Guest Post: The CJ Shrader Story

By: CJ Shrader

This week on a special episode of The Elvish Farmer, we have a story that I am both happy and sad to host. CJ Shrader has served as my primary mentor in the judge program from L0 onwards, and his presence, both in my community, as well as on JudgeCast, has had a profound and lasting impact on my motivations to judge. CJ has recently decided to step down from judging to pursue other interests. Losing him from the ranks of Georgia judges, and the USA – SE as a whole, has left an unmistakable gap. Thankfully, he is still around in social media to regale us all with tales of woodworking and is continually there to stomp me in non-MTG electronic card games.

While it may seem odd for this blog—which focuses on finding positive examples and practical experiences to emulate in order to strengthen the judge program—to share the story of a judge who eventually stopped judging, I believe there is great value in every judge’s story. I hope, in offering CJ a platform to share this story, that I can help others to reflect on their own journey. I appreciate CJ’s candor and openness; it is never easy to open up to your peers, especially when there’s a risk that some might not agree with your decisions. But there is always value in understanding another’s path. It gives you an opportunity for self-reflection—whether that means deciding to make changes so that judging can always be a part of your life, or if it means reflecting on the loss of why you judged in the first place. As long as the decision is the best for you personally, I support it.

Magic Origins

“Hey, check this out.” My friend Sean pulled a shoe box from underneath his bed. He rifled through it until he pulled out what I later learned was called a “Serra Angel.” And not just any Serra Angel, but fourth edition Serra Angel. “You can almost see her boobs.”

I was 11, and this was my first introduction to Magic: the Gathering.

It wasn’t long before I was hooked. Junun Efreet and Nightmare were busted, broken cards to me. Mirage had just come out, and phasing totally made sense to us. We pretended like we knew the rules, yet I know no one ever mentioned a batch or series to me in these pre-sixth edition days. Using Icy Manipulator to tap an attacker “in response to it being declared as an attacker” was totally normal and no one questioned it.

It was this same friend that introduced a book to me called Whispering Woods, the first of the Magic: the Gathering novels. This started my nosedive into the Magic story.

Magic: The Resurrection

Although I played Magic for many years after that, I never went to a competitive tournament or honestly knew they existed. Eventually, I moved to Georgia and didn’t know anyone who played anymore, so I fell out of the game. However, I did keep up with the story and bought every novel as they came out. The Brother’s War was so good. The Ravnica ones … not so much.

In college, I met a friend of a friend who said he was a Magic Judge. I’d never heard of such a thing and thought it was very cool. (Youth, right?) I wasn’t playing Magic at that point.

Later, I was regularly attending trivia in a delightfully skeezy bar in Atlanta and made friends with Mike, the trivia host. He told me that he drafted with some friends every week and invited me along. Zendikar was the new set, and I’d never drafted before, so I checked out a just-launched podcast called Limited Resources to help me learn how to do it well. This was my first foray into listening to Magic podcasts.

The Road to Judgedition

I’ve always been interested in game rules, and Magic in particular has a deep set to explore. Coming back to the game right after the M10 rules changes really sparked my interest in learning as much as I could, and I remembered that such a thing as the “judge program” existed. I did some research and hopped into the #mtgjudge IRC channel as a hopeless newbie. (The logs of my time there are, to be nice, embarrassing.)

I went to my local game shop to get a DCI number, which I didn’t have since I’d never been to a tournament, and was accepted to the next Starcitygames.com Open in Atlanta. This was my first event! It was a different time back then.

At the event, I met Jared Sylva and Nicholas Sabin, the first judges I ever met in person … except that rando I’d met years earlier whose name I never learned, and when I asked my friend about him, he had no recollection of this person. Was he a mirage? A phantasm? A time traveler from the future ensuring I’d become a judge?

Anyway. The event was great! I had a blast. Jason Reedy taught me everything about the logistical side of being a judge, which I was naturally clueless about. He taught me that “the J in judge stands for janitor” and showed me the less glamorous but still important side, like pushing in chairs. I am eternally grateful for Reedy’s mentoring that day; he gave me a huge boost in my judging career, and I count myself very lucky for it.

At that same event, Casey Hogan tested me for L1. I passed! I’d been grinding rules tests like crazy, so this was pretty exciting for me. I’d studied the IPG thoroughly (once again, different time). I actually rewrote the entire thing by hand as a study guide. If you really want to learn the IPG, I can tell you this is one way to get there. I’d also been listening to every episode of a new podcast called JudgeCast and e-mailed the hosts like a fanboy.

I was finally a judge.

The next year was pretty normal. I judged my first GPT. I’m sure I judged more SCG Opens. Within time, I made L2 as well, being tested by Riki Hayashi. My first L1 certification was a nobody named Nik Zitomer. What a time to be alive!

Hello, and Welcome to JudgeCast!

A year after making L2, JudgeCast wasn’t really posting episodes anymore. Sean Catanese and Riki were busier with judge tasks than they’d ever been before, and they just didn’t have time. I wanted JudgeCast to keep existing because I enjoyed it so much, and I figured the best way to make that happen would be to do it myself. (This is a pro tip for the judge program. If you want ANYTHING to happen, you need to do it yourself.)

I contacted Sean and told him I was interested in taking over JudgeCast. By coincidence, Jess Dunks had contacted Sean at the exact same time. He put us into contact with each other, gave us a handover, and a true dream team was formed. A couple episodes later, we added Bryan Prillaman. The new generation of JudgeCast was born.

JudgeCast is easily my favorite thing I ever did as a judge, and it probably kept me in the program a year longer than I would have been otherwise. I hope everyone enjoyed listening to JudgeCast half as much as I enjoyed making it. In the end, I think my cats will outshadow me on the show.

The Great Suspension

Although I expect many readers to know this story, it’s an important part for later, so I’ll try to recount it. Briefly.

Over a year ago, Adam Hubble shared some card images he’d gotten from a friend with us in a Facebook group chat. These images included Kozilek, the Great Distortion, and Wastes. This was not uncommon as we, like any dedicated group of Magic players, would regularly look at spoilers (real and fake) in this chat.

Turns out these were real and we were the “first” to see them (not counting the employee who leaked them to someone who leaked them to Hubble). They then leaked out of our chat as well.

WotC traced the leak back to our chat and, ultimately, Hubble. They suspended Hubble not long after. I honestly nearly quit then. A few days later, they suspended me and everyone else in the chat, too. They called us thieves. They said it was our responsibility to report the spoilers. Worse, they did it right before Christmas break, when WotC completely shuts down. Any request for appeal wouldn’t be handled for weeks.

I know to this day there are probably people who think what I did was wrong, and I completely understand that. However, I don’t think it’s the average Magic player’s responsibility to protect WotC’s intellectual property. If I’d even been sure it was real AND known our chat was the only location it was posted, I still wouldn’t have reported it.

I think the way WotC treated my friends and me during that period irreversibly damaged my relationship with WotC. WotC was no longer a dream company I would have loved to work for. They were a company that cared more about their bottom line than some of their most supportive customers and ambassadors for the game.

If you want to hear more about that, you can check out this podcast, JudgeCast’s most popular by far: http://judgecast.com/?p=930.

Quitter Quitter, Chicken Dinner

And here we go, the part everyone scrolled to, skipping the rest. Why did I quit judging and sorta quit Magic? It’s nothing earth-shattering; no one did any particular wrong to me. I just realized one day that it wasn’t fun anymore. That’s the true, ultimate reason. I would go to events because I felt like I had to, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I briefly tried cutting down to just PPTQs instead, but it was all the same feeling.

I have given it a lot of thought, and here are some of the various reasons why I don’t think I enjoy it anymore (in no particular order). This isn’t saying that if you do enjoy these functions, you’re wrong. I fully expect people to disagree with me on many aspects of this.

1. Policy. I don’t really like policy right now. The best way to describe it, to me, is a bunch of flowcharts to figure out a penalty. When this happened to Missed Trigger, it was fine, because it was literally one simple flowchart. It wasn’t too bad. I feel like the same is now true for Hidden Card Error and even Deck/Decklist Problem. When a new policy update comes out, I just have no interest in keeping up with it anymore.
2. New sets. I don’t find the new sets very interesting. Kaladesh was a big example of this. All of the mechanics were just simple reskins of other mechanics, or strict downside mechanics (looking at you, Vehicles—you’re just Mogg Flunkies in disguise) that weren’t interesting to me at all. I used to read every new spoiler as it came out; now I’m lucky to see 10 of the cards. I’m not sure if this is due to the suspensions, the sets getting more boring, or because I’ve been involved with this game for over 20 years now and maybe it’s just not being made for me anymore.
3. Events. I feel that the tone at events has really changed. When I was a new judge, it was all about answering rules questions and making sure there was a good player experience for everyone. Consistency in rulings was important from event to event. Now when I go to large events, it seems to be all about socializing. Everyone wants to hang out on the floor talking to their friends, or at the stage harassing the stage staff. No one wants to just answer rules questions anymore. I love the social aspect of judging, but I think there’s a time and a place for it—and it’s not in the middle of the floor while there are large areas that aren’t covered. I also don’t think it takes five people to run On-Demand Events, yet you always find a group there. Once again, maybe it was always this way and as I became more experienced I began to see it more.
4. L3 process. I haven’t shared this much, and never in so public a fashion, but I’ve failed the L3 panel twice. The first time was completely warranted. I was not ready yet. The second time, years after the first, I felt completely ready … and to be honest, I disagree with a lot of what the panel told me after. I’m not saying I didn’t have areas to improve; I certainly did. But the results of the second panel implied that I had made zero improvements over the past two to three years, and that was pretty ridiculous. When you fail like I have (i.e., spectacularly), you have to go through the entire process again. After having done it twice, I rapidly lost all interest in doing it a third time.
5. Story. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve always been deeply invested in Magic’s story. Nowadays … not so much. I think the introduction of the Gatewatch has made every plane feel very similar. Beyond that, it just feels like lazy and forced writing at times. (Can someone give me a real reason why Ajani was on Kaladesh? Oh, Tamiyo told him; that makes perfect sense … Oh, wait, why would those two even know each other?) I think the real hit here was Magic Origins, where they made major retcons of Nissa and minor ones to Gideon and Liliana. From that point on, it felt pointless to invest in the story because they’ll just change it on a whim to fit their agenda.

What’s Next

And that’s it! I hope you’ve enjoyed this jaunt through CJ Shrader’s Magical life. Sometimes people ask me what I’m going to do next. The answer is … not much. You’re still going to see me around from time to time. I’m still in a few (a VERY few) Magic groups, and I’m still on IRC and the Southeast Judge Slack. I hope to make an exciting guest appearance on JudgeCast one day, whenever the time is right. And I may even continue to do a story podcast here and there as I do still follow the plot. I’m actually pretty interested to see where Amonkhet goes, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll wrap up at least ONE Nicol Bolas plotline.

Beyond that, I’ve spent my time continuing to be an extremely amateur woodworker (I actually have an interesting idea for Magic-themed pens rattling around in my brain), I’ve been working out more, and I’ve been playing a lot of Eternal—not the Magic format, but a different game that I’m absolutely loving that has filled that strategic card game hole.

If you ever need to contact me, you can always shoot me an e-mail (my name at gmail.com), contact me on Facebook, or find me in your grocer’s washed-out judge aisle.

I think I’ll end the same way I started most of my events: with a joke! In this case, it’s the one that got me the most laughs ever—and the first one I told in front of a large crowd:

Why should you bring two shirts when you go golfing?

In case you get a hole in one!

Conclusion

CJ’s decision to quit judging makes sense to him, and so of course I support his choice. Personally, while I understand his reasons very well, it still saddens me to lose such a strong and popular judge from our community. I know the truth is that no one ever actually leaves this game, they only take breaks, so I’m sure I’ll see him on rare occasion at local events. While I may be sad about it personally, I wanted this story to be shared as it can serve as a great point of reflection. As I mentioned in the introduction, regardless of whether that introspection leads you to course-correct and return reinvigorated to judging, or if it leads to you seeing a path out of judging entirely, critically evaluating where you personally are is the important step.

I wanted to give CJ this platform (separate from the ones he himself has developed) because I firmly believe that there is value to be gleaned from every story.

As always, keep looking for the people and the stories that inspire you in this program. Learn from them as often and as well as you can. Even in leaving, I hope this story can help you to grow as a judge. Until next week, keep your eyes and minds open.