When I first read about the return of the Pro Tour and all the qualifying events that would go into it, I was excited as a player, as a judge, and as a fan of the game.  More than anything though, I was thrilled to see Pro Tour relevant events taking place at the local […]

Welcome to today’s edition of The Rulebook! We’re going to continue our multiplayer focus as the CommandFest events grow ever closer. Today, we’re specifically looking at the following multiplayer-relevant combat mechanics: Dethrone, Goad, Myriad, and Encore. Let’s dive in! Dethrone While the Dethrone mechanic itself is not terribly complicated, it demonstrates a shift in thinking […]

One of my hobbies is trying to find the perfect word. I’m not doing that with this article, because it would consume far too much time (although I did just rewrite that sentence five times). Rather, I focus on pieces of language, whether it be announcements or phrases that I use regularly as a judge. […]

Hello and welcome to today’s edition of Policy Wonks! As in-person Magic events ramp up, it is quickly becoming clear that a lot of The Gathering will be taking place at convention-style events. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience Magic at many different kinds of conventions, from Anime Expo and San Diego Comic Con to […]

Intentionally misgendering a person can be reasonably expected to create a feeling of being bullied or harassed, and is unacceptable behavior at events and in our community. This includes intentionally using incorrect pronouns or otherwise referring to another person as a gender other than their gender once stated. A judge who intentionally misgenders a person […]

  I’m so excited to share our Streets of New Capenna Prerelease Kit with all of you! Prereleases are some of the most fun events you can run as a judge but they can be challenging, especially for anyone who hasn’t judged live magic in quite some time (which is likely a lot of us.) […]

A couple of weeks ago I talked about striking out on your own while being a part of a larger team. Today, I want to talk about a related role – managing events and fighting fires when you’re the final authority at an event. On the off chance that you missed it, Wizards of the […]

Last week, Wizards of the Coast rolled out their Premier Play program for the upcoming 2022-2023 season. There are many details and takeaways from that announcement, but one in particular for judges to notice is the prominence of Pioneer as a competitive format. In light of this, today we will take a look at some […]

Hey, all! April News and Updates are below!  I (Nicolette) will be around for Office Hours tomorrow in the JA Discord from 9am-10am Pacific (UTC-7) and from 4pm-5pm Pacific. Some areas change for Daylight Savings at different times, or not at all! So to see these times in your local Time zones, follow the links […]

Judge Academy Conferences FAQ As conferences continue to ramp up, I’ve been getting a lot of questions and so I wanted to create this FAQ to help folks. I’ll continue to update this so if you have a question that’s not on here send it in to me at Matthew@judgeacademy.com Also, I know that there […]