Head Judge Popcorny, announced his shocking resignation from the CPA Judges team this week. We looked at what led to this unexpected retirement and heard from other fellow Head Judges.
Designed by Master DS
Army Background
Aside from his extensive army and media career, Popcorny, also known as Mattsr0, has been crucial to numerous judging teams. The origins of his judging journey date back to 2020, when he served as a judge for the Club Penguin Online Army League. He was also a judge of the 2020 March Madness tournament that CPOAL was hosting, where he judged multiple intense battles throughout this tournament, such as that between the Doritos and the Ice Warriors. Later, he departed from CPOAL, and armies as a whole.
He later returned to the community and his subsequent tenure began at the Club Penguin Army Hub. On October 9, 2020, Popcorny was hired as a judge for a second time by CPAH. Among the battles Popcorny judged, he served as a judge in the first AUSIA-only tournament, Aces of AUSIA. Sometime later, when Club Penguin Army Judges was founded as an independent organization, they awarded him the Head Judge position following a majority vote. Ever since this May 2022 induction, he had been judging a multitude of large-scale battles. Interestingly, he has not been actively participating in armies outside of CPAJ, however.
RESIGNATION
Popcorny has halted his long tenure in the past week in a shocking turn of events. On October 10, 2024, he posted his retirement announcement on the CPAJ Discord server. He sent his gratitude to community members, and stated that he would be leaving to “let someone new have a chance”.
Head Judge Popcorny announcing his departure from CPA Judges and the army community
While this startled everyone, Spotty on behalf of the Head Judges team made another announcement within two hours. The second announcement thanked Popcorny for his work and clarified that a replacement would not be required. More information about the future of the Head Judges team will be unveiled after the ongoing Project Conquest: Blood Bowl tournament concludes.
Head Judge Spotty clearing up speculations and clarifying the future of the Head Judges team
Club Penguin Armies contacted Popcorny for an interview but did not receive a response. We also approached other fellow Head Judges—Spotty, Jojo Teri, and Shpec—to learn what they had to say.
We’ve heard that Popcorny’s resignation was unexpected. What do you think built up to this?
Spotty: Honestly he was less active in CPAJ for a while, even in Head Judges chat, so maybe he started to become busy. However, overtime it was obvious that he was losing interest in judging and the community as a whole, due to his lack of replies.
Jojo Teri: I feel he was becoming too busy irl or tired of CPA/CPAJ as a whole. He had been less active lately.
Shpec: I don’t know the reason he resigned. But it’s possible he was just done with CPA as a whole, considering he left pretty much every army server.
What was your initial reaction when you learned he was stepping down?
Spotty: Honestly, surprised in the fact that he did it without letting anyone know. Previous HJs have always given us plenty of notice to help give us time to prepare to replace them. To suddenly announce a retirement in our biggest and busiest tournament of the year with no notice is shocking for someone who has been in CPAJ since its creation to do such a thing.
Jojo Teri: I didnt expect that since he hadnt informed us of anything. I was surprised when I saw his resignation announcement on the Judges announcements.
Shpec: Pretty surprised since it came out of nowhere and none of us were informed at all. This did create a few problems since we weren’t able to prepare for it.
How do you think this will affect CPAJ? Will his absence be felt?
Spotty: I mean, we will have less complaints now as we won’t have his unique, and critical summaries. Honestly, we won’t see any difference, it’s been me, Shpec, and Jojo running CPAJ for a while now, so no we won’t see any difference.
Jojo Teri: Since he hadnt been active for a while I dont think it will affect CPAJ much. It has been mostly me, Spotty and Shpec running things in CPAJ for several weeks so I feel his absense wont affect the organisation much.
Shpec: He had been less active recently, so I don’t think the day to day workings of CPAJ will be affected much, but we will have to see.
Do you think CPAJ will be looking for any new Head Judges in the near/distant future?
Spotty: Honestly, our main priority right now is the Blood Bowl, we’ve decided that we won’t discuss the matter until after the tournament finishes as it’s pretty demanding on judging. Once it’s finished we’ll sit down and discuss our next steps.
Jojo Teri: In the near future we are not gonna seek for a new HJ for sure. We will first wait for the ongoing tourney to be over and then look again at the situation. Considering CPAJ has been successfully running lately when there were only 3/5 HJs active I dont think we will be searching for an HJ in the distant future either. It will most likely take a loooong time till there’s a new HJ.
Shpec: We weren’t prepared at all for this, so at the present time we don’t really have any plans to hire anyone, but we will see about the future.
All in all, this sudden resignation seems to have come as a shock to the army society. All three believe that they will remain resilient in the absence of Popcorny, and will not require further changes in the Head Judges team. The overall consensus between the three is that this matter will be dealt with after the end of the Blood Bowl tournament. Will CPAJ do well without Popcorny? Will they be able to continue operations as normal with one less head judge? Do you think YOU could be the next Head Judge?
FatChicken
Senior Reporter