Grand Prix Sao Paulo 2018 - Welcome to the Fold

This weekend in Brazil, we have 14 judges to Welcome to the Fold!

Felipe Barreto

Name: Felipe Barreto
Level: Level 2
Location: Itajubá, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Region: Brazil

Miguel Ángel Caballero Pérez

Name: Miguel Ángel Caballero Pérez
Level: Level 1
Location: Sucre, Bolivia
Region: Hispanic America – South
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: January 15, 1993
L1 Certification Date: November 20, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Vampire
Occupation: Ing. Civil
Random fact about yourself: I like to play the bass
Why did you become a judge?: Because I like to help my community in everything I can and why I love Magic.
What excites you most about this event?: Since it is my first GP as a judge, I’m really exited about shearing knowledge with the judges and establish social relationship who help me being a better judge.
What worries you most about this event?: What worries me the worst is the cultural barrier that the language is for me, and since it is my first big event, I might be nervous about giving correct answers to the players.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I hope to get new ideas and really nice memories from the judge’s circle.
Who are your mentors?: My mentors are: Alvaro Monasterios, Pablo Saavedra y Alejandro Van Mourik.
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: The challenge I face is getting an idoneous sistem to educate through the game in my community, and personally the biggest challenge I face is time, that seems too short in order to share the practice and the teachings with my community.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Simply by learning day by day and improving as a person and, of course, as a judge.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The best part is unity as a community, barbecues, meetings, reunions, and a lot of fun.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: When there was a national in our city that generated great expectations on local players and players from the whole contry looking forward to come here and play.

Felipe Colussi-oliva

Name: Felipe Colussi-oliva
Level: Level 1
Location: Marau, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: I started playing as a kid in kitchen table, then i stoped. After that i come back to magic in theros block.
L1 Certification Date: March 17, 2018
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The chalange of the game and the experience of traveling around with friends to play it
Occupation: lawyer
Why did you become a judge?: To improve my MTG comunity and to try to bring more ppl to play a modern championship that we werer creating
What excites you most about this event?: The fact that it will let me know the MTG judge comunity.
What worries you most about this event?: I’m not as confidan’t as i should wile i’m rulling, even if i know the answer some times i need to re-check it.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to become a better judge, and how a big event works behind the seens.
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I fell like the big problem of a judge is the problems in the comunnity, i had some problems with 2 groups that don’t like each other so they stoped playing (this is kinda killing the modern in my region).
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’ve been trying to calm they down, but it dosen’t seem to be working. Now i’m trying to create a more friendly place so we can find new players.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The place we have to play is greate.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: The first time that we went to another province to play MTG, that we got 2 cars to go to Santa Catarina play it.

Gregory Farias

Name: Gregory Farias
Level: Level 2
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2005
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Radha, Heir to Keld
Occupation: C# developer
Random fact about yourself: encyclopedia of useless information, some of them are useful
Why did you become a judge?: the be honest, I don’t know :p
What excites you most about this event?: It’s the GP! EVERYTHING is exciting
What worries you most about this event?: Make any dumb mistake
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How to be a team leader
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: I’m a rush person, and I need to become more pacient
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: On my everyday job, I’m trying to write what I would do before of doing, this way I can see further if it have any problem
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: a lot o lgs full of enjoyable people
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Winning a PPTQ

Emiliano Fischer

Name: Emiliano Fischer
Level: Level 1
Location: São Gonçalo, Brazil
Region: Brazil

Guilherme Gusman

Name: Guilherme Gusman
Level: Level 1
Location: Teresópolis, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: Setember / 2001
L1 Certification Date: November 23, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: My favorite thing about Magic are my friends. With Magic and the Judge Program, I was able to meet many good friends who have proven to be by my side no matter what. But my true love inside Magic is Azusa, Lost but Seeking by Winona Nelson, what a beautiful piece of art! She’s my main Commander. Did I already told I love Commander too? I love so many things… haha
Occupation: Student
Random fact about yourself: I have a huge collection of manga books.
Why did you become a judge?: At 2016 my local community was getting bigger with two stores, we was without a WPN Store since 2005, so the players started talking about someone becoming a Judge, and here I am. Looks like a cliché of “wanting the better for my community”, but is true.
What excites you most about this event?: The most exciting thing is to finally meet my Judge friends IRL. I’ll live with some of them these days, this isn’t incredible?! But beside that, I’m excite to learn with all, every time I work with someone different I learn something new.
What worries you most about this event?: To be honest, I don’t have much worries, every time I had a question, someone of community was ready to answer, and I sure this will happen there. My only worry is my body, I hope he last long enough to get home on Monday hahaha
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I know a lot of things in theory, but this will be my chance to learn the practice on a big scale. Like I said every time I work with someone different, I learn something new. So I hope to learn a lot of things about logistics, work with judges of other countries, and if necessary (I hope not?), learn how to deal with big problems.
Who are your mentors?: Bruna Chiochetta, Gabriel Sousa and Sophie Pages. They are GREAT!
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Confidence. I have a lack of confidence and this disturbs me sometimes.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: The only way I found to work this, was to suppress and get more experience day after day. The GP will help me a lot to me about this, I think there’s no better place for it, I’ll need to face more than thousand players, and a lot of judges I’ve never met before.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Friendship. Almost everyone are friends here. New players, and outsiders (even judges) talk with me how different this is. This makes our store a nice place to be, don’t matter the time. The store is locate at the “downtown”, and after the work day some people go there just to sit and talk, without deck or anything, just to relax before going home.

Jonatha Hirt

Name: Jonatha Hirt
Level: Level 1
Location: Cascavel, Brazil
Region: Brazil

Joao Motta

Name: Joao Motta
Level: Level 2
Location: Ciudad del Este, Paraguay
Region: Hispanic America – South
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 1997
L1 Certification Date: September 19, 2015
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Friends I’ve made over
Occupation: Electrical Engineer / Project Manager
Random fact about yourself: Played the guitar in a Blues & Rock band
Why did you become a judge?: To grow the local community
What excites you most about this event?: Working side by side with so many experienced judges
What worries you most about this event?: Being able to provide a great experience to the players
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: All! How teams are led, how side events are manageed, etc
Who are your mentors?: Alejandro Vazquez
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: All the preparation necessary to become a level 2 judge
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Studied a lot and sought for a great menthor
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: It is growing
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Casual playing mtg in “”Roda Pizza Araudi””, a “”continuos service”” pizza place where Joinville’s local comunity used to go after the store closing time

Murilo Pinho

Name: Murilo Pinho
Level: Level 2
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Region: Brazil

Jonathan Rizzo

Name: Jonathan Rizzo
Level: Level 1
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Region: Hispanic America – South
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: December 25, 1997
L1 Certification Date: September 16, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: To tavel alongside friends.
Occupation: Political Science
Random fact about yourself: Big fan of the Finish band HIM
Why did you become a judge?: To help local judges and stores that were really close to me to do better tournaments.
What excites you most about this event?: To get paid in Dominaria boxes. A expansion that i like a lot and that i need cards from.
What worries you most about this event?: My lack of experience about the regular stuff that everybody else knows about.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: I hope to learn about how to be a good judge at gps in general. To not get nervous next time.
Who are your mentors?: Nicolás Debonis, Janit Mindis, Pablo Paolo, Federico Verdini and Julio Sosa
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Im trying hard to get a good score at my next L2P.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Yes. Im studying hard to learn what i did wrong on my previous L2P.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?:
The many friends i have after 20 years of playing the game.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Visiting Seattle (my fav city in the world) after winning a PTQ for PTRTR in 2012.

Breno Roger

Name: Breno Roger
Level: Level 1
Location: Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: 2008
L1 Certification Date: September 3, 2017
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: Jace, The Mind Sculptor
Occupation: Military Police
Random fact about yourself: I like kpop and cats :v
Why did you become a judge?: To encourage the competitive scenario in my local community and participate in major tournaments.
What excites you most about this event?: The large number of players and the opportunity to learn a lot about how great magic tournaments work
What worries you most about this event?: The large number of players.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: The functioning, organization and distribution of functions of judges on a large scale.
Who are your mentors?: I’m kind of orphaned, but I get a lot of help from Leonardo Luz and Antonio Zanutto
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: A lack of local mentors.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Seeking to find as many judges from other states as possible and participating in all events in which I can learn.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: The legacy players, their union and sympathy with the newbies.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: When I worked as a judge in the national legacy

Albano Francisco Schmidt

Name: Albano Francisco Schmidt
Level: Level 1
Location: Joinville, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: April 14, 1996
L1 Certification Date: September 3, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: The Urza’s Saga! All of it, in all ot it’s forms!
Occupation: Lawyer, teacher, entrepreneur
Random fact about yourself: I’ve been collecting legendary cards of MTG since 1996! It’s quite a lot of cool stuff after more than 20 years…
Why did you become a judge?: To expand my own MTG store, Dalaran Games!
What excites you most about this event?: Come on, it’s a GP! In one of the niciest cities in the world. How can one not be excited?
What worries you most about this event?: Appeal from angry players!
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: Quite a lot of the backstage organization of a major tournament in order to run smoothier events on my stores.
Who are your mentors?: The L1 of Joinville Gustavo Cardoso!
What is your favorite Magic memory?: Elvish Archers and it’s iconic flavor text: I tell you, there was so many arrows flying about you couldn’t hardly see the sun. So I says to young Angus, “”Well, at least now we’re fighting in the shade””

Matheus Sobral

Name: Matheus Sobral
Level: Level 1
Location: Niteroi, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: may 2016
L1 Certification Date: December 17, 2017
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: I really like combo and aggro decks, my favorite card is Emrakul, the Promised End. I really enjoy spending time with my group of friends gathered by Magic.
Occupation: I work in a company as a real estate developer. Also, I’m graduating in law.
Random fact about yourself: I play the flute
Why did you become a judge?: I really love Magic, and I become a judge to ensure the game is played under it’s rules, fair and right.
What excites you most about this event?: Discover and learn new things excites me a lot, so I can’t wait to improve as a judge and have fun on the event.
What worries you most about this event?: I’m a little shy so, I fear this could be an issue. I’m working on this timidity.
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: The inner working of a big event and also practice the IPG when judging on PTQ, especially duties and the behave of L2 judges, because becoming L2 is currently my main goal.
Who are your mentors?: Erick Jones
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: How to study. Magic is a complex game and CR’s are really extense, learning how to study properly has been a great challenge.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: I’ve asked tips to more experienced judges and they are providing me some material to rely on. Also, I’m working on some summaries.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Friendship. No doubt!
What is your favorite Magic memory?: All the times I casted a Emrakul, the Promised End by turn 4 =)

Flavio Viana

Name: Flavio Viana
Level: Level 2
Location: Osasco, Brazil
Region: Brazil
Approximate date/month/year you started playing Magic: September 15, 2014
L1 Certification Date: September 1, 2016
Favorite thing (e.g., card, deck, group of people) about Magic: talk about rules and plays, and play magic
Occupation: IT infrastructure analyst
Random fact about yourself: i like motorcycle
Why did you become a judge?: I always liked the rules, and after talking to a judge at an event for about an hour I saw that I wanted to do that too
What excites you most about this event?: Aprender muito, conhecer juizes de outras localidades e nacionalidades, ver um ótimo campeonato de magic
What are you hoping to learn at this event?: How does an event of this size work, what are the functions of the judges,
Who are your mentors?: Caue Hattori
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge?: Judging pptqs, talking about scenarios with more experienced judges, guiding less experienced judges.
How have you worked to overcome those challenges?: Always studying and discussing investigations and customer service, discussions about where to be more rigid and where to be more malleable. hitting various tournaments to aggregate diverse experiences, seeking feedbakcs to improve.
What is the best part about your local Magic community?: Unity and good mood.
What is your favorite Magic memory?: are two, the first time I qualified for the final of CLM as a player, and the first time Judging another CLM final.