This month, we bring you news and policy changes with Core 2019, along with some conference updates. As many of you know, we’re hoping to beat the heat in these months, so hopefully the Modern PPTQ season will keep things exciting as we start our path away from the times of Nicol Bolas, and move towards Ravnica!

Enough judge questions in every language for tests!

Level One Practice and Level One Advancements now have at least two versions in many different languages. Level Two tests are being worked on and should be functional soon. For details on languages and to see the amazing crew who worked on this project, check out this link.

L2 Tester changes

The certification for Level 2 Tester has been removed, but an alternative has been put into action. For more details and an explanation, follow this link.

L2 Team Lead in Training Program

There have been a handful of changes to the Team Lead process. The certification was, in many Judge’s eyes, not doing what it was designed to achieve. It has been completely overhauled. If you’re using this checkbox to fulfill your Level 3 requirements, don’t worry, you have until the end of 2019 to use it. After that, you will need to complete this new formula.

State of the Judge program from the Program Coordinators

A gathering of Regional Coordinators, an upcoming Q&A with the Program Coordinators, and messages from Sphere leaders. This article contains a bounty of information about where the program was, is, and what it has planned for the future.

Judge Articles and Blog Posts from July 2018

More judge blogs can be found at the Judge Blog Portal.

In case you would like to discuss an article, visit our Judge forum. Don’t forget to regularly check our Judge blog

Do you need a quick rules or policy answer? Ask a Magic Judge!

Judge Anniversaries

Congratulations to all of the judges who celebrated an anniversary in July 2018, including Keith Boyle , Salvatore La Terra , Rob McKenzie , and Scott Marshall !

Judge of the Week — July 2018

264:John Reuben Ferrer , L2 from Marikina, Phillipines

265:Zohar Finkel , L2 from Rehovot, Israel

266:Patrick Surab , L2 from Bratislava, Slovakia

267:Ralph Glatsch , L2 from Hamburg, Germany

A big welcome to the following judges who worked their first GP in July 2018!

GP Sao Paolo

GP Sacramento

GP Chiba

GP Minneapolis

GP Turin

Update to Conference Support:

This month brings us an update to what judges will receive as support for attending judge conferences.

M19 notes for the Win!

Questions about the new cards in M19? Take a look at this helpful article in For the Win.

Creating Spaces

This month brought us a great article on how to deal with the challenges that dyslexia brings some of us.

Learning Sphere

After nine long months, we now have new scenarios in the Card Counting Challenge!