Another year with another World Championship is here!
We hope you enjoyed the news James White shared today at the Keynote in Paris. This article is also showcasing the news and updates presented today by the Judges of the Rathe program with updated information post-keynote, as we needed to keep some things for James!
Lets go over some updates!
FAB 3.0 and judging
Many new things have been announced that impact virtually all Flesh and Blood players and, with that, also judges around the world. Some of those impact judges not directly – like the changes to products or pricing – while others do have a bigger impact.
If you have missed the general announcement, check it out here!
Standard seasonal structure
Organized play seasons will now be in a standardized format, enabling better planning and games. The system is designed to tie tournaments from Armories to the Pro Tour together into a more predictable and better experience. For Judges it also means being able to plan your event seasons better for yourself and in cooperation with your local stores. Same applies if you just wanna play a certain part of a season or even plan a trip to a World Tour event.
Our training through online conferences are also being adapted to fit this new seasonal structure and making sure you’re ready for the next event on the calendar (more on this below).
Bigger and better World Tour events
The coming year will feature bigger prize pools for the various Pro Tours, Callings, Showdown and such. With that we will see bigger World Tour events over the whole year. Each of the World Tour stops features a Calling and a Showdown and some will have special events like a World Championship, World Premier, or a Pro Tour. This will also come with an increase in mentors and other roles at World Tour events, including a return of the Showdown Support Judge role and more. Do not forget to check your Judgehubs settings to get notice when new event applications are up! Applications for the Pro Tour weekend in London close after the World Championship weekend.
More structured Organized Play seasons, 3 Pro Tours and bigger World Tour events overall will shape judging in 2027. Additionally, having the 2027 World Tour stops with the Callings (and more) announced makes you able to plan your year as a judge and as a player. We intend to have the schedule of surrounding events (like Conferences and the Judge Cup) available soon so you can fully plan your year ahead.
But now to some Judges of Rathe-specific news!
Judge Community Representatives
Europe got a new Judge Community Representative (JCR) Lead – Antonio Ferreiro! Bartłomiej Wieszok is rotating out and we thank him for all the effort he put into the role. JCRs are community-focused judges around the world, helping judges and organizers as local anchor points. JCR Leads are connection piece between the different regions and the judge program
Want to know more about what Judge Community Representatives are? Check out this article! Wanna check out who your JCR is? Check out the region overview here. Click on your region and you can also see your JCRL.
Policy
Our first major update to announce for the Rules and Policy site is that the policy documents (the Tournament Rules and Policy & the Penalty Procedure Guide) are now fully annotated with additional examples and context. You can reveal these annotations by clicking the small document icon in the upper right corner of the menu.
With that, also a massive thank you to Eser Unger, who has led the Policy team overall and in making this document! Eser will also rotate out of the role as of now and we want to thank him for all the efforts and time put into the role helping us to improve so many aspects of the policy documents – as of course also a thank you to all members of the policy team, including the Calling Head and Support Judges.
The new policy lead is Alfonso Bueno – welcome him together with us!
Tech
Welcome to the new version of the blog! If you are reading this you already found it and we hope you like it. Overall it comes with a big visual update as well as new functionality – especially being able to have different landing pages for various topics and languages. Judgehub did also get some minor visual adjustments to have a better consistency with the blog layout as well as different comfort features for the application pages. Expect article translations to roll out soon onto their own pages and look for updates on that via the Discord!
Exams
We’re proud to announce that all three release exams for this year are live! Go complete your maintenance (as a reminder for Level 1 Judges you must complete two of the three release exams, Level 2 Judges must complete all three). Thank you to Steven Zwanger for leading the release exams this year!
We’re also launching our fifth attempt at the Level 2 exam. This is a radically different approach to an exam as it’s a live scenario based exam where candidates will be faced with up to six scenarios to prove their knowledge of rules and policy. Currently this must be done with a member of the LSS staff present to run and must be scheduled in advance. The full procedure for taking this exam will be released soon. If you’ve already made your fourth attempt and are ready to try your fifth please reach out to exams@fabjud.ge and we’ll get you in the queue.
New Certification!
The Scorekeeper Basic certification launched today on JudgeHub! It’s designed to test your understanding of GEM and readiness to be a joint Scorekeeper and Head Judge or to scorekeep side events at a World Tour stop.
Advanced Certifications
With FAB 3.0 and a new year come also adjustments to the Team Lead Certification (TLC) as well as the Calling Head Judge Evaluation.
The TLC is getting a new checklist that will be active starting at the start of 2027. The current checklist can be used until the end of the year. Any evaluation happening starting the Philadelphia World Tour stop will use the new system. The new article with the new checklist will be available here shortly.
The Head Judge Evaluation process also got some minor updates in the base requirements for the upcoming waves. The next evaluation will run under the current system, expected in early 2027, and future evaluations will have an adjusted process.
Please also welcome our two newest Calling Head and Support judges in their probationary period! Jon Smith from the USA and Jackson Car from Australia.
Conferences
Next year will continue to feature Calling weekend conferences at select show, online conferences, as well as georegion conferences.
- Calling weekend conference: Either 4-5h during afternoon (selected stand alone Callings) or full day (Pro Tours and Worlds) starting 10:00. Attendee and presenter sponsored.
- Georegion conferences: Dedicated stand alone conferences, upcoming for East Asia, South East Asia, Oceania and Brazil
- Online conference – with a new system!
Online conference will be a recurring set of conferences that will line up with the new OP structure.
- Our standard season cycle will start with World Premier weekend, during that weekend and another session during the week we’ll have an office hour to answer your questions about the latest set to get ready for pre-release and give you the latest updates from the program.
- Before the ProQuest season starts we’ll have sessions designed to support judges doing their first event (or refreshing after not having done an event for a while)
- During the constructed part of the ProQuest season we’ll have our “Electives” weekend where we’ll present new things and special topics from the community.
- After the ProQuest season we’ll have a weekend focused on getting you ready for the larger Battlegrounds and Callings you can expect.
- And finally we’ll have a weekend focused on specialized roles and leadership like the TLC development track
Some seasons may vary based on presenter availability.
We are also actively utilizing bigger conferences and event weekends to provide extra workshops for JCR (leads) and MAJOR mentoring candidates as well as development focus group workshop for relevant program discussions.
Rules and Policy
Major update to searching on rules.fabtcg.com! Your search now defaults to just the document you’re in and offers full logic support (you can search for both words to appear by using a plus sign [ie trigger +effect gets you results with both words instead of either], phrases by using quotes [ie “triggered effect” gets you only that exact phrase], minus to remove words [ie trigger -effect gets you results where the word trigger appears but not effect)
The Casual Procedure Guide and the change log have both moved to being hosted on rules.fabtcg.com so all of our information is one place! Update your bookmarks!
Older Judge Packs
We are continuing to develop working on ways for you to get older judge booster packs. Some of those methods are coming back like mixing older and newer judge packs for Calling events and similar. Additionally, you can also get older packs at georegion conferences (Season 1 and one random pack for Level 2 Judges) and for presenting at World Championships and Pro Tours.
Also do not forget – any judge that still makes their level 2 this year gets a Judge pack with their yellow popped collar promo!
We are also happy to announce 2 unique, one-off ways we are rewarding our dedicated community members for helping us increase the level 2 count so far. Every judge that has written 3 or more level 2 advancement reviews is receiving a judge pack.
Outlook
We are also working on a lot of great things for 2027. Here are some (minor) spoilers for it!
- More online content and conference
- More ways to play as Judge
- Synergies for Judges with player XP
- More tech updates
- Achievements giveaways
- And more!
Spoilers
So far we’ve revealed a few cards for Judge Pack Outbreak:
Here’s how these three fit into our new design of Judge Packs:
Here is also the playmat for the Callings during Outbreak season.
If you are in Paris this weekend make sure to check out our Judge booth this Sunday in the event hall! Antonio and Niklas as two of your European JCRLs are there!
