This week’s Judge of the week is a Level 2 judge from Colorado in the United States, Nathan Long. Nathan started playing Magic around Tempest (1997) and began judging with the release of Judgement in 2002. As to why he started judging, here is what Nathan had to say:

“I love the rules aspect of judging. Back in 2001, the Wizard’s boards and the site MTGNews both updated their message boards. I signed up for both in the spring of 2001, and started reading the rules forums. Eventually, I started catching on and answering questions, and from there, I became interested in judging. I eventually started working with then Level 3 Steve Port and he passed me for my Level 1 in 2002. As for my most memorable judging experience it was probably attending my first big event (GP Minneapolis in 2005). Chris Richter recommended that I should test for Level 2 so I could work the floor of the GP, which I did. In the lead up to that event I had been reading a lot of tournament coverage online. So it was a big deal to me to attend one of these events. It was a fun event, and I learned a lot. And while some of the magic of the larger events was lost after that (hey, a GP is kind of just like a really big pre-release tournament), I still like to read the tournament coverage. A close second would be my first Fogo experience with a group of judges at US Nationals in 2009.”

Favourite format?
I loved limited, especially drafting. But now that I’m not playing much paper Magic anymore, I love playing Commander on MTGO

Favourite storyline character?
I haven’t played close attention to the storyline since the Weatherlight saga, but my favourite character from that storyline is probably Karn.

Favourite board game?
Settlers of Catan. My friends and I play it quite a bit when we’re not busy. We have all of the expansions for it, so every week we try something new.

Favourite Magic card?
Graceful Antelope. Why? Well, besides being one of the few plainswalkers in existence (back before planeswalkers were cool), there is a story behind it. Many years ago, when Anthony Alongi (former magicthegathering.com writer) was writing for StarCityGames, he would hold occasional “Break This Card” contests, where he would have readers build decks based on a “bad” card from the latest set. I participated in a lot of them, and eventually won a prize for my Graceful Antelope deck (I still carry around a version of the deck. It involves Cataclysm, so it doesn’t make friends) and got him to sign one.

What do you do outside of judging?
I am a manager at a movie theatre in Durango. In addition, I am the Wizard.Com Boards NetRep (meaning that I give official answers on complex or unclear situations). I post on most message boards as Natedogg and my name on the IRC channel is Natedogg2.

Reader Challenge – Two Truths and a Lie
Two of the following are true and one is false! Work it out!

1. I choose the name “Natedogg” because he was one of my favourite rappers when I was growing up. I would have been “Nate Dogg”, but that name was taken when I signed up for the MTGNews forums.
2. To the surprise and shock of everyone I know (including friends and family), I graduated from college with a degree in theatre.
3. I am an avid reader. I don’t read quite as much as I used to, but I did record myself reading 130 books in one year a couple of years ago.

(Highlight the blank space between the brackets to see the answer.)
The false statement is [#1! Because who really liked Nate Dogg… Just kidding! 🙂]