Ask the Judge, 05/05/2006: Feature Friday

Let's get things started by picking up where we left off last week, shall we? I know some of you have been curious for a follow-up...

Spring is definitely here in Portland. I've been riding my bike to work, and it is just absolutely gorgeous. It's times like this that I love living in the Northwest. The sun is out, a light breeze, the river sparkles—Portland straddles the Willamette river; it runs right through the heart of the city, much like the Seine in Paris. I can ride over a different bridge each day of the week on my way to work, if I feel like it. It's one of the highlights of my day.

I'm sorry, what's that? You don't care about the weather here? Or my daily commute? Pfah.

Right then. We'll cut out the last week talk and get on with the Magic.

The storied IRC channel #mtgjudge has been positively burning up this week with questions about the questionable Flash Foliage. It seems straightforward enough at first glimpse: you attack, I play a guy, he's blocking, yadda yadda. But there are a number of ways to make things confusing. I won't go into them all here this week, but the rules team has expressed that the issue will be fixed in the next Oracle update (for Coldsnap). Until then, if you play Flash Foliage before the Declare Blockers step begins, treat the Saproling as a blocker who has a fixed assignment when you do get to Declare Blockers—it can't block another creature (unless something says it can). Any "when this creature becomes blocked" triggers will fire when the Saproling comes into play, and adding further blockers later will not cause those triggers to go off again.

Aaaaaand... all of this about Flash Foliage is true, but all jokes aside, I do have some changes to announce about Feature Friday. They're not earthshaking (except to skeptics who believe that the promise of FF appearing more regularly is 'earthshaking') but they're exciting to me, so: starting next week, we'll be seeing some new writers coming on, as part of a regular monthly rotation. Let me introduce them to you...

Next week Seattle Level 3 Judge Nick Fang (rhymes with 'song') will be at the helm here for FF. Nick and I both got our starts as judges in the Bay Area under Don Barkauskas, both moved into high-level judging at GP Oakland a couple years ago, and made L3 around the same time. We also both blew an important call during the finals at US Nationals last year. We're both software guys in our professional lives. That is about where the similaries end. While I'm a lazy, beer-swilling music snob with pet chickens, Nick is a Stanford graduate working at Microsoft, with a pet Segway scooter. I've been looking forward to getting Nick into writing here for some time, and I think you'll appreciate his perspective on things, as long as you're not Mark Zadjner*.

After that, Finland's L3 Johanna Virtanen (rhymes with... I have no idea) will fill us in on the judge's perspective on PT Prague. I quite wanted to be able to tell those stories myself, but the fickle winds of sponsorship didn't blow my way, and I trust that she will do a fine job. Johanna (known to her internet fanbase** as 'flame-') is, in person, the quietest of the L3s. I first met her at Worlds in San Francisco, where she passed her certification exam. While the L3 interview process can take a while, hers took longer than most, because the interview panel interpreted her utter silence as stonewalling. Eventually, they realized that she's just the quiet type, and her promotion was in the bag.

Our new FF lineup concludes its rotation on May 26th, with familiar face Lee Sharpe (no more rhyming jokes), who will—with any luck—have had some time to recover from the barrage of Flash Foliage questions on IRC. Lee is a NetRep for Magic: the Gathering, and in his spare time works as an amateur hairstylist***.

This new arrangement should allow for better coverage of Feature Friday on a week-to-week basis. We'll also still have the occasional guest writer****, but a column a month should allow us all to stay fresh.

Thoughts? Comments? Wailing and rending of garments? We'll see you in the forums, eh?

I'm back in the box June 2nd. Until then, please help me give a warm welcome to our new and old writers, and—as usual—keep shufflin'.

Seamus

* At US Nats last year, Nick asked Mark to walk around some barrier ropes rather than going over them, and that Mark might be asked to do his jumping outside, if he was going to need to keep hopping. Mark—who I like, and think is generally a well intentioned, if somewhat overenthusiastic guy—took the request less gracefully than he might. The adjective that comes to mind is 'apoplectic.' Nick was unfazed.

** By which I mean 'Matt Tabak'.

*** I'm sure there are PT LA pictures around, but I don't know where they are. This is what the forums are for.

**** And if you're a judge***** out there with something you would like to write about, feel free to contact me here or on IRC.

***** This originally said 'senior judge', but a) I don't want to discourage any judge from contributing to the Magic community by writing, and b) Cari Foreman thought that I was trying to limit it to Sheldon, Scott Marshall, and Peter Lind-Jahn. And let's be honest, that's just mean.