Year in Review
Well here we are: another year gone , and I've answered approximately another 8,000 emails. How do I know that? Well, I've been handling the Ask the Judge rules questions columns for just under two-and-a-half years now, and the inbox where all of these questions goes now has 19,926 emails in it. By the time that this article gets posted I imagine that the number will be well past 20,000. Keep in mind that this is after spam has been filtered out or manually deleted. If the spam was still there, the total would be something like 200,000 emails. And while some of these emails contain a simple "thank you" and do not have questions in them, far more have multiple questions. So in the end I think that 8,000 is probably a fair number.

So apart from the massive volume, what else has been going on in the ATJ part of my life? Eh, not much, but I do have some thoughts and stories about this job and the past year.

For those keeping track, my last year-in-review was in July of 2005. I wrote that after my first year writing for Ask the Judge.

Here's an update of something from that last year-in-review: since then, I have received a few more emails from people thinking that I'm an actual black-robes-and-gavel judge, but only one or two. People seem to be catching on to how the interweb works and don't always push the Google "I'm feeling lucky" button.

As mentioned above, I get a lot of email. Do you know what's worse than getting 25-40 questions a day? Not getting any when you expect it. Just after my first year-in-review was posted for some strange reason [This was just after I took over as editor -Seamus], I stopped getting email redirected to my personal address. After a day went by and I didn't receive anything, I contacted Pete and The Ferrett to see what was up. After about a week of tinkering, we fixed the problem, but we never did figure out what the problem was.

This email situation ended up creating three problems. First, when I don't get questions, I stop writing articles. For just over a week in August of 2005, there weren't any ATJ columns. The second problem was that once we did get everything fixed, I still had to wade through the pile of questions that were waiting for me from the week in which I didn't answer any email. Yuck! I do enjoy answering rules questions, but even I can be overwhelmed. Finally, after we fixed the problem, I was getting a lot more spam. In the past some filter along the line would take care of the vast majority of spam sent to this address and I'd only receive maybe 5-10 pieces of spam a day. After we fixed this problem, I was receiving about 100 pieces a day.

And do you know what's worse then having this constant flow of email be stopped? Having it happen again. Early this December, I had problems with my email client, and there were a few security changes with StarCity's servers that led to a week-long email lapse. However, this time around there was no gap in Ask the Judge columns. Why? Well that's due to the next topic I want to bring up.

Time Spiral is insane, at least from a rules related perspective. It's not that its hard to figure out Time Spiral rules issues, but that there are so many different interactions created by this set. Part of it is because so many mechanics have been brought back and some of them have been tweaked. Another reason is that in the current Standard environment the previous block added 10 new keywords—and you can throw Coldsnap into the mix as well. I think it probably easier to list all of the keyword mechanics that are not in Standard right now than those that are.

So due to this all of these interactions in Time Spiral and the way it "plays well" with other sets, I've had a lot more questions this fall. Not only have the number increased, but the number of interesting questions that are usable for a column has gone up dramatically. So when this recent email hiccough hit, it didn't matter. At that point I had a buffer of two weeks of columns ready to go. In the past I used to write a column a day or two before it was posted. And I often had to come up with a few questions of my own to pad them out. Even with this most recent email situation I'm writing columns a week ahead. So let me just say: Wizards, thanks! Recent sets have made this job easier and a lot more interesting.

Let me jump back to a bit and talk about spam a bit more. A year ago when the amount of spam I was receiving increased significantly I reset my email filters to try and take care or it. The problem with that was that so many legitimate questions were being put in my spam folder. Some of the names of Magic cards look like the random string of characters; Junko Bell, Zubera, Phyrexian, Vitu-Ghazi etc. So I eased up my spam filters and usually these days I delete spam email "by hand." Even if I do delete 100 or so a day, its not hard and it doesn't take that long. I generally can tell if something is spam by the subject line. However there are a few spam emails that have gotten around this more organic filter. For a while I was getting emails with the subject line of "Fountain of Youth." After the third one of these I started to delete those automatically. So if in the past year you've sent in a question about the actual card, I wasn't ignoring you, I just thought you were sending me spam. I've also been caught up by a few with "Replenish" in the subject line. A more recent example is that some several pieces of spam have the subject line of "Suspend." The problem here is that I can't really automatically delete these. The lesson here is that if after a week you still have not received an answer from me, send it again. I really don't mind re-answering a question. I'd much rather do that then keep someone hanging.

Once thing that Sheldon added about a year or so before he gave me the ATJ duties was the Rules Tip of the Day. For the first year-and-a-half of writing this column, I actually did use a new rules tip each time. After awhile I started to run out of ideas, so I've been reusing rules tips. I have kept a text file of all of the rules tips I've used since starting. One of the initial reasons I did this was to make sure that I didn't repeat any tips. But now it serves a different purpose—it's specifically so I can reuse old tips. Anyway, if anyone has something that they think would make a good rules tip, send it my way. I can't promise I'll use it. In fact if it's either too long or a repeat of something I've done in the recent past I won't. But if you do send along a usable one I'll give you credit in the column.

Well, that's pretty much it for this year-and-a half in review. But I do want to leave with a few predictions for the New Year; some serious, some not:

• Two-Headed Giant will be loads of fun. I haven't played it yet with Time Spiral, but I did draft it a few times with Ravnica Block. The rules interactions can be insane and necessary decisions involved are challenging. I am really looking forward to the qualifying season for PT San Diego.
• Magic will die, come back, go into an extended coma, come out of the coma, and then have it's wedding to Veronica interrupted by its evil twin brother Damian.
• Time Spiral Block will continue to shake things up. Maybe not so much with regards to rules issues, but I still think things will continue to be very interesting. Once again: thanks, Wizards. The past two years have been exciting and fun.
• Spammers will just give up sometime in 2007. (I can hope, can't I?)
• I will screw up several rules questions this next year. Probably because I didn't check the Oracle or just misread something. This is not a prediction, but a guarantee.

So on behalf of myself and the other judges who write Feature Friday articles ( Johanna Virtanen, Nick Fang, Lee Sharpe, and our hardworking editor who gets far too little credit, Seamus Campbell [I swear that was in the article submitted to me. -S]), have a good and happy new year. May it be light on screw and flood and may you top deck well. I plan on starting the year off right by running an Extended Yokohama qualifier next Saturday. See you around!