1. JUDGING
NOT JUST RUNNING EVENTS
JAC K DOY L E
L E V E L 3 , UNI T ED K INGDOM

2. WHO I AM
 A judge who often does not focus on events as the core of judging.
 Involved in many projects, such as:
 Judge Booth.
 Official Resources Blog.
 Magic Judges Facebook Page.
 Believes that judges can add more to their event skills by working on things outside of
events.
 Native English speaker who forgets that he speaks too fast!

3. WHO YOU ARE (HOPEFULLY)
 Hopefully, uncertified or newly certified Level 1s.
 You’re interested in judging, have maybe done some events, but don’t know what
else the judge programme can offer you.
 Maybe you’re looking at progressing towards Level 2, but the Level 3s around you
haven’t really seen that much of you.
 This seminar should give you some insights into how you can improve all of that,
and how you can jump in at the deep end!

4. WHAT WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT
 Hard and soft skills: what they are and why they are important.
 Becoming a better event judge by harnessing soft skills.
 Involvement in projects.
 Involvement in the local and international judge community.
 Networking.
 Improving yourself as a judge via all of the above.

5. HARD SKILLS
 Hard Skills are often what judges are strong at.
 They passed tests to become a judge, which tests their rules knowledge and their
policy knowledge.
 They judge lot of events, which improves their interaction with players.
 They also learn tournament procedures such as deck checks and end of round
procedure.

6. SOFT SKILLS
 Soft skills - judges often lack them from the start, and come with experience.
Examples include empathy with players and understanding philosophy behind our
documents.
 Often “optional” things connected to events, such as writing reviews and writing
tournament reports.
 Starting to be explicitly required for progression to Level 2.
 Much broader and less concrete than hard skills.

7. SOFT SKILLS –CONT.
 Soft skills improve your events.
 As mentioned, reviews, and reports fall under these.
 Reviews bring feedback to specific judges.
 Reports bring education to the local or international communities.
 Philosophy => important to set players at ease (appeals).
 Soft-skills-oriented judges fall back on experience from outside events.

8. INVOLVEMENT IN THE JUDGE COMMUNITY

9. LOCAL COMMUNITIES
 Local communities are places you can get involved with judges around you –
peers, mentors, and aspiring judges.
 They are on-demand – busy if you want them to be.
 Regional forums (JudgeApps or external), Facebook groups, mailing lists.
 Give you access to learning materials.
 Local conferences.

10. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES
 ‘Official’ channels, like JudgeApps.
 High traffic
 Find what you enjoy and stick with it.
 Social Media
 Rules Tips Blog Twitter Feed (@MTGRulesTips)
 Magic Judges Twitter (@MagicJudges)
 Magic Judges Facebook (/magicjudges)

11. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES – CONT.
 Blogs
 Policy and philosophy – Toby Elliott (/telliott)
 Regular REL – Kim Warren (/regular)
 Many more at tinyurl.com/judgeblogs
 Articles
 Experts discussing topics that they’re passionate about – that could be you!
 IRC
 Judges who devote a lot of time and effort to answer rules and policy questions of others.

13. PROJECTS!
 Projects are a personal enjoyment of mine in the judge programme.
 You can make your own mark on areas of the programme.
 You can do what you enjoy!
 Coding, communication with others, interviews for Judge of the Week
 Know that others are going to use your tools to learn and teach is a great feeling.
 Something missing that you know you could do? “Create a Project!”

14. PROJECTS- CONT.
 You don’t have to specifically join a project to make things work.
 If you want to write an article, write an article.
 Talk to your local judges, especially Level 3s and RCs, if you have an idea they will
know how to help you (if they can’t themselves).
 If you’re interacting in the community, international or local, you will notice that
you’re quickly improving because of the different opinions you have access to.
 Level 5s on your doorstep! ;)

15. NETWORKING
 The last thing we’re going to cover is networking - talking to other judges!
 Use your experiences here at the conference to meet other judges from different
regions.
 They have different ways of doing things, and different ways of thinking about
things.
 I’ve learned a lot of incredibly useful things by hanging out in the bar at GPs.
 The programme is a cult of self improvement – we just run events on the side.

16. THANKS FOR LISTENING!
 If you have any questions you want to ask me, feel free to come and talk to me
afterwards.
 If you have an idea, but don’t know who to tell – ask me, I’ll be able to direct you!
 Thanks to all of you who took part!
Jack Doyle
scryus@gmail.com - @scryus – facebook.com/scryus