Grand Prix Madrid 2018

This weekend in Spain, we have seven new judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Adrià Diago

  • Name: Adrià Diago
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Barcelona, Spain
  • Region: Iberia
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Champions of kamigawa
  • L1 Certification Date: July 2, 2013
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Delver of secrets
  • Occupation: Leisure activities monitor
  • Random fact about yourself: I have a twin brother
  • Why did you become a judge?: To help the other players and learn more about my favorite game
  • What excites you most about this event?: Is my first GP as staff!
  • What worries you most about this event?: No used to speak in english, i hope to don’t cause problems to foreing players.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How a big tournament works. I also want to know more judges and share experiencies.
  • Who are your mentors?: Jorge Almeida and Jorge Requesens for L2
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I don’t have a lot of free time, so i have to find time to study and participate in the community
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Get involved in small projects and participate in the forum
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Really friendly and helpfull
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: My older cousin teaching me how to play 15 years ago! I played in my school during playground, no big decks, no sleeves, just fun!

Laurent Jaminet

  • Name: Laurent Jaminet
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Namur, Belgium
  • Region: BeNeLux
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2003
  • L1 Certification Date: April 2, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The artwork of cards
  • Occupation: Unemployed
  • Random fact about yourself: I laugh really easily
  • Why did you become a judge?: I always like teaching Magic to others people and make sure they have a good time at events. Being a judge makes me improve myself on those skills with the help of other judges.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Judging at GPs is my objective as a judge. What I like the like most is to be able to manage and help so many people with a team of others judges I’ve never met with.
  • What worries you most about this event?: I think it’s to fail to run correctly an event. It’s my first GP as a floor judge and I think I will be a little bit nervous.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Every judges in this GP have more experiences than me. I see it as a unique opportunity to learn as much as I can from other judges.
  • Who are your mentors?: Emilien Wild
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: We have a lot of judges in our community. The strong bond between judges, players and the LGS makes easier to help each other.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: My dad teaching me Magic when I was young. I spent hours building decks with him and my sisters. Then playing against each others.

Marina Castaño Garrido

  • Name: Marina Castaño Garrido
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: BADAJOZ, Spain
  • Region: Iberia

Pablo Bravo

  • Name: Pablo Bravo
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Cocentaina, Spain
  • Region: Iberia
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: August 2004
  • L1 Certification Date: February 11, 2017
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Comarca Team
  • Occupation: Law
  • Random fact about yourself: i lived at Hungary for a year
  • Why did you become a judge?: for help my local community of magic
  • What excites you most about this event?: meet new people, know this part of the work and be part of it
  • What worries you most about this event?: is so big and new for me
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: as much as i can
  • Who are your mentors?: Claudi Cisneros Camps
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: getting experience, asking new things, practicing
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: the people
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: my first game with friends near the swiming pool, discovering this world

Raquel Monleón Fernández

  • Name: Raquel Monleón Fernández
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Salamanca, Spain
  • Region: Iberia
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Aprtil 15, 2011
  • L1 Certification Date: May 16, 2017
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Scryb Ranger
  • Occupation: full-time freak, TO.
  • Random fact about yourself: I always play TIER 3 decks
  • Why did you become a judge?: I’m a very extrovert person and I love meeting new people, helping the community. Of course, I become a judge also to know more things about the game.
  • What excites you most about this event?: Meeting new judges and being involved in a great event.
  • What worries you most about this event?: I will try to do my best, but inexperience is always worrying.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I want to learn a lot from other judges experience.
  • Who are your mentors?: Carlos Fernández Vega, Antonio José Jiménez (in my road to L2) and special mention to Sandra Regalado and Mónica González for their support.
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’m trying to reach L2 and judging every event I can.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I usually read about rules and policy, I work in some projects and try to be in contact with other judges.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: They love playing legacy and commander, mwahahaha!
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: I’ve met my best friends playing Magic. The best part of the game is people!

Rubén San Román García

  • Name: Rubén San Román García
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Salamanca, Spain
  • Region: Iberia
  • Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: July 1998
  • L1 Certification Date: September 18, 2016
  • Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: I love playing “”combo decks””, so I’ll choose Splinter Twin
  • Occupation: TO and Magic Player
  • Random fact about yourself: I collect Planeswalkers and disenchant with different arts
  • Why did you become a judge?: I want to improve my skills as a player, so I started to read the rules and, one day, my mentor propose me to become judge.
  • What excites you most about this event?: This is my first GP as a judge (Staff). I’ve lived the GP experience as a player and now I want to live this experience as a Judge.
  • What worries you most about this event?: Everything. GP experience its gonna be new for me. But i’m gonna do my best, and I’m sure i’m gonna learn a lot from other judges.
  • What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I hope to improve my English skills, and every task i’ll have to do during GP
  • Who are your mentors?: Carlos Fernandez Vega
  • What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Since I’ve became a judge I have the oportunity to judge in my store, that help me to learn a lot but also, at the beginnig, was a little hard because i didn’t want to fail at rulings.
  • How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’m triying to be an active judge, so I try to go to every Judge Conference as I can. I’m also in the GP Quiz Project that help me to be updated with the rules.
  • What is the best part about your local Magic community?: When I see how kids enjoy the game.
  • What is your favorite Magic memory?: The travels. For me every event out of my city is an experience to live with my friends.

Xisco Solivelles

  • Name: Xisco Solivelles
  • Level: Level 1
  • Location: Manacor, Spain
  • Region: Iberia