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Understanding a community (I)
A Magic community needs three basic pillars to
stay alive and well.
• Players
– Buy product, play in events, and bring friends.
• Stores
– Sell product, organize events, and provide with playing areas.
• Judges
– Oversee events, teach players, and assist stores.
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Understanding a community (II)
Each pillar needs to support the structure in the
best possible way. A triangle is one of the best
shapes at resisting pressure and deformation.
Judges Players
Stores
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Understanding a community (III)
A small community has one or more pillars absent
or poorly developed, resulting in a structure that
could crumble or deform under certain
circumstances, and so it has limited possibilities
of growth.
Judges
Players
Stores
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Leadership: Definition (II)
There are lots of definitions of leadership, but it's
also a difficult idea to explain to others. We
usually understand this concept by associating it
to other ideas like:
• Authority, character, power or command
• Empathy, charisma, presence or trust
• Competency, effectiveness or supportiveness
• Influence, subtleness or persuasion
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Leadership applied to judging
In judging there are some traits that are very useful
to accomplish some judging goals outside and
inside tournaments. Some of them are specially
relevant to develop a small community:
• Trust: Be trusted by players, stores, and other judges
• Example: Be a model for others in the community
• Empathy: To understand the needs of others
• Influence: To support and develop the community
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A practical case (II)
We had stores We had judges
But the community wasn't growing at all!!!
Magic have always been a game of interest among
some groups of players, but never had spiked in
popularity, nor had lots of in-store action.
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A practical case (III)
When dealing with a case of a small community is
always important to analyze and to determine
what is keeping your community from growing
and develop. In this case it was:
• A small group of players was taking advantage of the
stores, trying to obtain better and better prizes
• Their attitude in events kept novice players from playing
• The attendance to events was inconsistent
• Nobody actually spent money in the stores
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A practical case (IV)
It is important to talk to people you think can help
with the situation. You don't need to impose
anything, but you can use your influence to try to
better your community. Some examples of what
to do:
• Talk with other judges and try to act as a unified group
• Assist the stores tailoring their events to other public
• Lead by example when playing in events
• Certify and mentor judges
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A practical case (V)
After less than a year of work we have developed
greatly our community and it is growing. There
are some examples of the goals we achieved:
• There are more players than ever before playing in the
stores, in special casual and novice players
• The stores started to increase their magic sales and now
have regular customers
• There are new judges and lot of people who ask us how to
join the Judge Program
• Competitive players still play in events tailored for them
