Why did you become a judge?<\/strong> At first, my community needed someone to run events, but after some time I got more and more interested in judging. Now I judge because I like it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tell us your favourite judge story.<\/strong> Tell us an embarrassing story that you\u2019re not afraid of everyone knowi<\/strong>ng.<\/strong> How did you get involved in magic in the first place? You are on multiple translation projects. What are some of the challenges that translating rules and exam questions present?<\/strong> The exam questions are even more challenging, to keep the exam questions up to date we need a lot of time and dedication, because Judge Center is an living thing and every translated question is subject to further review depending on rule changes; even some technicality updated on documents reflects in localization, since the questions keep returning and need to be reviewed again.<\/p>\n \u00a0What motivates you to continue being a judge? In these many years I’ve made a lot of friends and I every time I meet those friends again\u2026 [you can] be sure that there\u2019s a lot of fun.<\/p>\n And every tournament is different from each other one.\u00a0 Always there are new situations arising that require the judge to develop new skills, and this is challenging to the extreme.\u00a0 For those who think that the life of a judge is always the same, you are mistaken. Ohhh how you are mistaken.<\/p>\n What is one tip you have for other judges?<\/strong> What is your favourite non-judging moment that happened with other judges?<\/strong> In GP Buenos Aires at the end of day 1, all Brazilian judges would go to dinner together, What\u2019s the biggest rule-breaking play you\u2019ve ever made as a player? I’m not a cheater, but once (before I became a judge) I was playing UW control, against a Agro deck.\u00a0 At end of one of my turns in the late game, my opponent played an instant and in response I played a Thirst for Knowledge<\/a> (fetching for a counter) and it took me a while to decide which card I would discard.\u00a0 After discarding an Artifact, I looked at him and said, “Ok”. He answered “Go”, I untapped my lands and played for an extra turn.\u00a0 The guys who were watching the game could not contain their laughter and my opponent still asked – “What\u2019s up?”<\/p>\n What has been your favourite magic event that you\u2019ve judged? What positive aspects has the Judge Program contributed to your everyday <\/strong>life?<\/strong> If you could chat with one person, real or fictional, dead or alive, who would it be and why? <\/strong> A revolution isn\u2019t something easy to do, and do it without any guns are even more difficult. So talking with this revolutionary peacemaker probably would change my life.<\/p>\n![\"image.aspx\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/files\/2014\/05\/image.aspx_.jpg\")
<\/a>Occupation<\/strong>: Government employee.
\nFavorite card<\/strong>: Mindslaver<\/a>
\nLeast favorite card<\/strong>: Any printing of Jace.
\nFavorite format<\/strong>: Sealed deck.
\nCommander General<\/strong>: I am building my first commander with Ruhan of the Fomori<\/a>
\nFavorite non-Magic Game<\/strong>: Board games and God of War<\/a> and Need for Speed
\nBest tournament result<\/strong>: I have won some FNMs and prereleases.
\nRandom fact about yourself<\/strong>: I love bacon on pizza.<\/p>\n
\nBack in 2007 at Brazilian Nationals, we held the second draft on day 1, followed by building and the players playing in that draft at beginning of day 2. We did not enforce for cheating, because all product was stamped . During a deckcheck on that draft, we noted a Triskelion in a deck that was not listed on the decklist, but the card was stamped, so our first thought was that the player didn\u2019t list that card. The counterfeit was almost perfect, but had an little fail on the stamp; it was made with a ballpoint pen and we could perceive some rounded marks around the stamp.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nIn 2011, at GP Santiago, during one of my breaks I took some time to look around the venue and try to buy some souvenirs; after some time I realized that I was lost in Santiago, and since I didn\u2019t remember the venue address and couldn’t find any open cybercaf\u00e9s to find information on the internet, I walked almost an hour without directions.\u00a0 When I almost lost all hope I saw a guy with a Mtg T-shirt, and after some bullying with my situation \u201cHey judge, don\u2019t you know where you are judging?\u201d, that guy gave me directions and saved my life.\u00a0 Sorry Daniel Kitachewsky<\/a>
\n<\/strong>In school a friend talked about a game called \u201cRPG\u201d, so I brought a magazine (the old Drag\u00e3o Brasil #2), and there\u2019s an article about a game played with cards. So I went to a store (the ancient Brazilian players will remember the Forbidden Planet), then I brought a Revised two-players deck box\u2026 here the story starts!<\/p>\n<\/a>How has being a judge influenced your non-Magic life?<\/strong>
\nA lot of things, but mainly it made \u200b\u200bme aware that teamwork really depends on each small task being performed for the entire group to succeed in their work.\u00a0 And now I can speak English, not fully\u00a0 fluently, but enough to stay alive for a few hours in Central Park!<\/p>\n
\nThe difficulty is standardizing. We have many volunteers working on localization, but the Portuguese language is complex, where you can speak the same thing in at least 10 different ways, and all of them are grammatically correct. The most difficult [thing] is to maintain an internal consistency in the documents so that from beginning to end it has the same form of writing.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong>
\n[The] people and the challenge…<\/p>\n
\nAlways keep the good work on, even when you think that nobody is looking or paying attention on you.\u00a0 Your recognition will comes at any moment, because always there is\u00a0 someone observing the things you do.<\/p>\n<\/a>What\u2019s the best part about your local Magic community?
\n<\/strong>Friendships.<\/p>\n
\nEvery moment I’m with judges out of a tournament is special, but now I remember the last time (that is fresher in the memory):<\/p>\n<\/a>but at the end of the story I got separated from my group (or they forgot me, who knows???), and ended up going to a fast food place with judges from different countries (Argentines, Chileans, Colombians and Venezuelans) and despite the language barrier (for those who do not know we speak Portuguese in Brazil and the rest of Latin America speaks Spanish), we ended up having a great time having fun, talking and laughing for hours.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>One day my Thirst for Knowledge<\/a> countered a spell and gave me an extra turn.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>GP Porto Alegre (2004). This was my first experience in a high level tournaments and was when I got my certification.<\/p>\n
\nWith the program I’ve learned a lot about organization and especially self-organization, for every tournament\u00a0 we need to check.<\/p>\n
\nProbably try to contact one revolutionary leader; the list would begin with Tiradentes, Washington, Gandhi, Castro, Marx, Mao tse, Lenin, Robespierre, and Simon Bolivar. Since I can talk with only one, after some cuts (and how difficult that was), I choose Gandhi<\/a>.<\/p>\n