This is not much different than any other certification programs for other careers. Take for example Massage Therapy (mostly because I am familiar with it). There are two companies that provide certifications and insurance that several states require to practice. You have to pay for the membership it doesn’t get you a job, but helps to advance your career. If you think of this program in that same manor, this is a very good thing for the judging industry.
This is not much different than any other certification programs for other careers. Take for example Massage Therapy (mostly because I am familiar with it). There are two companies that provide certifications and insurance that several states require to practice. You have to pay for the membership it doesn’t get you a job, but helps to advance your career. If you think of this program in that same manor, this is a very good thing for the judging industry.
That's how I'm seeing it.
Except once massage therapists are actually doing that, they get paid for it. It's not 'oh yeah, come do your job and we will give you something twice a year that in a good year might be $100
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
This is not much different than any other certification programs for other careers. Take for example Massage Therapy (mostly because I am familiar with it). There are two companies that provide certifications and insurance that several states require to practice. You have to pay for the membership it doesn’t get you a job, but helps to advance your career. If you think of this program in that same manor, this is a very good thing for the judging industry.
I understand your point of view but I think the analogy breaks down when you consider that massage therapists are actually paid for their work and recognized. This is where the problem lies for the judges, I think (not a judge myself, just got a few friends that were L1).
The pay doesn't seem to follow any kind of rules. So now, on top of not having a realistic monetary compensation for their work, they will have to pay an annual fee. (At my LGS, for a prerelease, there is usually only one judge for 40-50 players, and they got paid 25 euros, a drink and a meal)
Now if the new company can somehow enforce some rules on that regard, and ensures that an LGS has to pay their judge with a predetermined wage, that would be indeed a net progression.
Again, I'm just expressing my opinion on what I've heard of the situation from some friends, so I might be wrong
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sorry for my possible english mistakes, I'm not a native speaker.
When do these go out to the judges so they may finally make it to the secondary market? I’m considering buying a couple or few of these Reflecting Pools.
I’m still waiting for Sliver Legion to make its way to the online stores.
This is not much different than any other certification programs for other careers. Take for example Massage Therapy (mostly because I am familiar with it). There are two companies that provide certifications and insurance that several states require to practice. You have to pay for the membership it doesn’t get you a job, but helps to advance your career. If you think of this program in that same manor, this is a very good thing for the judging industry.
I understand your point of view but I think the analogy breaks down when you consider that massage therapists are actually paid for their work and recognized. This is where the problem lies for the judges, I think (not a judge myself, just got a few friends that were L1).
The pay doesn't seem to follow any kind of rules. So now, on top of not having a realistic monetary compensation for their work, they will have to pay an annual fee. (At my LGS, for a prerelease, there is usually only one judge for 40-50 players, and they got paid 25 euros, a drink and a meal)
Now if the new company can somehow enforce some rules on that regard, and ensures that an LGS has to pay their judge with a predetermined wage, that would be indeed a net progression.
Again, I'm just expressing my opinion on what I've heard of the situation from some friends, so I might be wrong
Responding to you, but also the others.
It doesn’t really break down because the don’t help you find work any more than this program for judges will. But having the certificate will allow you to be more employable. And if they are adding other games, it’ll help by having those available as well. The thing is, they (the judges) will have to start creating the demand for pay. Some will probably still try and do it as a hobby, which is fine as well. Mostly it’ll be about marketing.
I read the article about the judge program change. So every store owner is going to be a free rules adviser now unless they force you to be a level 1 judge.
This is stupid.
Yearly fees.
Rules Advisor – Free or $50
Level 1 – $100
Level 2 – $200
Level 3 – $400
Are they out of their mind? Judges get paid in promos currently. Generally work for no real money. Share hotel rooms. Those fees are way too high. Last grand prix I went to didn't even have half the attendance of the grand prixs I've been to in the past. I would say 1/4 the attendance. I know magic is the worlds 2nd most popular card game behind poker but it's not drawing crowds anymore. The player base is a in a retraction stage and so is the economy. There will be a recession starting 1st quarter 2020. Once the holiday sales come in. I'll be fine playing video games. But jeez one bad decision after another.
I don't know why they didn't just stick with the temporary contractor role. Lawsuits or whatever. Every company is pushing these crap contract roles on employees for limited liability. You work here but you don't work here, get it ? NO!? End the judge program!
Magic was fun while it lasted. If you aren't too heavily invested pick up a different hobby. Keep a few decks and sell now.
But if you want to know what's really killing magic besides this, it's women, feminism, and white knights who fall on the sword for my lady. I went to a shop a 6 months ago that had a good player base. Tournaments were being run. Lots of formats being played. Everyone having a good time. I went there off and on for a few weeks. I check in last month for a tournament. The place is dead. Scarily dead for a Friday night. What had happened? There was a large group of neon haired women selling makeup to each other. The shop owner had gotten a girl friend and he let her run the place. Everyone was gone. Zero dollars were being spent at this shop. I tried to buy a booster box while I was there but there was no inventory. She had dropped magic completely from the shop in favor of more board games and manga. What!!!??? You drop your main source of income and all of the people who buy things from you to focus on things you like? Why? Complete insanity. I doubt that store will be in business much longer.
I'm staring at this article and I see neon hair in charge of the Judge Program. Of course it died. Get woke, go broke. For anyone any disagrees, you're wrong. You know you're wrong. All you have to do is watch the reality around you and stop listening to the brain washing. Here in your friendly magic forums where super nice awesome people like me explain this stuff. I could have simply went with the economics of the fees being way too high. But magic mirrors societal trends. As does anything like basketball. You know what would have been great? If magic had a WNBA like basket ball does. I think that used to be my little pony. Then way too much weirdness happened with Brones. https://blogs.magicjudges.org/blog/2019/07/29/the-next-era-of-magic-judging/
Here is a realistic fee structure.
Yearly fees.
Rules Advisor – Free
Level 1 – $10
Level 2 – $20
Level 3 – $40
This article by itself is going to drastically lessen the number of booster boxes I buy as I wait to see what will happen. The promos will never be enough to cover those fees.
I read the article about the judge program change. So every store owner is going to be a free rules adviser now unless they force you to be a level 1 judge.
This is stupid.
Yearly fees.
Rules Advisor – Free or $50
Level 1 – $100
Level 2 – $200
Level 3 – $400
Are they out of their mind? Judges get paid in promos currently. Generally work for no real money. Share hotel rooms. Those fees are way too high. Last grand prix I went to didn't even have half the attendance of the grand prixs I've been to in the past. I would say 1/4 the attendance. I know magic is the worlds 2nd most popular card game behind poker but it's not drawing crowds anymore. The player base is a in a retraction stage and so is the economy. There will be a recession starting 1st quarter 2020. Once the holiday sales come in. I'll be fine playing video games. But jeez one bad decision after another.
I don't know why they didn't just stick with the temporary contractor role. Lawsuits or whatever. Every company is pushing these crap contract roles on employees for limited liability. You work here but you don't work here, get it ? NO!? End the judge program!
Magic was fun while it lasted. If you aren't too heavily invested pick up a different hobby. Keep a few decks and sell now.
But if you want to know what's really killing magic besides this, it's women, feminism, and white knights who fall on the sword for my lady. I went to a shop a 6 months ago that had a good player base. Tournaments were being run. Lots of formats being played. Everyone having a good time. I went there off and on for a few weeks. I check in last month for a tournament. The place is dead. Scarily dead for a Friday night. What had happened? There was a large group of neon haired women selling makeup to each other. The shop owner had gotten a girl friend and he let her run the place. Everyone was gone. Zero dollars were being spent at this shop. I tried to buy a booster box while I was there but there was no inventory. She had dropped magic completely from the shop in favor of more board games and manga. What!!!??? You drop your main source of income and all of the people who buy things from you to focus on things you like? Why? Complete insanity. I doubt that store will be in business much longer.
I'm staring at this article and I see neon hair in charge of the Judge Program. Of course it died. Get woke, go broke. For anyone any disagrees, you're wrong. You know you're wrong. All you have to do is watch the reality around you and stop listening to the brain washing. Here in your friendly magic forums where super nice awesome people like me explain this stuff. I could have simply went with the economics of the fees being way too high. But magic mirrors societal trends. As does anything like basketball. You know what would have been great? If magic had a WNBA like basket ball does. I think that used to be my little pony. Then way too much weirdness happened with Brones. https://blogs.magicjudges.org/blog/2019/07/29/the-next-era-of-magic-judging/
Here is a realistic fee structure.
Yearly fees.
Rules Advisor – Free
Level 1 – $10
Level 2 – $20
Level 3 – $40
This article by itself is going to drastically lessen the number of booster boxes I buy as I wait to see what will happen. The promos will never be enough to cover those fees.
Outside of the very lengthy monologue, I agree the fee structure does not support a volunteer community. Too many people here are making analogies to industrial and working certificates when the judge program is supposed to be a VOLUNTARY program. They are the street corner and soap box supporters of the game, and now they are being asked to take out their wallets and throw more money at the hard work they already put their blood sweat and time into. Its insulting and unrealistic. They asked for pay and most cannot receive it as an LGS 9/10 is hard pressed to make revenue on magic as the cost basis keeps going up and the player base shops more online.
Now that my monologue is over, can we agree to please keep politics out of cardboard? Whether your left, right, outerspace, just enjoy the game. No one cares about feminism, pride, guj rights, white power, whatever else. Please let's just enjoy magic.
Are they out of their mind? Judges get paid in promos currently.
Judges *don't* get paid with promos. I am not aware of any way to get the promos currently without a) going to a Judge Conference or b) being nominated for Exemplar. There are likely a lot of judges, more likely in rural areas, that never got Judge promos at all because they were not a form of payment. This model "fixes" that and guarantees promos to every judge. And the "pay" they do get (whether it is cash or boxes or free entry into events at smaller things) shouldn't change. Since the judge promos should always be more than $100 for the year, anyone who wants to can simply sell their promos to pay the dues. Most likely, they could sell half, keep half, and pay the dues.
The rest of your post is ridiculous nonsense and I believe this is, overall, just a troll post. But I do think the point above is still important enough to clarify.
Outside of the very lengthy monologue, I agree the fee structure does not support a volunteer community. Too many people here are making analogies to industrial and working certificates when the judge program is supposed to be a VOLUNTARY program. They are the street corner and soap box supporters of the game, and now they are being asked to take out their wallets and throw more money at the hard work they already put their blood sweat and time into. Its insulting and unrealistic. They asked for pay and most cannot receive it as an LGS 9/10 is hard pressed to make revenue on magic as the cost basis keeps going up and the player base shops more online.
It is actually very possible that this doesn't work out the way the Judge Academy wants it to. $100 is not chump change for a lot of people and the structure does have some things that could cause people to question their own involvement in the program. The idea seems to be that the promos could pay for the dues (or, another way to look at it, that the dues pay for the promos) which may or may not be enough of an incentive for people to continue.
I think there are a lot of good points being made about the difficulties in making this a membership program but there are some benefits to judges as well. The main issue is that an organization like this needs money to function and now that Wizards is taking a step out, that money needs to come from somewhere. Good or bad, the best source is the judges themselves and they are trying to add in enough value (the Judge Promos mainly) to make those dues worth it.
I am not saying it is all going to be sunshine and rainbows; it has some pitfalls simply by virtue of it being unknown at this time. I do think we need to see where it leads to as the organization hasn't even officially begun yet so we will see how many people feel the value in the dues is enough and how many won't. If enough don't, another solution would have to come along and we will start over at that time.
Its a FOR PROFIT organization, which this kind of thing should NEVER be and everyone asked them why its not and their shady answer is anything but convincing.
They do it clearly to scam some money and then when it fails, "oh well upsy" and run away with it.
This had to be Non-Profit, and be done by passion and love for the game. There are already countless sources of judge questions, like here in this forum, and many other sources totally free, as it should be. You really want to have judges that do it for the love of the game, not to get money out of it.
The crazy idea that judges will not just judge magic events but money other games is kinda stretched already, but selling this kind of "education" as some form of qualification is ridiculous, as a store has the choice between a judge that asks for money, or the guy that does it for free ; and if there is nobody else, events get more expensive, everyone loses in this world.
The only purpose of this judge academy "company" is to distract and outsource all the law related issues that roll over WotC for anything concerning the judge program and the questionable people involved in it ; which ironically are the same people that do the judge academy , which is absolutely insane (yea they are fixed for 2 years, "then" if the program isnt dead, they "might" start some voting for new top dogs, its mind boggling stupid).
Simply taking and accepting existing judges in the program and charging them with money right away is only asking for problems.
This is very clearly just a shadow company that is still very much managed by WotC, as the people involved are too tight to WotC to begin with, and there entire money scamming practice banks on WotC providing the cards that have to be worth the cost ; which is in reality just WotC selling cards to the judges through the Judge Academy.
If they wanted this to work, it had to be non-profit.
The members that make the decisions had to be voted non-profit people.
Material for the rules had to be provided by the people ; we have plenty of dedicated judges that already did that kind of work for free, out of passion.
Promo cards dont need to be special to judges at all. "Pay" the judges in plenty of promo packs WotC already has, give it to the stores and big events, and they give it to the judges ; not as a form of payment, but as a "thank you for your service", as its supposed to be.
For any event a judge can and still will have to make some form of contract to ask for money or other compensations, but thats a thing between the judge and the organizer of the event, like for any other people that work in that event.
Any judge paying money for this scam is selling their integrity.
Partaking on anything that screams so much "global scam" like this is something nobody should do if they value their representation.
And the sad part is, a lot of judges dont give a flying crap about it and just want the promo cards, doesnt matter if they judge at all.
If the promos are valuable enough, you can bet that a lot of "judges" (people that never judge any event) will simply become a judge to grab the promo cards, as thats all it is, a way to sell judge promo cards to people.
Are they out of their mind? Judges get paid in promos currently.
Judges *don't* get paid with promos. I am not aware of any way to get the promos currently without a) going to a Judge Conference or b) being nominated for Exemplar. There are likely a lot of judges, more likely in rural areas, that never got Judge promos at all because they were not a form of payment. This model "fixes" that and guarantees promos to every judge. And the "pay" they do get (whether it is cash or boxes or free entry into events at smaller things) shouldn't change. Since the judge promos should always be more than $100 for the year, anyone who wants to can simply sell their promos to pay the dues. Most likely, they could sell half, keep half, and pay the dues.
The rest of your post is ridiculous nonsense and I believe this is, overall, just a troll post. But I do think the point above is still important enough to clarify.
Outside of the very lengthy monologue, I agree the fee structure does not support a volunteer community. Too many people here are making analogies to industrial and working certificates when the judge program is supposed to be a VOLUNTARY program. They are the street corner and soap box supporters of the game, and now they are being asked to take out their wallets and throw more money at the hard work they already put their blood sweat and time into. Its insulting and unrealistic. They asked for pay and most cannot receive it as an LGS 9/10 is hard pressed to make revenue on magic as the cost basis keeps going up and the player base shops more online.
It is actually very possible that this doesn't work out the way the Judge Academy wants it to. $100 is not chump change for a lot of people and the structure does have some things that could cause people to question their own involvement in the program. The idea seems to be that the promos could pay for the dues (or, another way to look at it, that the dues pay for the promos) which may or may not be enough of an incentive for people to continue.
I think there are a lot of good points being made about the difficulties in making this a membership program but there are some benefits to judges as well. The main issue is that an organization like this needs money to function and now that Wizards is taking a step out, that money needs to come from somewhere. Good or bad, the best source is the judges themselves and they are trying to add in enough value (the Judge Promos mainly) to make those dues worth it.
I am not saying it is all going to be sunshine and rainbows; it has some pitfalls simply by virtue of it being unknown at this time. I do think we need to see where it leads to as the organization hasn't even officially begun yet so we will see how many people feel the value in the dues is enough and how many won't. If enough don't, another solution would have to come along and we will start over at that time.
For a very long time, the DCI as well as the judge system in place had been handled by a seperste entity. It was once wizards took control of the DCI in its entirety that things started looking a different way. Not bad by a long shot, just different. I also think you are right in saying that change should await judgement. The issue herein though lies in volunteers now paying a for-profit organization to take care of what has been in the past a free service. We have judge apps, we have the regional coordinators and other upper level judges to help with the management of said organization. Setting up an independent body away from wizards is a HEALTHY move. Removing wizards from the equation and setting ground rules for the relationship judges have is extremely beneficial to judges and gives them leverage on setting boundaries. This is all amazing and I am in full support. What isn't looking good is the cost (which we both seem to agree is too high) as well as the integrity of the new operators of said program. Making your companies profit from volunteer services is not a way to do business in the private sector if you want to be successful. Its not promotional cards that should be sold to pay your dues. You get them as reminders that they valued the time and effort you put in and if need be you sold ones you didnt like or needed the money for. It is just heart breaking to see the game fall in this way for those loving it most.
As for the "woke" rhetoric, I get it, you feel a certain way and we all have our opinions within politics but again. Please can we focus on the game we love, rather than the politics and litanies that divide us? Magic is supposed to be the game that brings us together to escape our troubles. Let's enjoy it and make this game an open and welcoming experience for everyone and set the politics and all the other world issues aside.
If the desire is for people to judge that have passion for the game, and the desire to simply be a judge, they have the Rule Advisor tier. It costs $0.
As for the get woke, go broke argument... Well, there's this that leapt out at me:
But yeah when I'm selling a $3 booster pack and making less than .50 on the transaction
You're not going broke for being woke, you're going broke because you're losing money selling booster packs for $3. If the neon-haired girlfriend in your example dropped MTG from that store because of that, she did the store owner a favor. Their margins clearly sucked.
If the desire is for people to judge that have passion for the game, and the desire to simply be a judge, they have the Rule Advisor tier. It costs $0
I agree with some of that. The issue is that a rules advisor cannot do more than a small local event. What about the judges who go to the PPTQ events as level 1, the local judges that want to get to level 2 and be invited to travel because the cost for them of travelling and lodging are still worth it because they are playing magic in their own way. I understand the arguement of the lower and free priced area in the system. The problem is, and always will be, that they are now charging you a premium and exorbitantly high fee for the privilege of volunteering. You get promotional cards? They were free before and in the new structure you are now essentially being charged a yearly fee for the privilege to get what before and for he past 20 years was free. I wish they had just gone to the dci being a separate entity handled once again by strict volunteerism and love of the game. This hurts the community and makes these judge promos seem like any other wizards "collectors" product. Pay their premium and get it to flip it or hold onto, or do not pay the higher price and miss out on more than just product but aspects of the game that are niw walled off behind a pay wall.
Next they are going to raise the price of standard boosters and make events cost more as well.... wait a second....
i am honestly absolutly no fan of the mentor art and i hope they dont print this in any other set. dont want another Eternal Dragon incedent. better another new art or the at least the old art in case it sees a reprint
To clear some nonsense up: Judges are by and large NOT volunteers. We do work, and we get paid to do that work. I have NEVER in my 5 years as a Judge done event work for free. I have been compensated with cash for a large number of events, ranging in size from small in store PPTQs to Grand Prix. With a little bit of digging it's possible to even find out what Judges get paid for the larger events. Can we please stop making arguments that Judges are having to pay money to volunteer? It's just flat out incorrect unless said Judge is working for free already, which they probably shouldn't be (but that is their choice).
For context, I was at SCG Syracuse this past weekend. My profits from the event easily cover my dues as an L2 Judge for next year, not counting the fact that the foils will end up doing the same at least once over.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
That's how I'm seeing it.
Except once massage therapists are actually doing that, they get paid for it. It's not 'oh yeah, come do your job and we will give you something twice a year that in a good year might be $100
I understand your point of view but I think the analogy breaks down when you consider that massage therapists are actually paid for their work and recognized. This is where the problem lies for the judges, I think (not a judge myself, just got a few friends that were L1).
The pay doesn't seem to follow any kind of rules. So now, on top of not having a realistic monetary compensation for their work, they will have to pay an annual fee. (At my LGS, for a prerelease, there is usually only one judge for 40-50 players, and they got paid 25 euros, a drink and a meal)
Now if the new company can somehow enforce some rules on that regard, and ensures that an LGS has to pay their judge with a predetermined wage, that would be indeed a net progression.
Again, I'm just expressing my opinion on what I've heard of the situation from some friends, so I might be wrong
I’m still waiting for Sliver Legion to make its way to the online stores.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Responding to you, but also the others.
It doesn’t really break down because the don’t help you find work any more than this program for judges will. But having the certificate will allow you to be more employable. And if they are adding other games, it’ll help by having those available as well. The thing is, they (the judges) will have to start creating the demand for pay. Some will probably still try and do it as a hobby, which is fine as well. Mostly it’ll be about marketing.
Can you just crawl in a hole and die?
Outside of the very lengthy monologue, I agree the fee structure does not support a volunteer community. Too many people here are making analogies to industrial and working certificates when the judge program is supposed to be a VOLUNTARY program. They are the street corner and soap box supporters of the game, and now they are being asked to take out their wallets and throw more money at the hard work they already put their blood sweat and time into. Its insulting and unrealistic. They asked for pay and most cannot receive it as an LGS 9/10 is hard pressed to make revenue on magic as the cost basis keeps going up and the player base shops more online.
Now that my monologue is over, can we agree to please keep politics out of cardboard? Whether your left, right, outerspace, just enjoy the game. No one cares about feminism, pride, guj rights, white power, whatever else. Please let's just enjoy magic.
The rest of your post is ridiculous nonsense and I believe this is, overall, just a troll post. But I do think the point above is still important enough to clarify.
It is actually very possible that this doesn't work out the way the Judge Academy wants it to. $100 is not chump change for a lot of people and the structure does have some things that could cause people to question their own involvement in the program. The idea seems to be that the promos could pay for the dues (or, another way to look at it, that the dues pay for the promos) which may or may not be enough of an incentive for people to continue.
I think there are a lot of good points being made about the difficulties in making this a membership program but there are some benefits to judges as well. The main issue is that an organization like this needs money to function and now that Wizards is taking a step out, that money needs to come from somewhere. Good or bad, the best source is the judges themselves and they are trying to add in enough value (the Judge Promos mainly) to make those dues worth it.
I am not saying it is all going to be sunshine and rainbows; it has some pitfalls simply by virtue of it being unknown at this time. I do think we need to see where it leads to as the organization hasn't even officially begun yet so we will see how many people feel the value in the dues is enough and how many won't. If enough don't, another solution would have to come along and we will start over at that time.
Its a FOR PROFIT organization, which this kind of thing should NEVER be and everyone asked them why its not and their shady answer is anything but convincing.
They do it clearly to scam some money and then when it fails, "oh well upsy" and run away with it.
This had to be Non-Profit, and be done by passion and love for the game. There are already countless sources of judge questions, like here in this forum, and many other sources totally free, as it should be. You really want to have judges that do it for the love of the game, not to get money out of it.
The crazy idea that judges will not just judge magic events but money other games is kinda stretched already, but selling this kind of "education" as some form of qualification is ridiculous, as a store has the choice between a judge that asks for money, or the guy that does it for free ; and if there is nobody else, events get more expensive, everyone loses in this world.
The only purpose of this judge academy "company" is to distract and outsource all the law related issues that roll over WotC for anything concerning the judge program and the questionable people involved in it ; which ironically are the same people that do the judge academy , which is absolutely insane (yea they are fixed for 2 years, "then" if the program isnt dead, they "might" start some voting for new top dogs, its mind boggling stupid).
Simply taking and accepting existing judges in the program and charging them with money right away is only asking for problems.
This is very clearly just a shadow company that is still very much managed by WotC, as the people involved are too tight to WotC to begin with, and there entire money scamming practice banks on WotC providing the cards that have to be worth the cost ; which is in reality just WotC selling cards to the judges through the Judge Academy.
If they wanted this to work, it had to be non-profit.
The members that make the decisions had to be voted non-profit people.
Material for the rules had to be provided by the people ; we have plenty of dedicated judges that already did that kind of work for free, out of passion.
Promo cards dont need to be special to judges at all. "Pay" the judges in plenty of promo packs WotC already has, give it to the stores and big events, and they give it to the judges ; not as a form of payment, but as a "thank you for your service", as its supposed to be.
For any event a judge can and still will have to make some form of contract to ask for money or other compensations, but thats a thing between the judge and the organizer of the event, like for any other people that work in that event.
Any judge paying money for this scam is selling their integrity.
Partaking on anything that screams so much "global scam" like this is something nobody should do if they value their representation.
And the sad part is, a lot of judges dont give a flying crap about it and just want the promo cards, doesnt matter if they judge at all.
If the promos are valuable enough, you can bet that a lot of "judges" (people that never judge any event) will simply become a judge to grab the promo cards, as thats all it is, a way to sell judge promo cards to people.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
For a very long time, the DCI as well as the judge system in place had been handled by a seperste entity. It was once wizards took control of the DCI in its entirety that things started looking a different way. Not bad by a long shot, just different. I also think you are right in saying that change should await judgement. The issue herein though lies in volunteers now paying a for-profit organization to take care of what has been in the past a free service. We have judge apps, we have the regional coordinators and other upper level judges to help with the management of said organization. Setting up an independent body away from wizards is a HEALTHY move. Removing wizards from the equation and setting ground rules for the relationship judges have is extremely beneficial to judges and gives them leverage on setting boundaries. This is all amazing and I am in full support. What isn't looking good is the cost (which we both seem to agree is too high) as well as the integrity of the new operators of said program. Making your companies profit from volunteer services is not a way to do business in the private sector if you want to be successful. Its not promotional cards that should be sold to pay your dues. You get them as reminders that they valued the time and effort you put in and if need be you sold ones you didnt like or needed the money for. It is just heart breaking to see the game fall in this way for those loving it most.
As for the "woke" rhetoric, I get it, you feel a certain way and we all have our opinions within politics but again. Please can we focus on the game we love, rather than the politics and litanies that divide us? Magic is supposed to be the game that brings us together to escape our troubles. Let's enjoy it and make this game an open and welcoming experience for everyone and set the politics and all the other world issues aside.
As for the get woke, go broke argument... Well, there's this that leapt out at me:
You're not going broke for being woke, you're going broke because you're losing money selling booster packs for $3. If the neon-haired girlfriend in your example dropped MTG from that store because of that, she did the store owner a favor. Their margins clearly sucked.
I agree with some of that. The issue is that a rules advisor cannot do more than a small local event. What about the judges who go to the PPTQ events as level 1, the local judges that want to get to level 2 and be invited to travel because the cost for them of travelling and lodging are still worth it because they are playing magic in their own way. I understand the arguement of the lower and free priced area in the system. The problem is, and always will be, that they are now charging you a premium and exorbitantly high fee for the privilege of volunteering. You get promotional cards? They were free before and in the new structure you are now essentially being charged a yearly fee for the privilege to get what before and for he past 20 years was free. I wish they had just gone to the dci being a separate entity handled once again by strict volunteerism and love of the game. This hurts the community and makes these judge promos seem like any other wizards "collectors" product. Pay their premium and get it to flip it or hold onto, or do not pay the higher price and miss out on more than just product but aspects of the game that are niw walled off behind a pay wall.
Next they are going to raise the price of standard boosters and make events cost more as well.... wait a second....
Timestamp is 1:12.
Nice catch.
Isn't that old Yuriko art? The Chalice art is amazing.
For context, I was at SCG Syracuse this past weekend. My profits from the event easily cover my dues as an L2 Judge for next year, not counting the fact that the foils will end up doing the same at least once over.