Hello, everyone, my name is Simon and I’m the new kid on the block here at Metagame.com. I have some modest experience with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, as I’m a certified Level 3 judge. I have had the privilege of judging many different events, ranging from weekly tournaments in South Florida to the National tournament in Ohio and the World Championship in California. I’ve told my writing students many times to “write what you know.” I’ve chosen to write my about a topic that I find myself constantly doing: judging. I sincerely hope that all of you will enjoy it.
"Excuse me, judge?”
“Yes?”
“Um, my opponent has his Mirage of Nightmare out and it’s my standby phase and I’m deciding whether or not to pay to keep my Imperial Order up.”
“Okay, what’s your question?”
“Is there any way for me to make his Mirage of Nightmare resolve first so he can’t draw any cards and then I can decide not to pay for my Imperial Order?”
“Hmm, let me explain . . . ”
You’ve all seen the one person at the local shop who knows all the rulings. Every time there’s a rules problem, everyone, even the store owner, looks to this person for guidance and information. They trust him or her unconditionally to give the correct judgment regarding rulings, tournament policies, and penalties. This person is your local judge—the unsung hero who is the foundation for quality organized play.
There are some duelists out there who feel that they are knowledgeable in the game and want to share that knowledge for the improvement of the dueling community. If this is the case for you, then read on, my friends—the purpose of this article is to help you establish yourself as a judge for your store. Be forewarned; working as a judge can be thankless, mind-numbing, and stressful. However, its difficulty makes it all the more worthwhile.
The first and most critical step in becoming a judge is the desire to actually be one. That desire directly ties in with your motivations. In short, why do you want to be a judge?
There are quite a number of good reasons to be a judge.
1. You want to know more about the mechanics of the game, and the best way to go about this is to jump right in and try to make coherent rulings.
2. The store you duel at doesn’t have a judge. The owner has to fulfill that role, usually with inconsistent results.
3. The most simple of reasons . . . you just want to help out and make sure the duelists in your area are receiving the best rulings possible.
There are also bad reasons to become a judge.
1. When you duel, you want to use your status as a judge to win disputes about card rulings, tournament policies, and penalty guidelines.
2. You feel that you don’t get enough respect from your local dueling community and you want a boost for your ego.
3. You hope to get lots of free booster packs for judging.
All of the bad reasons have one thing in common—selfish gain. They all ask “What do I get?” and the desired answer is, “status, respect, and free booster packs.” This may sound harsh, but if your motivation for judging is any of the aforementioned reasons, please don’t become a judge. The reason I say that is because a judge shouldn’t ask, “What do I get?” They should ask, “What can I give?” Judging involves a lot of sacrifices. You’ll be unable to participate in tournaments where you are the judge, your free time will be consumed because you’re handling disputes, and most of the time your compensation will be minimal. If you’re looking to make a name for yourself or find ways to build up your self-esteem, you’ll be horribly ineffective as a judge, because your duelists will eventually pick up on your motivations and not trust you. I’ll discuss the importance of personal integrity later on. They won’t trust you to make the right call because they’ll always be suspicious of your rulings. “Oh, he ruled that way because it made him look good,” and similar sentiments will be on the forefront of everybody’s mind. Most Yu-Gi-Oh! duelists are intelligent and alert, and they will be able to tell whose interests you’re serving—yours or theirs.
Now that we’ve established the reasons why you want to judge, we can now move along with how to become a judge. The first thing you’ll need to do is ask yourself, “Am I qualified?” In my professional opinion, the two most important criteria for successful judging are ability and integrity. The first one is self-explanatory. Do you understand the mechanics of the game? Are you up-to-date with the latest rulings? Are you able to extrapolate new rulings from existing ones? Although this may seem daunting at first, the skills required to be competent at making rulings can be acquired and developed through time and experience. If you’re willing to learn, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.
The second of our criteria, integrity, asks a very simple question about your character: Are you trustworthy? Can you be trusted to do your best when making a ruling? Can you be trusted to be impartial when making a ruling? Can you be trusted to admit you’re wrong if you made an incorrect ruling? The word trust appears many times in these kinds of questions, and with good reason. Without the trust of your local gaming community, it will be impossible for you to judge your tournaments effectively. In order to properly cultivate that trust, it is vital that you appear to hold in the highest regard the principles of honesty and fair play. I cannot stress this point enough. When two duelists are arguing about some obscure ruling and the only thing they can agree upon is to ask you for a decision, the reason they did not hesitate in calling you over is because they trust you. It doesn’t matter if you make the correct decision or not (although it’s always better to be correct), because even if you made a bad call, they trust you to inform them later. This is one quality that, unlike booster packs, cannot be bought. This is perhaps one of the secret rewards of judging—earning the respect and trust of the community, through dedication, hard work, and sheer force of will. It then evolves into a self-sustaining cycle. You strive to be a fair and knowledgeable judge, and in return you gain the trust of the local gaming community.
If you would like to judge and you meet the two important criteria of being competent and trustworthy, then it shouldn’t be a problem discussing it with the store owner where the tournaments are held. In fact, the owner would probably be delighted to have someone volunteer his or her time and help out with rulings, since good help is usually hard to find. Eventually, you may want to take the Level 1 Yu-Gi-Oh! rules specialization test that UDE plans to put on their website. At that point you will be a certified judge, and you can draw more duelists to your tournaments. After all, duelists would prefer to play in a locale where if a problem arose, they could turn to a dependable and knowledgeable person: you.
In the future, I’ll be discussing challenging situations that judges sometimes encounter and how to deal with them. Thanks for reading, and remember, please be nice to your local judge.