Agreed I'm the same way. My venue is small and within the greater Philadelphia region, so I'm not running anything on FCBD or the weekend of WWE.

Bear in mind that is not always feasible. I used to love to play as a judge, but there were times when I could not be the judge I wanted to be and play (anything other then a light pick up game with the guy with the bye.)

After awhile I kind of slightly resented it. Even the bye games arent all that great as generally you get the young kid that is good enough to play, but not good enough to play well. So you cant really even play as you have to hold back.

Dont get me wrong I love getting new players, and show people how to play the game better. But there were times I truely missed playing the game. Watch others play week in and week out while you answer question after question can definitely get draining. Its one reason why most judges need a reliable back up judge, so they can take a hiatus once in awhile.

Most great judges I know dont even look at the Judge Rewards as Compensation. Its really more of a nice Thank You from WK.

And let me tell you, Judge Rewards are the best deal WK could possibly hope for. WK is breaking bank on this deal. They get the best publicity they can buy from judges. There is no more effective marketing they can do for the pennies of production an extra LE figure costs them.

Even at a street value of $40 an LE, WK comes way out ahead. If I were on the job (and many times it feels like a job) during the weekend I would get 1.5 or double time wages. I can assure you, my billing rate would be way, way, way beyond $40.

To be perfectly honest, I am not even disappointed in a half-arse judge getting a judge reward if he just shows up and answers questions.

But the great judges, they have my respect!!!

Hey everyone, I'm just working out how I'm going to be splitting the prizes up over the next couple months and thought this was pretty nifty. I started the schedule with the traditional method of prize support, then tried to work out how to fit the lanterns in. At first I thought I would hand them out at my discretion, a couple per tournament. Then I realized the math works out pretty well (I'm hoping my venue is getting the black lanterns, but I'll find out tomorrow for sure).

1 - Bruce
2 - Clark
3 - Diana
4 - Black Lanterns (I thought I'd get these out early in case anyone wanted to use them)
5 - JLI
6 - LOA
7 - Checkmate
8 - Amazon
9 - Bruce (Judge gets Lantern)
10 - Clark (Judge gets Lantern)
11 - Diana (Judge gets Lantern)

With 14 Lanterns total, that leaves an easy solution for the remaining 11, just make them 2nd place prizes, one for each week.

We usually just hand the maps out the first week.

Just tossing it out there, in case anyone else was struggling with it.

This looks interesting.

I am the unofficial judge/envoy at my venue. I started doing this in the fallow-period when Wizkids was in limbo.

I work at least three hours a week before the event, prepping for Friday nights. I show up an hour early to make sure the MTG people don't grab our tables/chairs for their events, coordinate with the venue, promote our events on three different forums, buy my own prize support when we run out of 'official support', and play the bye when we have one. I teach young kids to play the game when we get interested lookers.

I haven't played a game in a month, and I run a tournament with usually 12-14 people. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not the best judge, I rely on some experienced players for help with rulings sometimes, but I damn sure work hard to make clixs a success at our venue and I'm fair and honest.

If Wizkids wants to thank me for my efforts to promote a game that I love, great. I'm happy to get the LEs, I am not too happy about not getting the lanterns but if Wizkids says they are for players, they are for players. Period.

I'm sick to death of hearing about crappy judges who cheat the system, hork prizes, and collude with players. Unfortunately, people don't all have a good moral compass. If your in that situation, become a judge, start your own group at another venue, or sadly suffer through until Wizkids gets some vetting system going. Just keep playing...

Just curious but if a judge only got one kit of prize support and made one set of lanterns judge prizes does that make him a "crappy judge who horks prizes and cheats the system"? I'm not sure if the two thoughts were connected is why I'm asking. As for what WK says... all they say is "here are the prizes and here's a suggested schedule we came up with". Nothing says you have to use it and you're welcome to use all, some or none of it. Even then there's nothing that says "the lanterns are for the players". Even in the suggested schedule the judge ends up with some of them. I seriously doubt I'll be using all the suggested formats for each week and I won't give the prizes out in the same order (I use order loosely here since the suggested distribution was way overcomplicated).

I just wanted to chime in and say if a judge makes a set of prizes for himself I don't think that automatically makes him a bad or corrupt judge. Only having 2 sets of lanterns puts judges in a very awkward position, especially if they don't have the option of playing for the lanterns either. I was fortunate that my venue got two prize kits and they let me take one set of lanterns from the second kit so that I would have 3 to give out for First, Fellowship and Judge. I'm not sure how I would have done it if we'd only had one... it would have been a lot more difficult both from deciding what prize goes when and who gets what prize.

I made the mistake of painting with too broad a brush on this, there are some judges (people may all be complaining/talking about the same ones - vagaries of the Internet and all) being unethical.

We got one prize kit at my venue, in my mind, that means that the Lanterns belong to the players as prizes. The third LE goes to the judge (as does the 3rd Black Lantern).

Maybe its just me...your milage is free to vary. Not starting a flame war here. Just a little fed up with people always talking about cruddy judges...