Interpersonal Skills & Communication
Aspects of Judging
Also available are archives of live broadcasts, where the Program Director goes over the lesson, answers any questions that folks may have and sometimes goes on tangets about other elements of judging. You can find the playlist of broadcasts on youtube.
Click for Translation
While proper translation and localization are among our long-term goals, we are currently offering Google Translate on the page. Please keep in mind that the translation is automatic, which means that specific game terms, names of cards or mechanics, or technical language used to describe the game may not translate well. As with the documents for the game itself, the English page is the authoritative document in case of any confusion or discrepancy.Join the discussion in our Discord and talk with other judges about what you learned, and ask any questions you may have!
Hello there!
Welcome to the Aspects of Judging lessons. As always, I’m your host Jonah, and this elective lesson series is going to cover the Aspects of Judging - just like it says on the box.
This time, we’re going to start the exploration of Interpersonal Skills & Communication. So far the skills we’ve been looking at have been relatively grounded in objectivity. Do you know the rules? Can you complete a task in a timely manner? Now, however, we’re starting to dive into the more subjective skills. How do people see you? How do you manage a frustrated player?
Judging, as we’ve said many times, is a customer service role, and being able to interact positively with players is important for that. In those interactions, you’re coming from a position of authority; however, you’re going to have to interact with tournament organizers, whom you don’t have authority over, and if you judge outside your LGS, you’ll be interacting with other judges. Figuring out how to balance accepting input while maintaining your personal direction can be tricky. Furthermore, trading card games, and specifically the people who dedicate themselves to focusing on the rules, have a higher demographic representation of people with varying types and degrees of neurodivergency, which adds another layer to the importance and challenge of effective communication.
We’ll go over each of the sub-categories and the details within them, discuss what they mean, talk about how you can improve them in a broad sense of the skill, and outline the expectations for judge levels one, two, and three.
Presence
Let’s start with one that’s a little bit nebulous. Your presence is both your presence in a room, as well as your presence in a larger community. This is a challenge skill to develop, because it’s about how people perceive you, and a lot of the time your first impression is going to be the one that sticks.
If it’s not the first impression, it’s going to be an outlier from your standard performance, and bad things get noticed more than good. It’s also very common for you to hit a plateau for a while, or develop a characteristic or trend, and because you’ve done that for so long, it becomes difficult to be perceived otherwise, even if that’s not part of who you are.
Aura
Aura is a kinda vague term, but it’s how people perceive you when they’re around you. Do they turn to you as a leader, even if you’re not in a leadership role? Do conversations hinge on what you say?
Do people perceive you as confident and comfortable? There isn’t a single ideal aura or way to project your attitude as it is deeply dependent on your role at the event. Being the head judge of a large destination event requires more confidence and authority, whereas someone who’s running a prerelease should likely focus more on being approachable and relaxed.
Reputation
The other big part of the Presence equation is your reputation. This is how people think of you when you’re not directly in front of them. Presence scales on two axes - both quantity and quality. People might think of you as a really strong judge, but you’re not particularly memorable, and so you have a small positive reputation. Or, you might be known for being refusing any task other than deck checks and launching On-Demand drafts, and you have a large negative reputation because of it.
Being an outlier is again a good way to develop a reputation. Do you speak a language that nobody else in your region speaks fluently, and there’s a need for translation? You’ll become “Translator Judge”. Do you have every card memorized? People will test you on that.
Of course, you don’t need to be that dramatic. Are you an L1 who has a really strong grasp of policy? Are you an L2 who helps other judges develop the skills they need to advance to L3? Knowing your strengths and weaknesses (see: Personal Growth & Accountability) will allow you to identify where you can develop your reputation.
Of course, like your aura, it’s very common for your presence to become locked in once people know you. If, for example, someone who was Head Judge of the multiple Sectors or Regionals stepped back for a while and then returned as a Floor Judge while they knocked the rust off a year later, many judges would still perceive them as having the same reputation, even if they’ve changed dramatically.
Level One
An L1 should be approachable by the members of their local community - that means that they should be known and seen as reliable and trustworthy. There isn’t a huge expectation for being known within the judge community, but it is a valuable addition.
Level Two
Level Two judges should generally present as a bit more professional than L1 judges are expected to, particularly in the context of competitive events. They should also be known and generally trusted by their local judge community.
Level Three
While level three judges are expected to be able to have the authority to lead a team of two to four other judges, they’re not expected to do so through sheer force of aura. They should be known by their local judge community, and if they judge locally, known and respected by many of the local grinders.
On a broader scale, at destination events, most L3 judges should be easily recognized by most of the other judges who regularly attend such events.
Improving Your Presence
Improving your presence is difficult - as discussed above, it’s not entirely about who you are, but rather how people perceive you to be, and it’s based heavily on early or first impressions. If you develop a reputation as someone who talks with players to the detriment of your tasks, even if you adjust your behavior and your tasks get done perfectly, someone who holds that opinion of you who sees you talking with a player is going to feel like their judgment is reinforced, because they still see the “poor” behavior. Similarly, if your work isn’t done perfectly, their judgment is likewise validated.
To change someone’s perception of you takes constant and repeated demonstrations of change, without any indication of relapsing towards your previous behavior. The above example given is one of negative behavior, but you could just be a judge newly promoted to L3 after having been an L2 for many years and developing a reputation as “L2, but not ready for L3”.
Changing a group’s perception of you is even harder than getting one person to change their mind, but a group starts with the individual.
To understand and improve your aura, figure out where you’re most comfortable - even if people aren’t conscious of doing so, they’ll be able to identify that you’re not comfortable in a role, and that will undermine any authority or confidence in you. If you’re comfortable and confident, it’s easier to turn to you and rely on you as a resource.
To improve your presence, figure out what you’re good at, and do that. Or figure out what you’re bad at, and stop doing that. This is massively simplifying it, but people stand out based on being outliers. Of course, if you’re not ready to advance, and you take big swings, it can potentially backfire and damage your reputation.
This will be something we discuss a bit in Personal Growth & Accountability, but this doesn’t have to be an individual project. While you are working on yourself, you don’t have to work alone. You can ask other judges how they perceive you, and how they think the community perceives you.
Charisma
Often defined as “force of personality”, today we’re going to break it down a little bit further. It’s not quite the same stat as in Dungeons and Dragons, but it has some overlap.
A big part of charisma is likability - do people want to interact with you? Do players feel better for having called you over even if you ruled against them? Do judges appreciate your feedback even when it’s critical? Do they like being on your team because it’s a more positive and fun experience?
Similarly, why can some people banter with others and make jokes at the expense of either players or judges, and other people can’t get away with the same jokes? It’s a matter of connection to the community.
Always On
When you’re a judge, you’re always a judge. If you’re playing at your LGS, you’re still a judge, and consequently will be seen as one. If you try angle shooting, even if that’s your behavior as a player, and separate from how you judge, that will cause players to see you differently. If you use your certification as a hammer and say “no I’m right, I’m a judge” and not have a conversation about rules confusion or a game discrepancy, that’s going to impact how players treat you as a judge.
As you get more authority, this becomes even more impactful. If you’re Head Judging larger events, players are going to understand you better - and if you’re sharper or more aggressive in non-judging situations, that perception is going to carry over into your reputation.
Levels One & Two
For most judges, the expectation is that you’re generally likable. To paraphrase Wheaton’s Law - don’t be a jerk! This goes for players, organizers and other judges.
Level Three
At level three, there’s a bit more of an expectation of actively engaging other folks - but this is also a part of Leadership, Management, & Command. When you’re in a position of authority, whether explicit in your role at an event or implicit in your certification, you’re a more impactful member of the community.
While you aren’t wholly representative of the judge community, one bad interaction with a judge, especially a prominent member of the community, can be significantly damaging to a player (or aspiring judge)’s perception of judges as a whole.
Improving Your Charisma
A lot of people, especially members of our niche of a niche of a niche community, identify as quiet, shy, and/or introverted. You can be charismatic even if you’re quiet, even if you don’t go out of your way to meet new people, even if you would rather just go home after an event than go out for dinner.
This is something that you can improve - it’s not a hard-locked stat, it just takes giving it some attention. It’s just a muscle you have to learn how to exercise.
For some, reading something like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie can be a good first step - of course, be careful with what you read about how you can influence the people around you - some cross the line into being manipulative.
Observe the people that you like working with the most - what are they doing that is fun? For many people, it may be an unconscious effort, and so they may not have specific advice, and “be funny” isn’t a particularly helpful suggestion. What makes them funny? Is it because they tell jokes that will probably land with the majority of the audience? Are they making sure nobody else is the target of them? What about it makes it fun? Of course, there are also some people who are very conscious of their social interactions and may be able to break it down into more concrete points.
You can also practice. If you’re practicing in “real” scenarios, it can’t hurt to lampshade it a bit. If you’re in a leadership position, saying something along the lines of “I’m often focused on task completion, but today I wanted to spend some time making sure you all have a good time. I’m trying some new tactics in that regard, so I may be off base - please let me know if it is not working.” can both set up expectations, give you a safety net, and prepare you for success.
However, you don’t have to just practice in real scenarios. I, and this is a genuine experience, I played Dungeons and Dragons to become a better judge. I was struggling with my charisma, my presence, and my leadership, and so I asked a friend to help run a solo campaign, and built a character who was charismatic and a leader, and so I forced myself to play that role. It sounds kind of silly, but in the game, there weren’t real consequences if I screwed up trying to persaude somebody, or my instructions didn’t land. It let me experiment with my leadership style and how I engage with people in a safe way.
Frankly, tabletop RPGs, or other similar avenues, can be great ways to fake it til you make it with regard to a whole variety of personal skills and attributes that can be scary to push boundaries on in real life.
Teamwork
No matter what level of an event you’re working at, you can’t be doing it alone. Even if you’re judging a four-player weekly play at the store you own and run, you’re working with other people - the event can’t happen without the cooperation of the players.
How you manage being part of a team, with differing levels of authority, is an important part of long term success (as I always say), because it helps reduce the friction in your experience. If people know what they’re expected to do, are well prepared to do it, and happy or at least content, that makes your life so much easier. I’m sure you’ve seen the difference in experience between players who know what they’re doing and what’s expected of them against those who don’t - those players are part of your team.
Supervisory
Most of the time, as a judge, you’ll have some amount of authority, whether it’s over players or other judges. How do you handle yourself when you’re in charge? Do you listen to concerns and feedback from your subordinates? Do make plans taking into consideration how your team functions? How do you handle it when somebody goes off the rails?
Key skills are listening to suggestions and incorporating good ones into your plans, and providing clear and reasonable instructions to your subordinates.
Subordinate
Of course, judges often have a higher authority that they answer to - usually the tournament organizer. Being able to follow instructions, but provide feedback or suggestions is critical. Furthermore, knowing when to deviate from those instructions (never) and go off to be a knight errant to make your supervisor’s life better - what lines can and can’t be crossed... these all are important for being an effective member of a team.
Key skills are being able to speak up and provide suggestions as well as executing on tasks as told.
Peer-to-Peer
If you don’t have authority over someone, and they don’t have authority over you, you’re effectively peers (even if there is a difference in certification or experience). How do you handle working with people where neither of you can provide instruction? Are you able to come to compromises or resolutions that are satisfactory when you disagree? When you have the same role, but one of you has implicit authority, how do you handle that interaction or imbalance?
Level One
At level one, you should be able to work within the framework of an LGS - you report to the Tournament Organizer/Store Owner/Events Manager, and you provide instruction to the players. You’re able to both provide and receive feedback.
Level Two
At level two, you’re expected to be able to provide a small amount of leadership to one other judge, usually for small tasks, as well as be a part of a team of 2-5 judges.
Level Three
At level three, you should be able to work within part of a larger team structure, with 2-5 other judges under your authority, as well as 2-5 other judges acting as team leads in similar roles, while following the leadership of a head judge.
Improving Your Teamwork
The first step to improving your teamwork is identifying where you can be improving. Is the issue that you’re too independent and off doing your own thing? Is it that you’re not adaptable enough and will crash into the same problem over and over if that’s the instruction you’ve received? Are you overbearing and push on your implicit authority when you’re not in a leadership position?
Once you know where the issue is, you can begin to work on it. An exceptional teammate helps others improve their teamwork, and helps cover tasks where it’s helpful for the team, without stealing experience and opportunities from less experienced members.
It’s a delicate balance, and there’s not a straightforward solution - the generic advice of ask what you could be doing better, whether it’s something that’s an area of improvement or even something you’re already good at (but not perfect), and focus on one area at a time.
It’s important to recognize that, as a member of a team, you’re not important or special - the team is. If there’s a breakdown in communication, see what you can do to help improve it. You’re not always going to be able to adjust it, because sometimes it’s dependent on the actions of other people, but teamwork is all about communication.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art of avoiding war. That’s not quite accurate, but it’s about having tact, and keeping disagreements from becoming conflicts. This is a skill that comes into play predominantly with players who are receiving penalties or tournament information that sets them back (such as not being able to be entered late into a sealed event).
Conflict Prevention
The first subcategory here is doing what you can to prevent conflict. While you sometimes can’t do anything to prevent a conflict, or sometimes your options are too drastic, it’s important to do what you can to help prevent people from getting upset.
Knowing what can upset people is a great first step. Disqualifications and game losses are obvious sore spots, but warnings and even tracking penalties can destabilize a player. Being able to recognize that a player is upset by the penalty and providing a bit of context like “A warning is nothing to worry about, and you’re unlikely to get another unless you get into a habit of drawing a seven-card opening hand!” or “It’s mostly just bookkeeping for us judges - it’s not going to go on a permanent record or anything like that.” can help resettle them. As you get more experience, you’ll develop the ability to identify what a player is concerned about - the current match, the tournament as a whole, or their reputation as a player, and can address that directly.
If you’re not certain, there’s never any harm in asking - seeking understanding of someone else is a great way to help set a framework of respect and trust.
Depending on your position and authority, you’re able to negotiate - if someone wants to debate a ruling in the middle of the match, have them come to you after the match. If someone is upset because their promo was stolen, you can consider asking the tournament organizer if there is a spare. Diplomacy doesn’t just have to be verbal - you have a large toolbox and access to many resources.
De-escalation
Of course, sometimes you’re not able to keep things from escalating, and at that point, taking steps to de-escalate the situation is ideal.
Making sure that you can give the other person time and space, to feel heard is huge. Sometimes de-escalation means separating players, or removing somebody from the space.
Level One
A level one judge should be able to issue penalties that have a negative outcome for one player, and manage the frustration that comes from the consequences of the remedy.
Level Two
At level two, you should be prepared to defend game losses that you issue, if not wholly comfortable. You should also be able to allay concerns about complex rulings once you understand why the player is frustrated.
Level Three
By the time you’re level three, you should be comfortable issuing and defending game losses, and be prepared to defend disqualifications you may have to issue. You should also be able to regularly predict the root cause of a player’s frustration when they push back on a ruling.
Improving Your Diplomacy
Diplomacy is mostly about listening and understanding. If you know why somebody is upset, and they feel you understand, you’re more than halfway there. Most of the times a player will get into an argument with a judge, the player will repeat the same argument over and over, because they feel like the judge doesn’t understand them. If you can get them to realize that you do understand them, it’s a significant step in the right direction.
And that skill doesn’t come from talking more - it comes from listening and understanding them.
Conflict Management
Managing conflicts has deep ties to diplomacy. While diplomacy was mostly about judge/player interactions, you’re going to have a wide variety of other dynamics with judges and TOs having disagreements, two judges disagreeing, or multiple players disagreeing.
While the tools of conflict prevention and de-escalation can apply to these dynamics, sometimes the conflict is already there.
Frequently, these conflicts are minor, such as two different ways to run end-of-round, or recommendations for a break schedule. Most of the time, a compromise is quickly found.
Perseverance
When you’re in a disagreement with someone else, whether they be a judge or another player, it’s important to be ready to defend your argument. If you change your mind as soon as someone talks to you, it means that you’re going to be very inconsistent, and it means that if you’re stuck between two argumentative players, your ruling is going to be in favor of whichever player is louder or more persistent.
Understand the root of your argument and its validity before changing your mind.
Flexibility
Of course, if you never change your mind, you’ll develop a reputation as hardheaded and stubborn. Being able to change course when you realize that you’re wrong is critical to growth and success.
Empathy
As we discussed in the above section on diplomacy, making the other person feel like you understand their perspective is fundamental. The best way to make them feel that way is to actually understand their perspective. It may be an argument about distribution or it may be an investigation regarding cheating - either way, knowing what concerns the other person has allows you to address them in a way that is meaningful to them.
For many disagreements, even ones where you have the final word on what happens, getting the other person to understand where you’re coming from is important. Of course, as discussed when talking about persistence and perseverance, sometimes you just have to make the call.
Escalation
The last element in this sub-section on conflict is understanding when and how to escalate. Sometimes the solution you want is something that can be provided, but it can’t be provided by you. Other times, your counterpart doesn’t respect you, and so you can’t convince them, no matter what you say or do. Of course, there will also be conflicts that you’re not comfortable in - maybe it’s a ruling you didn’t make and a player asked you to explain it to them, or some other situation where you’re not prepared to defend against the concern.
When working on a team, whether that team is just the Tournament Organizer at the store or a large event with dozens of judges and multiple TO reps, there’s often someone who can step in and handle the conversations - many of whom have significant experience dealing with frustrated individuals, and can help reduce the burden on you and help the frustrated party feel heard. This isn’t a tool to use every time, but it is incredibly powerful when implemented correctly.
Level One
As a level one judge, you should be able to get players to get back to their game, even if they disagree with your resolution or answer.
Level Two
Level two doesn’t have significant differences from level one in this regard, but the frequency and severity of disagreements increase significantly with Competitive tier events.
Level Three
At level three, not only should you be able to de-escalate players frustrated with your rulings, but you generally should also be able to quell players who appeal rulings of other judges. This is also the point where you’re expected to be able to push back more against tournament organizers (particularly those that hired you), and defend your logistical choices with both the TO and other judges.
Improving Your Conflict Management
Like with subjective investigations, getting practical experience with conflict is hard. A lot of people are naturally conflict avoidant, which means that they have a very practiced diplomacy skill, but haven’t put as many points into managing conflict once it is firmly rooted.
Bringing things down so that everyone is content is frequently a matter of compromise. If your team member suggests one way of doing things, and you wanted to do another, try one strategy, evaluate it, and then try the other - maybe not at the same event, but you can say “I hear your plan, and will try it in the future when I’ve had more time to consider it and the consequences, but right now I’ve prepared this plan. It might be worse, but I know it’s flaws.”
Particularly when the conflict is with other staff, you can get feedback - either directly from them or from a conversation with other staff members, who can act as a go-between. One of the goals of the program is to develop a culture of feedback and growth, and so ideally, the other staff member who disagreed with you is open to that conversation.
Communication
It’s going to be shocking to find out that “Communication” is one of the subskills of “Interpersonal Skills & Communication,” but it is! Whether it’s laying out a plan for logistics, explaining how meat-suit pilots work, or providing feedback to another judge, communication is key to almost everything judges do.
Technical
Just like we spent the first in-depth lesson of this track on Game & Format Knowledge, it’s important to be able to communicate technical information with players and judges - namely, rules, policy, and logistical procedures.
It’s very easy to become too comfortable with your level of understanding of the rules. If you’re an apprentice, you probably have a stronger understanding of the rules than 80% of players. If you’re an L1 that’s going to be in the 90s. When we teach rules here, we are often very technical because it is important to retain the linguistic precision that is present in the rules.
When answering a call, you can be less precise, to match the player’s comfort and understanding. If they say “summon” or “cast” instead of “play” or don’t seem to understand when you talk about the distinction between modified actions and nested abilities, you can wind it back a bit, but you need to make sure that they don’t take an incorrect understanding - because there is a correct answer, you may just have to reshape it a little bit.
Philosophical
On the other hand, with subjective conversations, which are honestly most frequently had with other judges, you don’t have to be technically precise and comprehensible. Instead, getting the idea of the message across is more important. With rules, you want to make sure that the person you’re talking with will be able to recall the details. With policy philosophy or a broad scope understanding of how events run, it’s better if they’re able to recreate the thinking behind the answer, as opposed to just the answer itself.
Being Understood & Understanding
This one is straightforward - if people don’t understand eachother, communication falls apart. Being able to identify when you’re not getting something and communicating that is a large part in successful conversations. Furthermore, when you’re the one who is not being understood, repeating your answer, but rephrasing it or reframing it is also dramatically impactful.
You’ll note that sometimes people will go from a technical explanation to a metaphorical one, or practical using physical cards as examples - trying different ways of being understood can help impart meaning, whereas repeating the same thing is less effective.
Level One
A level one judge should be able to communicate their rulings clearly to players, but aren’t expected to have a exceptional grasp on the underlying philosophy.
Level Two
Level two judges should be able to express not only the technical aspect of their rulings to players, but the underlying philosophies as well. L2 judges should also be able to easily identify when a player has a misunderstanding.
Level Three
Level three judges should be able to express rules and policy knowledge and philosophy to players as well as to judges.
Improving Your Communication
Talk to people! (then ask them to fill out a short survey on your Interpersonal Skills & Communication, that’s normal, right???)
But, genuinely, the best way to improve your communication is by putting it to use. When players ask you complex rules questions, if you generally tend towards simple answers like “yes, that works”, strive for more complete and complex ones. If you tend towards citing the CR when a player asks for a ruling, ask them if they want the comprehensive answer and all of the details or just a functional “yes”.
Challenge yourself by discussing topics that have more ambiguity - talking about philosophy is often harder because it’s somewhat rooted in opinion, interpretation, and experience, as opposed to technical answers which can be right or wrong.
A classic example is tell somebody something and have them repeat it back to you, but in their own words. Or get a couple of judges (or judge aspirants) and play a game of telephone and see what your philosophy on deck checks is after it’s gone through six other judges.
Community, Networking & Relationships
Judging is about community. It’s about developing your players, your store, the tournament scene and the game as a whole.
To grow as a judge, you need to have a network - while you can study, and practice, and improve, if you’re not connected to any other stores or organizers or judges, you won’t have a place to demonstrate those skills, no way to confirm that you’re on the right track.
Because so much of the perception of judging is based on rules knowledge, and because we do genuinely put a high emphasis on accuracy and efficiency, it’s very easy to see the judge program as a meritocracy - and in many ways it is more based on merit than most other systems. However, it’s not purely based on merit - this lesson has been all about understanding the human element of the program.
Networking & Relationships
Networking isn’t going to be a skill that you’re explicitly tested on. You’re not going to be put in formal wear, sent to a dinner party, and have your schmoozing and small talk evaluated (I cannot express how much of a nightmare that sounds like to me, and I’m fourteen pages deep on writing about how to communicate better). It will be implictly tested. The judges who have better ability to network are going to develop relationships with their local tournament organizer and get asked to work events, they’ll develop stronger bonds with other judges and find more mentors.
Becoming a part of the community has compounding returns - you become better, and meet more people and help them grow, and they help you grow and the community gets better, and more people join and they teach us new things...
But you don’t have to start on the global level to begin with.
Local Community
At the local level, know your TOs or event managers, or whoever runs events. Make sure they know your name, and that you’re a certified judge, and that you’d like to work some events! If they don’t know you exist, they’ll have a hard time hiring you!
Get to know the players as well - they’re great advocates for you - players like having a good judge at their events because it improves their experience. Plus, they can be good friends, help improve your game knowledge, and maybe even go on a road trip with you to larger events.
Regional Community
If you’re interested in delving into the broader community, reach out to judges who have a different LGS as their home shop. Travel to nearby Planetary Qualifiers. At this level, you can start to get to know all the players in your country or state, or at least the ones who are grinding and playing at every Qualifier.
This has the same benefits as the local community, but on a larger scale - you’re more likely to be able to find someone you know at a destination event, or get some insight that you might not have had access to on a personal level.
It also helps judges coordinate their experiences to help ensure unified compensation for judges in a broader area, which is to everyone’s benefit. It also means that there can be communication between stores. Frequently, store owners don’t communicate with their competitors, but judges and players who travel between stores can let folks know about other appealing events and help the stores from overlapping with each and instead of stealing players from each other, building up the community so everyone benefits.
Global Community
That brings us to the global community. While it’s definitely possible to find friends and learn strategy, to get to know players and recognize them at events, the most valuable thing that the global community brings is a wide variety of perspectives.
For some areas, a PQ with under 60 players is a sign of an egregiously unpopular format, while in others, an event with fifty would be record-breaking. The interaction between international cultures and the game, or the way people from different gaming backgrounds approach logistics or philosophy - these are all super valuable and great things to learn, and while you can get some of that from local conversations, the biggest conversations are happening with a broader community.
Player Community
Understanding players is a distinct task, especially if you’re not able to frequently play and aren’t a part of the community. Some player communities are very relaxed and love Twin Suns or formats where popular leaders aren’t allowed. Others are very competitive and only play the best decks, always practicing for Qualifiers and Championships, even at very relaxed Weekly Play events.
Understanding what drives your local community helps you provide a better play experience.
Judge Community
As I’ve said many times throughout the lessons, many judges come to the hobby (or all-consuming passion) through a desire to learn and to teach. The Judge community is about striving for growth (if not unattainable perfection) and about sharing that growth with each other.
There are many distinct regional and local judge communities, as well as the global community, but one of the things I believe most strongly is that any judge will benefit by having a couple of other judges in their network - having other people share their opinions and insights, people who are invested in the same way - that leads to conversation, which leads to understanding which leads to growth.
Publishers
Outside of more amorphous communities, an individual judge has a critical yet strange relationship with the publisher of the game they judge for. They’re not an employee of publisher (barring specific circumstances), but they’re often seen as a representative of the publisher. Furthermore, their authority and validity exists because the Publisher says it does, because they say that TOs need to use judges with a specific certification. Being respectful of the publisher of the game is important, but it doesn’t mean that you have to censor yourself.
Tournament Organizers
The other major relationship that judges must maintain is one with Tournament Organizers. It doesn’t have to be their LGS, but a judge who doesn’t have any connection to a TO isn’t going to be judging any events - no tournament, no judge.
Like with the publisher, maintaining a respectful attitude and dealing with TOs in a professional manner is fundamental, but it doesn’t mean that you should accept anything and everything a TO says or does. If you feel like the TO isn’t acting in good faith towards the players or judges of the community, you can provide that feedback and champion the cause, step back, or do both. Maintaining and participating in a toxic or unfair gaming ecosystem is not healthy or fair to anyone, including yourself.
With many TOs, however, their actions aren’t out of malice, but due to a lack of understanding. Particularly these days, with so many competing TCGs, it’s very possible that they just don’t have the visibility on what’s going on in the broader community, and sharing that knowledge with them and helping them improve can help strength your bonds and network.
Creators
While content creators and influential individuals in the community shouldn’t be given a bias in favor, neither should they be biased against. However, they have a platform, and it’s important to understand the consequences of your communication. Both positive and negative interactions potentially have outsized effects, and should be something that you’re aware of.
However, beyond just interacting with them as players in events, you can interact with them outside of events, to expand your network and your reach, and to connect with players about judging, rules, policy... whatever you think the creator’s network would find valuable.
Level One
At level one, the expectation is that you are connected to your local community by whoever endorsed you, whether it be your LGS or another judge. You should also know many of the players at your LGS.
Level Two
Level two judges should be aware of LGSs in the vicinity beyond the one that endorsed them, as well as have some connection to other judges.
Level Three
Level three judges should have connections with multiple other judges, as well as with multiple tournament organizers.
Improving Your Connectivity
Just like community, talk with people! However, for the most part, you don’t need to be talking. A great way to get people to like you is to ask them to talk about themselves - and when you remember something they said that they like, or bring up something they’re invested in, they’ll be invested in maintaining the connection.
For TOs, your first step is making sure that they’re aware you exist, either by talking to them directly or submitting an application for an event, and then making sure they know what strengths you bring to the table. They’re busy, so don’t overload or harass them, but be clear in your interest.
For players and judges, you can probably just get away with asking them about the game - what decks they like playing, what rules interactions fascinate them, what their community is like.
There are people who are nodes - individuals who have more connections and a broader network than average. If you can develop a connection with them, suddenly your network is that much larger. The great thing about nodal folks is that they have a broad network and probably like expanding that network, so it shouldn’t be too hard to forge that initial connection.
As we wrap up talking about how you can improve your interactions and communication with other people, we’re going to switch tacks and take a more introspective look with Personal Growth & Accountability.
If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us after new lessons on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.
Until next time, good luck and have fun!