MagicFest Kansas City 2019

| Io Hughto

This weekend in Kansas City, we have 4 new judges to Welcome to the fold!

Christopher Bordwell

  • Name: Christopher Bordwell
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Twin Falls, Idaho, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2010
  • L1 Certification Date: November 21, 2015
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The friendships!
  • Occupation: Self employed
  • Random fact about yourself: Slivers are my favorite tribe
  • Why did you become a judge?: I wanted to bring the judge program to our area of Idaho since we had none yet.
  • What excites you most about this event?: My first GP woooo!!!
  • What worries you most about this event?: Same as above haha
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Managing larger events.
  • Who are your mentors?: Brook Gardner-Durbin
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’m starting to judge at comp more and GP’s.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I have been running local comp REL quite a bit and have applied to GP’s recently and larger comp events.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The feeling of inclusion and comraderie
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: The first deck I played back when my buddy Kyle introduced the game to me.

Mark Vasquez

  • Name: Mark Vasquez
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Longview, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: May 2009
  • L1 Certification Date: August 27, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: My favorite card is trinisphere
  • Occupation: Safety Manager
  • Random fact about yourself: I play 10 different instruments and sing.
  • Why did you become a judge?: The owner of my LGS asked me if would be interested in testing because our local judge moved away.
  • What excites you most about this event?: I am super stoked to have the opportunity to work with so many judges that I haven’t had the chance to work with before.
  • What worries you most about this event?: Nothing really comes to mind.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: As much as I possibly can to make myself a better mentor and leader.
  • Who are your mentors?: Andrew Villarrubia, Josh McCurley, and Erin Leonard.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I really struggle a lot with self-confidence. This tends to make me not apply for certain roles at events and projects.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Thanks to some prodding from other judges, I’ve started applying for more leadership oriented roles and I’ve started mentoring judges in my area.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: They laugh at my terrible jokes.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: When I passed my Level 2 exam. It really made me stop and realize just how far I’ve progressed since I became a judge.

Graydon Beadle

  • Name: Graydon Beadle
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Central
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: June 2013
  • L1 Certification Date: March 14, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The sense of community
  • Occupation: Construction engineer
  • Random fact about yourself: I raised and showed llamas until i was about 17
  • Why did you become a judge?: To build and develop the Magic community
  • What excites you most about this event?: Seeing fun, interesting new decks
  • What worries you most about this event?: Making a wrong call the severely impacts a players experience
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: To improve my customer service
  • Who are your mentors?: Darren Horve and Nathaniel Graham
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Not having much access to competitive events to hone my skills
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Discussions with other local judges, reviewing scenarios on JudgeApps, and applying whenever possible for events
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The diversity, we have everything from spikey players to players bringing upgraded draft decks
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: My first competitive event as a player, getting crushed and using the experience to refine my skills as a player and builder.

Stephen Schwartz

  • Name: Stephen Schwartz
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Columbia, Missouri, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Central
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Dragons of Tarkir prerelease?
  • L1 Certification Date: April 7, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Seeing someone’s pet EDH deck go off and do its thing
  • Occupation: Database Administrator
  • Random fact about yourself: I like my quiet time
  • Why did you become a judge?: To stand up for newer / casual players against rules lawyers and spikes abusing the rules and game knowledge. Once I got more into, I enjoyed learning and teaching the ins and outs of interactions and structure of magic.
  • What excites you most about this event?: seeing all the different games and hopefully great questions to answer
  • Who are your mentors?: Nat Graham
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Finding time in my life to judge more and bigger events
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Anytime a silly brew of mine actually wins, or I get to go off with some convoluted terrible combo.