This weekend in Niagara Falls, we have 2 new judges to Welcome to the fold!
Ashley Kurtz
- Name: Ashley Kurtz
- Pronouns She/her/hers
- Level: Level 0
- Location: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Region: USA – Northeast
- Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: I learned how to play sometime in 2014 or 2015, but I hadn’t played with any regularity (or skill) until Arena launched.
- Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: I love playing decks with big creatures and a lot of interaction and synergy.
- Occupation: I’m a Marketing Manager in the tourism industry.
- Random fact about yourself: I performed during the halftime show of the Citrus Bowl in 2005.
- Why did you become a judge?: I’m not actually a judge yet. I’ve been studying and doing a lot of reading, and hope to take my L1 exam this summer.
- What excites you most about this event?: This will be the first time I’ve worked in any capacity at a MTG event! I’m excited to meet new people, learn how a large-scale event comes together and help the players have a great time.
- What worries you most about this event?: This will be the first time I’ve worked in any capacity at a MTG event! I want to make sure I do a great job!
- What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I’m curious about how things work, so I’m hoping to learn how all the pieces come together to support the event and the industry.
- What is your favorite Magic memory?: Learning how to play Magic from my boyfriend is definitely my favorite MTG memory. He’s very involved in the community and an avid player, so it was fun and rewarding to have him share his passion with me. A close runner up is when I blow him out of the water when we play against each other!
Jacob Manelius
- Name: Jacob Manelius
- Pronouns He/him/his
- Level: Level 1
- Location: Victor, New York, United States of America
- Region: USA – Northeast
- Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: January 25th, 2013
- L1 Certification Date: September 17, 2015
- Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: My local playgroup at Just Games
- Occupation: College student
- Random fact about yourself: I’m working on being a swing dance instructor at the club on my college campus.
- Why did you become a judge?: I wanted to be able to answer questions we’ve always had about the game as well as provide an opportunity to get more involved in the community.
- What excites you most about this event?: I’m looking forward to being at my first event of this size.
- What worries you most about this event?: The size of the event and keeping everything running smoothly.
- What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to maintain a consistent flow despite a huge number of people and responsibilities.
- Who are your mentors?: Michael Bauman and Tom Davis
- What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Explaining complex interactions in a way that the average player understands how it works and can feel like they learned something rather than just accepting that it works that way because I said so.
- How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Practice, practice, practice. I kept explaining different concepts to people at my LGS and got steadily better, though there’s still room for improvement.
- What is the best part about your local Magic community?: How kind and accepting they all are, they don’t make anyone feel like an outsider.
- What is your favorite Magic memory?: My first prerelease (Gatecrash) where I did extremely well on the back of Aurelia, assemble the legion, firemane avenger, and legion loyalist. I had to be talked out of splashing unexpected results because, hey, it could be any card in my deck! Even Aurelia!