I can’t believe I’ve been responding to the "Ask the Judge" email and writing the rules related columns for almost exactly one year now. Over the last year I’ve been collecting thoughts, ideas and stories of stuff that’s been sent in to use in a year in review article. About 2 weeks ago I couldn’t remember exactly when I started writing the column, but seemed to recall that it was in mid-August. So I looked on my hard drive and found that I was several weeks off and my first column appeared on July 26, 2004. Yikes! So I hurriedly went through my notes and put together this collage of thoughts on my first year.

First of all I should point out that as of right now I have 7256 messages in my Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=18 inbox. This is from just one year of emails. And yes that is after deleting the spam and forwarding all email regarding increasing the size of certain portions of the male anatomy and "performance" drugs to Sheldon, the previous recipient of these emails (I have to assume that they are intended for him). Granted, I do receive some emails that are without questions, most often it is in thanks for a recently sent answer. But even assuming that 10% of those emails do not contain questions, this would mean that I’ve received about 6,500 emails with them. Also keep in mind that many emails contain more than one question. Some people seem to save them up and then ask ten at once.

While that averages out to about 20 emails per day, the number on any given day can vary from 15 — 40. And while I don’t necessarily spend time replying everyday, I spend on average about one hour a day answering these questions (and yes, I answer every question). The largest I ever had my inbox fill up was when I was at GenCon last year. I left on Wednesday with an empty inbox, and returned home Sunday night with 160+ emails. Needless to say I was busy that following Monday and even part of Tuesday.

So with all of those questions, why are there only 8 to 10 in each article and why does the article only appear 4 times a week? The simple answer is the vast majority of questions I receive are unusable. There are three reasons for this. One, the question has been answered before and it appears in the Ask the Virtual Judge database. You’d be surprised what is in there, and it should be your first stop before submitting a question. Yes, there are a few errors in the database that have to be combed out periodically due to rules changes or even due to errors that were made when the question was initially answered. Let me know if you find one; we do like to keep it updated and correct. But even with these few discrepancies, anytime you have a question you are very likely to get a correct and quicker answer by using the database.

The second reason that I can’t use some questions is that while that specific query may not appear in the database, other very similar ones do. For example; There are plenty variations on the question of what happens when triggered ability A and triggered ability B trigger at the same time? Or I have answered a similar question in the recent past and do not want to get too repetitive. For example, the question of whether or Teller of Tales ability triggers when a spirit spell is countered is pretty much the same as if Thief of Hope’s ability triggers when an arcane spell is countered. It’s unfortunate that what is called the Spiritcraft ability was never explicitly named as such on the cards, as I’ve received questions like those on a continual basis ever since the release of Champions of Kamigawa.

The final reason a question will not see print is that the question is, well too simple. For example I receive questions about regenerating a creature in the graveyard fairly regularly. Or those that ask where to get the forests that Tranquil Garden makes, how long ‘summoning sickness’ lasts and how to assign combat damage to multiple blockers etc. Now, I’ve said that these questions are simple and often based on a misunderstanding of the basic rules of Magic, but my replies are never simple. Have you ever tried explaining the basic rules of Magic to someone across the Internet? It is not pretty or fun. It takes longer and more effort to answer this type of question than it does to deal with the complex situations that appear in the published articles. However, I do answer these simple questions for two reasons; it’s my job, and for every player who understands the basics of the game better we have another player to help keep the game alive and flourishing. One benefit to these basic questions is that they often become the basis for a Rules Tip if the Day.

Now that I’ve gone over what I do with all of the questions submitted, on to a few short random comments, thoughts and description of some of the more unusual things that have been sent in.

First of all, I’m not Sheldon (although secretly when I cry myself to sleep at night I wish I were). Seriously, not a week goes by when I don’t get an email that says ‘Dear Sheldon, it’s been awhile since I asked you a question.’ Yeah like almost a year. Anyway, I truly don’t mind getting emails addressed to Sheldon, but it always feels weird reading and then replying to them.

Magic is truly an international game, with players that speak all sorts of different languages. I get questions every day from all over the world. Often these international readers will add, ‘Please pardon my English, it is not my native language.’ First of all, to anyone who is writing to me whose native language is not English, your English is better then my ability to write or speak in your language. So there is absolutely no reason to apologize. And second of all, I’ve found that non-native English speakers often write more coherent emails in English then many native English speakers do.

This leads to my next thought, please use the shift key and punctuation marks. I often spend more time editing the punctuation and grammar of a question so it can appear in an article then I do in formulating the answer. Is it really that hard to capitalize card names, the first letter in a sentence or the personal pronoun "I?" And once again, I have to do this for questions from Ohio and California more often then I do those from the Netherlands. Poor grammar etc. is not going to prevent me from responding to your question or use it on the website, but c’mon.

I’ve always known several female Magic players, and even had the privilege to work with a few female judges, so I do know that girls and Magic can mix. But even I was surprised at the number of questions that are from female readers or from their boyfriends, sons and husbands.

When I first found out Sheldon wanted me to take over the column, I was really excited and honored. About a month after I had done so I remembered that the next Magic "Un-" set was going to be released in November. Let’s just say I was not looking forward to what I expected to be the huge volume of questions on Unhinged. Another surprise I received was how few goofy questions I received on cards from this set. I still get a few every now and then, but I was afraid I’d have to spend weeks on end mitigating rules disputes involving songs, funny voices and artist names. Lucky for me, I didn’t get that many.

Every now and then I look at the addresses and signatures in the email I receive to see where these questions are from. One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of players send me questions from work. This was not a big surprise. However one weird thing that was is that a lot of these people work for insurance companies. I’ve received emails from at least 5 or 6 different insurance companies, in the US and England. What’s up with that? Are there a lot of actuaries that play Magic?

I’ve been lucky enough to experience one phenomena that Sheldon apparently never had to. That is receiving email from people that think I’m a legal judge, as in I preside in a court room and have a gavel. The first time I received one of these questions I forwarded it so Sheldon to ask how many of these questions he had received over the years. I was surprised to hear the number was zero. I was further surprised throughout the year to receive three more. Here they are for your reading pleasure. I’ve edited out any personal information and corrected them for grammar and spelling, but other than that I really did receive the following:

"When a judge sets a bail does the judge get that bail money?"

"I am a student at XXX school of Criminal Justice and I was given an assignment on any legal system related issue. One of the requirements was to interview someone in whatever field we decide, so I decided to seek a judge and ask these questions. Personally speaking, do judges show any form of sympathy or leniency towards non violent first offenders? ie drug trafficking? Does gender matter to a judge when handing out a sentence for a violent crime?" And so on...

"Can an American Indian, born and living on an independent sovereign Indian reservation be elected as President of the United States?"

And my personal favorite:

"I would like to know what the punishment would be for hitting a policeman and getting charged with aggravated assault. This happened to my nephew in Illinois. I would think it would be bad, because he hit a policeman and he was very drunk."

Each time I received one of these I responded politely, that I was not that kind of judge, that I am an official for a card game and that my role was similar to that of a referee. However for the last example above I was very tempted to respond that what happens depends on the REL level.

I’ve gone on long enough. Hopefully after reading this article you’ll see that answering these questions and writing these article is not as quick and easy as it may look at first. But the point of this article is that even with all the work and occasional tedium involved it is fun and rewarding.

Before I go I have a few thanks to give out. First of all to Sheldon for trusting me to take over his work here. Soon after I became a Leve 3 judge he told me he wanted me to take over if he decided to give up on it and I was surprised and flattered. I was theen shocked when a month later he did decide to retire. I can’t thank him enough for this opportunity he’s given me.

I have to thank a friend of mine Jason Lemauieu. He always seems to find weird situations that I’ve never seen or dealt with before and sends them to me. He’s also really good at finding bugs in MTGO and asking if that is how it is supposed to work in real life. I guess our relationship is symbiotic, I get neat and original questions to use in columns and he ends up getting refunds and for his online drafts that have gone awry.

Finally I’d like to thank everyone who has read an article, offered feedback, kept me honest by finding a mistake or asked a question. And yes I owe thanks even to those people whose questions do not appear in articles. Without the interest in the game, the rules and the proper function of tournaments my life would be a lot less busy but also a lot less rich. So keep the questions coming, I’ll be here answering them.