So, WotC is changing up how Judge foils are distributed - as of 2015, they will not be giving away foils for working at GP's.
Instead, they will be implementing a new "Exemplar" program, where judges can be recognized individually for accomplishments by a higher-level judge.
Since this will likely DRASTICALLY reduce the number of foils distributed (at least when they are initially released,) it stands to reason that they might be eyeing more... exclusive... cards (ahem, FoW) for rewards. Then again, they might just print a bunch of stupid commanders, and I will have to figure out how to sell them other than eBay, since that's a crapshoot for casual buyers.
Of note, the Judge Conference rewards will be unaffected, so expect for every one of your local "I became a Judge because Foils are Sweet!" players to insist the GP car leaves 12 hours earlier so he can make it in time to cash in still.
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I expect a lot of judges to be really turned off by that. Wonder what the logic behind it was....also, this gives a crap load of power to L2+ judges...so much room for abuse.
Many judges I knew used the revenue from foils to pay for traveling. Compensating judges with foils for participating in tournaments might have always been shady legal territory - Wizards probablyly didn't have to pay taxes on salary for those judges since they weren't receiving monetary compensation. I could not fathom every judge being able to continue to commit to judging if reasonable compensation is no longer expected.
There still has to be some incentive (besides this gold-star) to maintain the flock of judges.
One of the other posts somewhere mentioned that judges should check with the tournament organizer about compensation to determine if they want to judge. So it's basically gonna be on them to pay the judges more if they want judges to come. If they have to pay more for judges, I think we can all guess what happens next.
Many judges I knew used the revenue from foils to pay for traveling. Compensating judges with foils for participating in tournaments might have always been shady legal territory - Wizards probablyly didn't have to pay taxes on salary for those judges since they weren't receiving monetary compensation. I could not fathom every judge being able to continue to commit to judging if reasonable compensation is no longer expected.
There still has to be some incentive (besides this gold-star) to maintain the flock of judges.
Seems very political. What if a judge is a great rules guy and just not a very adept people person?
People skills should always be factored into a judge's qualifications and reviews, though. A socially awkward or abrasive judge is just a glorified rules lawyer, and there's already plenty of those. Judges are supposed to serve a purpose, and a huge part of that purpose involves interacting with other people.
All that said, I can definitely see N00b's point. If this system leads to favoritism having an undue rule in promo distribution, I'm not for it.
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
People skills should always be factored into a judge's qualifications and reviews, though. A socially awkward or abrasive judge is just a glorified rules lawyer, and there's already plenty of those. Judges are supposed to serve a purpose, and a huge part of that purpose involves interacting with other people.
True, but there's being abrasive and there's just plain not playing politics as well as everyone else. A judge could be a perfectly nice and helpful but a bit awkward a person, and wind up losing out because they weren't the right person's friend. And let me tell you, that is exactly what will wind up happening, even if it's not acknowledged openly. This new system doesn't really do what it sets out to, and it winds up doing a bunch of things it's not.
Judge Foils being used as payment wasn't exactly legal in a lot of places. All they're doing is putting it on the TO's to actually pay the staff that runs the tournament, just like every other events company.
Well I sure hope Wizards intend to start paying judges a wage, because otherwise they're going to find alot of their GPs becoming understaffed for some reason!
I don't see how this wont be abused by corrupt people taking advantage of the system because they are part of a certain friend circle. Call me pessimistic or whatever but there are always people out there that are corrupt and only seek to advance their position. This seems to be a case of "judge A isn't friends with judge B who makes the recommendations so judge A doesn't get anything but then judge B gives the promos to his friend judge C". I really feel like this is just Wizards skimping and I don't think they really thought out the ramifications of this new system.
This seems like an odd addition. The goal seems to be bettering the judge community and incentivising the judges to go above and beyond, but in the end it discourages judges from judging in the first place. Becoming a judge is a hard thing, and while being internally motivated to do so is an attribute they look for, going through a ton of effort studying for rules tests and working long hours at magic tournaments dealing with potentially belligerent players only to end up with nothing for it is crap. Judging shouldn't be pure volunteer work.
Why not combine this with the old system? Give all judges promos just for putting in the effort of being judges, and then have some high-hanging carrots that are awarded to the few that go above and beyond?
We need to know that different strokes work for different folks. Western cultures are different from Asian cultures, and so on. The way relationships and communication work is uniquely different from people to people, country to country.
Bias exists everywhere, but in high context cultures, it's even more prevalent.
I'm not sure if the decision made from the higher ups actually catered to a more international module of remuneration.
Does anyone think maybe this has something to do with them adding 40 possible foil cards at prerelease as special release cards? I for one was very excited about that as it opens up the possibility of not flooding the market with 5 awful premium cards every set. Now some of the good cards in the set are likely to carry some extra value.
Just speculation, but it seems likely that a company doesn't want to put all the extra work and money into that new project without shifting resources for it from another similar program. But that doesn't explain where player rewards promos went...
To correct a few misconceptions / misinformation in this thread:
- 99.9% of judging takes place at events that aren't Grand Prix. This doesn't discourage most judges from doing most judging
- The PTOs (that run GPs) were told about this in advance and know they will need to consider their compensation packages from 2015 to offset the loss of GP foils
- There will be processes in place to catch system abuse - we're not naive. The reasons people give for their recogs will be public, for starters
- International judges will be able to recognise in their own language
- I'm not sure whether or not the total amount of foils will actually change. Presently we have ~40 GPs giving foils to staffs in the ~50 range per event; we will replace with ~600 L2+ judges able to recognise on an interval basis. How many foils are in each recog packet is not yet known; how long that interval is not known (but likely to be ~3 months); how many will exercise this right is not yet known. But even low values will leave us outputting similar numbers of foils.
That's not to say that this change is all positive or without challenges, but we do actually think about these things before we decide them
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I expect a lot of judges to be really turned off by that. Wonder what the logic behind it was....also, this gives a crap load of power to L2+ judges...so much room for abuse.
I thought exactly the same things. Around here people are already favored for being friends with the right people over being good judges.
I saw several cases where bad judges that were friends with high level judges got benefits while good judges that weren't friend with high level judges was ignored.
This just will worse this situation in my opinion.
To correct a few misconceptions / misinformation in this thread:
- 99.9% of judging takes place at events that aren't Grand Prix. This doesn't discourage most judges from doing most judging
- The PTOs (that run GPs) were told about this in advance and know they will need to consider their compensation packages from 2015 to offset the loss of GP foils
- There will be processes in place to catch system abuse - we're not naive. The reasons people give for their recogs will be public, for starters
- International judges will be able to recognise in their own language
- I'm not sure whether or not the total amount of foils will actually change. Presently we have ~40 GPs giving foils to staffs in the ~50 range per event; we will replace with ~600 L2+ judges able to recognise on an interval basis. How many foils are in each recog packet is not yet known; how long that interval is not known (but likely to be ~3 months); how many will exercise this right is not yet known. But even low values will leave us outputting similar numbers of foils.
That's not to say that this change is all positive or without challenges, but we do actually think about these things before we decide them
How much thought was given to the increased cost of GPs that will be passed on to players? Was this an attempt to lower GP attendance by making it so it will be more expensive while also cutting back on the number of judge making GPs less fun?
Instead, they will be implementing a new "Exemplar" program, where judges can be recognized individually for accomplishments by a higher-level judge.
Since this will likely DRASTICALLY reduce the number of foils distributed (at least when they are initially released,) it stands to reason that they might be eyeing more... exclusive... cards (ahem, FoW) for rewards. Then again, they might just print a bunch of stupid commanders, and I will have to figure out how to sell them other than eBay, since that's a crapshoot for casual buyers.
Of note, the Judge Conference rewards will be unaffected, so expect for every one of your local "I became a Judge because Foils are Sweet!" players to insist the GP car leaves 12 hours earlier so he can make it in time to cash in still.
Modern: Dominium Eminens
Legacy: UB Tezz (Check out My Primer at TheSource)
Vinitage: Oath
I used to judge alot.
This is all the information that's on judge apps. It's very, very info light for my tastes.
There still has to be some incentive (besides this gold-star) to maintain the flock of judges.
Edit: Here is the other announcement.
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/lems/2014/07/28/confirmed-no-grand-prix-judge-foils-in-2015/
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Looks like there's plans for that on the TO side. I still have no idea why this idea was conceptualized, or how this is better than GP foils.
Hopefully this is a step towards that.
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People skills should always be factored into a judge's qualifications and reviews, though. A socially awkward or abrasive judge is just a glorified rules lawyer, and there's already plenty of those. Judges are supposed to serve a purpose, and a huge part of that purpose involves interacting with other people.
All that said, I can definitely see N00b's point. If this system leads to favoritism having an undue rule in promo distribution, I'm not for it.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
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As someone that knows quite a few of the judges in the midwest, this is EXACTLY what is going to happen, and its extremely upsetting.
G MGC
WB Teysa Tokens
BR Wortsnort
UG 23.5-No Edric
URG Noncombo Animar
GUB Damia Stax
WBR Alesha Hatebear Recursion
WBR Daddy Tariel
UBR [Je]love-a Your Deck
GWU Almost Critterless Enchantress
WUB Sydri+Artifacts=WUB
WURG Glint-Eye Combo
True, but there's being abrasive and there's just plain not playing politics as well as everyone else. A judge could be a perfectly nice and helpful but a bit awkward a person, and wind up losing out because they weren't the right person's friend. And let me tell you, that is exactly what will wind up happening, even if it's not acknowledged openly. This new system doesn't really do what it sets out to, and it winds up doing a bunch of things it's not.
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We need to know that different strokes work for different folks. Western cultures are different from Asian cultures, and so on. The way relationships and communication work is uniquely different from people to people, country to country.
Bias exists everywhere, but in high context cultures, it's even more prevalent.
I'm not sure if the decision made from the higher ups actually catered to a more international module of remuneration.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Just speculation, but it seems likely that a company doesn't want to put all the extra work and money into that new project without shifting resources for it from another similar program. But that doesn't explain where player rewards promos went...
- 99.9% of judging takes place at events that aren't Grand Prix. This doesn't discourage most judges from doing most judging
- The PTOs (that run GPs) were told about this in advance and know they will need to consider their compensation packages from 2015 to offset the loss of GP foils
- There will be processes in place to catch system abuse - we're not naive. The reasons people give for their recogs will be public, for starters
- International judges will be able to recognise in their own language
- I'm not sure whether or not the total amount of foils will actually change. Presently we have ~40 GPs giving foils to staffs in the ~50 range per event; we will replace with ~600 L2+ judges able to recognise on an interval basis. How many foils are in each recog packet is not yet known; how long that interval is not known (but likely to be ~3 months); how many will exercise this right is not yet known. But even low values will leave us outputting similar numbers of foils.
That's not to say that this change is all positive or without challenges, but we do actually think about these things before we decide them
I run a Tumblr for Magic-related statistics, graphs, and quizzes. Come check it out!
I saw several cases where bad judges that were friends with high level judges got benefits while good judges that weren't friend with high level judges was ignored.
This just will worse this situation in my opinion.
How much thought was given to the increased cost of GPs that will be passed on to players? Was this an attempt to lower GP attendance by making it so it will be more expensive while also cutting back on the number of judge making GPs less fun?
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!