the episodes themselves will run anywhere from like an hour to an hour and 45 minutes, in which case we end it, and then we spend somewhere from 5 to 30 minutes chatting again. Basically, we power through. We don\u2019t do multiple sessions unless at the end of it we find out we had a problem with the recording, or in the layers episode, we actually planned out a two-parter. It\u2019s pretty rare for us to do that. So we try and get through everything that we want to get through in an episode.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> We do shoot for an hour. I know we don\u2019t always hit it. Sometimes it\u2019s impossible. But we shoot for it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So, Jess? Do you keep all the old, raw recordings of the episodes? And how likely are we to see a blooper reel? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> To the first point, I believe CJ has copies of all of them. I have copies of a few. But I believe CJ has copies of all of them. Is that accurate still?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t keep the raw audio. I keep it for a couple weeks just to make sure nothing crazy happens. But I don\u2019t have any of the raw audio except for last week\u2019s episode.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So you mean the pre-show banter is completely gone? Whoo, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, a lot of time I want that to be gone. So that\u2019s why I keep it only for two weeks.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> So to answer your second question, very unlikely that you would see a JudgeCast blooper reel in the near future. Though to be fair, there really aren\u2019t that many things that get cut out of an episode. You commented on the editing and nothing really – there aren\u2019t a lot of bloopers that get cut out. Sometimes, mistakes will happen on the show and we often leave those in. Our listeners understand that we\u2019re human just like they are and part of the appeal of a podcast is that they feel like we\u2019re kind of having a conversation with them.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Right, and they get that live experience as well, right?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yes. The only times we\u2019ll go back and edit something are if there was something we said that we weren\u2019t supposed to, like if we accidentally revealed something we know that isn\u2019t coming out yet or something, or if there\u2019s profanity, with the exception of one episode where we made a disclaimer at the beginning instead of edit. And if there is a mistake – if upon reflection we made a mistake that is likely to mislead people into making mistakes themselves. For example if I got a rules question wrong in answering an e-mail, and we spend enough time talking about it when our answer was wrong, then we\u2019re like, okay, if we don\u2019t cut that out then somebody\u2019s going to think that answer was right, then we\u2019ll cut it out. But usually we don\u2019t cut anything.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, and just – I\u2019ve said it before but – if you hear us say \u201coh we\u2019ll cut that out later\u201d that\u2019s a joke. If you\u2019ve ever actually heard us say it, it was a joke. Except one time, but I got that out after —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> {laughter}<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Only one time have I ever made that mistake. But if you ever actually hear it, it was a joke.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: This could be a short question, and it can be directed generally at first. Are there unique roles and responsibilities each of you have? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I think that that\u2019s true, that we do have unique roles and responsibilities, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s because it\u2019s been assigned. It just kinda formed that way.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So, Jess, what are CJ\u2019s unique roles and responsibilities?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Okay, so CJ has taken on himself all of the stuff that, for lack of a better way of putting it, I like to call \u201cgrunt work.\u201d And I don\u2019t mean that in a derogatory way at all. He takes on the – when we do have editing, he takes on the editing. He gets every episode ready for being published. He makes sure everything is posted where it needs to go. And when something breaks, he takes care of it. So that\u2019s the stuff he\u2019s been doing for basically all of the last five years. And that\u2019s been – we\u2019ve mentioned a few times that, if it weren\u2019t for CJ, JudgeCast wouldn\u2019t have lasted as long as it has. And I 100% believe that\u2019s true. Moving forward we\u2019re obviously going to have to change that up and Bryan and I are going to take on a lot more of that responsibility. But CJ has been kinda the \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d guy, the \u201cbehind the scenesy stuff\u201d as Doctor Who would say, and that\u2019s his main role. On the show, he also has an important role, and that role is to keep us on track. The vast majority of the time we might be talking about something, we might be going into detail or having a story that is going on too long that\u2019s just excessive, or we might be going way off topic, and he will be the one to say \u201cokay, so, as a reminder, we were talking about this. Let\u2019s get to the next one.\u201d And then he tries to have segues that go into the next topic. I say \u201ctries\u201d because they\u2019re not always the greatest. He\u2019s got about five years worth of practice at that. So —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> He\u2019s pretty good at it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> — you\u2019d think it would be better, but it\u2019s alright! I like it! It\u2019s one of his\u2026 what\u2019s the word I\u2019m looking for? It\u2019s part of his charm.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure. So CJ, what does Bryan bring that is unique and what responsibilities does Bryan take on that are unique to him?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I\u2019ve always made Bryan handle the guests.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>I feel very well-handled. So that\u2019s good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, like Bryan talked to you, right? Not Jess? I don\u2019t do it. I don\u2019t talk to any guests.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Actually, Jacob talked to us.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh that\u2019s right, Jacob approached us.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> He\u2019s like \u201cHey guys, are we doin\u2019 this?\u201d \u201cUhh, yeah\u201d \u201cSo did you want to talk about these questions?\u201d \u201cYeah\u201d \u201cHere are the questions, you think they\u2019re good?\u201d \u201cYeah\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

{laughter}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> And I don\u2019t want to say this to imply that Jess isn\u2019t also the same, but Bryan has a very deep policy knowledge. And I think – I know you\u2019re not asking me about Jess – but I feel like Jess really brought that \u201cRegular REL\u201d experience to us, that I don\u2019t think Bryan and I had at all. But Bryan has a deep policy knowledge, you know probably partially because of his work on the AIPG and all that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Is that where the \u201cI keep it fun\u201d out for Jess came from?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> No, that\u2019s just us stealing the ending of the original show.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> You know, actually I think that the first\u2026 probably ten or so episodes I don\u2019t think we were consistent on who did which part of that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh really?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean Bryan has always had the random weird thing at the end, but me and CJ I think switched back and forth and it just kinda fell into a pattern.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So bringing it back around, Bryan what does Jess do that is unique, what does he bring to the table and what are his responsibilities?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> This oughta be good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> In a lot of ways I see Jess as kind of the yin to my yang, as it were. Whereas I\u2019m a little more goofy and Jess is more business-like. He also has a lot more practical event experience. He travels a lot. He goes to a lot of the large events. So whereas – when we talk about policy and we talk about rules and we talk about events, we\u2019re both talking about it from very different perspectives. So Jess brings a lot of that to the table. Also, he\u2019s constantly focusing on how much time we\u2019re spending on something and is it really relevant, going through the show note, whittling things down to the core importance of it. Whereas I tend to like to pontificate on things, Jess is a lot more matter-of-fact \u201ccome on we gotta get this done.\u201d So Jess definitely brings that. He brings a ton of policy knowledge and experience, event experience, rules depth, all of that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That was a very nice way of saying \u201cI talk a lot.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>But you\u2019re very concise about it, apparently. So you talk a lot in few words, that\u2019s a talent I wish I had.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: This could be a short answer, but is there anybody involved with the project beyond the three of you? Like do you have anybody you use as a test audience? Does anybody contribute to the success of JudgeCast beyond the three of you? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That test audience thing is a really good idea.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Why? We would re-record it?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Uh… well…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Exactly! We\u2019re not gonna fix it, so\u2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

{laughter}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> The short answer to your question is\u2026 no? Every once in a while, somebody will be involved in individual episodes, but it\u2019s not in any way consistent. I can\u2019t think of anybody that has, in a capacity other than being a guest, been involved with the show more than once that is not the three of us. I could be mistaken about that? So please, guys, correct me if I\u2019m wrong, but it\u2019s pretty much just been the three of us.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I don\u2019t want to undersell the importance of the guests. We\u2019ve had some great guests, and had some great episodes because of it, but it\u2019s mostly us. And I mean, y\u2019know, I could put out a call tomorrow and be like \u201chey can we get someone to volunteer to edit the show?\u201d and I bet we would get volunteers, right? But it just slows things down to have someone else do it. It\u2019s nice to have someone else do it, but —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> It\u2019s not just that. We\u2019ve all become really good friends. When this podcast started out, we probably could\u2019ve pulled some people in and made it into a program project. But it\u2019s not! This is our intellectual property, as it were. So if we have somebody come in, we\u2019re kind of inviting them into our business in that regard. We\u2019re going to be reluctant to parse this stuff out. And like I said, it\u2019s not a judge project so it\u2019s not like you can apply to it and \u201chey can I join your project, can I join the JudgeCast project?\u201d The answer\u2019s gonna be no because it\u2019s not a judge project. It\u2019s the three of us working together, having a good respect for each other, coming together and talking about the stuff that we want to talk about.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: On that topic, moving along, Bryan how do you go about selecting special guests? Or selecting topics, for that matter? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So I do tend to be the guy that picks the topics. What I normally do is I look at it and say \u201chey, it\u2019s been a while since we\u2019ve had a husgy topic, what would be an appropriate – \u201d and I take the pulse of what\u2019s going on, y\u2019know, what are people talking about on reddit? What\u2019s the latest kerfluffle at the Pro Tour? There\u2019s another word for the transcriber: kerfluffle. What are those things that people are having trouble with? Or maybe it\u2019s Halloween coming up, maybe we\u2019ll do a combat episode or we\u2019ll do a graveyard episode or something like that. Or, y\u2019know, \u201chey, this person did something cool, let\u2019s see if we can get them as a guest to be on.\u201d So I kinda look ahead and see what would be interesting to the community and then we try and fill in the gaps with things we haven\u2019t talked about in a while. Selecting special guests is, a lot of times, a week or two before the podcast, sometimes as much as a month, just call up and say \u201chey do you wanna be on JudgeCast for X?\u201d There have been times where we have had a guest where it has been, at 9:05 it\u2019s been \u201chey, we\u2019re down a person, do you want to be on? We\u2019re talking about tournament shortcuts.\u201d In that particular case, we\u2019ll pick somebody who I can call and get in and very very shortly, there\u2019s no time to ramp up, I know that they know the material, let\u2019s get\u2019em in and go.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: CJ, how close are the three of you outside of JudgeCast? Is your relationship mostly professional? Are you friends? Are you best friends? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh, it\u2019s purely professional. After this call, we hang up, and we don\u2019t talk again for two weeks.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>You worked on your interplay very well then.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Bryan actually touched on this a little bit in that he said that, each episode, even if we shoot for an hour long episode, we record for two hours. That\u2019s not discussing the topic or anything. That\u2019s just talking. That\u2019s just what we do before and after the epsiode, \u2018cause, yeah, I didn\u2019t know Jess at the start but yeah we\u2019re definitely friends now. Actually, Jess lives, like, twenty minutes from me now. And I know he\u2019s going to call out that I never try to hang out, but that\u2019s just me. That\u2019s not because of Jess. I don\u2019t hang out with anyone. If I did, I\u2019d hang out with Jess.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So you guys don\u2019t all live in close physical proximity to each other, correct?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> No, Bryan lives farther away.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So that\u2019s harder to do.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I live eight hours south.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, Jess lives close. He didn\u2019t use to be! He lived in California.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I use to live in California, and then I moved out here to Georgia. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. And CJ lives not that far from me. So he and I are actually close, and a couple of times I\u2019ve actually recorded from his office, when something had gone wrong or I didn\u2019t have power or internet or whatever, just go over there. So in case it\u2019s not clear, friends is the answer to your question.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah, these guys are great, clearly.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I knew Bryan before the show.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: I don\u2019t really want to put you on the spot, but I\u2019d be remiss to not ask this question. CJ, you recently announced you would be leaving the Judge Program and JudgeCast. Can you talk about why? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>WILL you talk about why?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, I\u2019ll talk about why. It\u2019s no big deal. It\u2019s not like something happened and it\u2019s like \u201coh no, drama, Scott Marshall<\/a><\/span><\/span> said something mean to me.\u201d That didn\u2019t happen. I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m bringing up Scott Marshall, he actually said very nice thing in my post when I said I was leaving. The short answer is judging is just not really fun for me anymore. The longer answer is I don\u2019t really love policy right now. It feels too… \u201cflow-charty\u201d might be how I describe it. I just feel like it\u2019s just getting more and more confusing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Are you referring to Hidden Card Error specifically or do you actually think just in general–?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> More than that. Deck\/Decklist problem is getting more and more like that. I guess Missed Trigger is okay. See, when we only had Missed Trigger it was like, okay, well you only had the one flow chart. Now it\u2019s, I don\u2019t know, they all feel like that to me. I think the new sets are very exciting anymore. Are people really excited about\u2026 I don\u2019t even remember the names of the new mechanics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Revolt?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Revolt and\u2026 convoke one.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Improvise.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Oh man, I was really excited about Morbid when it was Morbid.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> When it was Morbid, yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Revolt\u2019s not quite Morbid, but fair.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> But even to me, Energy counters, Crew, these are all very boring. It\u2019s just not clicking. It\u2019s just not clicking. I brought up the story last time when I talked about this. The story of Magic has gotten very \u201csame five people\u201d-centric and it\u2019s getting pretty boring for me, and the story was what kept me in the game.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019re going to kill Gideon. They got – they\u2019re going to kill Gideon. It\u2019s gonna happen.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Really?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> You think so?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>You think so?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah I think so. We\u2019ll see.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Not Ajani?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Because Ajani showed up?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Or does Ajani only show up to watch other planeswalkers die?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, exactly.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>He\u2019s only done it once, it\u2019s not a trend yet!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Hold on, how funny would it be in a few other sets, it\u2019s like Ajani shows up and all the planeswalkers are like \u201coh crap, who\u2019s gonna bite it this time?\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>I would love it if they went that meta with the story. Just for a little bit. Introduce some goofiness back into it. At any rate, thank you CJ.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So Jess and BPrill, you alluded to this earlier. So obviously you plan to continue with just the two of you – or are you looking for a third? Do you have anybody in mind to fill the void that CJ is leaving behind? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> The answers to your questions are, yes we plan to continue, we have considered looking for a third, but might continue with just the two of us because we don\u2019t have somebody that we go \u201coh yeah, that person is exactly the person we want.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean that there aren\u2019t great judges who might or might not be available to be on the show or that there might not be great candidates for it, but to be completely honest, because of the fact that CJ is a very good friend of ours it\u2019s also emotionally difficult to say \u201cokay, somebody else go fill these shoes.\u201d And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to be easy to do, even if you find the perfect candidate.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah, those shoes are a lot of grunt work.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>It\u2019s never gonna be the same, right?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It\u2019s never gonna be the same, and I think moving forward you\u2019re going to see Bryan and I take up a lot more of what we\u2019ve frankly taken for granted that CJ has done.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well that was a depressing answer. But it was honest, and I appreciate that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> It would be my recommendation, this is my general podcast recommendation, is to have three people. That way if one person can\u2019t make it for one day you can still have an episode. I think that was probably my pitch to bring Bryan on in the first place.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It was, yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s very important to a podcast, \u2018cause otherwise you get into a lot of \u201cmy co-host was on vacation so we just couldn\u2019t record this week.\u201d I think, as a lot of credit goes there – our consistency is because of that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> And it allows one person to be looking something up and researching it while the other two continue to talk, and you don\u2019t notice.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yes, which happens more often than I would like to admit.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> So there\u2019s some free podcast advice.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So Bryan, how do you find time to do the podcast, with not just all your Judge Program responsibilities, but with your responsibilities in general, with life in general? And Jess and CJ I\u2019d actually like to hear your answers to this, as well. <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Oh would they? So the time to do the podcast is, I’ll be honest, I– we rely on CJ a lot to…he does a lot of the show notes work and that kind of thing. Jess and I, our prep time is actually very little, so this basically, what this, the podcast evening is, we just set aside a time, it’s scheduled, we treat it- I don’t want to say like a job, because it’s not a job, but we treat it seriously. It’s in our calendar as “the thing that you have to do” and you just make time for it. And it’s just like if you have a pottery class on Thursday nights that you always go to, or FNM or something like that. You make the time for it, and if other things, if you have to shift things around your schedule, you just look ahead and you stay up till 3am, doing the stuff that you didn’t do earlier… like last night.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Alright.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> There\u2019s no bitterness in that answer at all.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> –no, no bitterness at all.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Jess, did you have anything to add to that?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That’s very true. In my house now, everybody who lives here. Now I live with some of my extended family lives with me, and so, well I guess actually immediate family. Anyway, so everybody knows that every other Tuesday, it’s the time that I’m recording my podcast, and you’ve got to leave Jess alone during that time. And everybody, if they’re in this area of the house, they’re quiet about it, and that’s all very appreciated, because it’s a serious thing, y’know? It’s not- maybe it didn’t start out that way. To be honest, it was just kind of a hobby or whatever, but now it’s just a thing we do. And I think it’s important, both to set that precedent for yourself, and also, I think it’s important to have that be- like for me, one of the reasons I love doing JudgeCast, is because I get to hang out with these cool friends of mine every couple of weeks, and talk about stuff. Like, that’s really great. But, as far as the other responsibilities, I’m actually really bad at juggling responsibility in general, so I have no idea.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>{laughter} Well, it’s a very honest answer, thank you. CJ, since you’re saddled with, as was previously mentioned, the “grunt work”, what’s your answer to this? I get the feeling it will differ slightly from Bryan and Jess’.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> So, I mean, for me, all I did, this is the opposite of what Bryan does, is I-if I got opportunities to be part of any other Judge Program work, I just said “no”. Whereas, it looks like Bryan said “yes” to every opportunity that came by. I mean, that’s basically it. I was like, “oh no, sorry, I’m already doing JudgeCast.” I mean, JudgeCast doesn’t take up that much time. But I’ve always been, or was, a once-a-month judge, and stuff like that, so JudgeCast could fit in pretty easily every 2 weeks. I would just- the recording\u2019s easy, we schedule that. So it’s really finding time to write show notes, which I can usually get done with an hour or two before the show, and then, or you know, at work. Then I can usually edit, once again, at work when I’m supposed to be doing other stuff. I can usually get it all done in there. The editing used to take forever, because I used to edit out the “umm”s and “uhh”s, and once I stopped doing that, I can edit an episode in, I dunno, 30 or 40 minutes now.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> The absolute shock that he had when he realized that nobody noticed if he didn’t do that was amazing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Was it shock or was it actually soul-crushing? You spent all this time–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> \u2018Cause legitimately, yeah, editing an episode used to take like about 3 times the length of the episode. So you know, an hour was 3 hours, and our episodes back then were long-<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Right.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> –they were at least 2 hours long, cuz we hadn’t really reined it in yet. It would take me a long time, but once I stopped doing that, it helped a lot.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> As a side note, the reason we hadn’t reined it in yet, is because- is partly because CJ always thought we didn’t have enough content an episode–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –so he’d always be like “oh that’s not enough topics. We gotta tack more onto this!” before we even started.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, I always wanted to have two topics per episode, that’s a true story.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Wow.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I always thought that one topic would never be enough, so I always forced in a second topic. Then one day, it was like “hey our episodes’re 2 hours, perhaps–“<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Alright.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> –and we would have to read a few emails.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Not that these questions haven’t been fun – your answers certainly have been fun – but Judge of the Week actually likes to ask a few fun questions, so I’m gonna go around with each of you. We’ll start with Bryan and say, “if you had to pick a Magic the Gathering card that you identify most with your other two co-hosts, which card would you pick for each of them, and why?” And everyone will get a turn at this. <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Uh…Well, can I just- can we do round robin like we did on the responsibility ones, so I don’t have to come up–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure…sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> –with 2 cards. Okay–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So just pick one for now, Bryan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I’m actually gonna say, the card- and this is not necessarily a flavor thing, but it’s more the mechanics- I’m gonna say that Jess is Elesh Norn<\/a>. And I’m gonna–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Wow.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> –and I’m gonna explain why.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh, interesting.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah! I’m gonna explain why. Okay. If you look at Elesh Norn, it’s good stats. Jess has good stats–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Great face!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> –yeah, great face. A face for–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>The eyes, especially.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> –a great face for radio, for podcasts. The creature has vigilance, which Jess is at events and stuff like that, he is constantly aware of what’s going on. Also, he really supports the people on his team, going around and making sure that they’re doing the best that they can and supporting them that way. Then the– that’s the “other creatures you control get +2\/+2”. Then, the “creatures your opponents control get -2\/-2” because when you\u2019re on the other Jess, when he’s arguing, look out! There you go, Elesh Norn.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Look out? I hope–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Look out!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –I hope that was a good thing. Yeah, that was surprisingly deep. I don’t know if I can compete with that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>That was very good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I wasn’t even… I don’t even have one for Jess yet.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Alright. Well Jess–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>–it’s your turn. Try to top that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Okay. Who am I going to start with here? Am I starting with–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> {inaudible}<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –what was that?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> If you’ll be silent, it’ll edit it out.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Your choice.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> My choice?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Your choice. You can reciprocate or you can go with CJ.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Well, I was…let’s talk about both. So Bryan, this is a little bit cheesy, but Bryan is, in my mind, and has been since the set came out, Toolcraft Exemplar<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Suuure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Because, no, because it’s funny, cuz he’s in charge of the Exemplar Program, and now the Exemplar…Sphere?.. i guess. Is that a sphere?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah…technically.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> You know, Toolcraft Exemplar, as a card, is relatively unimposing but if you have a thing to mess with, it just dominates the board. That’s how Bryan is with projects. Like, Bryan, at first glance, he doesn’t go to that many events, he doesn’t have time to go to that many events. You might go “well, that guy’s not really serious about being a judge”. But if you give him something to mess around with in his spare time, as a project, as a “here’s a thing you can work on every night”, that thing will get fixed. Whatever was wrong with it will get fixed and the project will happen. He will, to use a metaphor from the game, kinda dominate the board and really help that get to where it needs to be. As far as CJ goes, I was just gonna go with Portcullis<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I knew you one of y’all would.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Okay so why Portcullis?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Good ol’ Pork-you-lis.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Portcullis because CJ has a problem sometimes with pronouncing things correctly. It’s actually a problem we all have, but he does it relatively frequently in episodes and it became kind of a running joke for awhile several years ago, that he pronounced Portcullis “pork-you-liss”. I’ve got this image in my mind of- oh wait, what’s that card’s name? Offalsnout<\/a> or something? It’s this elemental pig thing. That’s what I was thinking of when he said “pork-you-lis”. And–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Durkwood Boars<\/a> was me, was mine.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –it just reminds me. That card, in any context, reminds me of CJ, just because it reminds me of all the, well it reminds me of that specific pronunciation but it just reminds me of all of the fun stuff that goes along with doing something like this that you didn’t expect. And that reminds me of CJ.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>That’s a good story. Alright, CJ–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Alright!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>–your turn.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> For Bryan, it’s pretty easy. It’s Bear Cub<\/a>. I mean, I didn’t even know that card existed before Bryan was on the show and it became kind of an unofficial mascot of JudgeCast. Also, a long-standing running joke that Jess has never said Bear Cub on air.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Although–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> He has!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –I’ve signed numerous Bear Cubs that people have brought to me and I have actually said it–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>You just said it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –and just said it now, and have in the last couple episodes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> You have said it in the past. It’s also worth noting that Jess did accidentally say it in that episode that failed to record.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yes–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> So the episode was lost.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> –so i guess I said it there.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> We made a big deal about it there. When Jess has said it in the past, he’s actually not made a big deal about it. Cuz it wasn’t until like 10 minutes later, I was like, “wait…Jess said–“<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah, and it was an episode I was actually really ill when we recorded that episode, and I wasn\u2019t thinking. I don’t whine so much anymore, but the story behind me not saying Bear Cub came from the fact that, even though Bryan would use it anytime he needed some vanilla creature for an example, he’d throw it in. It bugged the crap outta me, because it’s not a Standard legal card and there’s no reason NOT to use a Standard legal card when it’s just a vanilla creature. I’d always used Runeclaw Bear<\/a> or whatever was Standard legal at the time. And so I refused to use Bear Cub. I always replaced it with something else, as kinda like my little defiance against him always using Bear Cub.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Here’s the–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> That’s another role Jess has had, actually, is to try to push us into Standard legal cards–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure, sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> –and it’s a tough fight, cause we don’t want to.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> But I’d like to point out, that Bear Cub- we don’t use Runeclaw Bear anymore. Bear Cub has persisted and proven the test of time.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> We don’t use Runeclaw Bear because it’s not Standard legal anymore!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Hey, well…yeah so?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So then Jess, should your card actually be Standard Bearer<\/a>?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I like it. I’m a fan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Anyway.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I don’t really have one for Jess, so I’m just gonna click random here and try to make it fit.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Love it!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Uh…Okk<\/a>?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> What?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Okk can’t attack unless a creature with greater power also attacks. Okk can’t block unless a creature with greater power also blocks.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Good luck…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> That actually doesn’t fit very well at all, because Jess is a leader. He’s not a “I need to see someone else doing it at the same time”.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Well met.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, I got like Despise<\/a> earlier. I was just clicking random ones. I was like “that’s not…I don’t want to say Despise.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> When I click random cards for CJ, I get Gone Missing<\/a>. What?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Ooooh.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Lost in the Woods<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Totally Lost<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Lost in the Woods. Totally Lost.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Alright.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Are we going to let CJ get away with that one? Is that okay?\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> If he doesn’t want to pick one for me, I won’t be hurt.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure. And Bryan, did you want to pick one for CJ as well or do we want to move on?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I would have to {random noises} stutter<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well, it sounds like Gone Missing fits real well, actually.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> It does, it does. Totally Lost, anything with a fifhilpppt<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\n\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess\/Jacob: <\/strong>Fblthp<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Milisickick<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Milicic (Mil-ee-cheech). It’s still Milicic.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Oh, Milicic!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Temple of Abandon<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Temple of Abandon!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah! Oh, oooph.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I know somebody else who’s already got that card.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Oh yeah, fair.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: This is another one for the group, but we\u2019ll go through it individually. Jess, we\u2019ll start with you, actually. What would you say was your toughest episode to record to date, and what made it challenging for you? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Toughest episode to record\u2026 we don\u2019t talk about it much on the show, but I really dislike having to go through the motions of doing the release notes episodes every time. Not that I dislike the episodes themselves, but I dislike having to go through and looking through the card by card every single card, it always takes a while. We always go through a lot of the same mechanics over and over again, where we\u2019ll talk about \u201coh, this doesn\u2019t work because things with multiple targets do this or things with only one target do this.\u201d Stuff that we hit every single time. That kind of redundancy is very important for learning and it\u2019s good, but it\u2019s very hard for me because I become\u2026 well, frankly I get bored with it very quickly. The hard episodes for me are episodes where it\u2019s a little bit\u2026 I guess it\u2019s actually easiest to talk about my favorite episodes. My favorite episodes are ones where I feel like I\u2019m learning something.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well, what was your favorite episode? We can include that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I think my favorite episode – I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s my favorite episode necessarily – some of my favorite episodes\u2026 a while back we had one with Jared Sylva doing investigations. That was an information-packed episode. I really like it. I don\u2019t remember the number, but I\u2019ll look it up and make sure that information is passed on. That\u2019s probably one of my favorite episodes. We\u2019ve done a lot of them, so I don\u2019t know, I\u2019d have to go back and look to be sure. That\u2019s one that comes to mind.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>All we really want is a favorite.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Yeah, that\u2019s one of my favorites.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> That episode was named \u201cSylva Linings Investigations Book.\u201d That\u2019s 111. That\u2019s rough.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>CJ, same question, toughest episode to record to date, what made it challenging, and what\u2019s one of your favorite episodes of JudgeCast you recorded?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I hate to steal from Jess here, but the toughest episode to record for me personally was the one where we had to do it again. Having done it, I did not want to do that, and I don\u2019t think you guys did either, \u2018cause we just did it and having to give up our next evening to do it again, which also meant I had to rush the editing, oh that was awful. I think we brought up just briefly \u201chey, maybe we just don\u2019t do a release notes episode this time.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> \u201cHow much do we really need this?\u201d And the truth is, and we haven\u2019t mentioned this yet, those are our most popular episodes by far. It\u2019s not like we can just go \u201coh this is kind of redundant,\u201d no people love it. And that\u2019s great. I want to give people what they like, but doing it again that one time was rough.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>And speaking as one of your listeners, I can say that your release notes episodes are ones I look forward to because I like hearing you guys talk about the new cards. There\u2019s invariably something that comes out that\u2019s entertaining at bare minimum if not actually informative, and usually it\u2019s also actively informative.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> …nice save. Nice save, I like that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> The favorites one is tough. We\u2019ve had a lot of really good episodes. One I\u2019ll mention is – and it\u2019s probably why we haven\u2019t done it again – is I really liked our layers episodes, actually. People have complained about them because we make a lot of StarCraft references in one of them, but I think it was a great episode. I think Jess did a great job of explaining dependencies in that episode. And actually it kinda touches on what Jess said. I feel like I learned something about dependencies from that episode, the second layers episode. I thought we did a good job on those, I liked those.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> That episode actually was a lot of fun to record. That one and the one that we did on the Modern format, when Modern was relatively new.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well, Bryan, wouldn\u2019t be fair to not ask you the same question.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So my least favorite episodes were the ones that I wasn\u2019t on. No, there was the – to be 100%, the episode that we did right after we got suspended was actually – my motivation level was pretty low at the time. I think I put on an okay public-facing face, but my heart just wasn\u2019t in it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> So you\u2019re not talking about the oft-forgotten IPG episode we did, are you? This is before we event talked about the suspension, is that –<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Right. This is the very first episode that we did after the suspension, that was pretty rough.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Where we said we were suspended, but we couldn\u2019t really talk about it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> And ironically my favorite episode that we\u2019ve done – the one with Matt Tabak and Sara Mox was a blast – but continuing on the theme of our favorite episodes being ones where we learned something, was episode 95, which ironically was called \u201cWhat to Suspend when you\u2019re Suspended.\u201d It was where we had Eric Shukan and Guillaume Beuzelin talk about the player investigation committee and what goes on when a player gets suspended. I, for the most part, was pretty ignorant to that whole process. Having people come on and talk about what goes on and what thought they put into it and that kind of thing\u2026 it was one of these episodes where I just kinda put my elbows on the table, put my head in my hands and just fanboyed out.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh yeah, I remember that episode, and Eric just kept talking and talking, and there was no reason to stop him. He\u2019s not saying anything boring, he\u2019s just explaining all of it. Yeah, that was good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: You guys generally have a good feel for letting each other talk, so I\u2019m going gonna throw this one out there and see who picks it up. How frequently do you get people coming up to you at events to talk with you about JudgeCast? Is it mostly positive? Do you have a lot of fans? Would you like to put them all in one place and maybe go crowdsurfing? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Well now that you mention it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know what you would call frequently. I don\u2019t know what you mean by frequently necessarily.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So does it happen every time you go to an event? At least once? Or multiple times? Or once every other event that you\u2019re at?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I would say it does not happen every event, but on average it happens at least once an event. Does that make sense?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> So people will sometimes come up and they will just mention it and say \u201cI wanna say I appreciate the show for\u201d their reasons. And their reasons have sometimes surprised me, and in fact the reasons that people have had have sometimes helped me, and I think helped CJ and Bryan, figure out where we\u2019re going with the show. But it\u2019s everything from \u201cthanks\u201d to people that want me to sign cards or, in one case, a judge, and I didn\u2019t ask this judge if I could mention this on the show so I\u2019m not going to use their name, but a judge heard me talking on the show about how much I missed the squeeze-its juice bottles and brought them to the next event we were going to be at together, so that I could have some. They were like \u201cthey still make these\u201d and gave them to me, gave me a pack of these. And I was like, that\u2019s – actually, I think they gave me two packs of it – and I was like \u201cthat\u2019s amazing!\u201d That somebody listened. We also had somebody that had special mugs made for us. We used to explain phasing – first of all, it was a mistake to ever explain phasing – but we used to explain phasing with a coffee cup of phasing or a bowl of phasing. Somebody made a mug that has – it\u2019s a \u201cmug of phasing\u201d – written on it so it says untap, turn this over and it\u2019s phased out, turn it back over it\u2019s phased in. And it says in the flavor text \u201ccan\u2019t guarantee the dryness of phased permanents.\u201d And that\u2019s a really cool thing that somebody had made for us!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, I just wanna add to that. I still have that mug, it\u2019s sitting on my desk still. Like, it\u2019s always been there.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I use it on a regular basis.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I don\u2019t drink coffee or anything, so I don\u2019t use it, so the best thing I can do next to that is have it on my desk. I put pens and stuff in it, which is – that\u2019s using it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> So not throngs of fans, but we have some very dedicated fans and we really appreciate them. People come and say everything from saying \u201chi\u201d to kind of participating in the show. People will tell me \u201chey, thank you for doing the show, you keep me company on my drive to wherever.\u201d That\u2019s a very personal thing that they\u2019re saying. It\u2019s not just like \u201coh, I listen to the show.\u201d It\u2019s like they\u2019re talking to somebody that\u2019s been a friend to them. That\u2019s kind of humbling… I don\u2019t know if humbling is the right word\u2026 it makes me feel weird feelings to know I\u2019ve made that kind of impact on people.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> And if I could just jump off of that, \u2018cause Jacob you asked is it mostly positive and for me it\u2019s been 100% positive. I would like to believe that if someone didn\u2019t like JudgeCast, they\u2019d just stop listening.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Occasionally we get critical feedback, though. Somebody will say \u201chey, I think you guys could do X better.\u201d But it\u2019s still positive.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, I\u2019ve never felt like someone insulted me.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> It\u2019s also kinda neat when you are at a table at an event and I\u2019ve been in a situation where I\u2019ve given someone like a slow play warning and they\u2019re like \u201c… hey\u2026 are you Bryan from JudgeCast?\u201d And I\u2019ll be all like \u201cyes, here\u2019s your Warning.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I\u2019ve gotten that too.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> So have people who have similar names. That\u2019s my favorite.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh! So, CJ Crooks has gotten a lot of messages asking him why he\u2019s leaving judging.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Oh is he?! Has he?!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah, why is CJ Crooks leaving JudgeCast and also judging?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> He\u2019s not!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>People wanna know!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I\u2019m CJ Shrader. For the record, I\u2019m CJ Shrader, I am not CJ Crooks.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Right, but if you\u2019re gonna get confused with a —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> If Crooks left the program would collapse in on itself.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> If you get confused with a CJ, that\u2019s the one you wanna get confused with.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Oh yes, definitely. He is undisputed number one CJ.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So, we\u2019ll start this off with Bryan. What topic – or rather is there a topic – that you\u2019ve always wanted to use for an episode, but you haven\u2019t really found a way to make it work?<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So there\u2019s a topic, and this is gonna get the other guys, I haven\u2019t really discussed this with them —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Ooh!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah! So, there is kind of two halves to the Judge Program. There\u2019s the we want to help everyone out and raise them up and encourage them and then there\u2019s another side effect of that is a lot of people have a false self image of themselves, I guess might not be the right way to say it, but they\u2026 it kind of creates this resistance to negative feedback where there\u2019s this expectation that everything is – if it\u2019s not sunshine and roses, then it can be immediately dismissed. There\u2019s also the if I approach someone on a personal level and talk to them about things, then they can process that and ingest that but if you try and give feedback to certain other people, you meet with resistance. And dealing with that and figuring out where the balance actually is has always been a topic that I kinda wanted to talk about, but I\u2019ve never really been able to figure out how to craft an episode around that because I don\u2019t think it lends itself very well to it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well, that\u2019s a tough topic to talk about, too.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Right. Especially in podcast form, it\u2019s better in a conversation setting. In a podcast, you\u2019ve gotta be, you\u2019ve gotta fully cover it from all the different angles. So yeah, so basically it\u2019s – and the person transcribing this is going to get me speaking a lot of half sentences – because it is very hard to construct a constructive way to talk about it. So it\u2019s been one of these things where I\u2019d really like to talk about it. I don\u2019t know how. I don\u2019t even know if I\u2019m an expert or if I\u2019m qualified to talk about it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Wow, that\u2019s a great answer. An interesting topic and if you ever find out a good way to present that, I\u2019m definitely interested in hearing it, because I think it is something that\u2019s worth talking about.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I feel like we never quite cracked the GP judge tournament report episode. We\u2019ve given it a couple of shots and I just feel like we\u2019ve never quite gotten something that is as interesting as it could be. The first time was very bad, but that was one of the me and Jess, \u201cHey Jess, I think we should have two topics\u201d episodes.That one didn\u2019t work out too well. The second time we tried it, I think it worked out better. But I feel like there\u2019s something that could be of interest there, kind of a day in the life of a judge. But I feel like we haven\u2019t quite cracked it, how to do it well.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> And to be clear, you mean that when one of us has gone to an event and we are describing what happened at that event?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah. Just giving, cause like I said, a lot of our listeners are just players and they don\u2019t really, you know, they see us walking around, but they don\u2019t see what are we doing, right? What\u2019s behind that curtain.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Right. I have a – It would be cool, and we\u2019re not gonna have this opportunity more, but I kinda always had this idea of, if all three of us were at the same event, then we could give our perspectives of the different parts of those events, and I think we got close one episode?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> We did. I remember that, yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> But I think that kind of\u2026 if each of us was doing something very very different, and we were talking about the same event from those different lenses. And now we\u2019ll never get the chance. Because CJ\u2019s —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Get another host.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> What?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Just do it with that host.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Maybe someone who\u2019s really good at talking about their GP tournament experience. Live. I dunno. Something like that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I mean, you\u2019d have to go to a GP, Bryan. I mean, Jess goes to like three times the GPs we go to, so —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I know Jess —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> –It\u2019s kinda hard!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> — Jess is —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> But my schedule has I think\u2026 so far on my schedule for the upcoming year, I plan to be gone at events 22 weekends.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>That\u2019s insane.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> And that\u2019s almost certainly going to increase as things come up and the year goes on.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Moving on from that question to the next, because I think we pretty well spent that one. For all of you, but not all of you have to answer, what do you think of some of the other Magic-related podcasts out there? Are there ones you tune into? Are there ones that you are interested in and like? And for what reasons? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I\u2019ll take this, because I think I probably listen to more of the podcasts. I listen to Limited Resources —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> That\u2019s probably not true.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> What?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> That\u2019s probably not true. I probably listened to more Magic-related podcasts than you do.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Let\u2019s fight!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> –Ok. So Limited Resources —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, I stopped listening to that a while ago.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> — Ok, Constructed Resources when they do episodes —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Really?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> That\u2019s interesting.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Hey, man. I like, you know, I listen to the set reviews, the shows that they do. The level up topics, I think that\u2019s fascinating. I don\u2019t draft a whole lot, but I think it is a fun way to learn about thinking about cards that I might not necessarily be exposed to because I don\u2019t draft. There\u2019s Mark Rosewater\u2019s podcast, Drive to Work, is pretty cool. I listen to Monday Night Magic and The Mana Pool. Both of those I really like. Chewie, he\u2019s a good guy, he\u2019s a good friend, so I like listening to those shows. They\u2019re, especially The Mana Pool, The Mana Pool is specifically\u2026 they celebrate Magic in a way that is different from other podcasts. They don\u2019t necessarily talk about what decks are doing awesome at what events and that kind of thing. They just\u2026 \u201cHey, \u2018member when zombies were cool? Let\u2019s talk about all the cool zombies from Magic\u2019s history.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Pepperidge Farm remembers.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah, Pepperidge Farm remembers. You wanna talk about, \u201cLet\u2019s come up with a card. Let\u2019s go round robin and make a deck about those cards.\u201d They really remember what makes Magic fun outside of events and tournaments. And so, I like that. That\u2019s really appealing to me.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Ok, cool.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I\u2019ll add a couple, really quickly.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> So one I\u2019ve been listening to lately is Unspoken Realms and it\u2019s an audio version of the story. I actually appreciate that a lot because I just found that I didn\u2019t have enough interest to read the story anymore, but I do have enough interest to listen to the story. So that helps me still keep up with it, hoping that one day, it will grab my interest again. Like the next set has Nicol Bolas, I mean, maybe they\u2019ll resolve something with him. If they do that, that would be very interesting to me. So I like that podcast a lot, and I still listen to Random Discard, but they actually don\u2019t really talk about Magic anymore, but I\u2019m a big fan of Aaron LaCluyze and it\u2019s kind of a crime that we never had him on the show. Yet. But he\u2019s kind of falling out of Magic as well, so\u2026 We may have missed our chance there. So at this point, Random Discard just kind of talks about random topics, but —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>And then discards them?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yes. But they were originally called Card Advantage, but then there\u2019s this store here in Georgia that also has that name and there was confusion and all that stuff.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I actually until this moment did not realize they were in no way related.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So Jess, do you have anything to add? Do you have any podcasts you listen to?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I do have podcasts I listen to. I don\u2019t actually listen to many Magic podcasts, though, so I don\u2019t really have much to add in this\u2026 for that answer.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: So sticking with you, Jess, because I know the answer to this one, do you play competitive Magic? What are your favorite formats to play, and do they differ from your favorite formats to judge? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I do play competitive Magic. That\u2019s how I got into judging, I really enjoyed the competitive Magic scene and I wanted to help make it better. And I still play when I have the opportunity. When I\u2019m able to, I go to team events. I love playing with the team that I\u2019ve grown accustomed to playing with and my favorite formats are Limited and Modern. I enjoy Drafting, Sealed is a bit of a\u2026 I don\u2019t like Sealed as much. I do like Sealed, but not as much as Drafting. Team Sealed is great because you have so much fun. It\u2019s also much more skill testing than regular Sealed. And do they differ from my favorite formats to judge? Well, I don\u2019t really have favorite formats to judge. I hear that question a lot. Like, \u201cwhat are you favorite formats to judge?\u201d And I don\u2019t really understand it because judging is judging, right? Like I guess there are formats where certain interactions are more likely to come up. Maybe you want to do Legacy because weird stuff happens. Or maybe you wanna you know, judge —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Commander because weirder stuff happens.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Nah, that\u2019s just\u2026 no, no. I want —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Two-Headed Giant?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> — as little to do with Commander as I can get away with. In any capacity. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I have played Commander. Anyway, I do enjoy judging non-Standard events more. I don\u2019t dislike Standard, but Standard tends, in recent years, to be considered \u201csolved\u201d relatively quickly, and the format tends to become stale. And this leads to a lot of repeat questions. People ask you the same thing over and over and over again. And the first few times, it\u2019s great because you know the answer, and after that you\u2019re just like, I feel like you guys should know this by now. But obviously, they shouldn\u2019t have because it\u2019s not the same person asking you again.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah. That\u2019s a skill you have to work on. Not getting annoyed. Cause it\u2019s not that person\u2019s fault they don\u2019t know.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah, players don\u2019t really like it when you roll your eyes at them after they ask a question. That\u2019s bad customer service, generally speaking.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It\u2019s also often not questions that actually come up very often. It\u2019s like, \u201cBut if I cast Emrakul and then I make him cast Emrakul on his turn, what happens?\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cThis has never happened to you. I know this has never happened to you.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>But they wanna know. Isn\u2019t it what you\u2019re here for?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> And it\u2019s fine! And I answer them, and we all have a good time. But I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve been asked that question way more times than it\u2019s actually happened at events that I\u2019ve been at.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Right. Right. Bryan, CJ, do you guys play competitive Magic or, I mean, CJ, the answer to this question obviously is diminished from possibly what it was like in the past.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I never play competitive Magic. I\u2019ve played in I dunno, two PPTQs. That\u2019s it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well, that\u2019s not never.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I don\u2019t play competitive Magic.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> And I only play Sealed.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Ok.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I like Limited. I used to Draft with my friends a lot.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> So I played competitive back in the mid-90s and I uh —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> And then they invented fire.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> — and then they invented fire. No, I played competitively when, you know, Type 2 was new. That kind of thing. And I didn\u2019t like it. I was decent at it. I did well. I put up good numbers. But I don\u2019t like playing the same deck over and over and over again. I kind of look at it as, I see Magic as, you know, thousands and thousands of different cards, why would I want to constrain myself to the same 60 for six rounds, eight rounds, nine rounds? Why would I want to do that? So I am a much bigger fan of Commander as a format and my favorite way to play though is actually 60-card Constructed free-for-all multi-player casual, you know, anything goes, you know, build your deck and you know, have fun. So that\u2019s my preferred way to play if I wanna build a ninja deck or if I wanna build a rocs deck or something like that. That\u2019s the way I want to play. Unfortunately, Commander, at least in this area, kinda killed that off. Everybody wanted to play Commander. So I\u2019ve adapted, you know. I\u2019ll play Commander, and it\u2019s fun and you get a buncha group of people and you see a bunch of weird, crazy, wacky things, and that\u2019s what I enjoy about the game. So that\u2019s what I do. I don\u2019t\u2026 uh, I\u2019ll Draft if I Draft, I Draft and then I might play a game and then I\u2019ll leave. You know, I\u2019ll play in Prereleases, but, you know. And then I\u2019ll stick around until I get my packs, but definitely not anything where I gotta sit and play the same deck over and over again.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Bryan, if Magic died tomorrow, nobody plays the game anymore, would you still record some kind of podcast? Do you enjoy the experience as it sits? And if you would, what would it be about? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Huh.. probably not, just because at this particular point in time, working full time, single dad\u2026Magic, if Magic disappeared I\u2019d probably find something else to occupy that time. I probably wouldn\u2019t podcast.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I mean, I get that it\u2019s It\u2019s a hypothetical question.The truth is if wizards shut down tomorrow Magic would continue to be played for 20 or 30 more years. That\u2019s the interesting thing about it. But, can I jump into this topic?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Because I\u2019m facing this. One thing that I never expected is that podcasting would become my hobby as well. In fact, before we started JudgeCast, I thought podcasting was pretty stupid. I thought podcasts were pretty stupid. I just didn\u2019t understand it. I just didn\u2019t get it. Except for JudgeCast. I liked JudgeCast. It\u2019s the only one I listened to at the start. It was my gateway drug. Since then, I listen to a ton of podcasts now. It\u2019s actually all I listen to. I\u2019ve completely turned around on that. I really enjoy podcasting. And I\u2019m going to miss podcasting…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So you might, in fact, pick up a podcast if you found a new passion?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah. I just don\u2019t know what it could be. I\u2019m not going to lie I\u2019ve been trying to glom onto other podcasts. I\u2019ve been trying to get onto Random Discard. Even some Eternal, the card game not the format, podcasts. I\u2019ve been like \u2018 hey, uh, you guys need anything there? Unfortunately the Eternal rules niche, it doesn\u2019t really need to be filled. Not with an ongoing series. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve been loving that game. I\u2019m listening to two podcasts about it, now.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Jess, do you have anything to add?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t think so. It\u2019s a weird contrived situation that Magic might go away tomorrow. Because it\u2019s not. Right now it\u2019s making money. Maybe not making as much money as it might have in the last couple years. But if you look at it over the last decade it\u2019s just exploded. And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going away anytime soon. I think it would be more likely that something happened in the podcast world that made it harder. If something happened, that I just couldn\u2019t, for whatever reason, that I couldn\u2019t be doing JudgeCast anymore, I would love to be involved in a podcast, but it would also have to be with people that I actually want to do it with. A lot of the appeal of doing JudgeCast, for me, is not just that I get to do it with two awesome friends of mine, but also that I get to do it for a community of people that I really care about. For magic judges and people interested in magic rules, which is important to me. I think that it would hard for me to find a topic that could match that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Alright, I\u2019ve been really, really excited to get the answer to this question, \u2018cause I got to know and it\u2019s been bothering me for a while. Where did your intro song come from? What is it? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I can answer that. It\u2019s called Seed, by Carbon Leaf. I can add a link to the youtube of it in the show notes. I don\u2019t know anything about this band. I know Sean Catanese got permission to use this song when he started up JudgeCast. We\u2019ve always had this as our theme. But when Sean and Riki and Jose were doing the show, they actually changed their theme quite a bit it\u2019s just that, this theme is the theme that it was in the episode right before we took over. So this is what became the theme. But they actually changed it very often.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>So, is it a fair use thing, now? Or did the permission just sorta carry over with the name of the cast?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah I mean permission went to JudgeCast.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know man. Don\u2019t start to ask legal questions. I think it was always\u2026 I don\u2019t think you had to have permission for this particular\u2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> We\u2019re gonna say Yes and… yeah….<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Alright. Well if you guys get anything from Carbon Leaf let me know.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Alright, only a couple questions left guys. We\u2019ve powered through this pretty well. This next one, I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s going to go anywhere, but do you have any plans to expand what your group does, I guess this is mostly for Jess and Bryan, beyond the podcast, like any kind of JudgeCast-hosted events? A stream of one of you going on MTGO and doing something? Anything like that? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> We\u2019ve talked about having like a JudgeCast L1 class or a JudgeCast L2 class or policy stuff, and it\u2019s always been – or even just doing a Patreon and putting out the before-show chatter – and it\u2019s never panned out. We have plans to have plans, and that\u2019s about as far as it goes because we\u2019re all busy in other projects, in other aspects, and I think at this particular point in time in order to do more with JudgeCast we would have to give something up. And at this particular point it is easier to not start something new than to give up something that you\u2019re already doing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure. Jess, do you have anything to add to that?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> We\u2019ve talked a LOT about the possible things that we could do, and we\u2019ve come up with a lot of really good ideas. The problem is that they all require a lot more work and the vast majority of them don\u2019t offer anything to us in return. And I\u2019m not trying to make that sound greedy. What I\u2019m saying is that we\u2019re already doing something at a little bit of an expense, and we don\u2019t really want to do more than that at the same expense. So if we could turn this into something – and JudgeCast, let me be clear, the JudgeCast podcast is always going to remain a free resource for people, we have no intention of charging people for it – but if we could turn this into something where we actually did make enough to cover our expenses, we would be WAY more inclined to actually go \u201chey, how can we expand this?\u201d Does that make sense?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Sure, but could you do, for example, like host a tournament and proceeds go to supporting JudgeCast? Something to that effect?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s a really good idea.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah, I don\u2019t think that we\u2019ve talked about that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever considered that. We\u2019d definitely have to figure out the fine details of that. But I think it\u2019s a really good idea, maybe that\u2019s something we can consider doing in the future.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>You could possibly get some judges who are enthusiastic about it to help you out with that endeavor. Just something to think about.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: Last question, that I have down on my prepared sheet, at least. Where do you guys see the future of JudgeCast? What would you like to see happen over the next year, with respect to JudgeCast? <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I would like to hear CJ\u2019s answer to this question.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Haha, yes!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yes! I would as well!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> It would be great if we could get some of those other things off the ground. The problem is it\u2019s work to do things that will make it less work. Y\u2019know, you have to do the work up front. I remember we all met once, and we all sat over lunch, and the plan was we were gonna talk about Patreon or whatever. And then we just talked about other stuff, \u2018cause that\u2019s what we want to do! We just want to talk about other stuff. We want to do the podcast, and then we want to talk about other stuff. Fun things. But it would be great to see those get off the ground. Actually, I think Jess talked about it in our year-end episode. I think it\u2019s prime opportunity to see a lot more guests come on. I think we got a little too stuck in a rut, \u2018cause it\u2019s easy for us three to just show up and cover a topic. But bringing on guests really helps for bringing on even more experience and different – I don\u2019t know the word – I guess experience.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Perspectives.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Perspectives, yeah, that\u2019s a good word.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah, you talked about bringing on lesser-known people, people whose name isn\u2019t out there as much. I think that\u2019s a really good idea.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, beyond that I just wanna – it better keep going.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

{laughter}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Is that threat?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> Or WHAT, CJ?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Or we restart up JudgeCast North! And I run that!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> You live, like, fifteen miles north of me.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yes, and I\u2019m north of Bryan too.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Jess, do we need to see if we can actually make him make good on that threat?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

{laughter}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> No, that\u2019s alright.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>And then you guys jump onto JudgeCast North, and it\u2019s just the three of you again.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> No, I look forward to adding it to my subscriptions and becoming a listener.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> It\u2019s not on your subscriptions now?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t\u2026 why would it be?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> We actually did, several years ago, we talked about some other – like hosting other podcasts under the JudgeCast umbrella. That was an idea. There were some other podcasts that were starting up and we were like \u201chey, this might be kind of a cool thing\u201d do like a podcast network. I\u2019m actually gonna say I\u2019m glad we didn\u2019t, because those podcasts didn\u2019t last. It is actually very very difficult to produce content every other week in a consistent manner, on a consistent basis. A lot of people say \u201coh, we can do this, we can do this\u201d and then you get four episodes in, five episodes in and there\u2019s a point where it stops being all fun and games and there starts being a heavy \u201cwork\u201d component, and you start realizing that \u201coh, well, I can\u2019t just say ehh, we don\u2019t do it on this Tuesday night, we\u2019ll do it on Wednesday, and if we can\u2019t do it on Wednesday we\u2019ll do it on Thursday, and if we can\u2019t do it on Thursday oh I guess we just miss a week.\u201d But there are some ideas. We might bring contests back. There\u2019s always been some little neat things, I\u2019ve always had this concept of \u201cJudgeTales\u201d in the back of my head where we get where we get listeners to send {musical interlude of a portion of the DuckTales theme song} where we get judges to send in, like, a thirty-second story, and then we splice them all together and have that be an episode. That\u2019s kinda one of the things that —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>That\u2019s a really cool idea.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s also a lot of\u2026 work.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nCJ:<\/strong> Yeah, that\u2019s a lot of work.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>That seems to be a recurring theme with all of this.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> I mean, it might happen one quarter after an Exemplar wave ends<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> To be honest, I think the theme is that we have grown very content with what JudgeCast is and what it does. And it\u2019s okay for us to get a little bit outside of that comfort zone, but we don\u2019t want to push ourselves outside of that comfort zone to the point where now it is so much work we don\u2019t want to do it. Because we really love JudgeCast. We don\u2019t want it to stop because it became a labor instead of something we love.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> Right. There was a phrase I used in college a lot, which is \u201cI have so much work to do, I\u2019m not gonna do any of it.\u201d And we don\u2019t want that to happen with JudgeCast.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Well, Jess do you have anything else to add about what you\u2019d like to see for the future of JudgeCast?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s actually been discussed really well. I think I would love to see it expand. If I get both the time and the motivation to really dig into that maybe I will and maybe we\u2019ll have something extra in the future, but in the immediate future I wanna see Bryan and I be able to make JudgeCast work sans CJ.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nBryan:<\/strong> You almost said \u201cMake JudgeCast great again,\u201d didn\u2019t you?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJess:<\/strong> I did almost say \u201cMake JudgeCast great again,\u201d but then I went with something alternative.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

{some measure of groaning, then laughter}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob: <\/strong>Yeah, that does sound like that\u2019s going to be a bit of a challenge, and it\u2019s probably good to have that focus right now.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n

The Judge of the Week Project would like to thank the hosts of JudgeCast for their time participating in this interview. If you are interested in listening to more episodes of JudgeCast, you can tune in every other Thursday at judgecast.com<\/a> to catch the latest episodes.<\/p>\n

Check back with us next week for another exciting edition of Judge of the Week, as well as the answer to Nemesio Alejandro Bola\u00f1os’\u00a0Two Truths and a Lie!<\/p>\n

If there is a judge who is also doing something exemplary, please nominate a judge\u00a0TODAY!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s edition showcases the complete transcription of JudgeCast Episode #166, which was a Judge of the Week special interview of JudgeCast hosts Bryan Prillaman, CJ Shrader, and Jess Dunks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":6929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"language":[],"class_list":["post-6835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judge-of-the-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6835"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6916,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions\/6916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6835"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=6835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}