MagicFest Austin 2020

| Laura Ellis

First weekend for 2020 in Austin, we had 9 new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Jordon Berkley

  • Name: Jordon Berkley
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Weatherford, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: I started collecting the cards in late ‘95 and played my first FNM around ‘97
  • L1 Certification Date: November 15, 2019
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: I love the variety of play styles the cards support. I’m primarily a control/prison player, but it’s nice to be able to swap into aggro or combo for a change of pace. I also enjoy playing some decks in ways they weren’t intended to be played to foil my opponent’s counter strategy.
  • Occupation: Judge
  • Random fact about yourself: I won a match against a 300 card Chancellor deck online while piloting Lantern Control. I hard milled them in game 1, conceded game 2 for time, then sided into Lantern Aggro to win game 3 with less than 10 seconds on the clock.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I had liked the idea for several years, but a local store near me facilitated the need for a judge. The store owner moved across country shortly after I certified though, so I’ve switched my focus from in store events like FNM over to larger events like 5k’s, Opens, and Magic Fest.
  • What excites you most about this event?: The unknown. You never know what will happen at a large event, so you need to be ready to adapt to any situation.
  • What worries you most about this event?: Making the wrong call. As a judge, my biggest worry is making an incorrect ruling that unfairly costs a player their game.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I can’t say that there’s a single skill or experience I’m hoping to learn or gain as I try to improve all of my abilities at every opportunity. If I had to focus on one thing though, it would be investigations.
  • Who are your mentors?: So many to list here; John White helped me through the certification process and got me started in learning how to function at the Comp REL. Erin Leonard has been an amazing help in answering my questions and helping me learn to think like a judge. Brandon Leonard was my team lead at my first Comp REL event and helped me improve leaps and bounds in how I approach and handle calls. I honestly can’t list everyone who’s helped me along this path and do them the justice they deserve.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: The biggest challenge for me is controlling my anxiety of making an incorrect call that costs a player their game.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I work on this constantly by applying for every event and conference I can travel to. I think I’ve been at every conference in Texas and Oklahoma this year.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The support from players and TO’s. It’s a huge boost for me when I have to rule against a player, only to have them find me later and thank me for explaining an interaction that they thought worked differently. I also love the TO’s I’ve worked with, and their willingness to let me know about upcoming events before they’re officially posted for judge applicants.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: My first draft. It was back when Invasion and Apocalypse were fresh in standard, in my Invasion pack I drafted Coalition Victory, and a Cromat was passed in the Apocalypse pack. I only won 1 match, but casting Coalition Victory for the game was more than worth it!

Nicki Figueroa

  • Name: Nicki Figueroa
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Garland, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South

Logan Hampton

  • Name: Logan Hampton
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Texarkana, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: May 2013
  • L1 Certification Date: March 31, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: My favorite thing about Magic is the Judge community. Such a group of positive and accepting people that genuinely want to see you succeed.
  • Occupation: I help with inventory at a precious mineral and gemstone warehouse.
  • Random fact about yourself: I’m very into chess. I own several books and play online frequently. I typically have a fullsize chess set in my car at all times and am always down to get games in.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge for two reasons. First, I easily picked up most of the rules and quickly became the “rules guy” at my local shop. When I discovered that there was an entire group of people who did that, I knew I had to get in on the action. Second, I wanted to grow and give back to the Magic community. Magic and its community have gotten me through rough times, given me life long friends, and memories I will forever cherish.
  • What excites you most about this event?: The fresh and unique experience of meeting and working with judges I’ve never met.
  • What worries you most about this event?: I’ve never really worked an event of this size, save my one time working sides at an SCG Open in Dallas. I worry that I’ll be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people and space.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I am super interested in the logistical differences between events run at MagicFests and the events run at a local game store. I am always interesting in giving and receiving feedback, and I hope that there are opportunities to do so.
  • Who are your mentors?: Andrew Villarrubia, Erin Leonard, and Gage Robelen
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is my presence with players, judges, and tournament organizers. At 23 years old, I’m younger than most other judges and players, and I’m naturally very shy until I get to know you. I often struggle carrying myself and speaking in a tone that indicates that I know what I’m doing and that I belong there.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: It’s always something in the front of my mind, not just when judging. I’m the kind of person that learns by doing. When I’m alone, like driving or showering, I’ll rehearse taking calls in various scenarios. Simply practicing asking a question or delivering a ruling has really helped me not trip up over my words and be more confident as a judge.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Everyone knows everyone, and everyone generally gets along with each other. Nobody is ostracized based on gender, religion, sexual orientation, or lifestyle choices. We’re all there to have a good time, even if we rib each other a little bit for their deck choices (I’m the “blue control player that doesn’t like fun”).
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: The second even I was ever accepted to was a small modern PPTQ, and I was there on a standby position. I wasn’t activated, and the only deck I owned was a slow, durdely UW control list. I managed to squeak into top 8 on tiebreakers, but not before adding at least 30 minutes to the total event time due to frequently going to time (not for my own slow play). I was friends with the judges on staff and thoroughly enjoyed having them sit through my hour and a half long control mirror (that I won!) bored out of their minds. Much to everyone’s relief, I ended up splitting the finals and ended up walking away with as much money as if I had actually judged the event. It’s the best I’ve ever done at a Comp. REL event and I haven’t come close to replicating it since.

Elizabeth Hash

  • Name: Elizabeth Hash
  • Pronouns She/her/hers
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Waco, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: September 2015
  • L1 Certification Date: August 31, 2019
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Enthralling Victor. Wishcoin Crab. Really, I love when the name, art, and flavor text of a card comes together into something humorous. I also love how the cards tell a story.
  • Random fact about yourself: I love snakes, xenomorphs, and dragons.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I introduced a lot of friends in my workplace to magic and began getting a lot of questions from them. I’d answer to the best of my ability, but I definitely couldn’t answer some of the more complex questions with certainty. So I asked my local L2, Jonathan Dean, if there were any materials to study so I could obtain judge-level knowledge to better aid folks in MTG. He asked if I wanted to be a judge. “Maybe, but let’s get me to the knowledge level first.” Not much time later, plans for Judge Academy were announced, and Dean encouraged me to go for the Judge position, offering to be my mentor. I accepted.
  • What excites you most about this event?: I’ve never been to this kind of event before, so I’m pretty excited just to experience it for the first time. I’m curious about all the different events and I’m eager to see how different people build and play their decks.
  • What worries you most about this event?: I’m probably not alone in dreading the day I catch someone cheating or am called over because someone suspects someone else of cheating. It’s an awkward situation. This, or any form of serious conflict. I can hope that kind of behavior isn’t found at the event, but it can always happen.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I want to observe any of the more experienced judges and learn from how they handle a situation, whether it be a difficult call or keeping an event running smoothly.
  • Who are your mentors?: Jonathan Dean
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I definitely need to handle calls with more confidence. When I’m new to something I’m nervous and I’ll second-guess myself even if I know the answer. It’s more a fear of inconveniencing the players with false information than anything, because I know they are counting on me.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Participating in more official events helps to build confidence, because I will have obtained more experience overall. Simply going over the comprehensive guide helps a lot too.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: After being introduced to Magic by some friends out of town, I came home and mentioned it to my roommate who said she had played some years before. We found a local game store that had some of the most welcoming and friendly employees there. They told us that there was a midnight release event for the new set (Battle for Zendikar) and we decided that could be a fun Friday thing to do. Just a couple of hours, right? Hah! Simply, we were not prepared for a 4+ hour event that landed us quite tired, hungry, and therefor definitely grumpy at a Whataburger at 4:30AM. At the time it wasn’t so grand, but in hindsight it’s a pretty funny memory given the discrepancy of how we came into that event and how we left it . Overall, the surrounding welcome from the community is very a very warming memory.

Charles Heath

  • Name: Charles Heath
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Victoria, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: November, 1993
  • L1 Certification Date: July 5, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: That it’s a complex, difficult game that still is approachable and played by so many.
  • Occupation: Engineer
  • Random fact about yourself: Not so secret cat fanatic, they’re the best.
  • Why did you become a judge?: I enjoy learning the technical aspects and wanted to help my community as there were no judges in the area at the time.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Being there! Despite playing forever I’ve never been to a MagicFest even so I’m happy to drink it all in.
  • What worries you most about this event?: Getting something wrong. I endeavor to get it right but I know a bad call can sour people’s attitudes quite a bit.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: The coordination. I’ve judged 30-40 people events but seeing what it takes to wrangle a much bigger crowd will be interesting.
  • Who are your mentors?: I don’t have one actually.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: When playing, my judging focus is often not there and I’ll miss triggers, shortcut things etc. I need to play tighter so I can keep on the lookout better.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’m always trying to remember to focus in on everything happening. I often try to play as fast as possible because I don’t want people waiting on me so I often need to remind myself to slow down and go through the processes.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: There are no major clashes in the community. There are occasional minor squabbles but we all pretty much get along and play together.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: A commander game (Pir&Toothy vs Arcades as the last 2 alive) where the board got completely gummed up and we both had to switch tactics to trying to mill the other person out, a thing neither of our decks were built for. I’ll toss in a bonus memory of a recent standard game where I cast 3 casualties of war on 3 successive turns, cutting off my 3 color opponent down to 1 color of mana. I’m not always nice.

Caleb Lewis

  • Name: Caleb Lewis
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Woodward, Oklahoma, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: restarted around Theros
  • L1 Certification Date: April 21, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The stragedy
  • Occupation: Oilfield hand
  • Random fact about yourself: like learning new combos
  • Why did you become a judge?: to give back to the game i enjoy so much
  • What excites you most about this event?: my first Magicfest and hopefully one that leads me to many more
  • What worries you most about this event?: Getting off to a good start or messing up all my paper work pre-event
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: EVERYTHING, i am always looking to learn and improve!
  • Who are your mentors?: Matt Hoskin and Aaron Reed
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: my area is lacking in events to gain experience
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: i am willing and have traveled to events that are a distance away
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: we all have a variety of playing styles and still get along so well
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: in a group game i Arcbond on Soulfire grandmaster to for the most part clear the game and with that single card won that game!

Brian Perez

  • Name: Brian Perez
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Houston, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 01/2011
  • L1 Certification Date: April 22, 2019
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Artwork and community
  • Occupation: Banker
  • Random fact about yourself: Former gymnast
  • Why did you become a judge?: To continue to be a part of the community I love when I’m back in school and unable to play like I would want to
  • What excites you most about this event?: Growing as a judge and meeting new people
  • What worries you most about this event?: Making mistakes
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How larger events are handled from the judges perspective
  • Who are your mentors?: Andrea and Ben Wallace
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Lack of events nearby that I’m able to attend
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Unsuccessfully trying to make my own schedule at work
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: All the stores trying to accommodate events based on what the community wants
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Winning a 1k with horrendous match-ups in the 4th round, 5th round, and finals

Cherie Spellman

  • Name: Cherie Spellman
  • Level: Level 0
  • Location: Dallas, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South

Paul Trejo

  • Name: Paul Trejo
  • Pronouns He/him/his
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: San Antonio, Texas, United States of America
  • Region: USA – South
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 17/11/2009
  • L1 Certification Date: July 21, 2018
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: RTR Forest #270/274
  • Occupation: Amazon Driver
  • Random fact about yourself: I’m Left-Handed
  • Why did you become a judge?: I became a judge mainly to help my local mtg community have more active judges that they could count on. Also my love of the game and wanting to make an impact outside of the competitive scene .
  • What excites you most about this event?: Its going to be the first MagicFest of the year so it should start the year off well. The fact that I get the opportunity to help with such an event is a great privilege.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The many young first time players and old veterans coming together and just having a great time playing magic.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: Prerelease mirrodin besiege, My first Prerelease with my friends from college. We played magic till about four or five in the morning and left with a box full of booster packs and alot of knowledge of were we could improve.