Feature Friday: Interview with MagicJudge
Gift of Orzhova | Art by Johannes Voss
Welcome back to Feature Friday! Earlier this week, I got the chance to an exclusive interview with Charlotte Sable, aka @magicjudge! She is currently a Level 3 Magic Judge from Kerava, Finland, and she has been here on Tumblr answering judge questions since December 2012. Since then, she has become a great resource and an active member of the MTG community here on Tumblr, always communicating in clarity and mutual respect. We here at The Burnished Hart want to shine the spotlight on some of the best people within our community, and after our last interview with @flavoracle, who better to ask than @magicjudge herself!
THE BURNISHED HART: Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview!
CHARLOTTE: It is great to be here!
Tell us about yourself. Who are you, where you from?
That’s a big question. My name’s Charlotte. I’m 35. I’m a trans woman. I was born in Toronto and lived near Toronto up until a year ago when I moved to Finland to be with my partner.
I started playing Magic in ‘94 with my brother and his friends at school. Took a fairly big break when Tempest came out due to my parents divorcing. Only really got back into it with Time Spiral.
How did you get into the judge business in the beginning?
I became a judge in 2009. When I got back into Magic in 2006 with Time Spiral, I didn’t have any friends that played, so I started collecting the set and sought out some Magic community online. I got hooked on sealed leagues on MODO and became pretty active on the MTG Salvation forums. The MODO playing as well as following the rulings forum and other rules discussions on the forums got me interested in judging, and I actually went to my first sanctioned event in the next city over just to so I could get a DCI number and try the Rules Advisor exam on Judge Center.
I passed the RA exam the second time I took it, but then couldn’t really get up the nerve to actually go get certified as a judge. Finally a friend from the forums convinced me to just do it and I reached out to a judge in Toronto.
It turned out that Nationals was coming up in a few weeks, and they needed more help for it still, so I made plans to go. Work messed up my schedule but I still managed to get the Sunday off and finally got to see a Magic event bigger than a 40-player prerelease. I got thrown into helping with the 120ish player PTQ, and was asked to test that day, which was rare.
Wow! How would you describe your early judging experience?
A lot of growing pains. I lacked a lot of confidence and people skills back then, and while I had an aptitude for the printed documents, I wasn’t the best at applying them in the most friendly manner. I quickly built up a reputation as a “hanging judge” that stuck with me for a long while.
What do you mean by “hanging judge”?
I was very strict, merciless, and by the book. Everything was black and white.
That lack of people skills led to me being denied an L2 test at Canadian Nationals in 2010. In retrospect, it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me as it caused me to re-examine myself and really spurred me to grow as a person as well as a judge.
Azorius Justiciar | Art by Chris Rahn
How would you describe your judging experience now?
It’s hard to describe in concrete terms because I’m still pretty new as an L3, and the judge program has been changing so much lately that I still don’t know exactly where I fit in. For the most part though, I approach events with a mindset to help the players have a good time. “Keep it fair, keep it fun” is a big motto in the judge program.
These days at events, I’m most often in a leadership role, either as a head judge or a team lead, so my goal in that role is to help the judges working on my team learn and grow while getting their tasks done. I have a lot of experience to share and I’ve made a lot of mistakes that I can maybe warn people away from making themselves.
Outside of events, well, I do the Tumblr thing, which is just my own thing not an official Judge Program project or the like. I also help edit exam content on Judge Center, and lead the Judges for Diversity project.
What would you say brought you to making a Magic blog on Tumblr, specifically to take judge questions?
So I started the blog on 19 Dec 2012, when there really wasn’t a Magic community on Tumblr. I was already on Tumblr for other stuff, and had been following Mark Rosewater (@markrosewater) for a while. As one of the only visible Magic blogs at the time, he was answering a lot of rules questions and getting some of them wrong.
I saw from that that there was a need for a blog like mine, so I spoke with some of the senior judges in the judge program about starting an official Judge tumblr, but got told to just do it unofficially, so I did.
Since then, I’ve made over 14,000 posts and have over 8,000 followers. About 98% of those posts are questions.
What was one of your most interesting judge calls/memorable moments in your judging experience? It could be positive or negative.
One story I like to tell is about how players at a PTQ couldn’t agree on what game they’d just finished playing. I ended up having to do some pretty deep sleuthing into one player’s life pad and both players’ decks to figure it out.
Only one player was recording life on paper, but wasn’t making any separation between games or writing starting life totals. So I had to look at the decks and figure out how much life the players could gain at once.
As for the best, it’s not a singular event I’m thinking of, but I love hearing from people that I’ve helped or inspired through my blog or otherwise being a visible (trans) woman in the Magic community.
Do you mind going into more detail with that?
This past Wednesday was the birthday of a friend and fellow judge who killed himself ten months ago. I miss him every time I think of him. So if I can be the example to one person out there that shows them that they’re welcome in this community, that there’s still something for them to live for, I’m happy to be it.
I haven’t had anyone tell me that I’ve kept them alive, but I know that I’ve encouraged people to pursue becoming a judge or going to FNM or weekly drafts or the like, and keeping those connections can be so important to keep people from losing hope if they’re struggling with mental illness or other issues.
Heroes’ Reunion | Art by Howard Lyon
That’s really awesome. Moving on, what do you do in your spare time?
Well, I don’t have a lot of free time outside of my judge program commitments and Tumblr, but when I am relaxing, I watch a lot of YouTube. I also like going to movies and restaurants with my partner, but that’s a once-a-month sort of thing. We also have a bunch of friends over every month or so for board games and general nonsense.
All right, speed round time! Favorite plane?
Kaladesh. I really want to see more of Chandra’s home plane.
Chandra. I own 4 different Chandra t-shirts. There are more now, and I want them.
Favorite commander for EDH?
Currently built: Gwendlyn di Corci
In process of building: Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
Bronze Sable, but I may be biased. ;)
Transgress the Mind. Gives me shivers just looking at it.
Scrambleverse. The card is an utter nightmare to deal with and an abomination. It’s the one card I’m in the habit of destroying.
Favorite card in general?
Again, Bronze Sable because I’m biased, but other than that, I’ll go with Chains of Mephistopheles since it ignited my curiosity about the rules way back when.
Magic celebrity crush? Or someone you look up to?
About the only one left that I haven’t met in person is MaRo, and it’s more that I just want to talk with him for a while, not a romantic crush.
All right, two more questions. What kind of advice would you give to aspiring judges?
Do it for the right reasons and don’t let yourself get taken advantage of. If you’d rather play an event than judge it, then that’s your prerogative. Do what makes you happy. Judging isn’t a job. It’s a hobby that can provide some supplemental income, but it’s not going to pay your bills, so never feel obligated to do it.
Also, learning the rules and policy takes time. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to blow calls. You’re going to mess something up and delay a tournament. It happens. Learn from the mistakes and grow. You get better with experience and repetition. No one expects you to know everything when you start.
And lastly, if there is one message you would like to send to the MTG community here on Tumblr, what would that be?
To quote Bill and Ted: “Be excellent to each other.” Also, respect one another. We’re all here because we love the game. Our specific interests and experiences may differ, but we’re still all the same community.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions! I have a feeling the fandom is gonna have a blast with this interview.
Bronze Sable | Art by Jasper Sandner
If you have any questions or comments you would like to ask @the-burnished-hart or @magicjudge, feel free to drop by their inboxes or shoot them a message! Also, if you have suggestions for future Feature Fridays, we would love to hear from you! Thank you so much for reading!
