MagicFest Bangkok 2019

| Io Hughto

This weekend in Bangkok, we have 4 new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Sadabpong Choonpicharn

  • Name: Sadabpong Choonpicharn
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand
  • Region: Southeast Asia
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: July, 1999
  • L1 Certification Date: April 21, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Birds of Paradise (My fist rare from pack)
  • Random fact about yourself: I’m Southeast Asian guy but I don’t like Spicy food that much
  • Why did you become a judge?: In my local area, there were no judge on this area. So, when Magic growth, the LGS also rose. At that moment,many premium event (PPTQ, if I’m correct) can’t be hold in my area. 2 LGS talked with me about how much we will lose if we have no judge to handle those events. That’s the reason for my judge journey to begin.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Meeting with new judges for other regions and work with them
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to handle problems in big event and investigation as well
  • Who are your mentors?: Smith (Monsuporn Lauhaphand)
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Playing and laughing with my EDH group

Junghyun Lim

  • Name: Junghyun Lim
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Incheon, South Korea
  • Region: Greater China
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1995
  • L1 Certification Date: May 21, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: cubes and commanders! many funny cards
  • Occupation: Employee of MTG Shop
  • Random fact about yourself: A.K.A. Greel for korean magic community because I’m collecting greel
  • Why did you become a judge?: First, just fun. Second,
  • What excites you most about this event?: First MF/ First MF judging/First flight to other country….everyhing is exited
  • What worries you most about this event?: I worried about miscomunication because I’m not good at english speaker.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to do with many judges in HUGE event like MF
  • Who are your mentors?: Inwhan Kim and Woosuk Lee. they are most famous l2 judge in korean community.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: event with foreign players.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: trying to study rules, judging many events, and of sure. study english.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: User-Friendly thing.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: maybe now?

Shanin Paisalachpong

  • Name: Shanin Paisalachpong
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Bangplad, Bangkok, Thailand
  • Region: Southeast Asia
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 01/12/1999
  • L1 Certification Date: April 24, 2015
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Wonderful content creators available for every type of player.
  • Occupation: Family business, TCG store owner
  • Random fact about yourself: I wouldn’t have returned to Magic if I didn’t receive the knee injury from soccer. Without sports, I have too much free time so I opened an LGS.
  • What excites you most about this event?: I’m always in touch with Japanese Magic friends, and this is a good chance I’ll get to meet a lot of them at the same time. Also, I’ll get to know more other foreign judges as well. It’s always amazing experience meeting people from other countries with common niche interest. Being accepted to MagicFest at least guarantees that we’re so much into this game that nothing’s gonna pull us out easily.
  • What worries you most about this event?: I’m worried that I will screw up one way or the other, which I probably will LOL. I’m the type that my brain freezes when there are too many things going on in my mind simultaneously (aka, low RAM). Regardless, I’ll give it my best as always!
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Time has to be the most challenging aspect I faced since the beginning. As time goes by, I have to spend more time with my kid and my family business more. However, I’m never letting this side of my life go as well so balancing them out is always tough. I may not be able to review judge docs as much lately, but being the content creator for the judge page does scrub off my rust from time to time. It really helpa a lot, and at the same time, I can also contribute to my community.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Plan ahead a lot. This year I’m fortunate enough to get accepted to both MFs I applied so my family is taking the deficit side this time LOL. But seriously, planning ahead and telling them ahead really make things a lot smoother. Both my wife and I now always plan the big things ahead a lot so that we won’t have much schedule clashes.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Organizing Nationals Thailand 2018. I love organizing events. Back at when I was still a marketing manager for a game company, I was also the TO for numerous events. I like pushing boundaries of how much event could offer to the players, and I did so many additional stuffs back in Nats 2018. We broke the attendance record by a big margin. It was a very fun and proud memory I’ll hold dear forever.

KITTIPAT ROONTIWA

  • Name: KITTIPAT ROONTIWA
  • Level: Level 2
  • Location: Bangkok, Thailand
  • Region: Southeast Asia