MagicFest Portland 2019

| Laura Ellis

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

Derrick Angud

  • Name: Derrick Angud
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Silverdale, Washington, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1995
  • L1 Certification Date: June 29, 2019
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The brews and the good times!
  • Occupation: Mental Health
  • Random fact about yourself: I like to think of the glass as half-empty AND half-full!
  • Why did you become a judge?: To give back to my local game stores for creating such a great community for us.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Road trip with friends! Also my second ‘big’ event ever.
  • What worries you most about this event?: My relative lack of experience–but I’ll get over it soon enough.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Lots of things. Generally, just how a GP/MF is run and the software involved.
  • Who are your mentors?: Brendan Takamori, James Do Hung Lee
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Plenty of them! Generally not knowing what I was doing at comp REL, the nuance and details involved in various tasks there
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Just keep learning and making notes of what to do and what not to do next time. Constantly seeking improvement in knowledge of rules by getting help online.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: We have people who are willing to play just about anytime, anywhere.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Late night games of Commander

Tristan Barthel

  • Name: Tristan Barthel
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Corvallis, Oregon, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 16/07/2014
  • L1 Certification Date: August 1, 2019
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The Commander playgroup at my local shop
  • Occupation: Student
  • Random fact about yourself: I qualified for the 2018 Irish Dance World Championships
  • Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge to learn more about the game and to get more involed in the magic community.
  • What excites you most about this event?: The things that excites me most about this event is meeting other judges outside of my hometown and playing Commander with a lot of different people.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The best part of my local Magic community has to be how supportive accepting everyone is. We have people from all walks of life in our community and they have become my extended family.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: There are too many good memories, from strage wins in Commander to playing all night with my family and friends whenever I’m playing Magic I’m always having a good time.

Sara Mox

  • Name: Sara Mox
  • Pronouns She/her/hers
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Seattle, Washington, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: June of 2003
  • L1 Certification Date: September 30, 2019
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The Magic Judge Community
  • Occupation: Community Manager at Wizards
  • Random fact about yourself: I really enjoy social organizing, and helping people have a good time at whatever they’re doing.
  • Why did you become a judge?: Because I thought the community was amazing and I figured I might as well join it after managing it for a few years 😉
  • What excites you most about this event?: I love Portland and I’m on prize wall, so I’m super excited to make people happy all weekend!
  • What worries you most about this event?: That working at MagicFests won’t be like riding a bike and I will have forgotten what I know from doing it several years ago
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I hope to learn about how logistics of the prize wall have changed in the last several years!
  • Who are your mentors?: Kevin Desprez, Johanna Virtanen, Eric Levine, so many more. I’ve been mentored in many different ways by many judges over the years.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: The switching of context from judge manager to judge is going to be interesting!
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I plan on listening A LOT.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: My local Magic community has been the world, so I will go with the overwhelming amounts of compassion and passion for learning together.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: My favorite magic memory is the global judge leadership conference in 2017. It was held in Seattle and was so very productive, we did a lot of great work, and then when it was all over, we spent the beautiful summer evening drinking and chatting on the back grounds of the hotel. That was the moment I felt like I hit my stride working with the RCs as a group, and the moment where I got to know them so much better, just being people together.

Brandon Thomson

  • Name: Brandon Thomson
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Medford, Oregon, United States of America
  • Region: USA – Northwest
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2006/2007
  • L1 Certification Date: June 17, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The competitive and fun nature. Love pkaying Zur and grabbing a Necropotence.
  • Occupation: Cleaning
  • Random fact about yourself: I was a cheerleader and went to the D2 Summit my senior year of highschool.
  • Why did you become a judge?: To help my community grow and be able to help players understand ruling better.
  • What excites you most about this event?: It’s in my home state and I know lots of people I dont get to see very often along with play my favorite game.
  • What worries you most about this event?: First Magicfest, second large event. Not sure exactly what I’ll be doing the whole time.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Judge-player communication skills
  • Who are your mentors?: Matt Marhine
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Hard to get to large events.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Finding groups in my area interested in going.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Everybody is friends.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Casting warpworld with a hivemine in play in a prismatic event with 9 players. Took 2 hours to finish resolving the stack.