Welcome to Level 1 and to Europe – East

You’re a newly certified judge – congratulations!

If you haven’t read the “Welcome to Level 1” letter, this is a good time to do so. It will take you just a few minutes.

Welcome to the Europe – East Region!

Being part of the Judge Program for Magic: The Gathering™ is not only about judging tournaments and knowing the rules, but also about getting to know other judges and being part of the judge community.

The regions are geographic areas that were created to help the judge program with managing an ever growing worldwide judge community. Each region has a Regional Coordinator (RC) who manages the region’s logistics, coordinates regional affairs and serves as a source of information for all the judges in the region.

The “Europe – East” region is one of the biggest regions geographically and it includes 16 countries: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Kuwait, Macedonia, Montenegro, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. The region is further divided to country coordinators who take care of a specific country (some are in charge of several countries). If you don’t know who your country coordinator is, you can check this list. The list also contains a short bio of each of the coordinators, so you can get to know them better.

You are now part of our region – welcome!

We’re looking forward to get to know you.

Now what?

Now that you’re one of us, you should know our RC. His name is Giorgos Trichopoulos and he’s a nice Greek L3 currently residing in Cyprus. You can feel free to ask him any questions. You can email him at george.trichopoulos@gmail.com (don’t be shy, helping you is on the RC job description).

After getting to know the technicalities of our region, let’s get to know the important stuff: the people. We encourage you to introduce yourself in the “Get to know topic” on the regional forum on JudgeApps.

You should also ask to join our regional Facebook group. That’s where we do some casual talk, joke around and get to know one another in a less formal setting.

Some countries have their own forum, Facebook group or both. Make sure to ask your country coordinator or the judge who certified you how to get access.

And there’s more…

If you want to be more involved (totally voluntary, but it’s fun), you can take part in one or more of our regional activities:

  • Judge conferences: every year we have two regional conferences – one in the winter and one in the summer – and they’re a great opportunity to meet other judges, learn about judging, drafting and just enjoying a vacation (and you actually get judge foils for attending lectures and learning). In addition, some countries host a local conference every once in a while (your country coordinator can provide you with all the details).
  • Regional blog: you can read about what’s going on in our region by reading our regional blog.
  • Event calendar: some hard working judges in our region maintain an event calendar with all the high profile events that might interest you. You can find it here. You can also add it to your Google Calendar.
  • L2 training: if you’re planning on certifying as a L2 judge (you really should if you’re interested in judging competitive events), you can get some help from other judges in our region by asking to join the L2 training project of Europe – East.
  • Additional resources: there’s a resources page in our regional blog. It’s always available to you and you should use it in case of need.

    And other projects and fun activities we do from time to time.

    That’s it

    Now you know who we are and where you can find us. See you soon.