As many of you know, Judges are important to Magic (more specifically, tournament Magic usually). The Tournament Organizer hires us to make sure things run smoothly; we answer rules questions, help settle disagreements and disputes over how a certain thing works. We enforce those rules, set up the venue, and tear it down when all is done. I was asked this question about four times during the prerelease: “How do I become a Judge?”<\/p>\n
It’s a fairly painless process! The first thing you should do is talk to a Judge near you. It helps if they’re a Level 2 or higher judge (level 2s can certify brand new L1s). If you honestly have no idea where to even start looking for a Judge, you can follow this link (http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/TCG\/Events.aspx?x=judge\/resources\/coords) to find your Regional Coordinator. These are higher level Judges who coordinate all the judges in their region; if you get in touch with them, they’ll be happy to help get YOU in touch with L2s near you to begin the process.<\/p>\n
So, now you’re talking to an L2 and starting the process. What can you expect? A few things. First it helps if you’ve played in DCI sanctioned tournaments before, so you understand their structure from the player-side. You’ll also need to know the rules! If you’re worried your knowledge isn’t up to snuff, don’t be. You aren’t expected to be L1 ready the moment you think about judging; your L2 mentor’s job is to help you prepare for the test, not just to test you. You also need to work 2 sanctioned events as a Judge (you can work as a judge without certification, it’s just tougher to get work), preferably with your mentor helping\/watching. This is so we can gauge how you operate during an actual tournament, and how well you can take directions. These events needn’t be big; it can be a 16 man GPT, or a simple FNM.<\/p>\n
So, you think your rules knowledge is good enough, and so does your mentor. You’ve worked 2 (or more) events, and you both think you’re good. What now? Now the L2 is going to give you an interview, from which he or she will write a review. The interview is mostly to get a feel for your personality, maturity, how well you deal with people, etc. Remember: Judging is a customer service job at its core. Once you’ve passed the interview, you’ll be given a written exam over the rules and a policy document called Judging at Regular. Assuming you pass this exam, congrats! You’re now a Level 1 Judge.<\/p>\n
I hope this post was helpful to some of you looking to become Judges, and if any of you are on the fence, I recommend taking the leap. Joining the Judge program is one of the best things I’ve ever done; I’ve made lots of friends all over the world, and been surrounded by wonderful and caring people. It’s also a ton of fun, and I hope this post inspires some people to head down the path to L1.<\/p>\n
Today’s Tip Written by Trevor Nunez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As many of you know, Judges are important to Magic (more specifically, tournament Magic usually). The Tournament Organizer hires us to make sure things run smoothly; we answer rules questions, help settle disagreements and disputes over how a certain thing works. We enforce those rules, set up the venue, and tear it down when all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-3543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3543"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4573,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543\/revisions\/4573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3543"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=3543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}