Grand Prix Liverpool 2017

| Io Hughto

This weekend in Liverpool, we have nine new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Christopher Ambery

  • Name: Christopher Ambery
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Liverpool, England
  • Region: United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Oct 2015 (Khans)
  • L1 Certification Date: 5/22/2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Anything red (guess which deck I play in modern..)
  • Occupation: Data Analyst
  • Random fact about yourself: I won my first competitive REL tournament and qualified as an L1 on the same day.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I was interested in helping out my community particularly due to a shortage of Comp REL judges in the area. A particular moment of inspiration was seeing the judge team working together at GP Liverpool 2015. 2 years on I’m now working the same GP which feels incredible
  • What excites you most about this event?: The ability to work with a wide variety of judges I’ve never met before in the biggest event of my judge career to date.
  • Who is your mentor?: Nick Hall. An excellent mentor and friend, I’ve learned a lot not just from working events together but also the conversations along the way. I wouldn’t have made it to L2 without his advice and guidance.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The camaraderie and friendliness of the community who are always willing to help anyone out. A lot of friendships have been formed travelling to events together across the north west and beyond
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Playing vs Bogles with Burn. They drop two leylines of sanctity – I manage to draw 2 destructive revelry’s needed to break through. Unfortunately for me they had a 19/21 Vigliance Lifelink Hexproof creature ready to kill me. Unfortunately for them I boarded in deflecting palm…

Harry Barlow

  • Name: Harry Barlow
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Stockport, United Kingdom
  • Region: United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa

Ben Coleman

  • Name: Ben Coleman
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Newcastle, United Kingdom
  • Region: United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa

Alex Griggs

  • Name: Alex Griggs
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Durham
  • Region: United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: May 2014
  • L1 Certification Date: 5/15/2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The warmth and openness of the community.
  • Occupation: Student
  • Random fact about yourself: I like making origami cranes.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I’ve always had a good understanding of rules, and my LGS had no judge at the time. It only made sense.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Being able to work with so many other judges. In my local area, it’s rare to do even a 2 judge event.
  • What worries you most about this event?: The potential for an uncontrollable incident, such as at GP Prague.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I’m hoping to get better at judge announcements, as well as seeing how other judges operate.
  • Who is your mentor?: Paul Crosby.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’ve suffered a little anxiety when making the announcements at the start of events.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’ve worked on public speaking skills, outside of MtG contexts.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: People are friendly. We come together to play, and are joined by our love of the game.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Using Deflecting Palm on an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn for lethal damage.

Martin Hergeth

  • Name: Martin Hergeth
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Aachen, Germany
  • Region: German-speaking Countries
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: February 2015
  • L1 Certification Date: 4/2/2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: weird, obscure rules or cards
  • Occupation: physics student
  • Random fact about yourself: I also play video games and am a pretty good WoW player
  • Why did you become a judge?: I was always interestend in the rules of the game and was learning how they work even before I wanted to be a judge. I also liked teaching other players how they work. I judged a pre-release because a friend of mine got sick and couldn’t do it. Konrad Eibl was playing at that event and afterwards asked me if I wanted to actually be a judge.
  • What excites you most about this event?: I’m really looking forward to judging at a big event like a GP. I really like the interaction with players on the floor and I hope doing that all day long for a weekend is going to be great.
  • What worries you most about this event?: As this is going to be my first GP I don’t have a lot of experience organizing events like this. I am going to be on the paper team on Saturday and am worried that a mistake there can hold up the entire main event.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I hope I’ll learn a lot of organization skills. I don’t have experience judging at big events and hope I can learn a lot for future events.
  • Who is your mentor?: Konrad Eibl. He is a local judge that helped me a lot through the years. He has a lot of experience judging and is very involved in the judge program and will gladly help you with any questions you have.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: We have a lot of very involved players that try to help local community and even a lot of judges.

Audun Maatje

  • Name: Audun Maatje
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Bergen, Norway
  • Region: Europe – North

Erin Murphy

  • Name: Erin Murphy
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Region: United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 05/03/2017
  • L1 Certification Date: 6/10/2017
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Magic communities, specifically the UK Legacy community.
  • Occupation: Full time judge 😛
  • Random fact about yourself: I kinda speak Swedish and French
  • Why did you become a judge?: I felt more attached to the rules and policy of Magic than the game itself.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Working my first GP, teaming up with some great judges on Sides and Main event.
  • What worries you most about this event?: Long, tiring days and getting flustered on the floor.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How larger judge teams collaborate and more about the roles involved.
  • Who is your mentor?: Sophie Hughes and Norman Ralph
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I was one of the “I have to be right” kind of judges earlier in my career. This made players and colleagues not feel great in discussion.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Being able to admit that I can be wrong sometimes and taking on the feedback that us judges oh-so love to give 🙂
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The spirit of commander and the inclusiveness of the younger players.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: English Nationals – Day 2. I was allowed to run a team and ended up having the most memorable moment of my judge career.

Michał Popielski

  • Name: MichaÅ‚ Popielski
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Gdynia, Poland
  • Region: Europe – Central

Mark White

  • Name: Mark White
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Maidstone, United Kingdom
  • Region: United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa