Here are the May 2018 judge anniversaries!
15 years
Casey HoganBenjamin Klein
Ivan Petkovic
Koichi Kudo
Konstantin Zykov
John Donovan
10 years
Dmitry Kuz’minMichele Volpato
Michal Oravec
Sebastian Pękala
Carlos Rada
Edward Bruenning
Elias Fajardo
Sang-Mook Ha
Woosuk Lee
5 years
Alex HornCody Trafton
Jun Xia
Chris Vlastelica
Joshua Sharp
Michal Kruk
Jeremy Christensen
Vincent Ruaut
Cristián Droguett
Daniel Bure
Yuichiro Matsui
Michael Feulner
Lance Loucks
Brandon Kohrs
Jesper Boo
William Blondon
William Nally
Bruno Matos
Oscar Joaquin Mendez Ruiz
Federico Biffi
Shayne Walker
James King
Xudian Shi
Nick Gil
Todd Dalton
Steven Chisolm
Shawn Becker
Luke Southworth
Thomas Fritz
Carlos Lucas
Eldon Chou
Jonathan Gildersleeve
Yen-Shyang Tseng
Tyler Ragels
Eric Weigel
kotaro mori
Amir Salamat
Kwok Siang Neo
Paul Whitcomb
Raymond Maglunog
Daniel Israelsson
Corey Main
Benjamin Broderick
Daniel Foreman
Sky Mason
Mario Arjona
Justin Hittell
David Jetha
Kyle Falbo
Jon Schellinger
casey bloodworth
Joshua Johnston
Tomas Gottwald
James Gray
Nathaniel Becker
Ranfil Velasquez
Lyle Smith
Adam Tatum
Derrick Sheets
Cristian Cascaval
Alex Zhed
Arseniy Egorov
Bella Dasaeva
Alexey Chernyshov
Ben Wallace
Michael Perry
Darren Combee
Masatoshi Higa
Andres Jaramillo
Richard Jeffery
Luca Magni
Michael Lipkin
David Harris
Brandon Wallace
Tobias Karlsson
Ruben Mönkemöller
Benjamin Livingston
Ben Eldridge
Ilan Seid-Green
Nikša Lučev
Jeremey Schofield
Primoz Vodnik
Pontus Knast
Krzysztof Ciesielka
Congratulations, and thank you for all your hard work!
This month we have 6 featured judges: Ivan PetkovicFrom Michael Wiese:
I don’t really remember when I first met Ivan. I believe it was at the famous 2HG GP in Amsterdam. Since then, I met him on a More or Less regular basis at European GPs, but I would never have thought that he would become a key judge in the German speaking Region. One day I got an Email from him, where he just said “I am in Hamburg now”. He made contacts in the German Region and with several L2s. He proposed a system of Area Captains for the region as well as a L1 Mentoring program for becoming L2, which is nowadays used in many other regions worldwide. This is surely one of the reasons Ivan has his own sphere nowadays, and I am very happy that his job brought him into the region. Thanks Ivan for everything you did and will do in the future.
From Stefan:
Ivan‘s accomplishments and achievements as judge are so numerous that it would be impossible to list them all. He has touched the lives of countless judges as mentor, and worked tirelessly to improve and shape the judge program by helping start and advise countless projects, culminating in becoming the leader of the Coaching Sphere. If I had to pick only one personal favorite , it would be Ivan’s leadership conferences, where attendees can learn professional level leadership and soft skills. If you have the chance to attend any of these, please do! (RCs: Hire Ivan for your region, you won’t regret it!)
I am blessed to have Ivan in my region, as a mentor, confidant, and also as my dear friend. Here’s to many more years!!
Next, we have a trio of judges featured at 5 years: Alexey Chernyshov, Bella Dasaeva, and Arseniy Egorov. Their RC, EugeneSo it seems 2013 has been a great year for Russian-speaking region’s community. A whole lot of new sparks have been ignited with May having 3 (!) who’ve become prominent members of community, known region-wide and beyond!
If you’re a GP regular (especially if you come from Asia) you’ve likely met Arseniy Egorov before. He’s by far the most travelling judge in our region. It’s not that uncommon for him to start a week at an Asian GP, get back to Moscow and be already judging in US the next weekend. While nowadays we have less privilege of seen him at local events, he still makes sure to share his wisdom with regional judges at conferences as well as (hopefully!) share something he’s learned back home with the rest of the world!
I’ve been always a firm believer that in diversity lies strength. That said, we have people in our community who are passionate, people who are rules gurus, people who care most about helping others to grow and people who’s first priority is customer service. Back in the days we’ve somewhat lacked a person with a strict logical thinking who would ahem if we were trying to reinvent the wheel for whatever purpose:) I’m very glad that we’ve found that person in Alexey Chernyshov. One other thing about him that I can’t skip is that he has played an invaluable role in creating and developing judge community in southern Russia which a whole lot of stores now benefit from! We also have Bella Dasaeva in that class who’s been a constant presence on local scene, concentrating her efforts on mentoring new judges as well as putting lots of effort into welcoming newer players and making sure their initial experience with Magic would be a blast! Needless to say, Bella is also a great company if you’d like to play a game of Scythe!Happy judge anniversary, my friends!
This month, we celebrate the Level 3 anniversaries of a pair of judges. First, we will hear from former Level 3 judge and Premier Tournament Organizer, Steve Port“Before he became known “Judge Lems”, Jason Lemahieu was a Madison Magic Scene regular at Wednesday night drafts (a Madison tradition dating back to the mid 1990s) and FNMs at Misty Mountain. Chris Richter recruited him to judge constructed events, because he wanted to play in all.of the sealed events. He quickly became a staple in the tournament scene as a solid judge and solid player.
Lems has always had amazing attention to detail and an easy sense of humor. He’s a fan of magic in the largest sense possible… I remember a road trip to PT Charleston where Lems and (now on the Magic brand team) Matt Danner spent 17 straight hours talking about the fan set they had been working on. Tweaking cards and cackling/giggling about what they were making.
He’s come a long way since that 2006 event, moving up through the ranks as a judge to become one of the most known and respected judges in the community. It’s been my great pleasure to watch his journey and call him friend.”
Next, we will hear from Canadian Regional Coordinator, Jon Goud“Niko has been a force for mentorship on the west coast of Canada for years and he has put his time to very good use shaping the west coast community in his image. He runs the British Columbia judges mailing list for those that aren’t frequent Facebook users, a constant presence at conferences and judge meet-ups, and he has many dozens of advancement interviews under his (superhero seat-belt buckled) belt.
And he does it all, even after all these years, with compassion and focus. Take a moment to scan some of his recent exemplar nominations – what you will see is are judges commending his dedication to community, his intelligence, and his cool head. I asked some of the senior judges in the Vancouver area how they would describe Nikos’ affect on their community:
“Very down to earth and hardworking. Someone to talk about heavy issues with.”
“He’s very low on the drama scale, very centred and grounded. He’s creative, intelligent, personable, and passionate.”
“When I first started judging, he was the only judge on staff who really helped me feel welcome. His goal always seemed to be to help people be their best and do their best.
I remember one particular interaction with a player. The player was visibly upset—so much so that I was physically backing away and thinking to myself, “oh no, what do I do now…” Niko befriended the player, had him walk with him away from the table, chatted with him about his day and some topics completely unrelated to Magic. The player returned to the match completely calm.
That’s Niko: he doesn’t find your problems and fix them—he just makes you better so that you can fix them yourself.”
And for value: “I think of Niko as something of a mad scientist when it comes to building and playing magic. He won a ptq with stuffy doll, and is the only person I can recall making recycle work in highlander.”
Did you know that Niko wrote one of my favourite judge articles ever? (https://blogs.magicjudges.org/articles/2013/05/14/murphys-tournament/) When I was a young pup getting ready to head judge my first major Comp REL tournament in 2014 – back when we had the “Mana Deprived Super Series” in Canada – I found this article and read it over and over to help me get prepared.
This is what Niko does – he prepares people. He protects them from the chaos of tournaments.
As the years went by and I had a chance to work with the author of that article I learned to look forward to ever event where Niko and I were on staff together. I don’t think I’ve ever told him this to his face but the reason I love working with Niko is he has a relaxed fatalism about him on the tournament floor. Things are very likely to go wrong, but it’s all going to be fine. No need to worry – these things happen all the time. Niko is what we talk about when we talk about “stress management” as an L3 quality.
Sometimes a dangerous and unexpected beast appears on our tournament’s horizon – it’s size and speed are terrifying! The round clock ticks down mercilessly and we can all see the appetite of the logistics disaster monster will never be sated if we don’t find a solution soon! It shall consume our printers! Our tiebreaks! Our pairings! Our table numbers! If we don’t act quickly it will consume us all! The tasty morsels of judge panic only wet it’s appetite – panic and abandon the venue before the Beast of Bad Break Schedules and Technical Disaster Demon claim our very souls!
But Niko has seen and slain this beast many times before. He expects it. His relaxed smirk only becomes a fully-fledged grin – now a beacon of hope. His ever-present superhero seat-belt buckle isn’t there to keep him safe – he doesn’t need it – it’s there for us. He’s going to teach us to protect ourselves, we only have to buckle up :)”
Best wishes to Lems and Niko on their milestone anniversaries!
Happy anniversary to all of you! We look forward to many more years of judging from you all.