Grand Prix Hartford 2018 - Welcome to the Fold

The GP train rolls through Hartford, Connecticut this weekend and we have five new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Raymond Cheung

Name: Raymond Cheung
Level: Level 1
Location: Ridgewood, New York, United States of America
Region: USA – Northeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: October 2001
L1 Certification Date: June 21, 2015
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Combo Decks
Occupation: Freelance QA
Random fact about yourself: The longest judge call I’ve been in (as a player) resulted in a +18 minute time extension (and was fortunately not used).
Why did you become a judge?: I wanted to help out my LGS by being a reliable and trustworthy presence for rules questions and newer players.
What excites you most about this event?: Having been on the player side, I’m keenly interested in seeing the inner workings of how large-scale events like a GP are run.
What worries you most about this event?: Honestly, the fact that I’m on a Ops role as opposed to being a floor judge.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I’m hoping to understand and develop my skills in a larger team, and to prepare myself for the logistics of a GP, so that I can ensure that players have the best possible experience they can, from the main event to the side events.
Who are your mentors?: I’ve worked closely with Kush Singhal and Nataniel Bael. I was certified by Mani Cavalieri, and I am also part of a judge chat led by Russell Deutsch.
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: The number of opportunities to improve my abilities in Competitive REL situations. I would like to start on the path to L2, but find it difficult when the most work I get is usually assisting at my LGS on their PPTQ.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’ve attempted to reach out and work more events, as well as talk with other judges in our group about their initiatives in improving themselves and their skills as judges.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: My local Magic community is pretty competitive, but still welcoming as a whole.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: When I came back from down a game to win my first Pro Tour invite at the RPTQ.

Daniel Homer

Name: Daniel Homer
Level: Level 1
Location: Sunderland, Massachusetts, United States of America
Region: USA – Northeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: October 2004
L1 Certification Date: June 5, 2017
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The friends I made along the way
Occupation: Retail worker
Random fact about yourself: I love my two dogs
What excites you most about this event?: I’ll be the head judge a 2HG event on Saturday, and I’m quite looking forward to that
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: A fear of the unknown has always been one of my greatest weaknesses. In order to counter that I want to know what it’s like to judge at a GP
Who are your mentors?: Jonah Kellman
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Drawing my entire deck in EDH with a Prime Speaker Zegana trigger

Luke Kennedy

Name: Luke Kennedy
Level: Level 1
Location: Danbury, Connecticut, United States of America
Region: USA – Northeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2014
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Deckbuilding
Occupation: Game Store Employee
Random fact about yourself: Ender’s Game is my favorite book
Why did you become a judge?: I wanted to see if I could, and it was relevant for my job
What excites you most about this event?: I’m always excited to refine my ruling delivery, and I love running events
What worries you most about this event?: I’m gonna mess up, it’s just a matter of how badly
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: As always, I’m hoping to learn what I don’t know
Who are your mentors?: Steve Carpenter
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’m often unsure of my rulings, or take too long to come up with the proper fix
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’ve been trying to judge more events, and trying to be more sure of my knowledge
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The large amount of semi-competitive brews
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Absolutely taking over a game with my Phelddagrif deck without actually having a win condition

Jenn O’Keefe

Name: Jenn O’Keefe
Level: Level 1
Location: Deerfield, Massachusetts, United States of America
Region: USA – Northeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Technically 1994, realistically 2001, most recently 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Today, I’ll say it’s playing Tiny Leaders with my Guild kids
Occupation: Crochet artist, Lyft driver, mom, human
Random fact about yourself: I have three hedgehogs and they are every bit as cute in real life as they are on YouTube
Why did you become a judge?: The short answer is, my kid took to the game so well that I ended up learning all the rules really deeply just to help him build decks. The longer answer can be found on an ongoing basis at my judge blog, Incorrigible Youths, because the questions never do end.
Who are your mentors?: Currently, Jonah Kellman and Megan Linscott are my judge parents. And they’re great as long as we’re not talking about Pringles. ~_^
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: The biggest one has been social phobia and all the things it implies. I tend to need permission from a crowd before I feel allowed to participate in it, which makes it difficult to advocate for myself or make friends. But I’m learning.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Winning matches with Hedron Alignment just before it rotated out. More specifically, watching people’s faces around turn 3 when I’d just low key announce discarding a Hedron Alignment, and they’d immediately have to reassess their whole plan. Also the origami spiders I made for when Ishkanah showed up in the late game.

Ryan Pulicari

Name: Ryan Pulicari
Level: Level 1
Location: Location Hidden
Region: USA – Northeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: January 2015
L1 Certification Date: June 11, 2017
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Favorite deck- hollow one aggro
Occupation: Automotive collision technician
Random fact about yourself: I have played over 700 hours of fallout new Vegas
Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge to help out my LGS and to get a better understanding of the game as a whole.
What excites you most about this event?: Working with people I haven’t had a chance to meet yet and obtain more knowledge about judging.
What worries you most about this event?: Software and technology. I am not a computer person I work on cars haha. I’ve never been to good at figuring out how software works so it’ll be a challenge to work with whatever Is in place for this event.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Literally anything and everything to do with how GPs run and function.
Who are your mentors?: Joe Kaiser, Matt Stone, Al Dziewit, Jason Riendeau
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Learning how to flow through announcements I get sidetracked easily.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Becoming more prepared with a list of things to say before the event starts.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: How casual thy are and how much they all just enjoy to play and not care about prizes or points. We all play for fun.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Ripping a arid Mesa and foil Lilly in MM17 then ripping a rugged prairie and foil jace in M25. Somethin bout red white lands gives me foil walkers lol.