Hello Judges and welcome to another exciting installment of Judge of the Week. This week we will be recognizing a judge who is – besides being a great judge, of course – also an avid ambassador of Canadian Highlander format.
Name: Jeremy White
Level: 2
Location: Victoria, BC, Canada
Judge start date: L1 February 2013, L2 February 2017
Occupation: Card Store Employee, Poker Player, Student
Favorite card: Moment’s Peace (Green Time Stretch)
Least favorite card: Price of Progress
Favorite format: Canadian Highlander
Commander General Favourite Canadian Highlander Deck: Azorius Control
Favorite non-Magic Game: Poker, Chess, Star Realms, Werewolf
Best tournament result: 2nd in the 2016 Canadian Highlander Championship, won a 56 person Vintage side event.
Random fact about yourself: I dislike chocolate. I’m not allergic, I just don’t like the taste.
How did you get involved in Magic in the first place?
Some friends got me into it when I started university.
Why do you Judge?
As a competitive player myself, I really wanted to be able to provide more opportunities for local players to play in more competitive events and to understand the judging side of competitive events. I also enjoy it!
You were nominated by Serge for your amazing work with your local community. Not only you host many great events of various formats, you also help your fellow judges with their judge careers. What are some tips you have for other Judges when it comes to community fostering?
I recommend trying to create opportunities to get together with the other judges in your area as often as possible. This can be by talking to TO’s about staffing additional judges for bigger events, organizing local judge events and meetups and by reaching out and communicating with the other judges in your local area periodically.
I remember as an L1 finding it difficult to find opportunities to judge at higher level events so I started organizing and judging my own events and now I am able to give newer L1’s the chance to judge these events. It is also important to seek out and/or give feedback whenever possible to get the most out of these opportunities. It’s awesome to see up and coming judges get these opportunities to grow and continually excel at them!
What’s the best part about your local Magic community?
I would say the best part about the local community is that they are a mature welcoming group that understand how to be competitive and have fun at the same time!
What is your favorite non-judging moment that happened with other Judges (or after event story)?
This may sound familiar. I was playing a match of Canadian Highlander against another judge. It was a long drawn out game involving an opposing Tabernacle, Bazaar and both Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon. The game went on for several turns where I would pay for Tabernacle and my opponent would activate Bazaar of Baghdad, but we both acknowledged that the rest of our lands were Mountains. We eventually caught on and immediately got involved in one of the more epic concession wars I’ve ever witnessed.
What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge, and how have you worked to overcome them?
I mostly work smaller events by myself so when I work bigger events I often get overexcited. This can lead to me trying to do too much and accidentally drowning out or stepping on my colleague’s toes. I am trying to put myself in more situations to work with other judges and working on taking a step back and trying to observe more as opposed to being super hands on all the time.
Who have been some of your biggest mentors in the Judge Program, and what did they teach you?
My local senior L2’s Allison Macrae and Nelson Salahub
both helped me immensely with my judging journey. Allison has given me great insight into learning investigations and policy. Nelson helped me develop a lot of my customer service skills while judging and taught me keep player experience in mind while judging. Also a big thanks to Kentaro Guthrie
who has recently moved back into the region and has been helping out the local judge/tournament scene!
What positive aspects has the Judge Program contributed to your everyday life?
I’d say the biggest way it has contributed is the community. I am constantly amazed at all the wonderful things the judge community is responsible for as well as all the amazing people I have met through it.
Proudest moment of your Judge life?
Got to judge a GP Main Event as an L1, which was super nerve-racking but also super cool.
You are incredibly involved in Canadian Highlander community. You were even on an episode of Constructed Resources with Marshall Sutcliffe talking about the format. Could you share some background story about this?
Canadian Highlander is a competitive 1v1 100 card singleton format which uses the Vintage banlist as well as a points list which is curated by a council located in Victoria, BC, Canada. It is a format that allows for vast deck diversity among the competitive decks and allows you to play with the most powerful cards ever printed.
I host a podcast that discusses the format and is aimed largely at people looking to get into the format and covers some of the differences between highlander and other formats. Such as budget decks, how to start your own community and staple archetypes/cards and why they are successful.
I helped get Marshall into Canadian Highlander at a Prerelease he attended in Victoria while he was visiting his friends at Loading Ready Run. Since then he has been hooked, and when he asked me to go on Constructed Resources and talk about Highlander I jumped at the chance.
I’ve also just started a new highlander podcast – with Serge as well!
If you were a Planeswalker what would be your ultimate?
You get an emblem with “If an opponent would draw a card except for the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead that player skips that draw and you draw a card.” Each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library, then draws seven cards.
Two Truths and a Lie
- I have traveled to 39 different countries (not counting airports/train stations etc.).
- I moonlight as a bartender.
- I like to wear hats (except for toques).
If there is a judge who is also doing something exemplary, please nominate a judge TODAY!