MTG thread

LOL wages. They have gone to GREAT lengths to ensure that we are not, in any way, employees. I wouldn't want to be. I do this stuff for fun. Judging compensates me about 1/10 as well as my actual job, or just freelancing, and we never go near WotC. It's always the local TO, or at most StarCity, who pays us like independent contractors. The stipend barely covers travel costs most of the time.

Punko_sl said:

does US have a site like magiccardmarket btw?

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Not exactly like it, no. We have market aggregators but they're basically online bazaars.

You can definitely find some good value in arbitrage across national lines. I've bought stuff in the UK before that was much cheaper to have shipped from overseas because the market there hadn't caught up yet. It's especially good for foreign language printing countries like Japan, where English versions can fetch a premium.

I judge for fun. Then I bitch on the internet incessantly. Seems weird.

Drtyrm_sl said:

I judge for fun. Then I bitch on the internet incessantly. Seems weird.

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I've been bitching on the Internet a lot longer. Old habits die hard.

Posted more on reddit since I saw your post last night than I have in months Heylel. Mostly in response to judges to god damn stupid to realize it affects them even though they may not be directly involved. Fuck the pussies who only give a shit about how this makes it hard for them and not about the piss poor clusterfuck of a situation that WotC have purposely made judging into.

I really hope shit keeps escalating over this until WotC not only apologizes to the entire community for how they handled things but comes up with a public plan to prevent this kind of issue from happening again.

WotC will apologize for nothing. They'll just shut up about it, and in 2 weeks we'll have previews weeks and the prerelease/release weeks and everyone outside of the affected stores will forget it even happened and all the internets ill-will will have vanished to be replaced with bitching about Black_Uncommon_32. See vegas bannings, community "rallying" around RancoredElf during the suit, rapist lawyer banning, see basically anything else that should have been awkward for their PR. They've got a quarterly bad-PR reset button.

Except that the judges, if they coordinate, actually have leverage over WotC. WotC can't run tournaments without them.

Xalara_sl said:

Except that the judges, if they coordinate, actually have leverage over WotC. WotC can't run tournaments without them.

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This is what I "hope" makes the difference. That WotC keeps stone walling and doubling down on their story that these guys were part of a malicious leak conspiracy thats been going on for... a very vague period of time. At least until they piss off the folks who make the judge program the effective and necessary program that it is. Like the guy who runs(ran) magicjudges.org. Good fucking luck shutting your mouth and hoping it all goes away in a few weeks when people like that put on their big boy pants and say "fuck that".

Should he have that kind of power? Probably not but the fact he does is entirely WotC's fault. Just like I feel that the fact it's down is WotC's fault. They are so hands off of their own fucking cash cow that members of the community had to step up to make it work at all much less grow into what MTG is today. He's not involved but seeing how his peers have been treated probably makes him wonder if all that time and effort is really worthwhile if he's going to be treated the same way. The man did what he does for the players, his peers, and himself because he had a passion for their product. He didn't do shit because of WotC. WotC very much shit where they eat with this.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to base their livelihood on the participation of people whose livelihood isn't based on the game. It's a bad idea to piss off your players. It's a much worse idea to shit on the small devoted community within them who kinda makes the whole thing work to begin with and can tell WotC to go fuck themselves any time they decide enough is enough.

I think someone once told Sony they had 14 days to address an issue. It made some pretty big waves. The people who make the judge program what it is have a lot more power than Alex ever did(in reality, his head not so sure there. Loved the guy but he had his faults.). It's just up to them to use it if they decide that themselves or their peers being treated this way is an unacceptable possibility. Because WotC will have fuck all options beyond coming to the table to address it until the people who control organized play have been satisfied and honestly that's not going to be possible for some no matter what they do.

If nothing else I'm going to rabble rouse in r/mtgjudge until I'm banned(Doubtful. Lot of respect for the folks in charge there even if I think a couple are dicks) or there's no longer a rabble to rouse.

The people who control Organized Play = WotC. Don't fool yourself into this narrative please.

Drtyrm_sl said:

The people who control Organized Play = WotC. Don't fool yourself into this narrative please.

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Control yes. Make possible in it's current form, no. They have every right to do what they did. They could even treat every judge who questions the decision the same way. But they might want to figure out how they want to completely restructure competitive play as a concept before doing so.

If every judge in the world quit today magic would still be played, tournaments would still be run, stores would still be open, and people would still buy cards tomorrow. But the competitive aspect of the game as it exists "today" will have ceased to be and become something else and that would not be a good thing for anyone involved.

It may not sound like it but I think a strike or mass exodus of judges would be the dumbest response possible. It would hurt the communities that effective judges have helped grow and your average player more than WotC. Organized play requiring L2/L3 judges is probably a similar percentage of their playerbase as bleeding edge raiders are for a MMO. But it's the face of the game. It's a lot more important than you might think.

The people who care the most are often the people who are involved the most. Who put in the most time and effort. Who are going to feel the most disenfranchised or betrayed by a show of just how little regard their effort has earned them or their peers.

@Heylel. In reference to the compensation you receive for judging. I agree that it's low, but you're an exception to the typical judge in that you're well educated and have a great career. A lot of judges are fucking degenerates who won't work and couldn't survive without the 3 to 600 dollars they get judging each weekend.

We pay our judges in a thin gruel comprised of booster-pack glue and shredded Prophecy commons.

Judges make $300 - $600 a weekend? That can't be true. They all do it for the love of answering rules questions and handling result slips.

Drtyrm_sl said:

Judges make $300 - $600 a weekend? That can't be true. They all do it for the love of answering rules questions and handling result slips.

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It's about $152 per day for an SCG Open, with no travel support. Days start at 8:30-9am and generally run 11 hour shifts. Like any other income, it's taxable. You can also do a little better by taking credit with the TO and burning it up on cards, which is generally what I end up doing to support my hobby. GPs you get product + travel money, which you can consider income if you figure out a way to pocket it (such as work a GP in your local city). I busted my ass at GP Atlanta and made about $850 in credit for the weekend once I sold off the boxes. That was for roughly 24 hours of work over two days. 80% of judging a GP is logistics. I don't think I had a single interesting rules question all weekend.

@Grabbit: The "professional judge" is a problem, but not as widespread as you suggest from my experience. Most of the judges who are actively staffed on competitive events have their shit together. Families, careers, educations, etc. The most common professions among judges are computer engineers, educators, and musicians. In that order. The shop barnacles are a LOT more common at L1, who are basically just local judges for FNM. They're not expected to travel around or know anything about judging competitive events. The vast majority of them seem to be college students or local shop staff. Unfortunately, we don't have a clear demographic picture of the program as a whole. I was working on a project for that until all of this nonsense started. Now isn't a good time to be surveying people.

Referring to L1s as 'shop barnacles' tells me all I need to know about the higher level judges.

Drtyrm_sl said:

Referring to L1s as 'shop barnacles' tells me all I need to know about the higher level judges.

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I'm not referring to L1s as shop barnacles, and you're reading a deeper negative there than I intended. I'm suggesting that there are a number of shop barnacles who get their L1. Some of them are great people and a boon to their community. Others, as in all walks of life, don't contribute much. Spend any length of time around a hobby shop and you'll immediately know the kind of person I'm talking about. It's no different than if I said "bar fly" and anyone who has ever set foot in a pub knew the archetype.

I'm not a "high level judge" btw. I'm just a reasonably active L2 who works competitive events when proximity makes it affordable. I'm assuming from the attitude of your posts that you've had a negative experience with competitive judges before. If so, that sucks. I hope it was reported to the program as feedback so that it was actionable.

edit: Actually, I'll bite. I'd like to know what you mean by all you need to know about high level judges. I was actively defending judges in that post, and you somehow flipped it around on me. If you've just got a problem with me specifically then so be it, but I really can't recall ever having a negative interaction with you, so I'm not sure where the hostility is from.

Drtyrm_sl said:

Referring to L1s as 'shop barnacles' tells me all I need to know about the higher level judges.

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edit - Heylel snuck a post in but whatever

He didn't call level one judges shop barnacles. He said that among judges that kind of negative behavior is a lot more common among level ones.

But hey, basically your whole thing is bitchy one sentence responses so shine on you crazy diamond.

I don't think I've had any particularly bad interactions with judges. I guess my irritation is with the excessive importance competitive play types put on their way of playing MtG. You see it all over the reddit discussion over the leaks and now the bans.

Bergeot posted a statement from Wizards regarding the leak, specifying that this group has had access to some spoilers for multiple expansions?

Drtyrm_sl said:

The people who control Organized Play = WotC. Don't fool yourself into this narrative please.

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On Wizards site :

Do you want more information about the judge program or on becoming a judge? Do you need to find judges to help at your events? Or are you a judge that wants to find out about judging opportunities? Do you need advice on best practices when running events or want to improve the events that you are already running? The judge program has Regional Coordinators covering the globe that are there to help with all areas of tournament Magic.

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Judge Regional Coordinators | MAGIC: THE GATHERING


Those links are all to magicjudges.org, whose systems and operation are owned and run by a lvl 3, James Bennet. He's gone nuclear and suspended magicjudges.org in protest at the bannings.

Suspended in protest


reddit thread :Awesome Response from magicjudges.org to recent judge suspensions : magicTCG


Wizards might control events but it doesn't go much further than sanctioning them. It's the judges that are the meat and bones of all Organized Play.