MagicFest Atlanta 2019 - Welcome to the Fold

This weekend in Atlanta, we have 6 new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Fernando Jose Juarez Oliva

Name: Fernando Jose Juarez Oliva
Pronouns He/him/his
Level: Level 1
Location: Guatemala, Guatemala
Region: Hispanic America – North
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2008
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Travel with my friends.
Occupation: Mechatronic Engineer
Random fact about yourself: This year I could break my streak from breaking some bone (hopefully). The streak is now 5 year long.
Why did you become a judge?: I want to help my community to grow up.
What excites you most about this event?: I’ve been a player in a lot of GPs so being on the other side will be interesting.
What worries you most about this event?: My english accent.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to improve my customer service.
Who are your mentors?: Javier Castellan, Jose Maria Flores and Roberto Herrador.
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I love playing Magic and don’t have too much free time, so I spend most of it playing not judging.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’m still working on it, but I guess participating on this MagicFest is a step on the right direction.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Most people cares most about friendship that cards.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Top 8 playing with Guatemala’s national team during the 2015 World Magic Cup in Barcelona.

Alberto Martinez

Name: Alberto Martinez
Pronouns He/him/his
Level: Level 1
Location: Orlando, Florida, United States of America
Region: USA – Southeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: August 2015
L1 Certification Date: November 3, 2018
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The friends I’ve made along the way, I’m lucky to have such a great community nearby.
Occupation: Team Lead at American Escape Rooms
Random fact about yourself: I was in the first all in Spanish play at the University of Central Florida
Why did you become a judge?: I saw how other Judges made a lot of made my events such a great time, and I thought it would be awesome to do the same for others.
What excites you most about this event?: Having so many new Judges around that I haven’t met to learn and grow from.
What worries you most about this event?: I’m most worried about making sure I can keep up with the more experienced Judges and not get tired out after a few hours on the floor.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I’m hoping to learn how to be more independent, because I feel like sometimes I lean on the authority of others when in reality I should be the one standing up for myself.
Who are your mentors?: Elliot Gafter, Bryan Prillaman
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’ve had problems in the past being confidant in my rulings and articulating how interactions work.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’ve tried to make sure that before events I read over what decks are popular so that I can be better equipped to handle those questions when they arise.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: I’ll say it again it’s the people. We really have a group of awesome people that truly love this game and are excited to play with you week after week.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: My favorite memory was honestly my entire trip to MagicFest Atlanta last year, just being with my friends all weekend playing magic and becoming an L1 made it an unforgettable weekend.

Ada Park

Name: Ada Park
Level: Level 1
Location: Roswell, Georgia, United States of America
Region: USA – Southeast

Amin Sadri

Name: Amin Sadri
Pronouns He/him/his
Level: Level 1
Location: Clarkston, Georgia, United States of America
Region: USA – Southeast
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1997
L1 Certification Date: June 12, 2019
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Snapcaster Mage
Occupation: Lawyer
Random fact about yourself: I once played Magic in an old bomb shelter.
Why did you become a judge?: My LGS was looking for a new judge and I had been threatening to become a judge for the past three years.
What excites you most about this event?: Side events where people can play whatever off beat deck they want.
What worries you most about this event?: Super esoteric rules questions that involve interactions between cards that haven’t seen the light of day since 1997.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Get a feel for being a part of large events and how they flow.
Who are your mentors?: Nicolette Apraez and Stone Cold Steve Austin
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Finding ways to respond to the player base. Growing an LGS from the ground up has its challenges and breaking into an existing player base is proving difficult. The solution so far has been cultivating a handful of players and introducing them to formats they previously had not experienced. This often includes having many backup decks for multiple formats so that people can play at FNM or the like without having cards with them. It lowers the barrier of entry and also makes the player experience that much easier for them.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Diversified and tried to shift to meet player expectations. My LGS isn’t large enough to command the player base to come on certain days, but can definitely take more of a Field of Dreams approach.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The meta is so varied that absolutely ridiculous decks have a chance to 2-1 or 3-0 at an FNM.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: I remember seeing Scaled Wurm back in the day and thinking, “Wow. A 7/6?”

Evan Schultz

Name: Evan Schultz
Level: Level 1
Location: Woodstock, Georgia, United States of America
Region: USA – Southeast

James des Jardins

Name: James des Jardins
Pronouns They/them/theirs
Level: Level 1
Location: Marietta, Georgia, United States of America
Region: USA – Southeast
L1 Certification Date: September 30, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The community, I love seeing how excited people get and joining them in that excitement.
Random fact about yourself: I play violin fairly well and even though I was classically trained I prefer fiddle music.
Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge because I want to become an active force that work towards making Magic as great as possible.
What excites you most about this event?: The energy and the number of people.
What worries you most about this event?: Forgetting to prepare for something and getting caught off guard.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to work well with a larger group.
Who are your mentors?: Nik Zitomer and Craig Quertermous
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I kinda stumbled my way into being a judge after running events for a shop for a long time so I don’t know exactly what it means to be a judge.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I overcame this by talking with my mentors and trying to get as much information as possible by going to conferences and trying to get out to events.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: We can get together and be as competitive or as relaxed as we like. We also meet up once a month outside of card shops for a big potluck and to spend time together.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: One of the things that really got me into Magic was opening 3 winding constrictors in drafter for AER and everything clicked. I have been chasing synergy like that ever since.