A Store Judge ruined MtG for me
It’s been quite a few years since I played Magic with my friends outside of the normal friend group. Most have moved on in life as they got married and stopped playing. While some have abandoned the group and 1 still talks to me and lives 2 hours away from my Fiancé and I.
My friends have been begging me to come play Modern for years since the Mox Opal ban but Affinity was my only deck at the time and I have store anxiety outside of going in and purchasing things because I was accused of cheating. The owners are still the nicest people and I see them frequently when searching for new EDH singles or packs.
The reason I was accused of cheating was during a Kaladesh limited event where the judge wanted to talk to me in the hall after losing to me in the events final round. “Because had too many good pulls” and “My deck was too consistent” I was having fun until the interaction and it sucked the fun right out of me for the whole weekend. I used to be a competitive player for both modern/standard and not once would I ever think of cheating in any setting.
The store owners had my back when they counted my cards with him but the judge made it very awkward for me moving forward. When I go to the store some people still think I did cheat because I went 4-0 that night with insane pulls but my cards were counted multiple times in front of everyone and they handed me my winnings and asked the judge to step back.
The judge still shows up occasionally to the store and eyes me and some people just wouldn’t let me sit down and play tabletop EDH with them. Some of them were people I knew for years but only hung out with at the store during events or free play.
I’m in a new place now and I’m wanting to get back into competitive play again but the Bad Judge interaction just makes me feel like it could happen again. Should I suck it up and just play? Should the judge have been playing in the event he was judging? What would you do?