Grand Prix Sacramento 2018

| Io Hughto

This weekend in sunny California, we have three new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Tyler Clark

  • Name: Tyler Clark
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Orangevale, California, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Southwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: September 12, 2011
  • L1 Certification Date: June 9, 2017
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: My group of friends that have traveled together to GPs. (Team Muffin Top)
  • Occupation: Civil Engineer
  • Random fact about yourself: I love to track my car.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I thought it would be a fun experience. I have a lot experience in retail and dealing with people. I want to people to have fun playing magic and have good experiences. Starting off in magic can be daunting and I want to make sure new players know that they are welcome to the game.
  • What excites you most about this event?: It’s in my hometown of Sacramento and it will be my first grand prix.
  • What worries you most about this event?: My knowledge needs more work. I’m worried I may give someone the wrong answer.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: The basis of how a grand prix works from the judge side.
  • Who are your mentors?: Edward Drew, Adam White, Travis Lauro, Vincente Davis, Phil Painter
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: One of my first challenges was judging friends at a local PPTQ. It was my first event as a judge. I needed to up my professionalism and I haven’t had anything like that since.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Getting my mindset into being a judge and realizing I’m working and trying to make the game fun and enjoyable for everyone.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The players are usually some of the most helpful people. It’s not perfect, but there are many stores that anyone can walk in and feel welcomed.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Winning my pro tour invite for PT Origins at the RPTQ at Channel Fireball.

Brock Ullom

  • Name: Brock Ullom
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Billings, Montana, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Casually while on deployment in Afghanistan from 6/11-6/12. Competitively since the start of 2013
  • L1 Certification Date: April 1, 2015
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Regardless of your play style preference there is a competitive deck that you can play.
  • Occupation: Student; getting my BS-Finance this December (Hopefully!)
  • Random fact about yourself: I love training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
  • Why did you become a judge?: It started with just wanting cool foils. It evolved to learning the game and helping newer players. While I don’t think it’s possible to make a career out of being a Magic judge making financial benefit (store credit, cash, etc.) is also great.
  • What excites you most about this event?: I’ve never been to California so that’s kind of cool. I’ve judges a few SCG events and I’d like to see the differences between that and GP’s. Additionally, just being able to meet other judges and make contacts in the judge community is always a plus.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’ve always struggled on my soft skills. Rules and infractions are easy because they’re in black and white. Explaining why things are or delivering the news in a tactful way have been struggles for me.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: 99.9% of the competitive players are trusting and trustworthy. We have players that have multiple legacy decks and they’re willing to loan them out at events, and considering that these decks run $1000+ dollars it’s quite amazing.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Last year I created the Montana Championship Series. Essentially copy and paste what StarCity does and have it on a much smaller scale. It allowed the players in Montana to have more competitive tournaments to play in and allowed our judges to get more experience judging competitive REL events.

Jesus Zapien

  • Name: Jesus Zapien
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Turlock, California, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Southwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2009
  • L1 Certification Date: January 14, 2017
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The constant struggle of one-upping my EDH group.
  • Occupation: Warehouse Employee
  • Random fact about yourself: I love doing karaoke!
  • Why did you become a judge?: Honestly? For the love of the game. I wanted an opportunity to hang out with other players and see a more technical aspect to this game I love so much.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Learning how ops works. The work that goes into setting things up has always fascinated me.
  • What worries you most about this event?: That I’ll make some horrible mistake and accidentally the whole event.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: The behind-the-scenes aspect of a GP.
  • Who are your mentors?: Vicente Davis, as well as whichever judge is nearby that happens to have more experience than I do.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Finding events to do within a reasonable distance.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Signing up for more GPs and accepting that I’ll need to travel.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Everyone in my community is already friends, so we do more together besides magic.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Receiving my first Exemplar nomination!