Judging Foundations & Rules Enforcement Levels

A judge is a neutral tournament official responsible for a fair, enjoyable event. Your job is not to catch players out — it is to answer rules questions, resolve disagreements, maintain the game state, and keep the event running smoothly and on time.

The three pillars of the role: customer service (players are your customers), rules knowledge, and impartiality. When in doubt, a good ruling is one that is consistent, defensible, and applied the same way to everyone.

An event's REL sets how strictly rules and procedures are enforced. There are two:

• Regular REL — the default for local, casual play (FNM, prereleases, Commander nights). Players are assumed to be honest and still learning. There are no formal penalties; you fix the problem and educate.
• Competitive REL — for larger, higher-stakes events with prizes. Players are expected to know the rules and take responsibility for their game. Infractions carry defined penalties.

(A third tier, Professional REL, historically existed for premier events; it has been folded into Competitive.) As an L1 you primarily work Regular REL.

At Regular REL the Infraction Procedure Guide (IPG) does not apply. Instead, the guiding document is Judging at Regular REL (JAR). The philosophy is simple:

1. Get a clear picture of what happened.
2. Make the game state as correct as reasonably possible.
3. Educate the players so it does not happen again.

Formal penalties like Game Losses are reserved for the rare case of a player who is deliberately cheating or being disruptive. Most errors are honest mistakes — rewind or fix, explain, and move on.