Judging, Constantly

I recently regained my level 1s for Judging. The last major event I was at before that was head judging a PTQ something. One of the players got DQ'd by myself and my back up of judges, for "lying to a tournament official" based on the information he'd provided regarding his method of shuffling. The pain of the experience, for all involved, sticks as pointedly in my mind as does my own first win in a three player game back in high school during lunch.

I hadn't judged for two years since, but it wasn't the event itself that caused the absence. I'd personally had enough of the drama of judging, which is really the hardboiling of everything you do and don't get respected for, or taken seriously. The problem players, the grateful judges, the feeling good about learning good leadership/organisation skills plus, and mostly of all, the lack of playing a very fun game.

So I left the game, played much more often, and still sucked just as hard. For some reason in the recent year my game has picked up wonderfully, and I've returned to judging. A main reason is to experience new sets without putting money down, being a povo uni student. The better playing is just because I'm a great deal better then I was.

The funny thing about this Yeah, Constantly update is how a judge [or myself] views a new set coming out. Rather then what new cards are about, I'm interested in what new interactions are going to break my games, which questions I'll have to answer time and time again, and guessing [with 75% win] which cards are going to need errata. Walking Atlas, for example, was a no-brainer.

Seeing the new Eldrazi was particularly fun, as everyone leapt to possible solutions to these monsters. You can Terror them, but not Emrakul. You can couterspell them, but you'll still give 3 cards, vindicate or an extra turn to your opponent. Though I found a card which deals with Eldrazi, abilities and all:

Time Stop

Knowing the rules and how to truly mess around with the cards is the extra delicious that comes with being a judge. Of course we're wrong at times, or inaccurate, but we're essential to run the tournaments. Other then that, we're also tooling around with the extra section of Magic the casual players seem to miss -- the nuts and bolts.

/judge rant.