{"id":7730,"date":"2017-11-01T13:00:55","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T18:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/?p=7730"},"modified":"2017-11-02T09:58:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T14:58:54","slug":"nik-zitomer-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/nik-zitomer-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Nik Zitomer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to Judge of the Week! This week’s rockstar is a fun guy with a passion for fungi, educating judges and growing community. Let’s get to know Nik Zitomer!
\n
\n\"NikName:<\/b>\u00a0Nik Zitomer<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span>Level:<\/b> 2
\n<\/span>Location:<\/b> Roswell, Georgia
\n<\/span>Judge Start Date:<\/b> May 2011
\n<\/span>Why did you become a Judge?<\/b> I had effectively become a TO in my area, running drafts outside of stores (as the local stores didn\u2019t draft at the time). I just went the next step from there, and moved to judging.
\n<\/span>Occupation:<\/b>\u00a0Research Scientist
\n<\/span>Favorite card:<\/b>\u00a0Hypnotic Specter<\/a>
\n<\/span>Least favorite card:<\/b>\u00a0Counterspell<\/a>
\n<\/span>Commander General:<\/b>\u00a0Ghave, Guru of Spores<\/a>
\n<\/span>Favorite non-Magic Game:<\/b> I\u2019ve been really addicted to Eternal lately. It\u2019s a really well made digital card game reminiscent of Magic and Hearthstone.
\n<\/span>Best tournament result:<\/b> Top 4 split at a TCG Silver or Gold event some years back (using the TO\u2019s deck with about 3 minutes of modification, as I was set to HJ it, then swapped into player role when attendance was low).
\n<\/span>Random fact about yourself:<\/b> I\u2019m an avid mycologist (I study fungi\/mushrooms) so I love going foraging for wild mushrooms.<\/span><\/p>\n

You were nominated for your leadership in a local L2 training group as well using social media to drive interest in the judge program. \u00a0Would you like to speak on what you feel has made these efforts successful?
\n<\/b>The main thing that makes anything successful in the program, or in most things in life, is passion. If you really care about something, you\u2019ll put the effort in to make sure it grows into a success. It\u2019s no secret to those who know me that I like to chat, and my efforts to drive interest in regional initiatives mostly comes from that. I talk a lot, and if there is something I\"Nik want to succeed, I\u2019ll talk about that. A lot. <\/span><\/p>\n

The same is true for the judge classes I\u2019ve worked to put together. They started as a collaboration with Jess Dunks and Nicolette Apraez, both of whom still have input and are actively working to run them. I had the desire to create a judge class that could be offered online, while still being \u201cin person,\u201d because my time constraints made going out to a store difficult. So we gather students periodically and drive some interest by talking about what they offer and what students can expect, then we just take it from there.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are some tips you have for other Judges?
\n<\/b>Find something you love about the program and don\u2019t be afraid to go ahead and make it your own. Love mentoring? Don\u2019t wait for someone else to provide a class you can use: go make one! Love community? Come up with ways to engage that community that are unique to you. Make events fun and unique, and players and TOs will remember you and look to you in the future. Mainly, don\u2019t be afraid of doing something because you think someone else may already be doing it elsewhere. Give it (whatever it is) your own twist and run with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also maintain a blog,\u00a0The Elvish Farmer,<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>where I have written numerous post covering a variety of topics, including tips for running your first event, how to balance judging and the rest of your life, ideas about how to increase your visibility, and many others. I also often host guest blog posts from other judges with topics they want to share! (Hint hint, hit me up if you have a story to tell or a piece you want to share!)<\/span><\/p>\n

What challenges have you faced or are you facing to become a better judge, and how have you worked to overcome them?
\n<\/b>As with many, I struggle with investigations. I have had to spend a fair bit of effort to try and reorient my mindset to tackle every single call as an investigation. It\u2019s far too easy for me to approach a call with the mindset first and foremost to identify what infraction exists and how to fix it, without adequately attempting to determine how the error occurred and who may benefit from it. It\u2019s taken a lot of work, and it\u2019s something I still need to be cognizant of going into every call. I\u2019ve had a lot of help from mentors across the US-SE to try and shift how I approach calls to better handle this. Investigation workshops, in particular, have been quite useful.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the proudest moment of your Judge life?
\n\"Nik<\/b>I was tasked to be HJ for SCG Regionals in Atlanta (or close enough to Atlanta) in 2016. The staff I assembled for this event was solid, but it turned out we were drastically understaffed. We had 5 judges, myself included, for an event of ~270 players. The fact that I was able to rally this team, run that event smoothly with little delays or problems and have all of my staff smiling by the end is my proudest moment. It was a huge challenge but we all worked hard to rise up to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best part about your local Magic community?
\n<\/b>The Magic community here is extremely diverse, ranging from extremely rowdy tournament grinders to very casual Commander groups. There is a community for basically any format you want to play and, for the most part, they are welcoming to new players. The best part, to me, is the sheer size of our community. There really is a place for everyone. While it brings many, many challenges from an organizer and judge perspective due to the number of competing stores and formats, judging in the Atlanta area is never boring.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"NikHow did you get involved in Magic in the first place?
\n<\/b>I was collecting comic books and comic cards, when my local store got in this strange box of cards. I bought some packs and had no idea what any of these odd cards were, but I loved the art and the flavor. Turns out those packs were Revised, and I eventually bought some \u201cdecks\u201d which were really just 3 packs and some land. I still had no idea what any of these things were, but now I had a rule book! That rule book made exactly zero sense to me but my friends and I thought we knew what we were doing. We played some semblance of a game that may have loosely looked like Magic for a while, but I was hooked. Eventually we started going to a shop and learned how wrong we were, but we continued to have fun. I\u2019ve played on and off since then.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would you be doing now if Magic no longer existed?
\n<\/b>I don\u2019t think much would change, really. I\u2019d be likely more active as a player in some game. Officiating for Magic kind of naturally grew out of my interest in Organized Play, so there is a chance I\u2019d be involved in some other game in this capacity. Between my personal\/family life and a busy career, I have to specifically make time to judge, so without it, I\u2019d likely just not be as involved in a specific hobby.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you were a Planeswalker what would be your ultimate?\"Nik
\n<\/b>You get an Emblem with \u201cAll Fungi get +5\/+5\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Two Truths and a Lie<\/strong>
\nTwo of the following statements are true and one is false. Figure out which!<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I used to be a manager of a Dairy Queen.<\/li>\n
  2. I was previously a member of a prominent LARPing group.<\/li>\n
  3. I have seen the movie Labyrinth at least 200 times.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    [expand title=”The answer to the last Two Truths and a Lie…”]Phillip Painter hasn’t run a mile in under 4:30.[\/expand]<\/p>\n

    If there is a judge who is also doing something exemplary, please nominate a judge\u00a0TODAY!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Nik Zitomer talks to us about growing local community and following your passion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":386,"featured_media":7731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"language":[],"class_list":["post-7730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judge-of-the-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/386"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7730"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7847,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7730\/revisions\/7847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7730"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=7730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}