Okay, wanting to be a judge over the current morass may sound kind of odd, but just about the time things went Toppsy-turvy, I was thinking about stepping up to judge at our local venue, for two reasons: 1) our old judge was stepping down because he wasn't getting any prizes, and 2) no judge = no venue = no place for my son and I to hang out Friday nights.

Okay, it might just be a big ego-jerk, but does anybody know what the old AP process was for getting a judge's sash? Does anybody have copies of the old tests or whatever the vetting process there was?

Also, does anybody know a place to get boosters (other than IC) for <$2? I have seen them getting pretty cheap and was thinking for <$4 per person it would be a lot of fun to have some sealed tourneys...

-Jackslave (DFW)

The process itself was relatively straight forward: you had to be sponsored either by a Level 2 or higher judge or by a WK approved/registered venue. These people had a reference number associated with their judge/venue status that you could enter in your application to verify that you were, indeed, sponsored.

After that, thing get a little more complicated, because you had to take two tests (one general Approved Play test and one Heroclix specific). The problem with both, last time I had looked at them that is, was that they were both horribly out of date. I know that Karl (hair10) had said he had submitted some changes to the Heroclix test just before he left, but the changes were not implemented for whatever reason... I have no idea if Norm (nbperp) ever had time to put together his own changes before AP collapsed (and from a keeping-things-current POV, there should have been some, since the game had already advanced considerably from when Karl was the RA).

I don't have any copies of the tests, maybe others do. When they were current they were pretty easy; just have copies of the AP documentation for the first test and Heroclix rules/PAC/tournament guide for the second and you could literally look everything up.

I don't know where you can reliably find boosters that cheap; sometimes good deals can be found here in the trading forums or on e-bay. However, if you regularly want to have sealed events, you might either have to raise your buy-in price a bit or resign yourself to breaking even.

As much as it saddens me to say that, I've met Judges from time to time that can not do several (maybe even most) of the things on that list

Thankfully, with no more approved play (and, thus, no more Judge rewards) it seems that those that were in on it for the free plastic only have hit the road thus improving the overall quality of the judges that remain

Hey! I resemble that remark.

in what way do you look like it?

I'm a 'judge' at our venue.

I'm not the best at the rules but I know how to pair people up and I know when I don't know the best ruling and ask our more experienced players to help me out.

As for prize support, I'm using my own LEs until we get Topps started up again or I run out.

I'm a judge/envoy because I was willing to schedule events and I don't mind being the bye-game.

I stopped because people stopped showing up because there were no more prizes

And I will be damned if I am going to use up my last remaining extras as prize support. I am not a villain, I stuck with it as long as I could

Also, Jackslave, if you want to declare yourself a judge, just do it. You are in it for the quality time with your son and the love of the game. Hey, if no one else shows up, at least you had a place to play!

If people show up, pair 'em fair and let the dice do the talking!

You know a good way to hold tournaments is charge $2 or $3 per person each tournament. Then turn around and by LE's off ebay or here on the realms. You start of with cheap figures at first but if enough players show up you can build up the prize money. We hold a chase tournament once a month at a charge of $10. About 15 players or more come and play.

Jesse