MtG Judge: The Slow Creep

"The Hand of Justice will come to cleanse the world if we are true."

—Oliver Farrel



Recently, it was announced the once venerated MtG judge, is now going to be employees (wait, we can't use the E word anymore), I meant associates to a new program, the Judge Academy, which is a for-profit Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scheme, lead by Tim Shields, owner of Cascade Games. It comes complete with yearly membership fee's (400 bucks to be a level 3, 100 bucks to be a level 1), which I guess technically makes them no longer volunteers? Then again in reality, they haven't truly been volunteers in sometime.

Back in 2014, I went to my last official YGO event up in Purdue, where I decided I'd do some trades and run Vampires. I got stomped, hard, and by the second half of the event, was in the back table with the old foggys and children. I was sitting back there doing trades, when word got out I play Magic, and for some reason, YGO players always over value Magic cards.

It was around this time, a beast more stomach than man walks up and sits down, we start with a pleasant conversation, and then he mentions his friend is going to give him a cheat sheet so he can become a Magic Judge ("and earn the big bucks"). YGO Judges are often compensated with things like lunch and most recent product, not like the small gravy train of shiny cardboard known as Judge rewards. I ask him "Do you play Magic?", which he responds "No". I simply look him in the eye and tell him "Don't do it, do something else with your time". This started a long conversation where I'd say how he didn't know the players, didn't know the game, and thus he shouldn't be a judge.

"The last thing the community needs is another self righteous twat, making incorrect judge calls, holding those around them in contempt, and are ultimately there for a profit"--Me (maybe not in those exact words)

The two children who were sitting next to me waiting for me to finish a trade looked on in shock, because this sort of argument, which was becoming increasingly common in Magic, is practically unheard of in Yu-Gi-Oh, a game where even major tournaments are rewarded with cardboard, and complaints to Konami about making it 'more prestigious' are met with 'it's a children's card game'. In the last few years, as predicted, a number of controversies has followed the judges. Accusations of pedophilia, questionable (sometimes completely wrong) judge rulings, accusations of bribery and favor,  being shills, and probably the most damning of all, a lawsuit about employment.

So, how did it go from being a local hero and a volunteer to the mess that is this, well, like all things, we need to go back to the beginning.



The Duelist Convocation International (DCI) was launched in late '93 as a sort of rules advisor for MtG. They promised these rules would only be held for official events, and promised for the home game, to play Magic however you want. Soon though, their recommendations became law of sorts, and most play groups played by their standards. Interestingly enough, originally, the DCI was outside Wizards of the Coast and was largely independent from them in the 90's, but worked hand and hand with WotC. While swag certainly existed, in the format of products, clothing, even paid meals! Certainly it was exciting. With the rise of the Protour in the second half of the 90's, judges became even more important, and the growth for them was needed.

An interesting note in an attempt to get new players, was the creation of the Guru Program. A guru was essentially a rules advisor, and the program could allow for Guru's, who taught new players, to get special promotional products, the most famous of these, the Guru Lands, which is currently the most expensive basic lands in the game.

"Dear Guru,

It is with heavy hearts that we inform you that the Guru program is being discontinued, effective immediately. This is largely due to the fact that beginning this summer, Wizards of the Coast, Inc. is launching the Magic: The Gathering® Academy. The new program will run in Magic® retail locations throughout North America. From beginning game play to deckbuilding, the Magic Academy promises to fulfill the goals of the Guru program and profoundly expand upon them.

The Guru program was very effective in exposing thousands of people to the Magic game. We truly appreciate that part of the enjoyment of being a Guru was derived from teaching friends how to play the Magic game, and we hope you will continue to do that. And as always, Wizards of the Coast will still run all the immensely popular Magic leagues, tournaments, and other organized-play programs.

We thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely

Wizards of the Coast"--Email sent in 2/21/01

The Ambassador Program that would replace this would be discontinued in under a year. 

In 1998, the first Judge Promo was released, the now heavily coveted foil Lightning Bolt. This was followed up with cards like Gaea's Cradle, Vampiric Tutor, and Stroke of Genius, along with less valuable, but equally historically important tournament cards like Oath of Druids, Memory Lapse, Dissipate, and Hammer of Bogardan. 

These were but an ever increasing amount of series of promo's released in the late 90's, and early 2000's, including Arena Promo's (not to be confused with the recent mobile game), JSS, and most famously, FNM Promo's (these are in a lot of ways the foil of Judge Promos).

However, these were still largely random, they weren't announced ahead of time, and some were exclusive to events, (the first mail in promo was Memory Lapse, which was also available as a store promo in 07). However, the one that really took off the idea of Judge Foils, was none other then, ironically enough, Balance. 

It starts!

Thanks to the early fledgling days of social media, rounds of this card image started making it all over the Internet, and there was a renewed interesting in the possibility of becoming a judge. It's influence on the concept of both judge promo's, and the idea that judges could be compensated with cardboard, that in a pinch could be sold off, can't be understated. 

Rob Castellon "Princess Buttercup" shows off his judge tattoo.

This largely continued this way, with promo's being received at tournaments, until 2014, with the creation of the "Exemplar Program. One of the goals of the EP was to extend the reach of judge gifts, as well as to encourage peer to peer recognition of fellow judges. I'm positive this was done with the best intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

"If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it must be a short walk"--MAD

I believe,personally, this is around the time the "sociopaths" entered, as well as certain cult of personalities started to pop up, around various judges. It's around the time that I had the conversation at the top of the article, and when Judge foils started to become a big business. You started to get players who weren't familiar with the intricacies of the rules, in positions that require them. You started (allegedly) getting back room deals done for what amounts to shiny cardboard. Now this, I'll admit weren't all judges, but it was an open secret. 

Now remember FNM promo's? Yeah, they sort of had the opposite effect. They started off as good, well off cards, as well as iconic cards, that were good, but not terrible expensive. Thinks like Flametongue Kavu, Counterspell, Disenchant, Remand, Mogg Fanatic. So on, and so forth. They slowly got worse as time went on, eventually being phased out with foil tokens, before coming back, before being replaced with packs.

Prerelease promo's use to showcase some of the best cards in it's respective set. Cards like Emrakul, Shelly, Wurmcoil Engine, Beast of Burden, Dragon Broodmother, Sun Titan, ect. Eventually it was decided this was counterproductive, and instead, pre-release promo's become one of several dollar rare cards, before finally being randomized as any rare (or in special cases, certain uncommons) in a given set.

Textless player rewards were cut entirely.

The first real cut at the seems between Judges and WotC when in 2015, a large leak happened, which allowed for a number of cards, as well as the colorless mana symbol, to be leaked all over the internet. Sure, this happened when a pro-player deliberately leaked the entire New Phyrexia God Book. However, being a pro-player and journalist, their wasn't much WotC could do.

In 2015, an 18 year old Magic Judge, Paul Vale (someone to young to have been a judge very long) filed a lawsuit, claiming that being a judge made him an employee of WotC, and thus he should be paid and receive benefits. This was dismissed by WotC, and a judge dismissed it as well, but Vale could file again, though as far as I know, he hasn't.

Smelling blood in the water, judges Adam Shaw, Peter Golightly, Justin Turner, and Joshua Stansfield, along with 109 other plaintiff's, filed a class action lawsuit in 2016. Though this was also eventually thrown out, these two cases were enough to get many companies to end their 'volunteer programs', including WotC own D&D Organized Play Program.

Most controversial, was when Hambly, released a trump card after his untimely ban (which he claimed was for political reason, and which I'm not getting into), that numerous judges were sexual predators. Instead of an immediate response, their was silence, and it tarnished both judges to WotC, WotC to certain factions of the player base, and the player base, to the judges. 

Magic 4 Bad fan card from my set 'Uninteresting'.

"First off, these lawsuits are without merit. To reiterate what was said in the press release, with the exception of the Pro Tour, the World Magic Cup, and the Magic World Championship, Magic events are run by tournament organizers and local game stores who directly engage judges. But these lawsuits claim that Wizards runs all events and that the people judging those events are Wizards employees. We all know this isn't how things work.

Second, this changes nothing with regard to our support of the Magic community and organized play. We will continue to be focused on our mission to bring people together through their shared love of Magic."--Helene Bergeot, A Message to the Magic Community, 4/20/2016 (ironic date tbh).

This brings us to the present. After 25 years of success, the DCI/WPN/Arena/JP/whatever is finally being closed. While it wasn't a perfect system, despite it's human flaws it was more than adequate, and it did it's job relatively well. The Judge rank system actually kept people in check, the appeal process could help someone learn the rules, and while I'm certainly not defending it, I will admit Magic might not be around today if not for it. 

The Judge Academy, is a for profit company run by a man named Tim Shields, a man who sold is power, to get this started up, and to be in charge of the entire company. Just like the previous system, a long written test is required in order to become a RA or higher (which the good news is, they brought back the RA), requires a fee. A yearly fee, which aren't union dues, but simply allow you to do it for less than free. 

1. RA: Free or $50.00
2. Level 1: $100.00
3. Level 2: $200.00
4. Level 4: $400.00

"While the joke may be that everything is going to “kill magic”, I’ve learned over the years that nothing can stop the Judge Community. We are an organic and ever changing community, and the fact that we change with the times, adapt to the future, and continue moving forward, is what makes Magic Judges so amazing. We have been through Program Changes, New World Orders, NEW New World Orders, and who knows what else. There will be a transition period, but I am so excited for what the future of judging will bring to this game, and the community of Judges I care so much about."--Nicolette Apraez, Welcome to the Judge Academy!

Though it's too early to see how it works, the idea of Judge Academy has been compared to a pyramid scheme, but instead of getting money back that you've invested, you are getting special cardboard. I can't tell you how well this will work, since only time will tell, but we will see starting October 1st.

 

From a rather infamous podcast, (Judgecast 232), he talks about how it was rushed together, and it seems WotC was rushing them. Perhaps WotC wanted out of the judges as quickly as possible. Nicolette up there mentions she just finished moving to Portland earlier that day, and ideally they would have had a year, a year and a half to prepare for this move. They also made fun of Reddit, when during their AMA, user Ubernorstrom asked a series of hard hitting questions. I wish I had a screen cap of them. They deleted their thread, a literal delete fucking everything move.

"I don't know how we're going to ship foils into Eastern Europe yet"--Tim Shields.

Back in the old days of the Internet, the joke was, "They do it for Free" in terms of moderation. This came to a full meme on 4chan with the image of the Janitor from Arthur. This naturally extended to Judges, when I would say on occasion, usually for a response "you do it for free". I can't say that anymore. They do it for less then free. 

The worst part is, this was caused by a number of outsiders, who wanted a job that didn't require manual labor, a bunch of virtue signalling asshates, and a change in tech to jump on a new fad. I hope you are happy you sociopaths.