Grand Prix New Jersey 2018

| Io Hughto

This weekend in New Jersey, we have 3 new judges to Welcome to the fold!

Daniel Haberek

  • Name: Daniel Haberek
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Hope Valley, Rhode Island, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northeast

Ian Kernohan

  • Name: Ian Kernohan
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Salem, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northeast
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Fall 2002 (7th Edition Starter Kit, with CD-ROM!)
  • L1 Certification Date: July 7, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: This game has an overwhelming amount of possibility to it. There is no end.
  • Occupation: Care Coordinator for a Behavioral Health Community Partner program
  • Random fact about yourself: I have perfected the art of breakfast.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge because I realized how much I love the work of event coordination. Judging combines two personal passions: games and service. I also like travelling, and I’m a person who functions well in a large group of people with specific rituals to attend to.
  • What excites you most about this event?: I get to do Customer Service! This means that I get to professionally be kind to people, and bring light into days that might otherwise be stressful
  • What worries you most about this event?: At the moment, nothing really worries me. I don’t have a worst-case scenario, outside
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I’m hoping to learn more about the workflow involved in setting up, running, and taking down a large event like this. I’m hoping to learn where my next big event will be.
  • Who are your mentors?: Tony Houst, first and foremost. Oliver Beaumont in strong second place. Al Dziewit, Megan Linscott, and Io Hughto have also given me good advice on the road. Noah Allain is my comrade in arms.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I certified on July 7th, just six days after moving to a city where I knew one (1) person. I had also started a new job the previous month, and was trying to set myself up for success in oh-so-many areas. I faced a serious challenge in introducing myself to a new LGS, and it’s still one that I’m working on.

    I found two LGSs reasonably quickly (thanks 100.6b!), but I also wanted to start DMing. I wanted to do yoga in the mornings. I wanted to make cooking videos for my instagram. I wanted to read. I wanted to date. I found myself overwhelmed by the confines of being one person in one moment looking at the infinite plurality of human pastimes. As a person who tends to possess a patchwork personality, defining himself to be a Set of Precisely Kept References and Verbal Tics, I felt lost, as for the first time, there was no one to seek any approval from. The world of American culture stood before me, yawning, indifferent to my choice, asking me, for the twenty-sixth time, buy somethin’ or beat it.

  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: My strategy of overcoming the challenge of Adult Life was to focus on fewer events and do them better. I realized that it would make me miserable to try and work 2 events per week, and I freed myself up to work perhaps one per month. When I’m able to dedicate more time (and this is a question I check in with myself about monthly), I will. I know what I want out of life, and out of Judging, and I believe myself to be following a course where I can fulfill those wants.
    This plan is contingent on Magic not dying anytime soon, so to stay optimistic about this, I’ve stopped reading comments on any WotC announcements.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: To be entirely honest, the way that it overlaps with my local DnD community.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: I won one of my first FNM drafts during Origins with a RW beatdown deck, because Origins. I won a Serum Visions–a huge treasure at the time!–and nearly flew home. Later that same summer, I made a joke about Emrakul being a planeswalker, and the store clerk thought it was funny enough to give me a promo Path to Exile.

Andrew Pickell

  • Name: Andrew Pickell
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Washington, New Jersey, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northeast
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: September 2010
  • L1 Certification Date: November 1, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Hanging out with my friends and enjoying a game we all love.
  • Occupation: fulfillment associate, amazon
  • Random fact about yourself: Many people know me as ‘Pickell’ first before knowing my first name.
  • Why did you become a judge?: To help grow my local game store
  • What excites you most about this event?: seeing the event run from the other side
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: comfort at judging in larger events
  • Who are your mentors?: Charles Featherer, Krug(he can’t leave!), Josh Gang, Kush, and everyone in the community