Voting opens today for the first catch-up ballot for the Magic Judge Hall of Fame: The 2008 Class, covering judges originally certified in 1998 or earlier.

Changes to the voting rules

After some discussion surrounding the launch, the Magic Judge Hall of Fame project team agreed that input from others outside of the judge community would be a valued source of input and validation. We discussed how to capture a cross-section of players with the longevity and experience of the high-level judges in question. It was decided to extend the right to vote to members of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame. The Rules page has been updated to reflect this change.

Changes to the list of eligible judges

Due to incomplete data, some eligible judges were inadvertently missed from the first posted list. There were also some other errors in the data. All the corrections have been made to the list of eligible judges. For avoidance of doubt, the full list of eligible judges is available below.

Full list of eligible judges

Abde Allala Cyril Grillon Matthias Nagy Paul Barclay Theophile Guimbelleaux Chris Page Donald Barkauskas Neil Guthrie Tony Parodi Karl Batdorff Robert Hall Ray Powers Eric Bess Marc Hernandez Dorian Redburn Thomas Bisballe Lutz Hofmann Justus Rönnau Sergio Borrias Mountain Hung Mark Rosewater Mark Brown Matt Hyra Ken Roth Alfonso Bueno Frank Jager Douglas Saadeh John Carter Shawn Jeffries John Shannon Charlie Catino Martin Jordö Luca Simone Alex Charsky Ingo Kemper Eric Smith Elaine Chase Scott Larabee Matt Tabak Ryan Dare Eric Lawson Savvas Themistocleous Juan Del Compare James Lee Geoffrey Turi Jeff Donais Scott Lelivelt Pasi Virtanen Mike Donais Luigi Lo Forti David Vogin David Doust Michael Mason Mattias Wåglin William Edwards Jean Baptiste Mathieu Thom Walla Nat Fairbanks Aaron Matney Tim Weissman Michael Feuell Lee McLain Tom Wyliehart Ron Foster Mark Morimoto Jakub Wysoczanski Paul Gerardi Aaron Moshiashwili Chris Zantides Dan Gray Beth Moursund Steven Zwanger Barratt Moy

Being a good voter

The announcement post contains a list of intended qualities that Magic Judge Hall of Fame judges should represent. It’s up to you to decide what counts the most for you, and how to measure it for each person.

If you haven’t been around as long as our candidates, you might wish to look for stories of their qualities and achievements. The JudgeApps Magic Judge Hall of Fame forum is a good place to start. Even if you’re not currently a certified judge, you can register for that forum in order to browse and post.

It’s up to you if you want to share your ballot decision process publicly; the above forum is again one such venue.

For any and all discussion, the #mtgjhof hashtag is the one to use on social media.

How to get involved even if you don’t have a ballot

We’d love to see discussion of the candidates, particularly the older judges who today’s judges may not know as well. The above forum is a good place for that.

We’d also appreciate any help in contacting the retired judges who have ballots to submit – we don’t have contact details for all of them and would appreciate help spreading the word.

Voting mechanism

Balloting opens today and will remain open until midnight Pacific time, Friday 19th June. As a reminder, the following persons have a ballot: Any judge that was ever Level 3 or higher; any person that was ever the Judge Manager; and members of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame.

Any person with a ballot can submit it to judgehalloffame@gmail.com. If you have a JudgeApps account, you must send your vote from that email account for verification purposes. You do not need to have a JudgeApps account in order to vote, but you are encouraged to register for one so you can read and/or post in the Magic Judge Hall of Fame forum.

You must also include your name in the email to avoid delays in registering your vote. You may use up to five slots when voting. You may not vote for yourself. Your own ballot does not count when calculating the percentage of votes for you, so it will not dilute your percentage to submit a ballot.

The aggregate ballot results will be published, but no individual person’s ballot will ever be disclosed to any third party under any circumstances unless that individual chooses to disclose it themselves.