So You Want To Be a Judge: A Beginner’s Guide to Your First Event

It is the responsibility of the judge team to maintain the round timer and keep the tournament moving at a reasonable pace. If there is a large digital countdown timer available, great! If not, ensure that players have some way of knowing how much time is left in the round, be it writing the end time on a whiteboard and having an analog clock visible, or (at a last resort) committing to providing verbal warnings at regular intervals. 

Having a clear round-timer allows players to plan their breaks and their day. Set the expectation that if players want to leave the venue for a break, they must be present when the current round timer hits 0:00 – if all games are wrapped up by then, great! You can start the next round promptly. 

If there are one or more games still going on as the timer nears 0:00, and none of those games have a time extension, then remind players of the end-of-match procedure when time is called. For any matches with an active time extension, remind them of that specific extension and be prepared to keep track of the match-specific end-of-round timing.

Deck checks are a vital tool for ensuring the integrity of a tournament. As of the time of writing this article, the latest Tournament Rules and Policy document states that deck checks are “recommended” at Competitive REL – but if there is any way you can perform these checks, this would give you important experience as a judge and also advance your community’s experience with playing at more advanced RELs and being comfortable with the process. 

The topic of how to perform a deck check efficiently could take up an entire series of articles.  As a quick primer: typically, a deck check is done at the time when both players have presented their decks. At this time, the judge comes to the table and collects the presented cards as well as any associated deck boxes. 

The judge performing the deck check could verify:

1. Did both players present a legal deck (i.e. 60 cards minimum in Classic Constructed, 30 cards minimum in Draft)?
2. Are there extra cards in the deck box (i.e. 85 cards are discovered between the presented deck and within the deck box for a Classic Constructed deck, which exceeds the maximum pool size of 80)?
3. Are there any marked cards present? 
4. Do each player’s pool of cards match the submitted decklists?

At a large event like a Calling or higher, the dedicated deck check team will typically perform a thorough check of one or more tables every round. If you are a solo judge for your local ProQuest or Road to Nationals event, your resources could be stretched thin. Make your best decision about how thorough you can realistically be while balancing your other duties at the start of the round. 

As a rule of thumb, I recommend that deck checks during swiss rounds take no longer than 10 minutes for a typical check of two decks. You should be able to cover items 1) through 3) above within that, with time to spare to check key cards against the decklist. During untimed rounds, more thorough checks which also include item 4) are possible with fewer games happening at once. 

After performing your check, return the decks to the players, remind them to shuffle thoroughly, and give them a time extension equal to the time spent. If any infractions are discovered, perform the required investigation and address each infraction in accordance with the Policy and Procedure Guide. 

A few final tips – don’t blatantly tell players what you’re checking for, your selection criteria for tables being checked, and what you’re not checking for during swiss or elimination rounds (i.e. if you only have the resources to check for marked cards, card pool size, and presented deck size) – even if this is the case, a bad actor could overhear this and plan accordingly. A little bit of mystery will keep everyone on their toes!