Grand Prix Copenhagen 2018 - Welcome to the Fold

This weekend, we have twelve new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Sune Halkjær

Name: Sune Halkjær
Level: Level 1
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: September 2015
L1 Certification Date: February 14, 2017
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Well….. Judges
Occupation: Student.
Random fact about yourself: I am a retired Circus Artist
Why did you become a judge?: I was interested in the rules-side of Magic.
What excites you most about this event?: Working with a large group of judges.
What worries you most about this event?: That I will not perform adequately and disappoint other judges and myself.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Mostly how to interact with players. How I word my rulings etc.
Who are your mentors?: Gilbert Hedegaard and Jonas Breindahl
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Probably going too fast and putting too much work on my shoulders.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I have been forced to categorize them in order of importance, and work on them from there.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: That everybody knows everybody. It feels like a large family.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Danish Nationals 2017. It was my first time judging with a large group of judges and it was fantastic.

Fredrik Herlitz

Name: Fredrik Herlitz
Level: Level 1
Location: Malmö, Sweden
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: started 2008
L1 Certification Date: January 28, 2013
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Patrik Fridland. Without a seconed thought! He is my favourite thing about magic. Just look what he brings to this world, so much happiness, so much love! This gentleman singelhandedly MADE my local community to what it is today in my oppinion. I love him so much <3
Occupation: IT-technician, you know, i help people to restart their computers! 🙂
Random fact about yourself: I won a “”throw a floorball ball as hard as you can”” contest during a floorballcamp when I was 14. the competitors were between 14-27. Did I throw hard or did they throw.. not so hard? You will never find out.
Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge… TWICE actualy. passed L1 2013 and also passed the L1 test 2017. Why? Well, for the same reason, I wanted to connect with new people and learn new things. I have had the privilege to work with some of the most amazing people in the community, Eskil Myrenberg and Patrik Fridland. I have gotten so many good friends and so many good memories thanks to these to fellas! Thank you. Seriously, thank you for beeing so awesome.
What excites you most about this event?: To meet all the new folks! Get to know new people is what excites me the most!
What worries you most about this event?: That there will not be enough food. 🙁 Ask Patrik Fridland, he knows what I am talking about. Seriously… you should ask!
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How other people work around people they dont know. So just recently I worked as a supervisor in a restaurant. My main job was to educate and guide people when it comes to service. I love to observe and reflect on behaviors based on situations. Incredible how much you can learn about the human beeing and how diffrent we are!
Who are your mentors?: I am at the Prize wall all weekend but my Lead is Bruno Matos
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: To accept that WER will never be a good program…. It is sort of a meme but come on, give one guy some $$$ and make the program actualy work pliz <3
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Edit: When someone comes up to me and asks random questions during events, my tone in the voice tend to be abit deep and crispy. therefore it may be perceived as ""agressive""
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Make a habit to think for a few seconds before I answer.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Patrik Fridland and Alexander Csanady. They both have such great minds when it comes to general things about magic and the community. Great guys!
What is your favorite Magic memory?: When me and Daniel X Bure (L1 from Stockholm, Sweden) sat at his kitchen table for hours. and i mean HOURS (probably around 7) to practise the Burn Vs UWr control back in the days (2011 maybe) and I refused to give up before I had a 50%+ win rate. A few weeks later I went to a modern GP and faced three Burn-decks day 1. practice makes perfect!

Jani-Petteri Huttunen

Name: Jani-Petteri Huttunen
Level: Level 1
Location: Turku, Finland
Region: Europe – North

Jonathan Johansen

Name: Jonathan Johansen
Level: Level 1
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Region: Europe – North

Mikkel Kovdal Kongstad

Name: Mikkel Kovdal Kongstad
Level: Level 1
Location: Rodovre, Denmark
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: First time i Played was around 1995, startet again September 2013
L1 Certification Date: September 16, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The community
Occupation: Starting at school in september, nothing right now
Random fact about yourself: For more than a year i did go to the cinema every sunday
Why did you become a judge?: to run the event at my LGS. It closed down just before i got to level 1
What excites you most about this event?: Being part of a so big event and learn something new.
What worries you most about this event?: If i make the right call.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Become more confident in my judge skill
Who are your mentors?: Jonas Breindahl
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: My largest challenge is my own confident
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I have done it at orther parts of my self.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The players and orther judges
What is your favorite Magic memory?: When I think back to when I first played as a kid

christopher liewendahl

Name: christopher liewendahl
Level: Level 1
Location: stockholm, Sweden
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1994
L1 Certification Date: October 6, 2014
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The Legacy community at my lgs
Occupation: Branch Manager for a distribution company
Random fact about yourself: I’ve seen Iron Maiden live eight times 🙂
Why did you become a judge?: When I got back to magic after a rather long hiatus I picked up legacy. The intricasies of the format itself, made me want to know more about the rules that governs magic.
What excites you most about this event?: That it’s my first GP 🙂
What worries you most about this event?: Small misstakes are fine, bigger ones I’d like very much to avoid.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How a grand prix works from a non player perspective.
Who are your mentors?: Alexander Johansson and Anton Rintilä
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Not to second guess myself so much.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Taking notes during the tournament and then discussing it with other judges and also I find meditation to be a great tool.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: That it’s so diversified, every format has a huge following and you can every day find 30+ players playing magic in the venue.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: When I first got introduced to magic, we played a sealed league and we each got a revised starter and a revised booster. We played for ante. I had contract from below in my deck 🙂

Troels Munk

Name: Troels Munk
Level: Level 1
Location: Aarhus, Denmark
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1996
L1 Certification Date: February 18, 2018
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: That there are so many ways to play
Occupation: Math student. I actually finish my master’s degree one week after the GP!
Random fact about yourself: I’m a vegetarian, but mostly because I’m picky
Why did you become a judge?: To help my local community and to experience larger events from the other side.
What excites you most about this event?: That I get feel the rush of judging larger events and see what makes them tick.
What worries you most about this event?: That I might miss something important, seeing as I will be judging my first competitive event on Sunday.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to deliver my rulings to the players in a satisfactory and confident manner.
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: That I have so much to learn and I don’t know where to focus. I guess I just have to judge more to solve that problem!

Olav Andre Omdal

Name: Olav Andre Omdal
Level: Level 1
Location: Vennesla, Norway
Region: Europe – North

Jarno Pohjola

Name: Jarno Pohjola
Level: Level 1
Location: Turku, Finland
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: November 22nd, 2014
L1 Certification Date: October 23, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: All the different ways people can be involved in Magic, there is something for everyone.
Occupation: Social Worker student
Random fact about yourself: My other hobby is collecting steelbooks of movies and games
Why did you become a judge?: I love helping people and I felt that being a judge would be something where I could help people the most and be a mentor to them.
What excites you most about this event?: I’ve been at five GP as a player so being able to see the other side is exciting.
What worries you most about this event?: Remembering to take care of myself especially during the busy hours.
Who are your mentors?: Aukusti Koivu was the one who taught me and “”raised me”” as a judge and Juha Ihonen was the one who took me to the goal and certificated me
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: At the beginning I didn’t always have confidence in my answers to judge questions, though that has mostly gone away with time and experience.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I basically learned to not doubt myself all the time after judging at several FNM.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The people. Just the fact that thanks to Magic I’ve found so many friends and travelled in Europe for GP.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Going 11-4 at GP Copenhagen 2017 after starting 1-2

Oliver Schilling

Name: Oliver Schilling
Level: Level 1
Location: næstved, Denmark
Region: Europe – North

Jakob Søgaard

Name: Jakob Søgaard
Level: Level 1
Location: Frederiksberg, Denmark
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: My first FNM was between RoE and INN so around 2011 i think
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The comunity and the bonding experience it makes
Occupation: Barista
Random fact about yourself: I’m a huge geek, magic, D&D, vampire stuff, warhammer, LARP i geek out about a lot of geeky stuff
Why did you become a judge?: So that i could show others the joy of magic by making an awesome:e turnament, and impact my comunity positively, also i had an inspiring L2
What excites you most about this event?: The size, and the number of People coming that knows so Much more than i, i’ll get to learn from Them and see multiple Very experienced judges in action
What worries you most about this event?: That i’m bad at IT and it might make me miss some critical info
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Managing a turnament while there’s a lot of distractions, from other turnaments and so on, also being a part of a set team.
Who are your mentors?: Gilbert Hedegaard, and Jonas Breindahl has taught me most of my skills
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: The Challenge of not knowing Exsactly which direction to take, and the Challenge of getting the layers really imprinted
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: First one i work on by finding out what i need to learn to get further in the judge system, the second one is just repetition, which i’m bad at
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The Way they sweep you in, and you get to know Them better, although it seems that being a guy has helped me in that regard. (Trying to look into how to make my current comunity more appealing to different groups
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Playing magic with my Big brother when i was around 6

Lars Martin Syverstad

Name: Lars Martin Syverstad
Level: Level 1
Location: Bergen, Norway
Region: Europe – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1999
L1 Certification Date: March 18, 2017
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Favorite card is Jace, Memory Adept, which as we all know is the best Jace
Occupation: Full time geek(aka unemployed)
Random fact about yourself: I don’t like strawberries
Why did you become a judge?: There weren’t that many judges in my area, and while one of our judges studied for L2 i joined the studies to get L1 to help with the smaller tournaments, FNMs and such
What excites you most about this event?: This is my first time on staff for a big tournament so naturally excited to see the inner workings of a GP level event.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: I once drained my opponent for 39 with essence harvest. Then proceeded to lose that game.