Welcome back! Announcing this week’s Judge of the Week… Jernej Lipovec, L2 from Ljubljana, Slovenia! Jernej became a judge in March 2010, and leveled up at his country’s Nationals in 2011. Let’s see why he became a judge…

“It all started at a random local 2HG tournament, when in one game we encountered a difficult situation involving Hindering Light. It seems logical to other people playing, but it got me wondering if it is right.There was no active judge in Slovenia at that time, so I didn’t have anyone to ask. When I got home, I posted this riddle to local forums and we discussed it there. I also posted it on big international forum, where I actually got confirmation that I was right. I was very happy with myself and soon I realized I’m very interested in rulings and interactions in Magic. I started reading Rulings forums and especially Cranial Insertion (you are awesome, guys!) and that kind of got me hooked. I made up some puzzles and posted in on forums and people tried to answer them. I managed to get some free beers from friends who wouldn’t want to agree with me, but I proved them wrong. The beer thing worked for a few months, but then people started to realize this is not beneficial to them. They started asking me why I don’t become a judge, and soon I was wondering the same thing. I tried and it paid off, and here I am today.”

Occupation: Computer science student
Favourite card: Bloodbraid Elf, it brought me some good results and it feels like opening a Christmas present every time you cast it.
Least favourite card: Sensei’s Divining Top, because I hate waiting people forever.
Favourite format: Standard, because in my opinion hard work pays off in this format.
Commander general: Rhys the Redeemed (I started playing EDH a week ago)
Favourite non-Magic Game: Assassin’s Creed series, because I love renaissance Italy and the plot of the games.
Best tournament result: Infinite 6-3s at GPs, a random T2 wins with Jund.

You were nominated by Gunnar Holmstedt because of your hard work building your local judge community and mentoring new L1s. What motivates you to keep on mentoring?
It was actually Gunnar how inspired me to become a mentor. I was studying in Sweden in 2011 and met with the Swedish community up there. There were already a few judges there and I was able to discuss things with them, ask them hard questions and also learn from them. It was quite a change from what I had at home where I was alone. I said to myself that I want to have my own community at home. Some people got interested and soon after I came home I started with certification. In the next few months Slovenia got 10 new judges, and some of them really good. Nowadays what I’m most interested is getting some judges who proved themselves to get to L2, and that paid off too since we got 2 new L2s in June. This continuous growth and happiness of my judges is what keeps me going, and I hope I will have that kind of enthusiasm for a long time.

Tell us your favourite judge story.
My favourite judge story that I like to tell sometimes happened at the PTQ in Ljubljana a few months after my certifications. I was the only judge there, but I was at my best in my playing career, so I talked to my TO and asked if I could play in this tournament.
To my surprise he said it is absolutely fine and that he will take care of everything, because he expected 10-15 local guys to show up. Somehow a lot of foreigners showed up, so we had somewhere near 40 players that traveled far for this tournament. Even my RC Philipp Daferner decided to show up to meet up with me and see how we are doing.
When people arrived at the venue, nothing was happening, because our TO was busy with simultaneous Yu-gi-oh! tournaments. I noticed that and offered my hand with the registrations, and that went really fine, except that people thought I was the judge of that tournament. We soon started playing and everything went well until something for Slovenian Magic tournament unusual thing happened: someone called “Judge!”. What do we do now? I was playing in that tournament, Philipp was also playing and TO haven’t seen Magic card in 5 years. I couldn’t just ignore the judge call, but I was officially powerless. In the end I decided to ask Philipp what to do, and he made a quick facepalm and told me to help players despite being player. Somehow I managed to combine judging and playing, but I bet players from Italy and Austria were really confuses at the end of the tournament. I realized that this should never happen again, and I made [Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jernej’s answer was cut off here]

How has being a judge influenced your non-Magic life?
It has certainly improved it a lot. I rediscovered my interest in travel and see the world, which I could now afford with the help of Judge program. I have also grasped some concepts of leadership and mentoring, which I will gladly use in my future life.

What motivates you to continue being a judge?
I really like all of it, especially traveling, judging at GPs and meeting new friends and that joy will surely not go away soon, since I just started doing that a year ago. I’m currently busy with my L3 checklist and being a level 3 is currently my main goal and motivation in the Judge program.

What’s the biggest rule-breaking play you’ve ever made as a player?
It would probably be when I built the deck around Wild Pair and bunch of small and huge Graft creatures, which didn’t really work as I though. No one complained about me searching for big guys when I cast a 1/1 graft guy. But you could guess the deck wasn’t the best anyways so I stopped playing it soon after some fun games.

What’s the best part about your local Magic community?
I like that we are all very good friends and that we also hangout outside of tournaments. There are only few of us left from the good years of Magic in Slovenia, but we are all working on bringing those years back

What is your favourite non-judging moment that happened with other judges?
I unfortunately haven’t managed to go to any karaoke night that’s an usual thing around Europe after a GP, so I’m still looking forward to that. For now it would be hosting Stefan Ladstätter at our PTQ and taking him sightseeing in Ljubljana, where we discovered many things about my home city even I didn’t knew before.

If you could chat with one person, real or fictional, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
I would really like to chat with renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, because I would like to understand his thinking, the motives and techniques he used for all of his inventions and art that he made way before its time.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I would like to thank you guys at JotW and Gunnar for nominating me, you guys are awesome! Keep up the good work, because I really like to read your articles every week.

Two truths One truth and one lie!
Jernej has provided two facts, but we can still play! One of them is a lie, so guess which one in the comments below!

1. I have successfully judged a GP with my whole leg in plaster.
2. I designed my own Magic sets, which we print and use for drafting at our local store once a month.

What a great story about Jernej becoming a judge! And the rest of his interview was pretty stellar too, don’t you think? Leave your question and comments for him down below, and don’t forget to nominate a judge while you’re here!

[expand title=”The answer to last week’s Two Truths and a Lie…”]Matt’s dogs are actually named Nala and Powder!
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