Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the IP2 podcast.
Speaker: I'm Shay Ashby and as always, I'm joined by Felix Chung.
Speaker: We are honored to be joined by Niccolo Pacheo today.
Speaker: Fresh off being announced as one of the participants to the celebrational event in Queenstown, New Zealand, he is one of FAB's most prolific and hardest working judges.
Speaker: From his role as team lead for the rules team to being a familiar face in an orange shirt, taking on lead roles at tier three and four events around the world and much more.
Speaker: Welcome to our show.
Speaker: Hey, everyone.
Speaker: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker: Thanks for being listening to Shay.
Speaker: This is great to be here and I'm excited to spend the next hour, hour, half, two hours talking with you all.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Nick, can you share a little bit about yourself?
Speaker: What got you into games?
Speaker: A little bit about who you are?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So for those who do not know me, my name is Nicolo Piqueo.
Speaker: Most judges and friends call me Nick, and I'm a level two judge from the Washington, D.C.
Speaker: area of the United States.
Speaker: I've been involved with Flesh and Blood since early 2021, just shortly before Monarch.
Speaker: I was really enticed by all the angels coming out, so that's really what grabbed me.
Speaker: And then I watched a ton of Tolarian dropouts, and Tower Number 9 really got me on the Dorinthia train.
Speaker: So that just kind of hooked me from there.
Speaker: So background, just in general in games, I just love
Speaker: like every sort of game.
Speaker: Like tabletop, computer, RPGs, you name it.
Speaker: I also used to playtest a lot for a lot of cooperative LCGs.
Speaker: Play Marvel Champions.
Speaker: You may have seen my name in the playtesting credits for some of the earlier packs before X-Men.
Speaker: What about Arkham Horror and Lord of the Rings?
Speaker: I playtested one cycle of Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: It was when the Ingmar Awakens cycle, that one, where you're up north in the Dunedin.
Speaker: So when they re-released it with all the new cards that helped streamline a campaign for you, I playtested that cycle.
Speaker: Arkham Horror, I have yet to playtest.
Speaker: It is one of my top five games of all time in general.
Speaker: I think what MJ Newman and team have done over the years before passing the torch just brought...
Speaker: RPGs into a tabletop setting that is very accessible, especially for me.
Speaker: Like, I am not the most, how would you say, I don't tell stories very well.
Speaker: I don't have the, you know, I envy those dungeon masters that can craft a campaign over several years and keep a party engaged.
Speaker: And I think Arkham Horde just, chef's kiss does it very well, so.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Well, I didn't know that about you.
Speaker: So anyone interested in co-op LCG action, check out Marvel Champions playtested by Nick, but also my recommendations as well, Arkham Horror and Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: A lot from the professional side.
Speaker: I myself am a family man and I just found out that you are.
Speaker: So how does fab fit into the life of your family and your household?
Speaker: I'm going to say this as being only close to one year in, and I'm sure this, if you ask me another year from now, how has it changed?
Speaker: And I may give you a different answer.
Speaker: FAB is a pretty integral, has been a pretty integral part of our family only because, you know,
Speaker: Every, even when he, when my son Liam was not born yet, we, um, my partner and I decided to go to the world championships in San Jose together as a, as a trip.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, we, uh, made.
Speaker: a very conscious effort to still be able to allow for each one of us to have our hobbies, still be able to partake in them, excuse me, still be able to partake in our hobbies.
Speaker: And
Speaker: really that has kind of rubbed off because you know the fab judge community is almost like a family right they i you know in month three and right there was a um a lot you as you all may know fab judges are also magic judges for some of them right so there was a magic con in philly and it was in the third or fourth month and i was like i want to see my friends
Speaker: So I drew from, we went on a family day trip all the way up to Philly just for me to be able to say hi and have some dinner with some folks.
Speaker: And really it's kind of been a journey because everyone knows that I have this kid that I look forward to seeing at the end of every weekend.
Speaker: And I look forward to seeing my partner as well.
Speaker: Because it's just one of those things like, you know, in a year, you've grown so close to that little mini me or mini version of you that you want to kind of get back home as soon as I can.
Speaker: I will tell you, when I was Barcelona, I think it was, I was there for the day of the Judge Cup.
Speaker: So let's count down as day one.
Speaker: uh, judge cup, judge conference, that was day two.
Speaker: Uh, then there was the, all three days.
Speaker: And then there was one extra day for, um, the program leads to all meet.
Speaker: So there were six days.
Speaker: And, uh, by day three, I really wanted to see my little boy already.
Speaker: So, you know, it's, it's a family's a North star for me.
Speaker: So nice to hear it.
Speaker: I feel like as a single parent myself, uh, my daughter's nine.
Speaker: It,
Speaker: Every year that goes by, for me, it gets funner and or more fun and more fun to see her at the end of the day and engage with them because they start to walk and talk and play play.
Speaker: It just, I don't know, it fulfills that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't want to say void in my life, but it just feels really good to get home and have that sort of like help close out a long day at work or a long road trip.
Speaker: And you're just like, I just want to get back to my family.
Speaker: It feels good.
Speaker: So I think you have a lot to look forward to.
Speaker: Oh, thanks.
Speaker: I appreciate that.
Speaker: I will say that's kind of the one thing that I've started to notice is exactly what you're saying, like that long day, right?
Speaker: Actually, I was working on actual work stuff until like 8.30 this evening.
Speaker: I took a small break to have dinner with them.
Speaker: But then I just remember at the 5 o'clock mark when my partner returned home with our child,
Speaker: It was really nice to see him just smile and just jump into your arms.
Speaker: Those kind of things are priceless.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: OK, well, thank you so much for telling us about yourself.
Speaker: One other important thing is seeing you post on Discord so much, you are clearly a fan of one particular Pokemon.
Speaker: And I have to ask you, for all our listeners, which one is that and why is that your favorite?
Speaker: All right, so for the listeners out there, the Pokémon that Felix is referring to is Pikachu.
Speaker: So if you've ever been inside the Judge Hub Discord, if you look in the upper right hand corner, you'll see most of the moderators there.
Speaker: And then what you'll see is my name with a little Pikachu that's currently, I think, doing like a head bob type of thing, like as if they were at a heavy metal concert.
Speaker: But the number one, I chose the Pikachu because Pikachu is the cutest Pokemon.
Speaker: You can come fight me on that anytime.
Speaker: I'll welcome all bad arguments against that.
Speaker: He's also one of the only Pokemon that can sport yellow and black, have ears and a tail, and just walk like a badass all the time.
Speaker: And then the third reason is what really kind of got me on this, got it in Discord is when I first set up Discord, I had this meme as my, this meme gif on my Discord profile.
Speaker: It was Pikachu walking and it said, haters gonna hate.
Speaker: So that's kind of how this whole Pikachu, I never changed it.
Speaker: And, you know, I was at one point thinking about changing it on my Discord profile.
Speaker: But then Klaus always introduces me for some reason to new folks as, hey, he's the Pikachu.
Speaker: So a lot of people have recognized that.
Speaker: So maybe one day it will change to something a little bit more profound.
Speaker: on that server probably not but we'll see i can't see that i mean there's only 151 pokemon right so pikachu's definitely the cutest no questions there big facts buddy big facts he's popular for a reason
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, let's hop into the big news, the celebrational.
Speaker: So congratulations on being invited.
Speaker: And I just have to ask, how did you find out that you were on the list?
Speaker: And did you know in advance?
Speaker: First things, it is still, even when I hear it myself, it's still like a dream.
Speaker: So I found out one evening, I was just like working at my computer and then Klaus, the judge program manager, asked me if I had time to meet within an hour.
Speaker: And, you know, I told him, yeah, yeah, what do you need?
Speaker: Like, what's happening?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: And he didn't say anything beyond that.
Speaker: He says, just, you know, does this type work?
Speaker: And I was like, sure.
Speaker: So I get sent an invite to Google Meet, essentially.
Speaker: And on the invite, I see Amanda, I see Trevor Baker, who's the head of Premiere OP at LSS, as well as Josh Scott, who is our rules and policy manager.
Speaker: And I'm sitting there, I'm like,
Speaker: what have I done?
Speaker: Like, what is going on?
Speaker: Like, and I say this in, you know, because like Amanda has always been like my mentor as well.
Speaker: And she has been one of my mentors and she's been very influential in my development of things.
Speaker: And I sit there, I'm like,
Speaker: Uh oh, what did I seriously do wrong?
Speaker: So lo and behold, we had the meeting and basically Klaus leads off with you're basically you're not in trouble or anything.
Speaker: We just want to tell you about this event that we're having in February or January.
Speaker: basically let Trevor drive the wheel from there and told us about the whole plan to have basically a celebrational tournament down in Queenstown for two days before the calling.
Speaker: And there will be some scheduled events.
Speaker: It didn't tell us much more beyond that.
Speaker: except they're kind of what to expect.
Speaker: There are other folks like us, but not judges, but I guess people around in the community who are involved and are participating in this.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Basically, they told us, thanks for our contributions to the program and to the FAB community writ large.
Speaker: It was a great thing, great experience.
Speaker: It went from, uh-oh, what did I do, to wow, euphoria.
Speaker: That was pretty cool, I will say.
Speaker: In terms of much more, we did know in advance, because they did tell us in that way.
Speaker: I think it was about a month before the keynote speech.
Speaker: um in general because um we needed to start kind of doing a lot of the planning in terms of at least getting our flights squared away right so um but we were not able besides amanda and i being able to discuss it amongst ourselves um and our significant others because if we have to plan we have to plan yes with them knowing um they um
Speaker: we were not able to fish out who else was going to be part of the whole event as well.
Speaker: I feel like the judge community also knew, kind of got a hint about this earlier than others before the keynote speech because the celebrational announcement went up with the heavy hitters announcement on the front page, but was also before Barcelona and Klaus had tagged both Amanda and I on us joining that celebrational.
Speaker: But I don't think it was widely known until really the keynote speech.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Well, it definitely took me by surprise.
Speaker: And yeah, I was following Yi-Cin's live tweeting of the keynote.
Speaker: And I had a pretty big reaction to seeing you and Amanda being announced.
Speaker: So very, very happy for both of you.
Speaker: And big shout out as well to Amanda Cootes.
Speaker: She's been a head judge at both of the SEG events that...
Speaker: that I've been to.
Speaker: So yeah, another amazing judge in our community.
Speaker: And yeah, just very happy to see you both recognized.
Speaker: So you truly had no idea that this was going on before getting called into this scary Google call.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I didn't really, right?
Speaker: And I think, you know, even if it was, like, maybe I just didn't think about it, right?
Speaker: They're like, you know, sometimes people are, like, asking me, like, hey, what are you doing in this month of this year?
Speaker: And I'm like, I don't know, are you going to come and visit me, like, type of deal?
Speaker: So I'm just like...
Speaker: Because Cloud sometimes stays over with me or after an event like I'll take Pro Tour Baltimore, for example.
Speaker: There was a few judges who were residing in the area that were kind of hanging out in the area.
Speaker: And sometimes people drop by to the DC area.
Speaker: Who would have think the DC area is pretty hot and pop in place?
Speaker: So generally, I don't really kind of
Speaker: connect fab to other people especially like when they're judging other kind of card games too so i'm just like i'm not aware of your schedule so like if you're if you want to come and you know i'll cook you some food we'll go out to eat like come on down you know you have a place to stay so never really never really made connecting the dots that way
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And what are you expecting for that weekend coming up in January?
Speaker: I'm going to break it down into kind of two things, right?
Speaker: In a really true micro level, right?
Speaker: The participants who are going to be there.
Speaker: For a lot of us, no.
Speaker: We've met at events, right?
Speaker: I think Brody is one of the celebrational participants.
Speaker: Mara is as well.
Speaker: I've seen them, I've judged them thousands.
Speaker: That's overstating multiple times, right?
Speaker: Vin as well from Germany.
Speaker: Aura Lee, who does fantastic work for our judging community by really supporting and developing Purple Fox, right?
Speaker: yeah obviously she saved canadian nationals this year she's wonderful i just want to say like just a wonderful person amanda obviously kind of like who i think is probably um one of the best judges out there and kind of thinkers um among among all of us um and really like those are the people like in a micro level that i know like it's really developing those human connections right and kind of like being able to kind of hey
Speaker: We all were recognized in some way or some fashion for these, for our contributions to the community.
Speaker: It's great to see them as well.
Speaker: It's really refining and developing further those established connections, but also making new ones.
Speaker: I've never
Speaker: really met like I think her name is Yui Tokiwa from Japan.
Speaker: She's the ambassador for, I guess, for Japan in terms of, you know, looking forward to meeting them, looking forward to meeting some of the other lifetime XP gainers from the Asia region.
Speaker: Like, you know, though it's really kind of,
Speaker: understanding, like meeting new folks that really kind of interest me in doing these type of things because you really get a sense for kind of like the different facets that inhabit our community, right?
Speaker: The different kind of people, the different personalities, the ways of thinking.
Speaker: And I think that really enriches kind of our, and embodies kind of really Fab's mission, right?
Speaker: Well, part of it, right?
Speaker: To bring people together into flesh and blood.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Don't ask me to recite that mission because I'm really bad at it.
Speaker: But at a global level, I do think it means for a lot of people, collectors, really devotees of FAB to say that, hey, we are starting year five with a bang, and we've made it.
Speaker: the hype, the prestige associated with the Celebrational and having it kick off the year with being in New Zealand, the home of Flesh and Blood, really is going to, in my opinion, kind of, I hope that it's going to resonate with like a World Championship level of hype and excitement.
Speaker: Not the competitiveness, right?
Speaker: Like in terms of kind of, you know, that's a whole different facet to World Championships.
Speaker: But really the excitement that it brings to the community is kind of the more macro level, global level kind of expectation I have for that entire week in general.
Speaker: It's a week of events, essentially, if you think about it, right?
Speaker: Because you have the Celebrational and you just move flow right into the calling weekend.
Speaker: So it's great.
Speaker: For plans in terms of beyond that, I think LSS has some great plans in store for a lot of the Celebrational attendees.
Speaker: We don't know too much about what's going to happen.
Speaker: And they're going to reach out to us in the near future to kind of help plan for
Speaker: Auckland, our events in Auckland, our events in Queenstown.
Speaker: And, you know, travel and kind of like the day-to-day kind of rigmarole of, hey, you know, these are the fun, exciting events that we have scheduled for you in addition to playing Fab, right?
Speaker: So it's truly something that I'm looking forward to.
Speaker: And, you know, in terms of plans, I'll just do whatever you tell me to.
Speaker: You tell me to like, hey, we need you to bring something for us or, you know, to schedule or think about something for us.
Speaker: I'll do it.
Speaker: So it's really, at this point, a waiting game to see kind of what they want from us at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, no, fair enough.
Speaker: Can you just say a few words about what it's like to be acknowledged and chosen like this?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm extremely honored, right?
Speaker: I never think of myself as someone who can ever reach the top, nor do I ever want to reach the top of anything, right?
Speaker: And this is really...
Speaker: an honor because I know that there are so many individuals out there who are just top class in everything that they do surrounding this community.
Speaker: And it's not just our judges, right?
Speaker: It's the content creators.
Speaker: It's the person at the local game store who constantly, who's there every single week to kind of bring new people in who are willing to teach
Speaker: folks, right?
Speaker: There are all those folks out there as well.
Speaker: So really, like, you know, I'm honored that I can partake in this, but that doesn't mean that it diminishes the value of anyone else in the community who have really poured their blood, sweat, and tears into the things that they are doing as well, because really, those folks also deserve recognition.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm just
Speaker: I can't say much more than that because it's really, you know, my contributions are different than others, but at the same time, we're all marching towards the same goal, right?
Speaker: It's towards really elevating the game or the spotlight in the game from our perspectives that will help the game grow.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: I want to go back to the beginning a little bit.
Speaker: I know you had mentioned that you started in the Monarch era, but what made you pick up Fab, and how did you get involved with it, and what ultimately led to judging?
Speaker: Yeah, so it's actually a really bittersweet story.
Speaker: So just a little bit of background.
Speaker: I didn't have really a competitive card game since...
Speaker: Mirrodin block inside of Magic, which is what 2003?
Speaker: I had sold all of my collection.
Speaker: I asked a lot to fund my trip to Japan because in 2009 I had
Speaker: been accepted into the JET program, which is the Japan exchange teaching program.
Speaker: And I needed to somehow fund this trip.
Speaker: So I sold all my collection and I didn't really want to go back.
Speaker: I'll occasionally play a draft every now and then.
Speaker: If someone has a deck they're willing for me to borrow, I'll pick it up and learn and play.
Speaker: But when I came back from Japan in 2012,
Speaker: I decided that I wasn't actually going to play a competitive card game again.
Speaker: And it was really, I stuck myself to deck builders.
Speaker: I played a lot of Dominion, even online.
Speaker: I played a lot of Dominion, trying to get competitive at that.
Speaker: DC deck building game, who doesn't like comics?
Speaker: And so once
Speaker: 2020 hit and the pandemic kind of had not really started, it was there, but we didn't understand really the severity of how the pandemic would go.
Speaker: I started looking into a competitive kind of game that wasn't magic, right?
Speaker: And, you know, I, you know, flesh and blood came on my radar, right?
Speaker: I played Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaker: competitively back in the early 2000s.
Speaker: I played it.
Speaker: I wasn't interested in a lot of the going back into kind of playing Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaker: again.
Speaker: I did for a while.
Speaker: I regret it in a couple levels, including my bank account.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: There was something about flesh and blood that was just alluring.
Speaker: Part of it was I needed something to help distract me.
Speaker: My mother had passed away early in the pandemic due to COVID, and was really kind of like the first known case of COVID taking a life inside in the Philippines.
Speaker: And so I couldn't, you know, I buried myself, you know, spending time with my family here in the United States, making sure that they're okay, but also buried, you know, I couldn't really play with other folks.
Speaker: in a more personal setting, right?
Speaker: We were all isolating from each other.
Speaker: And so I was talking to David, and at one point we were trying to... We signed up for Vorpal Board, which allowed us to be able to play tabletop games using our physical pieces, using a camera.
Speaker: and a boom arm, but then we wanted something a little bit more competitive.
Speaker: So we started looking into Flesh and Blood that way because at the time, really, Team Covenant was covering it very well as a support.
Speaker: They had a lot of support for it, a lot of subscription.
Speaker: Monarch error meant their subscription service.
Speaker: It was really where it started to take off and we got into it.
Speaker: And I have subscriptions with them.
Speaker: other you know for other games as well and so i was like let's take a chance on this um so we bought a ton of boxes started cracking them open started i started to watch more and more of like i said to layering dropouts and um and tower number nine um and really being enthralled with the accessibility of being able to play a competitive card game over camera on discord
Speaker: And that's really what hooked me, right?
Speaker: Being able to still have that be... Because at the time I was looking for something, how to engage back into the real world.
Speaker: And this was probably the best outlet for someone like me because, you know, I love games.
Speaker: I love to be able to interact with people, meet new people.
Speaker: And if we can do that online over camera, it really speaks to kind of how...
Speaker: great internet and communications has really evolved over the last 20 years to be able to do that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I can't even fathom thinking about doing that in, you know, 2006, 2009, I, you know, where we are in the 2020s, 2010, you know, like it, it really brought people, um, together in a really, really trying time.
Speaker: It was also a very good outlet for someone looking to re-engage into the world.
Speaker: And then after that, 2021 comes about, right?
Speaker: And as we move through 2021 towards the end, we're able to see a little bit more in-store play.
Speaker: I was able to meet.
Speaker: some of the great folks in our community, finally in person, have drinks with them, have meaningful conversations in person.
Speaker: That's really what kind of speaks to the broad mission of Flesh and Bullet.
Speaker: So after that, it's all been great.
Speaker: You're not the first person to mention that playing online was one of the key aspects of engaging in Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: Just as a statement here, I think that one of the most intelligent things that LSS did was support webcam and online play.
Speaker: And I don't necessarily think that...
Speaker: the growth of the game would have happened as much as it did during that time.
Speaker: They could have also, if they made some poor decisions, it could have also buried any chance that we even have a game today.
Speaker: So I like hearing that because it keeps getting reinforced as we talk to people about it, that, you know, if you got into the game sort of in and around that time, that was one of those key aspects to getting people into the game.
Speaker: And like you had already touched on in the COVID, it's just a way to start to slowly, I guess, interact with people.
Speaker: Yes, it wasn't in person, but...
Speaker: Some people working from home didn't really get a chance to see anybody during that time.
Speaker: So it's very interesting to hear you kind of mention that as well.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I think, you know, if you look at kind of what the other card games did during that, right, I almost feel like they followed the
Speaker: I feel like Flesh and Blood set the standard in terms of weekly periodical online play and having that support.
Speaker: Because if you look at it during that time, I think Digimon had their world championships on camera as well.
Speaker: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaker: had some sort of world championship, but it wasn't weekly online play that was being supported at the time.
Speaker: this was an you know for for fab it was weekly armory events skirmishes being able to leverage a blitz format being able to allow um their their local game stores to engage in their pre-releases in a way that you know you can either play as we were moving back into from covet
Speaker: being able to give folks the option of being able to pick up their packs and play online against each other in the pre-release format or play in store with, you know, the community that has chosen to move themselves inside in-person play.
Speaker: So I think it was a really smart maneuver to really engage in that kind of support by LSS.
Speaker: And I think...
Speaker: It really drove home a great facet of their product, which is to support the in-person play experience, even across a cyber barrier.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you initially start out as a player to the game, playing it online, like you had mentioned.
Speaker: What ultimately led to you looking into becoming a judge with FAB?
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: So the Purple Discord is really the origin story of many of our listeners out there and kind of the judges out there.
Speaker: It's really what started me.
Speaker: I started haunting around the Games Rule QA because, like I told you in my background,
Speaker: I really like to learn how things work.
Speaker: I'm very process-oriented, and I want to know how things work, how things can be scaled up or replicated.
Speaker: Those instances are like, it does a rule.
Speaker: if rule A works for this situation, does it work for this other situation, right?
Speaker: So kind of understanding that.
Speaker: So I was basically around a game rules QA channel for...
Speaker: a large portion of the year until um kind of uh rtn season and um that year i think it was 2021 um and for that purpose um i you know i think josh had just gotten um his um
Speaker: he was recruited by lss right he joined lss and then he made the announcement and then he made you know basically um he was mulling over making a judge hub server essentially and kind of that's what kind of led from one thing to another it went from the purple discord over to the judge hub server he was looking for moderators and i had never moderated before but you know i was willing to kind of help
Speaker: with this leading the ship for him.
Speaker: So there was a whole bunch of us who applied to moderators and we got in.
Speaker: A lot of experienced folks, right?
Speaker: So you have
Speaker: myself, you have Joe Cavanaugh from the California area, Tim Grant, who goes by Roffle, and is also was lurking in that Games Rule QA channel for a while, and still does.
Speaker: From Connecticut, you had
Speaker: Dan Collins from Jersey, you had Ward Warren, Amanda Coutts, Ward Warren from SEG, who's been really influential for me.
Speaker: And I think ultimately it came to a point where aside from kind of like helping my local communities, right?
Speaker: Like that's kind of where we all joined
Speaker: to judge in general is kind of to help our local communities be that solid rock for them to help or that light tower to help guide them on the right path to sailing on the right path.
Speaker: You know, when I was looking for more, you know, I think
Speaker: the opportunities with SEG really got me hooked on more, right?
Speaker: It was kind of, let's delve deeper into what it is because I think there was one momentous kind of memory I have in kind of like my online dealings with VORD and conversations with VORD.
Speaker: And we were all talking about kind of
Speaker: opportunities for judges at the local areas, local communities versus opportunities for at more bigger regional scenes.
Speaker: And I offered my opinion and Ward offered his and rebutted my opinion pretty perfectly, actually.
Speaker: And it really got me to kind of engage and
Speaker: more into the regional scene because SEG has traditionally been on the East Coast.
Speaker: So I was still kind of by extension helping my community because my community would show up to these larger events and then I would see familiar faces.
Speaker: But at the same time, me being at these events, I could be exposed to kind of what it means to be a part of large event teams as well and get that practice.
Speaker: Dan Collins, SEG Roanoke 2021, I think it was like October or something like that or November.
Speaker: But Dan Collin and like Ward was on stage, guided me.
Speaker: Dan was my fab lead.
Speaker: And kind of I learned a lot.
Speaker: And then it just took off from there.
Speaker: Like that's how in one year I got got into judging to help my community and then got more sucked into judging just because the people
Speaker: who really support you, who supported me, were fantastic mentors and fantastic people who kind of helped to shape a way of thinking that I feel really, and I felt really supported by them.
Speaker: So, you know, that kind of sense of community, right, that supportive feel, that backbone is really what
Speaker: what helps drive folks to do more and get involved more into their passion you speak to a lot of things like judges do have an important role in their local communities it's not just we're here to you know show up to your local pq you know make people nervous hand out a bunch of penalties dq people and leave like that's a
Speaker: That maybe is the impression that I may have had because this is my first real competitive trading card game, let's say.
Speaker: I was pretty afraid of being judged by Shay in 2021.
Speaker: To be honest, I've never been judged playing a game like this.
Speaker: So can you just speak a little more about...
Speaker: the role of judges more broadly outside of working at events, being a judge wearing a yellow and black shirt, what else do you think judges contribute to the overall community?
Speaker: I think judges...
Speaker: have an important responsibility in their communities because they are pillars of them, right?
Speaker: You could arguably say, and I think Josh had like a presentation of what these pillows are at the very beginning.
Speaker: But if you break it up into kind of
Speaker: its base, right?
Speaker: You have the player base, you have the judge community, you have LSS, you have content.
Speaker: All these are just pillars of the overall that underpin that support fab as a platform, fab as product, right?
Speaker: And judges in general, beyond just judging an event really are there to kind of help shape
Speaker: that shape their local communities because more often than not, besides the player base, they are a constant in the community, right?
Speaker: Players, old and experienced and less experienced will go to them with their questions, hoping to find some sort of solace or some sort of understanding that they don't understand.
Speaker: And maybe a judge can make it clear because of the way they communicate and understand how things work.
Speaker: better.
Speaker: And if they don't, those judges will do their due diligence, hopefully, to find the right answers for them, right?
Speaker: So in a way, it's kind of like that customer service aspect that really kind of helped define judges and the great judges, right?
Speaker: Because they're able to create a feedback loop that is
Speaker: that ultimately results in trust, right?
Speaker: And they are trusted sources for their communities.
Speaker: And trust is a big thing in general, right?
Speaker: Trust is, you know, if you look at all your teams throughout like a corporate world or in, you know, or whatever job that you're at,
Speaker: You know, you trust the people around you to do the things that they're supposed to be doing.
Speaker: And that's, you know, that's why trust is so key.
Speaker: Because in the world of Fab, you know, there's a lot of cards going on.
Speaker: And there's going to be more cards going on.
Speaker: There's going to be more events.
Speaker: There are a lot of people who, there are going to be more people entering into the
Speaker: into fab right and you need that one anchor the judge who can help bridge like skill levels together right you have the new entry who doesn't understand kind of the more nuanced four portions of combat right they will go to a judge right and ask kind of like hey how does this work and the judge will sometimes take their time
Speaker: to kind of explain it more succinctly or more relatably for that person.
Speaker: And that's really kind of the community work that they do beyond just events is being that trusted anchor at their community where anyone can go to.
Speaker: It's almost like
Speaker: you know, like one of those machines, like a vending machine, like, you know, you put, you put a cord in and then like you press the button coat comes out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For, for judges, it's almost like that, but just with a better, like customer service experience with a, Hey,
Speaker: You know, you mentioned last week that you had trouble.
Speaker: Are you still having trouble now?
Speaker: That kind of great familiarity because you understand that you know how that person in your communities work.
Speaker: If they came back, they had a good experience, you follow up with them, and then they're able to foster friendships.
Speaker: And that's kind of the other portion.
Speaker: for judges, their responsibility and their contributions to the judge community is how they develop their friendships among people, because they set the tone for community involvement.
Speaker: If folks are constantly seeing you all the time,
Speaker: you know, you're going to, by nature, ask them, oh, how's your day?
Speaker: How's life?
Speaker: How have you been?
Speaker: Like, Felix, when you started this podcast, you asked me.
Speaker: It's been a long time.
Speaker: We were able to develop a level of ethos with each other.
Speaker: Because we already had rapport built up.
Speaker: With judges,
Speaker: over time, they build up rapport with their communities and they are able to set an example of how kind of like a great member of the community will conduct themselves.
Speaker: So by that, you know, it's kind of not only is it trust, but also leading by example, their conduct in their community is what they contribute to the overall judge community.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great answer.
Speaker: And I mean, judges are people within the community that gave enough of a damn to write voluntarily multiple choice exams and achieve a certain mark.
Speaker: And, you know, a lot of the times are also playing as well and supporting their local communities and being that touch point for, you know, rules, for policies, you know, explaining different changes to the player base.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: That's really, really good.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: And is there anything in general that you think, if you had a message or a lesson for the broader relationship between players and judges among the community, do you see something that could be improved or like a lesson that you wish the broader community could learn about judges?
Speaker: I would say, yeah, I have to think about this because there's a lot of great opportunities for improvements on both sides.
Speaker: I think the judge community, it is a part of the broader FAD community.
Speaker: We constantly are learning from
Speaker: the broader community about their needs, their questions, their concerns.
Speaker: And the question is, how do we kind of approach that?
Speaker: And I think at
Speaker: At the end of the day, that really speaks to two things in my mind.
Speaker: One, I just asked the broader community, be patient with the judge community, right?
Speaker: The judge community is filled with individuals who are passionate about the game.
Speaker: There are different levels of experience.
Speaker: between judges, but all of us have the common goal of providing the best way to help facilitate for playing great games in the flesh and blood.
Speaker: So patience, especially with those who are willing to judge, right?
Speaker: They don't have the opportunity to be able to play.
Speaker: They are in a way, you know,
Speaker: doing something that affects a whole group of people and not just themselves.
Speaker: Of course, some people may argue that it's really they're doing it for themselves because there might be some prizes involved or some rewards or some compensation or something that involve.
Speaker: But at the end of the day,
Speaker: Those who, those judges, you can always identify those judges who really do care.
Speaker: And it's because they've invested all their time and energy into the community and it affects a lot of people.
Speaker: And sometimes people want change really fast.
Speaker: And to that, be patient.
Speaker: It's, you know,
Speaker: time will help evolve us to a state where it may not be readily addressed now but as long as some feedback has been provided it's been looked at we will get done maybe in the future or get addressed may not be addressed in the way that one has thought it would be because everyone has differing ideas but
Speaker: patience will help us kind of get things done in a manner that we're able to kind of comprehensively think through changes or new waves of things more easily.
Speaker: And the second thing I would probably say for the broader community, besides patience, is we're only human, right?
Speaker: We're all human.
Speaker: People are prone to mistakes.
Speaker: And, you know, it does just being a judge doesn't absolve us from being a human or making a mistake.
Speaker: I have made my fair share of mistakes.
Speaker: I have made my fair share of kind of, you know, kind of inefficiencies, right?
Speaker: Things that I could have done better looking back.
Speaker: Hindsight's always 20-20.
Speaker: But you only learn that through kind of experience and part of, in my opinion, the human condition.
Speaker: The great thing about being human is that you kind of learn from your mistakes and you try to do it.
Speaker: And as long as you're aiming to do better than what you did before, I think you're always going to be successful in life.
Speaker: And I hope that people will feel the same way and give judges a little bit more, um,
Speaker: a little bit more slack when it comes to mistakes that they have made.
Speaker: Some of them may be more visible than others, but at the end of the day, it's a mistake that we improve on.
Speaker: It's an opportunity for improvement, and we move forward.
Speaker: And I think that's the one thing that I want to pinpoint for everyone there.
Speaker: I'd like to move into the next topic.
Speaker: Some people out there might not know about the different teams and projects that are going on behind the scenes within the judge community.
Speaker: Can you share some insights about the rules team and where you fit within that?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So for those that are listening in, one of the roles I have inside of the judge community is I am the team lead for the rules community team.
Speaker: It is a team of now 10 individuals among all the judges that are kind of
Speaker: have applied or been picked by myself and Josh, that our aim is to kind of review rules-related documents and make updates and suggestions based upon either things that we see or catch on our own or through community feedback.
Speaker: And it's one of those things where with rules, everyone is
Speaker: has a different understanding sometimes of the rules, have different levels of being able to navigate the rules.
Speaker: Really, the team that we have for the rules team is those folks who are seasoned and experts at being able to navigate the rules to be able to answer questions.
Speaker: But beyond asking questions, it's also being able to collaborate with one another.
Speaker: to improve the rules to a state that kind of addresses cards, effects, abilities that are coming up when sets are released.
Speaker: To give you an example, right?
Speaker: The last set, both bright lights and round the table for the rules team is typically engaged before set released, about four to five weeks before the set releases, right?
Speaker: About that time, there's some spoilers right here and there.
Speaker: And then we go into a massive spoiler week.
Speaker: So from when those little spoilers start dropping until pre-release essentially, and even after pre-release until release date, the rules team is constantly reviewing documents just to make sure that we are improving the documents in such a way that it addresses many, if not all, of the rules interactions that we can find.
Speaker: And a lot of it is just thought experience, thought testing, hypotesting kind of like scenarios as well.
Speaker: Working with Josh in our private rules team chat to be able to kind of rigorously test
Speaker: some of the different new functionalities that are coming through.
Speaker: But that's just not it, right?
Speaker: You all get hyped on spoiler season, right?
Speaker: And we have lots of good spoiler discussions in all channels, right?
Speaker: And the team is all prevalent in most of the major challenge situations.
Speaker: channels that you see, like the purple Discord, the Judge Hub Discord, maybe the local competitive scenes.
Speaker: And they are taking their questions and feedback, and then we're bringing it, filtering it up to the rules team, back to the rules team, to be able to
Speaker: think beyond just the question at hand, to think, what are the implications of this question?
Speaker: What are the implications of answering it in this way?
Speaker: And you'll see it kind of as spoiler season goes.
Speaker: Sometimes we're always saying, hey, we'll wait for release notes, or hey, wait for the comprehensive rules update.
Speaker: This is going to get addressed.
Speaker: It's because sometimes, you know,
Speaker: things change during that time and our job is to take that feedback but also give people kind of like hey you know what just hold up it's coming soon okay you got me really excited give me the juice on spoiler season and sneak peeks do you guys as the rules team get advanced knowledge on cards that are coming out within the next sets
Speaker: We do not, actually.
Speaker: And that's because LSS, by their right in nature, they keep everything close to their chest, right?
Speaker: I think content creators get their cards out a couple of weeks beforehand to be able to shape their content right.
Speaker: which is a great thing that LSS does for their community,
Speaker: but judges in the same way, our team doesn't get that.
Speaker: We may get, we, what we do get beforehand that everyone else doesn't is when the spoiler season, when these cards come out, what will end up happening is Josh is very good at providing us multiple different iterations of the comprehensive rules document so that,
Speaker: it only shows us the things, the mechanics of what has been released and the implications of those mechanics.
Speaker: So kind of like what is changing within our documentation and the other and the things that will really impact.
Speaker: And that gets our brain juices going because then we're like, oh, wait.
Speaker: So for example, like, you know, when
Speaker: I guess block cards were being showcased last season with Round the Table, right?
Speaker: There was a lot of questions about how blocks were going to interact in the UPFC and kind of like, what does it really mean?
Speaker: And then we started going through all the pieces already of like, here are all the sections that we expect that we need to update.
Speaker: because of the way the defending works in the what was the 2.5 version of the cr is kind of incompatible with the way that we expect blocks to work so you know we get that kind of preview and then as we move into the bigger preview season once all the cards
Speaker: have been revealed by their content creators.
Speaker: Some of them may not be revealed because those get revealed through box openings through, I think maybe Flukenbox got one last season or something like that.
Speaker: Once those content creators have had the opportunity to do it, we get everything.
Speaker: We get all the release notes.
Speaker: We get the full version of the comprehensive rules update.
Speaker: including the feedback that we've already provided.
Speaker: And then we go through just a full comparison of everything.
Speaker: And really where your rules team does a lot of the work is seeing all the cards in one place with all the intended rulings in one place.
Speaker: And so that's what we get the preview of is how the mechanics will actually work from a more macro level.
Speaker: And we had the opportunity to ask questions.
Speaker: And then what ends up happening is the only thing that does not get spoiled to us, if it's not spoiled in the box, is the is the fable.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So is it like time crunch for you guys then?
Speaker: Because you have the short spoiler season pre-release.
Speaker: And what is that like two weeks before the comprehensive rules need to come out then?
Speaker: Or is it shorter than that or a bit longer than that?
Speaker: Yeah, so it's a little bit longer than that, right?
Speaker: It's more, let's say, once we have the cards, so we have that little short sneak peek season, right?
Speaker: And then we have, like, a gap.
Speaker: And then we have, like, the longer three-day, four-day, spoiler-y season.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: where they're like 10 spoilers a day by 10 different creators.
Speaker: And then that's where the large chunk of all spoiler season channels across all your Discord start popping up with new cards and people commenting.
Speaker: That three to four day period, once that ends, we have a two week period after that.
Speaker: But
Speaker: That two-week period until from the end of that spoiler season up to the pre-release, who knows, it might be shorter sometimes.
Speaker: In that two-week period, we go through that second review of the comprehensive rules with everything being revealed to us in terms of the mechanics.
Speaker: We go through writing all the release notes in a way that is digestible for pre-release, right?
Speaker: And then we even update that after pre-release as well.
Speaker: Myself and Josh will sometimes be going through and reviewing all the rules reprise and back alley oracle articles that are published on FabTCG as well.
Speaker: And sometimes we get the larger team involved in those reviews, but sometimes we don't because we want their focus to be solely on making the rules,
Speaker: the release notes and the CR documents to be as perfect as possible.
Speaker: And then once pre-release happens, what will end up happening is there's a week between pre-release and also there's a between pre-release and the release date of the product.
Speaker: And what will happen is during that time, we will also take a lot of the feedback that we get from that we in the chatter that we hear from
Speaker: pre-releases, like interactions that did not come up during spoiler season or was not caught in spoiler season.
Speaker: And we will make adjustments to the release notes if needed, also to the CR if needed.
Speaker: And then we're constantly doing that loop until probably a week after the release date.
Speaker: That's when we say, okay, that's final.
Speaker: No more changes to the release notes.
Speaker: Anything else for the CR, for the comprehensive rules, we'll put into our next, how do you say, sprint, so to speak, which means the next time we're planning for the comprehensive rules to be updated.
Speaker: And on that note, that's just what the rules team does.
Speaker: There is a section where Josh and I will meet a couple of weeks ahead of time to...
Speaker: talk about the schedule, kind of like our deadlines, but also talk about existing things in the CR that need to be fixed or that we can possibly get in with this update that are kind of like things that you may not necessarily have ever thought about before.
Speaker: But that's part of the secrecy of our team is that we're able to kind of think about these things, but we generally don't
Speaker: advertise issues like, you know, holes in the CR, for example, because we don't want to cause undue heartburn, for lack of a better word, from just kind of identifying these issues.
Speaker: For us, we try to identify the issues, we put it on our backlog, and then we kind of work through it.
Speaker: But we never kind of advertise it in a way that is
Speaker: that will cause, um, undue necessary, um, heartburn in the community.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now you working alongside Josh, that's something that you do because you're the team lead.
Speaker: And is there other things that also encompass your role as the team lead for this?
Speaker: Yeah, so in terms of my skill set, so aside from reviewing all the documentation for the team leads, as part of a member of being the group, the team, for me, I take all the care of a lot of the administrative things associated with our team.
Speaker: So making sure that we're all sticking to our deadlines, giving them heads ups on
Speaker: when our deadlines are ending, making sure that everything is clear in terms of our expectations and the rules as being part of the team, making them have reminders that they should not be sharing documents at all.
Speaker: For example, because we want to be able to tightly control the versions on things, giving guidance where necessary, because you can imagine a lot of the comprehensive rules will cross over with one of the same comments for the release notes.
Speaker: So being able to separate that, I help guide those conversations like, hey, yeah,
Speaker: Great thing for the release notes.
Speaker: Make sure that you put in the comprehensive rules or something like that and kind of like guiding those conversations as well.
Speaker: But it's also my responsibility as team lead
Speaker: is also making sure that our folks have what they need to accomplish their task at hand, and making sure that they have the, if they're not able to, that they can contribute somehow in some way, or let them know that, you know, it's, you know, thanks for letting me know that you can't contribute for this workstream.
Speaker: There are other work streams that you're, you know, coming up soon that you're available to work on.
Speaker: That would be great.
Speaker: And then also doing a lot of the pre-conference of rule update planning.
Speaker: I do that with Josh.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: With you being so involved behind the scenes, is there anything that is exciting or that you enjoy that other people, you know, don't necessarily get to see or know about?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I enjoy being able to know things around the community, like having a pulse, things, rules related in the community.
Speaker: I may not, I will say this, I may not be the best person
Speaker: in terms of responding sometimes but when i do i make sure it's meaningful for the person that i'm responding to but i definitely do read almost everything and if i don't i always ask hey can someone summarize this for me because it's like maybe like there's like a 20 long post on things
Speaker: But I think what I enjoy most about being behind the scenes is not only the pulse, the heartbeat, like understanding.
Speaker: Like I work with Yi Chen to sometimes, like we bounce ideas off each other, Joe Kavanaugh and I, because I'm part of the exam team as well, like we'll think about kind of like ways to improve or shorten our processes, for example.
Speaker: And a lot of that just speaks to just the overall kind of knowledge base that folks have, like other leads have as well, and their experience and to be able to draw upon each other's experience because you can learn from each other.
Speaker: And I think for me, that pulse right there is what really attracts me because it's just...
Speaker: there is a confluence of knowledge among the people who are really partaking and really involved in their teams that you can draw, one can draw from.
Speaker: And it's just, you learn so much.
Speaker: Like, let me give you an example.
Speaker: And this is not a behind the scenes thing.
Speaker: I think people were geeking out of something called Obsidian inside of the Fab Judge server.
Speaker: And the fact that people can geek out over that and then draw from each other on it is an example of what happens in behind the scenes, right?
Speaker: Like project management skills, like being able to, you know, Joe is probably Joe Cavanaugh is probably the person I would relate to in terms of kind of his direction and his career is kind of mimics mine because we all do project management, similar things.
Speaker: So being able to kind of have that milestone kind of
Speaker: relatability and kind of be able to draw from each other, it's great.
Speaker: I find that, and we're both detail-oriented, we're all process-oriented too.
Speaker: So it's great to kind of collaborate on those things and kind of
Speaker: really refine those skills.
Speaker: And that's where I like being, I'm so involved in behind the scenes because it gives me an opportunity to practice those things that I may not necessarily get too much practice of during my day-to-day job or exposure during my day-to-day job to do so.
Speaker: So do you set any longer term objectives for your ongoing intensive engagement behind the scenes with the judge program?
Speaker: Or is it still just every day, head down, do your work?
Speaker: It's definitely not.
Speaker: When I'm working on things for the judge program, it's always head down for a couple hours.
Speaker: depending on what I'm doing, right?
Speaker: I think, for example, when
Speaker: uh we were working on the team lead certification for advanced certification so i'm part of that team as well right i i took on the challenge with ward amanda and the rest of the team lead certification team to kind of really put together kind of like a great uh explanation of what our expectations for a team lead would be right and you know if you if you if you look at it while it
Speaker: It looks long because those are kind of like what we hope our desired candidates would be.
Speaker: The way that I kind of approached it and that they were cool with was being able to kind of
Speaker: make it seem like what it sounds like to be you would expect when applying for a job, right?
Speaker: Here's what we expect our candidates to have, here's what we're hoping, here's what we expect you to provide proof of and kind of some certainty about the process, right?
Speaker: And that's an example of one, being able to
Speaker: be given the space to do that, right?
Speaker: And number two, you know, being able to kind of see that come together and see that actually be used.
Speaker: And that, when we put our heads down, we put our heads down, all three or four of us together with Klaus,
Speaker: for a good couple of days.
Speaker: And then there was even after that, Ward and others were discussing it more at length as well.
Speaker: And then seeing it finally come out and then seeing it finally use, that's where I get my participation level is predicated on seeing results.
Speaker: So being able to see that from inception to implementation is a really great positive feedback loop that is encouraging to see and lets me know that, hey, I'm actually making an impact.
Speaker: Therefore, I want to spend more time in making contributions to the program.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I will say this, right?
Speaker: Even before all these teams were doing it, I had the goal of just trying to get people a common understanding of rules in general, right?
Speaker: You'll see some of the old ask a judge
Speaker: like forum posts, not forum posts, but like the posts on Discord.
Speaker: We tried to make threads.
Speaker: We tried to innovate in such a way that gave a common understanding for judges, common placement information.
Speaker: And that's only grown to better heights, right?
Speaker: We have Judge Hub platform now.
Speaker: We have the new Ask a Judge forum feature on our Discord.
Speaker: We have tests now.
Speaker: being part of the rules exam like that's a great uh being part of the exam team that's a great feedback loop because then you see that people are actually doing the tests they're actually using it um and i the things that will in the long term is is being set up right i think
Speaker: Josh and particularly Klaus have a good vision, a macro level vision for where they want to take the judge program.
Speaker: Now all that is really being worked on right now is implementing it to get to that vision.
Speaker: Doesn't mean there will be course corrections.
Speaker: Any good plan will always have course corrections because something always happens.
Speaker: But they have where they want to go.
Speaker: And they have people at the heads of their teams that are able to, that are, that can accomplish things.
Speaker: And seeing those things being accomplished help others feel a sense of accomplishment as well.
Speaker: And therefore want to devote more of their opportunity.
Speaker: And that's exactly it for me.
Speaker: The only drawback for me is that, like with everyone else I hope, is that sometimes real life will always kind of dictate participation levels on a dime.
Speaker: My child, as he grows up, if I'm lucky to be here, to see him grow up when he starts to attend kindergarten, when he starts to attend
Speaker: Elementary school, if I'm still in the FAB community, I would say there's going to be an opportunity cost.
Speaker: There's already an opportunity cost because I can't go out and play FAB all the time.
Speaker: I have to be very cognizant of my partner's needs as well.
Speaker: And it's a shared responsibility for us.
Speaker: So in this case, my commitment to the program and to
Speaker: my level of participation is predicated kind of on that relationship in general right but not only me but it's also kind of like when when there are it's also based on flesh and blood itself right when there's something as monumental as new events coming in right i don't think
Speaker: Like, if you asked me five months ago, like, hey, if I told you that we're increasing to a $1.5 million prize money purchase... Is it purchase?
Speaker: Purse.
Speaker: Money purse for...
Speaker: just organized play, I would have been like, no, no way.
Speaker: 1.5 million, like 1 million is already great.
Speaker: 1.5 is even better.
Speaker: I would have told you that you were lying to me, but obviously it's great.
Speaker: And because of that, there are going to be new opportunities because there are more events.
Speaker: And at, at the end of the day, it's just going to be impossible for any,
Speaker: buddy to attend all of them, right?
Speaker: Or at least for me, attend all of them.
Speaker: So I have to start picking choosing, but that doesn't mean my participation level is going to kind of increase or decrease because of that.
Speaker: It's just my opportunities to contribute may be different in different ways because of it.
Speaker: Yeah, you've talked about being a part of, well, we know that you're the team lead for the rules team.
Speaker: You've talked about being the Discord moderator, part of the exam team and the advanced certification team as well.
Speaker: I mean, this sounds like more than a second job for you, to be quite honest.
Speaker: Is this still a hobby for you, do you consider?
Speaker: Or is this truly another job with deadlines and...
Speaker: responsibilities and beatings and all of that.
Speaker: Definitely still a hobby, everyone.
Speaker: It's definitely still a hobby.
Speaker: You know, I will say what I'm not able to do is play often.
Speaker: So the sports analogy that I'll make here for all those who are sports like, you know,
Speaker: If you have a bad shooting night, not saying that I'm having a bad portion of my life, but bad shooting night in basketball, right?
Speaker: There are other things that you can be doing on the court to make an impact.
Speaker: You can be playing defense.
Speaker: You can make it harder for the other team to kind of get into rhythm, right?
Speaker: Not saying that those are things, but the analogy here is there are...
Speaker: Just because I can't participate in the way that I want to participate always, it doesn't mean that I'm not participating in a meaningful way either.
Speaker: I can be doing other things, but in this case, I've chosen to participate by contributing back to what I think is something that will affect more than just myself.
Speaker: It will affect others in a way that
Speaker: I hope will make will bring them some sort of happiness in their life because ultimately people's success if people are successful in what they do because of something I did just tell me that it will make my day and I think for that just having the chance to experience that is good enough for me to keep going like this as a hobby as opposed to a full time job
Speaker: It's a really good segue into my next question.
Speaker: You're part of multiple communities within the game of flesh and blood.
Speaker: You're in the judge community, you're in your local community, you're in the national community, and even the world's community at this point.
Speaker: Do you see any changes within the community now compared to when you started?
Speaker: And where do you think things will go in the future?
Speaker: So the easy hits, judge community, right?
Speaker: I think from where I once started back in 2021 with that Road to Nationals season to now, right?
Speaker: There are judge gifts.
Speaker: I think the very first judge gift was what?
Speaker: For the Road to Nationals was
Speaker: Herald of Judgment, Extended Art, or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: And now we have opportunities for folks to earn judge packs that have
Speaker: outstanding cold foils in them.
Speaker: Those are fantastic.
Speaker: That's an improvement for people to get.
Speaker: And you're not only getting that now for Road to National season or your ProQuest season.
Speaker: You're getting those at conferences.
Speaker: If you're a member, if you are a member of, if you're an active member of any of the community teams, you may be getting a few packs here and there, right?
Speaker: Did the packs are really what,
Speaker: is a great innovation from two years ago to now is a way to reward community contributions.
Speaker: And I think that really helps get people on board to really spending their time, for those that care, really spending their time and into the program.
Speaker: Judge Hub,
Speaker: I think when Dan Collins and Joe Cavanaugh and Josh rolled that out, that was great.
Speaker: It gave a central ship.
Speaker: for everyone to come together to be able to record their event history, to be able to certify for level two, to advance that, to know how to advance that, to be able to write reviews.
Speaker: And that's honestly something that we hope that folks will take more credence over is to be able to provide that timeless feedback to folks on how they can improve as a judge for them.
Speaker: Some people may not be receptive to it,
Speaker: you know, that's fine, but it is a feature that is there to help people on their journeys who want to grow and learn from the opportunities of improvement that they have and really build on that.
Speaker: That is a feature that two years ago never existed, right?
Speaker: The teams, right?
Speaker: You have basically...
Speaker: our team, the conference team, the number of conferences that have come out in the year 2021, I couldn't tell you one single conference.
Speaker: Maybe there was on some of the world premieres for TOA.
Speaker: Maybe there was, I don't know, I wasn't there.
Speaker: But what I can tell you now is the number of available conferences this year alone,
Speaker: seems to have eclipsed, and I don't have the numbers, seems to have eclipsed the year before that and definitely in 2021.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that allows for a matriculation of just knowledge.
Speaker: networking, knowledge, being able to kind of for presenters to refine their presentation abilities and their skills to be able to demonstrate their mastery of their thing, of their subject matters.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Those are great things that the conference team is really fostering these days.
Speaker: And it's not only in person, right?
Speaker: You have more online conferences, like weeks for preparation for available for those individuals who may be new, can't get to a conference, but want to learn skills so that they are better prepared.
Speaker: Those L1s are better prepared for their ProQuest and their Road to Nationals, for example.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So I guess the overall overarching theme is the accessibility of information is greater now than it was a couple of years ago.
Speaker: And that also speaks to kind of like maybe the larger community writ large, right?
Speaker: If you think about the larger fab community, right, we now have a
Speaker: We have three main flagship documents, right?
Speaker: We have the comprehensive rules.
Speaker: The comprehensive rules 2.0 definitely came out at the very beginning of 2022, right?
Speaker: So that was a monumental feature because it kind of spoke to the underworkings of how the game works.
Speaker: We have a tournament rules and policy.
Speaker: We have a penalty and procedure guideline.
Speaker: And none of that existed before, right?
Speaker: And those are all kind of good documents for the larger community to understand kind of like competitive play, the expectations for playing in tournaments, what the player expectations are, what you can expect from our TOs, what you can expect from our judges.
Speaker: Those kind of outline and kind of explain those features better
Speaker: than they ever did in 2020 or in 2021.
Speaker: So that availability and more detailed articulation of information is much greater than it was now than it was before.
Speaker: Game-wise, you can see the mechanics are just
Speaker: growing that we have you know we started off with the advent of the super like the you know the uh super types right with like uh with monarch being light and shadow combination with room blades and brutes and warriors and illusionists alike right and then we went off into uh tales of aria right with ice and elementals and
Speaker: like that has spurred a lot of growth, just game-wise.
Speaker: And really interesting combinations of decks coming out and kind of archetypes coming out.
Speaker: And we see all this.
Speaker: And I think, for me, I'm hoping that what they built on in the last four years, what I'm hoping is that they start to balance opportunities
Speaker: to kind of play those like great cards, those great card pools again through their living legend format, but having the opportunity and where it needs to be balanced that is playing the more current existing formats, right?
Speaker: And I think that will be an interesting challenge for LSS, presenting those two types of opportunities amongst their
Speaker: however many callings, however many battle hardens there are this year, right?
Speaker: Because I think, you know, you want to be able to let people know that, um, and if what they say is true with 15 new heroes coming in, you want them to have the outlet to be able to play their older cards because it does mean things to them as well.
Speaker: And I think, um,
Speaker: That will be an interesting challenge for them to see and something that I look forward to seeing, actually.
Speaker: Because I myself, first of all, I don't like Ice as a talent in general.
Speaker: I can respect it, but I'm... How dare you?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: You're talking about two Ice people.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: It's okay to be wrong, just know that you are.
Speaker: I'm just kidding, y'all.
Speaker: But, you know, I...
Speaker: really feel for the fact that, you know, you don't, you, Icelander, Oldham, and Bravo Starter Show are out in every premiere format.
Speaker: And now Living Legend's back, Living Legend is here.
Speaker: So you can be able to play them is great.
Speaker: Let's not talk about what happened at Barcelona with all eight being Bravo Starter Show.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: you know, being able to foster those opportunities to be able to play the heroes that really brought you into the game or help refine something about the game in its early history for you is really meaningful.
Speaker: And I think that's going to be an interesting challenge to help foster that for LSS.
Speaker: So I want to ask you about something that Klaus spoke to us about when he was on the show, and that was the importance of diversity of backgrounds within all levels of the judge team, but especially within the leadership teams.
Speaker: And I'd just like to ask you, do you feel that you bring a unique perspective to the teams in which you're a part of and leading?
Speaker: I think I do.
Speaker: So I'm going to break it up in terms of kind of my diversity professionally and then my diversity personally.
Speaker: I think I'll start with personally.
Speaker: I do think that everyone has their own lived experience in terms of how
Speaker: they relate to society and how society relates to them.
Speaker: I do think that those are very informative experiences to be and everyone has their own truth to be told and story to tell if they want to tell it, right?
Speaker: And I think it's important to be open to receiving those stories in a way that
Speaker: should be respected, right?
Speaker: I think what we forget at the end of the day, like I said, we're all human, right?
Speaker: We have the capacity to grow.
Speaker: We have the capacity to learn from others.
Speaker: And that's also learning about what folks care about.
Speaker: And I think that goes a long way into understanding kind of
Speaker: you're a person's kind of ethical contribution or how they lead their lives on a daily basis, right?
Speaker: And I think having that as a telos for you to be able to guide is a good thing, right?
Speaker: Because you're open to diverse perspectives.
Speaker: You're open to, you're more willing to discuss
Speaker: things in a manner that is aimed at meaningful engagement and meaningful, authentic relationships.
Speaker: And I think that's, at the end of the day, it helps inform your interpersonal communication with your team members when leading large teams with the people you work with.
Speaker: and helps kind of understand that at the end of the day, beyond this event, that they are still going to, they are humans and that they should be respected and that they have contributed to your success in some way.
Speaker: And I think it's important to understand that
Speaker: And it's important to understand that, right?
Speaker: I think the plurality of diverse perspectives is a good thing to always have.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: and it's always good to consider because it helps rigorously intellectually test your own convictions as well and your own decision-making frameworks and processes in a way that hopefully is inclusive and not necessarily exclusive of those who may have different ways of thinking than you.
Speaker: Now that it's unfortunate that there are some people in the world who take the stride of being very demeaning and very disrespectful of other people's way of life.
Speaker: And to that, I'm okay for me kind of not engaging when those folks are not willing to tolerate them because in a way,
Speaker: where we are standing as individuals inside of the program is we are trying to help bring people together in the flesh and blood, which means being inclusive to everyone and respecting their ways of life because in a way they are all participants in a very great ecosystem that should be ideal for everyone and engender a sense of safe space
Speaker: for folks to engage with and i think that's something that's necessary to kind of understand when leading these teams is that it helps shape your customer experience skills your customer your ability to relate and understand folks but also to understand when necessary when
Speaker: Enough is enough when sometimes you have to draw the line and making hard calls and hard decisions related to conduct.
Speaker: And those are the kind of ways in which your diverse perspectives will influence you for the better because you start to understand things that should be because you understand kind of really the
Speaker: the diverse underpinning that the mission statement asks of us.
Speaker: Professionally, I do think that also diverse perspectives helps you having a non-Magic the Gathering background means that I was able to kind of
Speaker: team better lead my teams in a way that best attended to their needs um you know i i am for my day-to-day job i am a team lead for you know for my the financial institution that i work for and really i oversee what 20 people on a day day-to-day basis helping them
Speaker: be positioned them for success right and when i first came into uh the program for flesh and blood for the judging program and kind of it was a lot of people from mtg that have as an industry has developed kind of like the event management team leading um kind of uh way of thinking
Speaker: And in my mind, while I was learning that, where I could apply myself and really be better is to making sure that I am doing as much as the other person as the people that I'm asking to, that are working with me, the people that I'm overseeing.
Speaker: to making sure that they and their needs are being met and that they are positioned to succeed at what they need to do.
Speaker: And if I don't know all the questions, if I don't know the answer to your question, I will do my best to find it because that is exactly kind of what I brought for me over to the program and no one taught me was asking that question and not being afraid to ask the dumb question.
Speaker: Because I look at myself as like, compared to like Ward, compared to Amanda, compared to Dan, like all these are super experienced people.
Speaker: Alfonso, Emilian, like all these people kind of know the answer to a lot of things.
Speaker: And where, and I'm so grateful to all of them because they allowed me to ask the questions
Speaker: that needed to be asked for me in order for me to understand and do the best job possible.
Speaker: So in terms for kind of what I brought to the program, I feel it's like a sense of being able to lead
Speaker: By example, as someone who does not have a magic background, I can still thrive in a leadership area.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Nick, as we wind down the interview here, we'd like to end off with a lighter question, I guess, here.
Speaker: What is your favorite moment in FAB so far?
Speaker: Well, I have two.
Speaker: Sure, fire away.
Speaker: The very first one, as a judge, was definitely calling the draft on day one of the very first World Championships in 2022 in San Jose.
Speaker: I'm going to see...
Speaker: From my perspective, it was great seeing people, players who reached the pinnacle of fab at that point, just either be excited to be there, be very tense, and you could see scrunches on their face because the picks that they're making, the ones that are going to lead them to the win.
Speaker: Like the rainbow of emotions, like the whole spectrum of emotions you could see out on the field with the players.
Speaker: And that was fantastic.
Speaker: From the judging perspective, it was actually super inspiring to see folks
Speaker: like the people that I previously just mentioned, like the leaders in the community wear a yellow shirt and be doing the same things that we've been trained to do the entire year as well.
Speaker: And all of us coming together to work on that, like day one had a ton of yellow shirts just riddling the floor, trying to make sure that the draft goes off without...
Speaker: any problems or if there was any problems, they were solved immediately, right?
Speaker: Or we were calling drafts on the side just to get them back in sync and whatnot.
Speaker: So, but you saw people, your team leads working at being very focused, being, and it was great to see it because normally we're on the floor looking at each other, but when you're calling draft, you're at a central point and the central point happened to be on the stage.
Speaker: And seeing that kind of flow was just an amazing moment to me.
Speaker: I don't think I could pass that up ever again.
Speaker: That was fantastic.
Speaker: As a player, there was a skirmish I won in season three that I won with Dorinthia, my first love in FAB.
Speaker: And she, I went,
Speaker: 5-0-1 in Swiss and then racked it through the top eight and ultimately won it.
Speaker: It was great because it was like the first time I've won anything relevant in FAB because I don't get to play that much, right?
Speaker: So I was judging some events during that time.
Speaker: And so I went up with Dorinthia
Speaker: I had a Heart of Fiendle in there because I think at the time Rob from Tolerian Dropouts had a Heart of Fiendle in there so like the day right before when I was building my deck I was like I'm gonna do what he did so I put a Heart of Fiendle and
Speaker: Good lord, did it save my ass.
Speaker: And this is before, you know, like Heart of Fiendil really started to spike up with the advent of, you know, I guess, TOA and Everfest coming out.
Speaker: I guess when Icelander started coming out again, people were really putting that as a potential option in their deck because of the life gain associated with it.
Speaker: But, oh, I loved it.
Speaker: And I think, um,
Speaker: I think one of the greatest things in general with that one was like you saw the people in your local community that just really have a great opinion about you were just staying afterwards to see how far you would go.
Speaker: And then they were watching all my games and there was a crowd going and it was just
Speaker: incredible to see when a community, when you feel like the community really has your back, that's an amazing feeling all by itself, right?
Speaker: Let me give you an example.
Speaker: The Greek individual who won Worlds this year had a fantastic, I think his name is Alex, right?
Speaker: Alex?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I remember watching that final match
Speaker: And then w hen he won it,
Speaker: All his friends that traveled from Greece with him that were outside of the barrier were just yelling and doing like a soccer style chant.
Speaker: And it really actually reminisced with me that I recalled with me that that's how I felt.
Speaker: Like every, you know, when you have a support system like that, you feel like you can take on the world.
Speaker: You feel like you're doing something right.
Speaker: And that, yeah, those are so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those are the moments that I appreciate and will never forget.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's great.
Speaker: And it must have been a big skirmish for you as well, just with that many Swiss rounds.
Speaker: You said six, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker: Congratulations, yeah.
Speaker: Well, we're winding down here, Nick.
Speaker: Any closing thoughts for us before we end things up?
Speaker: Um, I just want to say thank you to both of you.
Speaker: I know I talked a lot.
Speaker: I hope I answered all your questions in a way that, uh, is, um, great for the listeners and great for you.
Speaker: Um, and ultimately I, um, want to say what you all are doing.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: You know, you all support the community in, in the best way that you can.
Speaker: And in, in a way that helps, um,
Speaker: grow people's way of thinking with diverse perspectives from all sorts of
Speaker: the different areas that inhabit our flesh and blood community.
Speaker: And for that, I want to say thank you because you're a really integral part of our ecosystem.
Speaker: So appreciate you having me here.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks for that.
Speaker: I think you misled us a little bit about your storytelling ability.
Speaker: We wouldn't be here as far as we were without your storytelling.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: It is about two and a half hours.
Speaker: Feel free to just edit as much as you want to kind of shape it down.
Speaker: I'm fine with that.
Speaker: No worries, no worries.
Speaker: And I think our definition of a hobby is different than yours.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: With the amount you engage in this game and what I think the average flesh and blooder does.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Well, gosh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sports reference, right?
Speaker: You know, I've been listening to a lot of Kobe Bryant lately in terms of the way he's thinking about the Mamba mentality.
Speaker: When you're asleep, someone else is working kind of deal, so that's kind of the approach I take to things.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: uh i mean hobby wise yeah i i don't know it's just i feel like this this game's worth it this community is worth it so so yeah that's awesome so again thank you so much for chatting with us today if people wanted to reach out to you should they and where can they
Speaker: Yes, they can.
Speaker: I am always available to talk.
Speaker: I may not be the fastest one to talk, because I'm doing a lot of things.
Speaker: But you can find me on Twitter.
Speaker: I recently reengaged, or sorry, X, formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker: I recently reengaged in that kind of social.
Speaker: But you can reach me there.
Speaker: It's NicolaPicayo.
Speaker: And you'll find me there, or you can find me in the Discord.
Speaker: I'm the Pikachu that's on the right hand corner of the Judge Hub Discord.
Speaker: You can find me there.
Speaker: I'm willing to discuss and talk at any time.
Speaker: Jam with me about anything.
Speaker: I'm good.
Speaker: And then if you're a judge and you don't engage in Discord or in Twitter, you can also shoot me an email message through the Judge Hub platform.
Speaker: I'd be happy to take a look at it.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: And for us at the IP2 Podcast, you can check us out on YouTube, IP2 Podcast, on Twitter, IP2 Podcast, and on Blue Sky, IP2 Podcast.
Speaker: Thank you.
