Note: This is a candidate page for a Judge Foundry Election. Information on this page is provided by the candidate, and does not represent the opinions or positions of the Elections Committee or of Judge Foundry. For more information about this election, see the schedule and index for the Elections at the 2025 Annual Meeting.
- Name: Marcos Sanchez
- Location: Spring Hill, Florida
- Election: 2025 Annual Meeting
- Running For: Regional Advocate of Southeast
Nomination Statement
Hello friends! I’m running for RA for the Southeast Region again as I have found the role to be quite gratifying, but still have some goals I’d like to accomplish for the region moving forward, especially with the potential big changes that may or may not be coming soon … or not. Either way, I’m hoping to continue my advocacy for the membership of Judge Foundry, and my leadership of the region moving forward. I’d like to provide some stability and consistency as we continue, regardless of how long it may take to see those other big changes.
Q1: Judge Program Direction
Question: This year, many members are uncertain about our future due to Wizards of the Coast’s announcement of a new Judge Program Manager role. How will you support your region through this uncertainty and potential transition?
I don’t want to downplay people’s concerns, but I also realize that this will take some time. Even if a new Judge Program Manager were to be hired tomorrow, the likelihood of a program rolling out immediately is extremely low. There will be an orientation, time to develop the program, changes to be implemented and run through Wizards’ legal team, and importantly, communication with the leadership of Judge Foundry to determine a collaborative approach to any suggested changes.
All that to say – I get it. I’ve been through 2 program changes, as well as multiple “the sky is falling” changes in the old program in my 10+ years of judging. If there’s one thing I know matters during uneasy times like this, it’s that we be there for each other, hear out each other’s concerns, and approach everything knowing that we will continue to be a pillar of support for the organized play system and our local communities, regardless of whatever structural changes are coming.
Ultimately, I’m here to listen, to discuss, and note concerns so that I can bring it to the board, who I assume will be the ones discussing things with the new Judge Program manager when they are hired.
Q2: Local Judges and Judging
Question: As a Regional Advocate, how will you support local judges and encourage local judging in your region?
One point I’ve been making for a while is, we need to see our local judges more. I think a big portion of the Judge Foundry website highlights large tournament judges, and doesn’t ask for contributions of the L1s that make up the large majority of our program. I want to see more L1s in their natural element – running Prereleases at their LGS, or running a Draft or Commander Party at their store, and have that be the visual you see when you’re looking at Judge Foundry’s website.
Beyond that, my absolute number 1 priority moving forward is conferences. My bandwidth was taxed this previous year to the point where I couldn’t implement the conferences I wanted to see, but there’s plenty more opportunities to run them in conjunction with local events coming our way, especially since another MagicCon Atlanta will be arriving next year.
I also want to explore methods to better connect L1 candidates to mentors to help with their development to L1, and a more efficient way to coordinate testing throughout the region. I had one candidate have to wait WAY too long last year to be able to get a test, and I made a point to travel to them to get them certified. There should be less of a barrier to entry when it comes to finding a mentor and someone to proctor your test.
Q3: Programs and Projects
Question: How do you plan to use Conferences and other major projects like Exemplar or this year’s Review Competition to support and grow your region?
Exemplar is a huge positive impact on the judge community as a whole. I’ve already been encouraging my region through my network of ACs to submit as many exemplar nominations as possible, and when they come out, I want to highlight some exemplars through our regional discord to emphasize both the accomplishments of the region, and encourage more participation throughout the next wave.
When it comes to programs, I’d like to have a dedicated conferences group that I can rely on to help me with planning and organizing conferences throughout the region, understanding the needs of their local judge communities and finding opportunities to host larger conferences for the entire region.
When it comes to reviews – we’ve sadly fallen off of reviews overall as a program, and I’m always looking for opportunities to up the level of reviews we have in the program. The biggest issue I see here is that a lot of judging is happening in isolated blocks through LGS judging, where you don’t often have another judge to be able to provide feedback. However, I think an initiative I enacted in a previous region of mine, focusing on “get out and play” will encourage judges to go to a new LGS, and interact with / provide feedback to local store judges more often.