Judge Program Announcements – Spring 2024
March 27, 2024
Hello and welcome, interested readers!
This article covers the announcements from the Judge conference presentation at Pro Tour Los Angeles, especially our new and amazing Judge logo as well as the official name of the Flesh and Blood Judge Program.
The name “Judges of Rathe” is to reflect the unique identity of our amazing community in the world of Rathe. Going forward, we will be using the name and our brand new logo for our community Judge resources. For example, the Judge Discord is now called “Judges of Rathe – Discord”. Judgehub is the main exception, and will remain as “Judgehub” to help identify it as the testing and event website for clarity and simplicity.
We are looking forward to updating and showing you all the new applications for the Judge logo: Judge Booths, online pages, and even future Judge merch!
We are very happy to announce that Niccolo Paqueo is joining the Legend Story Studio team as the Assistant (to the) Rules Manager. Niccolo has made ongoing contributions to the program since 2021, and we are delighted to have him working with the LSS team in an official capacity!
- All current applicants for Team Lead Evaluations have been processed, and new slots are available going forward. Click the link here for the Team Lead Certification information.
- Refresher exams are now live and they are required for all judges! Head here for a summary.
- An official Flesh and Blood Card database was previewed at the Pro Tour Judge conference. More details on this soon!
- New hero’s handbook is in development. Looking to be released later in the year.
- More updated to be made to the Judgehub resource page to improve the user experience and onboarding for new judges.
- Judge Community Representative Leads (JCR Leads) got a outline of responsibilities to facilitate regional growth better.
- Judge Community Representatives (JCR) also received an outline of responsibilities detailing their duties to their region. We will have a more elaborate article about these two positions soon!
We would like to encourage you all to take the opportunity to run local Judge conferences. We already have conferences paired with Battle Hardened and Callings, but we want to increase the number that are run at local and independent levels. For the remainder of 2024 we want to especially encourage stand-alone local and regional conferences. For state- or country-wide conferences (or conferences that are particularly special) we want to help you facilitate it! Head here to apply for a conference. Please plan with at least 2 months lead time, as applications are processed at the start of each month. You can find additional information on conferences here.
We will also run special geo-region conferences with extra LSS support. Now that we have more dates for premier events, we are working on the scheduling and locations. The expectation is to start with July and give you a 3-month lead time to plan accordingly. Each one will be a stand-alone 2-day conference focused on education and community growth.
A new conference article just got released and is showcasing our new feedback initiative for conference quality. Have a read here!
We are making some adjustments to the level requirements for high-tier tournaments.
- Calling weekends
- Calling main event and Battle Hardened judges need to be L1+
- Calling main event and Battle Hardened team leads need to be L2
- We expect L2 to be the base requirement for floor judges later in 2024
- Pro Tour and Worlds weekend specific
- Pro Tour and Worlds main event judges need to be L2 (since last year)
- We expect team leads to require the team lead certification in 2025
- Calling, Pro Tour and Worlds head and support judge applications are not public anymore
- This is now managed via a dedicated process enabled a approved candidate pool
- Currently planned are application windows every 6-9 month
- Approved candidates will stay active and eligible to be picked for 18 month
- Applicants failing an application twice will have a 12 month cooldown
- All Battle Hardened Head Judges going forward need to be L2 at the time of selection
There may be exceptions (at the discretion of LSS), especially for the L2 requirements for floor judges, due to language and regional needs.
At this point we also want to make a big shout-out to the amazing staff team from Pro Tour Los Angeles! Stage staff, admin staff, Judges, Star City Games, and everybody else involved!
And of course, thank-you all for being the amazing Judges of Rathe you are, and we hope to see many of you at the next Pro Tour in Los Amsterdam.
From Your LSS Team,
Judge Program Manager Klaus Lassacher
Rules and Policy Manager Joshua Scott