Ask the Judge Year in Review
Well, here we are, with the 44th and final installment of Feature Friday for 2007. We've published roughly 1600 Ask the Judge questions, and I don't even want to speculate on the total number of questions Chris answered in that period. We've covered Nationals around the globe, broke a story on a last-minute Champs rules change for Two-Headed Giant, given you the first look at a Hall of Fame ballot, and had Feature Friday columns from a record nine judges. Good times! This week, I'm going to touch on some of my personal highlights for the year in Magic.

Favorite New Card
There's a lot to enjoy about the cards released this year. There was some fine proto-nostalgia in Damnation, scary is-this-gonna-fly tension with the Future Sight Pacts, green-is-the-new-Tog Tarmogoyf, stump-the-judge Yixlid Jailer, and I got a lot of Elder Dragon Highlander utility out of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, but the card that tickled me the most was the such-a-fine-line-between-clever-and-stupid Goatnapper.

Best Crack from a 10th Edition Release Event Booster
Three words: foil Time Stop.

Favorite New Section of the Rules
Penalty Guide Section 50 - Player Communications made its debut in the September release of the Penalty Guide and saw some significant revision for the December release. This section addresses many of my personal crusades and represents a tremendous investment of high-level blood and sweat. It's also still in its infancy. The section covers in some detail what players are allowed to say, what they are not allowed to say, and what they are allowed not to say. It also gives a fair amount of guidance to judges as to what we should and should not answer in response to player questions—an area that was particularly fertile ground for judge innovation in the field. I'm a little biased on this one, as I gave my opinions early and often, but I'm proud of the end result, or perhaps a "beginning result." A worthy addition and a fine place for judges to spend some quality time with the rules.

Best Grand Prix
There are a lot of good reasons, as a judge, to go to a professional event. Gaining experience, gathering feedback, meeting new judges and visiting with old friends... It's not hard to come up with reasons to go. But rarely do all of my reasons for judging come together in the way they did at Grand Prix Daytona. Which is odd, because I can't say I have any interest in ever going to Daytona Beach, Florida ever again. But it's true. Good mentoring opportunities: check. Good feedback from other judges: check. Boatloads of EDH: yep. And it goes without saying that I spent quality time with good friends new and old. And I got to meet my boss—Star City nice-guy-in-change Pete Hoefling. If Grand Prix Vancouver is half this good, I'm going to be pleased as punch.

Best Pro Tour
This one's easy, as I only attended one PT this year: Pro Tour San Diego. I've already written about that event, but I faced a new and fun challenge in organizing judge seminars. New challenges are what keep me going, as a judge. Plus I got to meet old friend (and fellow lover of all things strange and absurd) Pasi Virtanen. It's not often I get to meet my old Finnish friends for the first time. Kippis!

Best Technical Issue at a Pro Tour
I spent Sunday at Pro Tour San Diego coordinating nearly a dozen judge seminars. At some point in the early afternoon, during the final Swiss rounds of the first Two-Headed Giant Pro Tour, I had reason to seek out head judge Toby Elliott for a brief chat. During our chat, the lights went out for the Pro Tour half of the room. It seems a message had been sent to the venue staff: "Make sure the lights aren't turned out." A brief game of Telephone ensued, and the technician at the end of the radio chain got the unequivocal message, "Make sure the lights are turned out." And they were! The round continued, and one of the matches called us over. Seems they couldn't see the cards on the table. Toby shrugged, totally unperturbed, and the two of us airlifted the table, cards and all, to an area with better lighting. Welcome to the Show.

Best US Nationals
Okay, maybe I'm stretching a bit. But hey, it was a fun event! And the look on the face of Toby Elliott when his promotion to Level 5 was announced was priceless.

Best Host for a Large Number of Boisterous Judges
I hate to keep bringing the column back to GP Daytona... wait, no I don't. It was a great tournament, and I'm happy making sure that everyone knows it. On multiple East Coast trips, I've had the pleasure of visiting Sheldon Menery. His wife, Gretchyn—or, as she's known in Florida: "the Rocket Scientist"—has gone above and beyond on each visit, but this trip was by far the most remarkable. The food, the hospitality, and the fact that it's all wedged in between shifts at the day job... I'm going to be hard-pressed to do her justice when they make it out to Portland, but I'll try.

Best Large Rock Show
In the spirit of erstwhile This-Here-Site guy Ted Knutsen, I'll close with a category that has nothing whatsoever to do with Magic, but everything to do with what makes this site great. I had the opportunity in the early fall to see the New Pornographers here in Portland at the Crystal Ballroom. It wasn't my first NP show—I saw them open for Belle and Sebastian in the spring last year—but it was a rare and special event: they were touring with studio member Neko Case. It was astonishingly good. Neko Case, without upstaging any of the other seven musicians on the stage, was the utter model of a graceful, effortless, powerful rock singer. Even the jackass doing his best Crispin-Glover-on-Letterman impression couldn't derail my supreme pleasure at this event.

That's it for this year. Have a great New Year's, and please join us in 2008 for more coverage of all things rules- and judge-related.

Until then, keep shufflin'.