I personally love magic the gathering drama, it's surprisingly political and sufficiently obscure. No politics this time though.

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So for a brief bit of background,

magic has an autistic level of complexity (literally mathematically proven to be the most complex game in existence or some shit, some peer reviewed study unironically looked at that shit). basically, a lot of cards have certain effects. sometimes these can interact with each other.

occasionally, two players might disagree about these interactions during a game. to resolve this, they will call for a judge.

judges are very knowledgeable about the game, its rules, etc.

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so the company that makes magic decided to set up a kind of online course - called Judge Academy - for becoming a judge, unlike the previous system which wasn't really formal or anything. sounds great, except for the fact that it costs like $100 per year to keep your judge qualification (even more, for higher level judge qualifications).

you're paying for a qualification which doesnt earn you any money. you DO get special promotional versions of highly sought-after cards which can be worth a bit of money, but it might not make up for the $100 you sunk.

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TL;DR, some guy on freemagic summed it up nicely: " the main drama derives from the from the fact that people didn't have to pay to become official judges and that they were rewarded for their effort with judge foils. Now Judge Academy charges between $100 and $400 to certify judges and is the sole entity able to distribute Judge Foils (which you gain by joining). "

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so we get some angry magic players.

take

https://www.reddit.com/r/freemagic/comments/dbggvg/bda_judge_academy_launches_october_1st/

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they're not too happy:

" More like being an MTG judge will make you poor "

" I feel sad for all the stupid cucks who signed up for this bs. "

" Still over priced. Sorry freedom of speech offends you snowflake. " [lmao]

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we then have this ama from the people running the academy:

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/cjihdd/ama_with_judge_academy_answering_questions_730_at/

i cant be fucked going through it but a funny thing is that they make the argument that they're not for profit, but didnt register as one, because they didnt want to take money away from non profits like the red cross lmao. im not making this up:

" We also felt it was import not to compete with organizations like the Red Cross for the charitable support being given by these companies. "

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and other people suggest it's a pyramid scheme

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/cl3rf6/satire_how_judge_academy_works/

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others are finding humour in the situation

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/dc4wsi/thanks_to_judge_academy_im_now_a_certified_rules/