News Bulletin – September 2023
September 8, 2023
The Rules Team is preparing for one of its busiest seasons as they will be reviewing upcoming Release Notes and Comprehensive Rules updates for both Bright Lights and Round the Table. More cards always means new rules interactions for judges and players alike to experience. We encourage players and judges to discuss all the revealed cards in the JudgeHub Discord‘s Spoiler Discussion channel, as your questions and discussions there can provide good ideas for additions to our rules document reviews.
Additionally, the Rules Team is opening up applications for new team members to join its ranks! The Flesh and Blood Judge Program has many project teams such as Exam, Policy, Content (and many more), where judges can volunteer their time and energy. The Rules Team is one of those teams aimed at improving the community’s collective understanding of game rules.
The application period begins today and will close on Sunday, September 17, 2023 at 11:59 PM New Zealand Time (NZT). If you are interested in applying and/or wondering on what a Rules Team member does, check out the application here.
ProQuest Season 4 is coming up soon! The answers to questions stores, judges, and players might want to know about these events are available in the FAQ. We’d like to remind all stores and judges that ProQuest and other Tier 2 events MUST have a Level 1 or higher judge as head judge. Stores should be working with judges to discuss arrangements for their ProQuest event.
Stores that are lacking a judge for an event may search for Judge near them via the search function or via the map function, and a direct message function is available to message them. Additionally, the Judge community is organized in regions. Each region has a Judge Community Representative who is a contact point for the Judges in each region and can also be contacted by organizers to find local judges for their events.
Finally, we’d like to reiterate that the Judge Support provided in each ProQuest prize kit is not allowed to be used as compensation by stores to pay judges for the work they do while preparing for and running a ProQuest event. Judges should be provided appropriate compensation from stores for their ProQuest event. The Head Judge should receive the Judge Pack from the prize kit, and a floor judge (if any) should receive the Judge Sleeves included.
Based on community discussion in the last few days, the Judge Program would like to reiterate the Missed Trigger policy with respect to the recent changes. Of note:
- Triggers are evaluated based on context for the purposes of Cautions/Warnings.
- Judges are not required to intervene if an infraction with a Caution penalty has occurred or if an infraction with a Warning penalty is mutually resolved between the players in a timely manner.
- In missed trigger situations where a rewind/partial fix is not an appropriate procedure, no further action is taken.
- Players are not responsible for acknowledging their opponent’s triggers, even if the player is are aware of them.
- Players share responsibility for all other game rules being followed.
We’re always striving to improve the communication of official policy, and we’ll be looking to further refine the Missed Trigger policy in particular to ensure that both players and judges are aware of their responsibilities.
Feedback and questions about policy are always welcome, and may directed towards the general judge email at judge@fabtcg.com, or the Policy Team’s direct email at policy@fabjud.ge. Most of the Policy Team’s work is behind the scene and not immediately visible, but rest assured, LSS has been made aware of the situations you’ve encountered in which you didn’t feel you the policy gave you the answers you needed. Keep them coming!
If you’re interested in the philosophy surrounding the current policy regarding Missed Triggers, or why alternative philosophies are not applied, we highly recommend reading through Rules and Policy Manager Joshua Scott’s article here:
Back Alley Oracle #11: Missed Triggers and Player Responsibilities
There’s been a hubbub of judge activity around the web! We’d like to highlight a few of them below:
While many community members are already familiar with Instant Speed Podcast, we’d like to highlight a special episode in particular – an interview with Rules & Policy Manager Joshua Scott!
In this interview, Josh goes through several topics, from how he and the development team work together during development to make sure there aren’t any broken rules interactions, to the goals behind the development of the Judge Reward Packs. It’s a rare look behind the scenes of a part of the game that may not be as glamorous as design, but is still quite interesting in its own right!
Card game YouTuber TTPlays has been hard at work with quick “Rapid Rules Reviews“, short videos dedicated to rules tidbits that players should be aware of and maximize their strategic options during the game.
Even for experienced judges, we recommend refreshing yourself on the rules from time to time to make sure your working knowledge is up-to-date, and videos like these are the perfect way to stay on top of things without needing to thumb through the comprehensive rules again!
While we featured them a few months ago in June, we’d like to give another shoutout to the IP2 Podcast, run by Felix Chung and Shea Ashbee from Calgary, Canada! Felix and Shea are avid judges and players who have been creating content on the channel since April. They have covered a variety of topics relating to judging and community management, and have a number of great interviews with prominent judges in the community!
Some of their more recent episodes we recommend is their interview with Jared Sylva from Star City Games, and their interview with Klaus Lassacher, Judge Program Manager. Both of these episodes have some great insight into the organization of the Judge Program and large-scale events, so we give them a listen!
In addition to their Youtube channel, you can find them on their Twitter and Mastodon pages. Give them a follow!