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Guide for Mentors

Welcome

This guide is designed to provide you with support and guidance for mentoring candidates, particularly mentees who strive to reach Level 1 certification status.

Whether you’re new to mentoring or a seasoned veteran, this resource will equip you with the tools and knowledge needed to mentor your candidates on their learning journey effectively.

This guide can be helpful if you are mentoring other levels, but it is not its main focus.

How to Use This Guide

This guide is organized into thematic chapters. Each focuses on a specific aspect of mentoring Level 1 candidates. We encourage you to read through the guide sequentially to gain a comprehensive understanding of mentoring Level 1 candidates but feel free to jump to specific chapters as needed.

If you want to contribute, see a problem in this document, or want further information, reach out to us at Judge Apps: IJP Core Project Mentoring and Education.

Table of Contents

Description of the mentor's role

Under the requirements of a Level 1 certification in the International Judge Program (IJP :: Level 1), the advancements requirements need an Advancement Review and to engage with a Level 2 mentor.

Whilst Teaching is structured, curriculum-driven, and focused on imparting specific knowledge and skills within a defined timeframe, with formal assessments. Mentoring is flexible, personalized, and focused on overall personal and professional growth, fostering a supportive relationship. It needs to be flexible, and tailored to the mentee’s needs, goals, and pace.

Mentors act as guides, advisors, and role models, offering wisdom, experience, and support. 

Your contribution to the community, however small you think it is, is highly valued.

Can you be a Mentor?

There are two ways to interpret the word “mentor”:

To mentor (lowercase m) another person is to help others with your advice. You don’t need any particular qualifications. We encourage anyone, with any level of experience, to help others however they can.

That being said, the formal Mentor (capital M) role is intended for Level 2+ judges who already have good standing in their communities.

A level 3+ is needed to endorse a new candidate to Level 1. If you are not a Level 3+, be sure to build a relationship with someone who can endorse a Level 1.

We don’t expect Level 1 and Level 2 to Mentor other judges. We would like you to focus on your personal growth and are eager to have you help us Mentor others once you have reached Level 3+.

Who can you mentor?

There is no limit to the number or type of mentees you can help. But we highly encourage you not to Mentor more than three candidates at a time. Mentor candidates who are near you.

You will need to insert them in their local judge community. It is best if you are already part of that community.

Consider finding a more suitable mentor if you can’t help them navigate their local community, or reasonably work an event with them.

Responsibilities and Expectations

As a Mentor, you are expected to build a relationship with your mentee. Help them navigate through the swath of documentation needed to effectively run a casual (Regular Rules Enforcement Level) event.

You should also be able to onboard them to their local community and engage with the Judge Program.

Each region might have special expectations as well. You can review them in the IJP :: Level 1 / Regional Special Rules.

You should be able to provide emotional support and a safe space for mentees to share their concerns and aspirations.

You should feel comfortable with your knowledge of tournament procedures, rules, and regulations to facilitate their learning. We don’t need you to be the utmost expert. If you feel confident in Head Judging a small event, you are knowledgeable enough for this. 

You are not expected to be a Mentor perpetually. If you need to take a break from Mentoring, you are encouraged to do so. Make sure to communicate your status to your community and your mentees. To the best of your ability, try to find new mentors for them.

You are not expected to know the answer to every question. But you should have a network of other judges that might have the answers you don’t. Please don’t deceive your mentee because you don’t know something. If you don’t know something, it is better to ask another mentor, other judges, or the JudgeApps :: IJP Core Project Mentoring and education before giving incorrect information to your mentee.

Qualities of a Good Mentor

We find that good mentors are those judges with experience that can listen and empathise with others. Someone who can provide actionable feedback.

Someone who actively looks for areas of improvement in their own growth, and on others.

Someone who can empathise with the learning process of others, and can overcome their bias of how they learned themselves.

This is not an exhaustive list, and all these criteria are skills that one can work on bettering themselves. Don’t see this as a hard requirement.

Takeaways from Mentoring

Every mentor has their reasons for mentoring. But we have found many mentors to have a rewarding experience helping others achieve goals. We have found that mentoring is a sureway to test your knowledge and grow in the judge community.

A sentiment many mentors share is very well distilled in this quote:

“I came for the Magic, but stayed for the Gathering” – Raquel Monleón, Spanish Judge

Effective Communication

As a mentor, you will need to build a relationship with your mentee.

We suggest you have a good initial presentation of yourself, and set expectations and ways of communicating from the beginning.

A general guide for this first introduction is:

  • Your preferred name, pronouns, and ways to communicate with.
  • If you dedicate a specific time slot out of your week to mentor, let your mentees know.
  • Your experience (“I’ve been a judge for over 10 years, and I have helped many others achieve their Level 1 certification” or “I’m a bit new to this mentoring process, but I have the help of an awesome community of Judges, and I would like for you to be a part of someday!”)
  • How do you get certified? Your mentee needs to see you as someone who has to endure the rules as much as they will have to.
  • Include any personal tidbit you are comfortable sharing. This goes a long way to build rapport.
  • Prompt them to tell you about themselves, their expertise in rules knowledge, or why they want to become a Judge.

 

Make the barrier for the first reply to be as low as possible. Don’t start your communication with a complex rules question. Not everyone is willing to share personal details; so be careful on how much information you ask of them.

It’s better to ask for something small, and build a relationship from this, than to ask too much and never get a reply.
Be proactive in seeking out learning opportunities, asking questions, and driving their own progress. This approach not only enhances their learning experience but also builds confidence and independence.

Remember that you have at least one thing in common: You both enjoy Magic: the Gathering. Leverage this fact.

Dos and don'ts

Dos
  • If possible, set a cadence to your communications. Don’t stay too long without communicating. A small nudge can go a long way to keep candidates engaged.
  • Offer feedback that is specific, actionable, and focused on improvement.
  • Balance criticism with positive reinforcement.
  • Encourage questions and be open to discussions. Your communications should be a safe space for them to make mistakes. Point them out, but don’t criticise unnecessarily harshly.
  • You will need to be willing to adapt to the mentee’s needs. If you find that you can’t, please communicate this to your colleagues and try to find someone else better suited for them.
Don’ts
  • Avoid talking too much or not giving the mentee a chance to speak.
  • Never dismiss the mentee’s concerns or feelings.
  • Refrain from phrases like “obviously you should have…”
  • Don’t assume you know what the mentee is thinking or feeling. Ask.
  • Avoid overwhelming the mentee with too much information at once.

 

Don’t fail to follow up on discussions or agreed-upon actions. If unforeseen things happen and you can’t communicate as originally planned, at least send a message explaining, ‘I’m currently dealing with something,’ and reschedule.

Understanding Personas

When mentoring others, it is useful to understand how best they learn. We encourage you to have a conversation with them to better understand their process. We have categorized three different Personas.

Persona: The aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others.

The Heroic Persona: “I learn by doing”

These mentees are eager to work at events. They will give a ruling wrong once, and learn the correct ruling. They don’t need much motivation, but they do require a lot of feedback to learn.

The Wizard Persona: “I learn by reading”

These mentees love rules interactions. They want to join the Judge Program because they are the “rules person” in their local community. They learn best on their own time. They need reassurance to start working.

The Explorer Persona: “I learn by imagining”

These mentees start their conversations with “What if…?”. They thrive thinking about potential scenarios, and edge cases. They feel prepared to work, but are often overwhelmed. They learn a lot about others’ experiences. They need fluid communication.

No one mentee is exactly one of these, but rather an amalgamation of them. And you will have mentees that present a different persona learning about rules, than learning about stress management. These are a general guide to help you navigate through the complexities of human communication.

We encourage you to think about what type of persona you are, as this will help you empathize with your mentee better.

Learning Categories

In order to be a successful judge, we have come up with three broad categories of things to learn.

They are in the order we suggest you go through with your candidate but use your best Judgement (pun intended) to intertwine lessons from different categories.

Documents

Everything written. Comprehensive Rules, Tournament Rules, Judging at Regular, et al. 

Most can be found in Magic :: Rules for the most up-to-date rules.

This is usually the first step into the Judging process. This category has the most resources. But as such, it is highly overwhelming for mentees. This is the category most mentees lose interest in.

  • Be very explicit that the Judge Program is more than rules-delivering machines. All these documents are important, but there is a lot more to Judging than just rules.
  • Avoid all abbreviations (IPG, IJP, CR, JAR, et al.) at the start of the mentee process. We have a lot of jargon that mentees are not used to. Be very careful when communicating with your mentee not to assume they might know it.
  • Even though the Magic Infraction Procedure Guide is part of these documents, we highly discourage going through it for Level 1 candidates. 
  • You should partition all these documents into reasonable chunks for your mentee. Knowing their level of experience and rules knowledge will make those partitions larger or smaller. “All the Comprehensive Rules” is not a reasonable partition.
  • Follow up periodically with your mentee about their progress.
  • Set reasonable goals akin: “Learn about the combat step by the end of the month”, and prepare some questions about the subject. Be frequent in your communication to see the status of these goals; don’t wait until the last minute to check if the goal is met or not.
  • Encourage your mentee to ask questions they have faced in their experience, and alter them to make them more or less interesting.
  • Navigating the documents themselves is a skill. Foster this by helping your mentee understand how you traverse the rules in your phone to find a specific answer to a question. 

 

Useful resources to learn more about this are:

Interpersonal

Everything that is not written. How to give a good ruling. How to deescalate a serious problem. How to give good announcements. How to explain tournament procedures to your players.

This is often gained with experience, but some mentees will suffer a lot on their first interactions with players, tournament organisers, or other judges.

  • You will need to provide motivation and a safety net for these interactions.
  • Roleplay is a highly valuable tool to improve in this area.
  • We highly recommend setting up a Mock Tournament (Magic Judges – Southwest :: Mock Tournaments) if your community has enough mentees that need more experience in this category.

 

Useful tools to help your mentees are:

  • Shadow: The practice of going to a call with another judge, letting them answer and investigate, and providing feedback right after the interaction with the players is over.
  • Reverse-Shadow: The practice of going to a call with another judge, you answering and investigating, followed by a discussion of why you did what you did.
  • Debrief: The practice of reflecting on a tournament right after the event has finished. Go through the highs and lows of the whole event. What went well, and why. And what are areas of improvement for the next event.
  • Review: Judge Blog :: How to write a review

 

This might sound to you as “common sense” as a judge with some experience, but all these skills are learnt, and can be improved.

Equipment

Everything that is needed for the mentees to better themselves. You will need to provide them with tools to learn and grow on their own. The closer they are to the beginning of their Level 1 journey they should rely on you, but soon enough they will need to reflect on their own on how they can improve. You should be able to provide further guidance when they come to you with doubts about how to improve in a particular area. 

Learning is inherently stressful; therefore managing this stress to a level where they can improve, but not so much for them to be hurt, is a key resource you will need to teach your mentees. Again, a key aspect here is that your mentee should trust in you to deal with this stress. You will need to provide motivation and support for them to reflect and ask how to improve.

Useful tools here are:

  • Emotional Check-ins: How are they feeling? If they had fun, what was the most stressful part of the event, and why. 
  • Question habits: At this point, you have probably taught your mentee about some habits of tournament procedures. It is valuable for them to question them to understand why we do certain things the way we do them. Let them come up with their own explanation, and if they can think of a better way to do so.
  • Self-reviews: Judge Blog :: The Self-Review
  • Reading tournament reports: JudgeApps :: Tournament Reports forum

Common reasons for abandonment

In our experience, there are several common reasons why mentees might abandon the process. Understanding these reasons can help you intervene early and keep your candidate on track.

Lack of Support

A candidate might abandon the process because they don’t feel supported. Mentees need to know that you are available, engaged, and invested in their progress. Regular check-ins and open communication channels are essential in making sure mentees don’t feel isolated.

Lack of Progress

Another driver of abandonment is the mentee’s perception of stagnation. If progress seems slow, it’s crucial to evaluate the situation together and identify what might be hindering development. Setting clear, attainable milestones and celebrating small victories can help maintain a sense of forward momentum.

Time Constraints

Daily life can make it difficult for candidates to dedicate the necessary time to the process. It’s important to acknowledge these challenges and work together to create a realistic timeline that accommodates the candidate’s schedule. Flexibility is key, but so is maintaining a consistent effort.

Misaligned Expectations

Sometimes, candidates enter the process with unrealistic expectations, such as underestimating the time commitment required or misunderstanding the role of a Level 1 judge. It’s important to clarify these aspects early on to prevent disappointment and frustration later. You should set clear, honest expectations from the start to align the candidate’s goals with reality.

Suggested order of learning

There is no best order for all candidates, but there is a best order for each particular candidate. You both should figure out the best strategy to tackle all the intricacies of the rules. Often, candidates already have a good understanding of rules. Find out what part of the learning journey they are. Consider using appropriate material to guide them:

  1. If they have a very firm grasp of the rules: Wizards :: Magic / Comprehensive Rules, or
  2. If they need something less technical: IJP :: Judge Candidate Textbook, or
  3. If they have very little knowledge of how Magic works: Wizards :: Magic / Basic Rulebook.

Hooks and Checkpoints

We recommend a “hooks and checkpoints” strategy to assess and help the candidates in their journey learning rules. This approach hinges on the idea that learning is solidified through active engagement, such as answering questions. By asking targeted questions, you can create “hooks” that anchor key concepts in the candidate’s mind, making them easier to recall. Simultaneously, these questions serve as “checkpoints,” allowing you to gauge the candidate’s current level of understanding and identify areas that need further clarification.

We offer here some categories of rules, and example questions you might ask your candidate. 

We suggest moulding these questions based on the most useful format for the candidate. Use these as conversation starters. Do follow ups with slight changes to further the candidate’s knowledge. They are in no particular order. Use your discretion. Don’t overload your candidate with all these questions at the same time.

Turn Structure

From Untap to Cleanup: A Journey Through Phases

“How many times does the active player get priority during the first turn?”
Evaluates the candidate’s understanding of the flow of the turn. Helpful to identify turn-based actions.

“During combat, Abigail casts Giant Growth targeting their Bear Cub. The opponent blocks with a 3/3. What happens at the end of Abigail’s turn with the Bear Cub?”
Evaluates the candidate’s ability to parse games state, using real cards. Systematic thinking of “until end of turn” effects. Probably had this interaction happen in a game, but walking slowly through the steps.

casts Giant Growth targeting their Bear Cub. The opponent blocks with a 3/3. What happens at the end of Abigail’s turn with the Bear Cub?” Evaluates the candidate’s ability to parse games state, using real cards. Systematic thinking of “until end of turn” effects. Probably had this interaction happen in a game, but walking slowly through the steps. “Adelaide attacks with Gurmag Swiftwing, and has Dokuchi Shadow-Walker in hand. What is the most damage they can deal in this combat?”

Combat

Attack, Block, and Beyond

“Anya attacks with a Terra Stomper. Naomi blocks with a Mirran Crusader. How much life does Naomi lose after combat damage?” “If Anya casts Temur Battle Rage targeting Terra Stomper before Combat Damage Step?” “If instead of a Mirran Crusader, Naomi blocked with a Darksteel Myr instead?” “If Anya would castVirulent Swipe instead of Temur Battle Rage?

“Alana controls a Crazed Goblin and 5 untapped Mountains. Nora controls a Ghostly Prison. In Alana’s declare attackers’ step, what can they do?”

“Andrea attacks with a Mogg Flunkies and a Bear Cub. Nina activates Maze of Ith targeting Bear Cub. What happens with the remainder of the combat phase?”

Casting a spell

All Crazy Teens Have Tried Magic Pills*

“A player casts Lightning Axe with an additional cost of discarding a card. The spell is countered, what happens to the discarded card?”

“Ava controls a Wall of Roots with 4 0/-1 counters and 3 Forest. Ava wants to know if they can cast a Chord of Calling with X=2”

Interesting to note that at the time of writing, Magic Online does not work this way. Useful to roleplay a player trying to convince the judge of the correct ruling.

“Anika controls a Trinisphere and tries to cast a Gitaxian Probe. What are the possible ways to cast this spell?”

Layers

Anything Humility related 

“Alice controls a 3/4 Tarmogoyf. What happens if they attach a Shuko? What would Tarmogoyf’s power and toughness be?”

“Alana resolves an Assimilation Aegis exiling a Maze Glider. They then attach it to a Bear Cub that is tapped and with a +1/+1 counter. What are the characteristics of the creature in the battlefield?”

State based Actions

Bolt doesn’t kill the bird. State Based Actions do

“Annabelle attacks with a Hangarback Walker with 3 +1/+1 counters, Natasha blocks with a Blightsteel Colossus, when Hangarback Walker dies, ¿How many Thopter does Annabelle create?”

Triggered abilities

When/Whenever/At

“Two triggered abilities go on the stack simultaneously, but one has an additional cost to pay when it resolves. How do you handle this situation?”

“Aurora resolves a Scapeshift, sacrificing 7 lands. They search their library for a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and 7 Mountain. What happens next?”

Common interaction. Helpful to walk though how to explain this interaction to a player. Understanding simultaneity, and placing triggers on the stack.

“Nora before triggers resolve, casts Wrecking Ball destroying Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle”
“Nora instead targets a Mountain”

Evaluate comprehension of abilities and intervening ifs.

“Ainsley resolves a Collected Company and chooses Walking Ballista and Eternal Witness. What happens next?”

Good exercise in walking though state based actions, triggers and targets.

“Anika resolves a Doublecast, then casts a Lightning Bolt. Naomi counters Lightning Bolt. What happens next?”

Replacement effects

Replacing the Replaced Replacement

“Alyssa controls a Serra Angel, and resolves a Collected Company and chooses Giada, Font of Hope and Segovian Angel. What is their power and toughness?”

“Astrid casts a Rest in Peace, then they cast Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. They attack with a Bear Cub and Nyla blocks with a 1/1 Soldier token and an Elite Vanguard. What can happen next? What if Astrid casted Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet first? What if Nyla controlled Rest in Peace instead? What if both players controlled a Rest in Peace?”

Cleaning Up Gameplay Messes

Fixing the Oopsies

“Audrey is playing an FNM and calls for a judge as they realise they did not draw a card 2 turns ago. What would you look for to determine this to be the case? How would you solve this problem?”

Handling Serious Problems

Crisis Management on the Battlefield

“A player realizes they have drawn an extra card a turn ago, and it was unnoticed until now. What steps do you take to address this issue?”

Answers to common questions

I see an area of improvement in this document. Who should I contact?

If you want to contribute, see a problem in this document, or want further information: reach out to us at Judge Apps :: IJP Core Project Mentoring and education.

____________________

* “All Crazy Teens Have Tried Magic Pills”is a mnemonic that stands for:

All = Announce (Comprehensive Rules 601.2a)

Crazy = Choices (Comprehensive Rules 601.2b)

Teens = Targets (Comprehensive Rules 601.2c)

Have = How to Divide (Comprehensive Rules 601.2d)

Tried = Total Cost Determination (Comprehensive Rules 601.2e)

Magic = Mana Abilities (Comprehensive Rules 601.2f)

Pills = Pay (Comprehensive Rules 601.2g)

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