Before we get to introducing you to a few more of the stars of the DCI Judge Program, I want to clarify one ruling. There have been repeated questions on Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker. Chris has already answered this; I just want to break it down even further.

Shirei's ability will trigger if a creature with power 1 or less goes to the graveyard. The ability only cares if the power is 1 or less just before the creature goes to the 'yard (so removing counters from Spike Feeder to gain life, for example, will always make Shirei trigger, because its power is 0 when it goes yardward). Again, the ability only cares if the power of the creature is 1 or less at that time. The numbers printed on the card in the graveyard don't matter. If the ability triggers, then it sets up a delayed triggered ability at end of turn. When that delayed trigger resolves, if Shirei is in play, then you can put that creature card back into play. Again, it doesn't matter what the power number written on the card is; if the power was 1 or less (no matter how it came to be that way, whether from a resolved Massacre or the Morph-triggered ability of Bane of the Living), then it will come back (assuming Shirei is still in play).

When I first introduced the "Judges You Should Know" feature, some folks wrote in and said "I suppose you'll be doing other features on guys like Rune Horvik or Mike Guptil." Um...not so much. High-profile judges like Rune and Mike (and John Carter, who I actually first had in mind when I dreamt up this thing--but he went ahead and got the Rules Manager job, so by now I'm sure you all know him) are Judges you *already* know; I'd like to tell you a little about hard-working, well-regarded folks that you might not have cause to know already.

The first guy I'd like to talk about is one of the most erudite people I've had occasion to work events with, Denmark's Jesper Nielsen--a guy who could give James Brown a run for his money as Hardest Working Man in Show Business. Jesper has been judging events in Europe since 1998, and was certified in 1999. He jumped straight to Level 2 (you could do that back in the day; you can't any more) due to his vast tournament experience and rules knowledge. He made Level 3 in 2000 and says that his interview experience motivated him to improve his skills even more.

A tireless volunteer, Jesper has Judged at nearly 20 European Grand Prix; his first GP Head Judging experience was in Copenhagen in 2003. He's been to four Pro Tours, and has amazingly done more than 20 National Championships on the Continent. A school teacher by trade (and Denmark has one of the world's best education systems), Jesper enjoys working out, playing sports, and listening to live music when he's not at Magic events.

The second star judge I'd like to talk about is one of my favorite personalities, California's Toby Elliot. Toby is a first-class raconteur and conversationalist, someone that's always fun and interesting to hang around with after hours at the big events (and he knows the secrets of Polish buffalo grass and apple juice).

He certified in the summer of 1999, "about five minutes after" qualifying for Pro Tour London. He said during that event he realized how important judges are to the tournament scene, and he hasn't looked back. Magic's been his hobby for over ten years now, and he reports he's glad that he can give back to the community. He adds "Being a judge has made me able to help people who would not otherwise think to approach me, be it the kids at FNM looking for help improving their sealed building skills, acquaintances needing help turning their card ideas into workable Magic cards, or strangers who just want to improve their understanding of the rules."

Toby's last high-level event was Worlds 2004 in San Francisco, but he's been to enough PTs and GPs that he's starting to lose count. By day, he's a Senior Programmer with Yahoo! Search and the perl hacking spills into his other hobbies. Many older players know him as the guy who wrote the original Sealed Deck Generator on the Dojo. Away from Magic, he's an equally-avid baseball nut, board gamer and self-confessed "DDR player with white-boy rhythm."

Jesper and Toby are just two of many, many Judges from around the globe that we'll be featuring on "Judges You Should Know." If you think there's a great hard-working Judge out there that everyone deserves to know about, drop me a line. If they're not already in the queue, we'll see what we can do.

See you next time.