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Name<\/strong>:Jess Dunks\nLevel:<\/strong> Level 3
\nLocation:<\/strong> Atlanta, GA
\nJudge start date<\/strong>:
\nL1: July 10, 2010
\nL2: July 16, 2011
\nL3: January 19, 2014
\nOccupation: <\/strong>
\nCurrently Mechatronics Engineering Student.
\nFormerly Event Coordinator for ChannelFireball.com<\/a> and Korean Linguist for the US Air Force.
\nFavorite card:<\/strong> Momentary Blink<\/a>
\nLeast favorite card: <\/strong>Cavern of Souls<\/a>
\nFavorite format: <\/strong>Modern
\nCommander General:<\/strong> I have never built a Commander deck.
\nFavorite non-Magic Game: <\/strong>Onitama<\/a>
\nBest tournament result:<\/strong> Bombed out of Day 2 after a strong day 1 of a Modern GP.
\nRandom fact about yourself:<\/strong>I recently bought a house and my favorite part of it is the garden.<\/p>\n
Why do you Judge?<\/strong> What is your favorite non-judging moment that happened with other Judges (or after event story)?<\/strong> Who have been some of your biggest mentors in the Judge Program, and what did they teach you?<\/strong> Since certifying as a judge in 2010, I\u2019ve been fortunate throughout my judge career to have access to great mentors, and I\u2019m grateful to all of them. In fact, I\u2019ve had enough mentors that trying to list them would be a disservice to those I\u2019d be almost certain to forget. However, there are three that stand out to me as exceptional influences, and I\u2019d like to highlight them.<\/p>\n Eric Levine<\/a> Bryan Prillaman<\/a>
\nI got started judging by running my own tournaments in the dorm while stationed at an Air Base in Korea. I wanted to create a fun play experience for my friends, and I didn’t know what the judge community was. When I got back to the States, I dove into the community full speed because I believed that I could provide players a superior experience at competitive events as well. In some ways, I still judge to this end, but my focus has moved to helping other judges improve, expanding the idea from “help improve tournaments” to “help improve tournaments by helping improve people.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/jotw\/files\/2018\/02\/thumbnail_GP-Sydney-Prep-300x281.jpg\")
\nLast year we rented a house in downtown Atlanta for DragonCon<\/a>. We were joined by a bunch of judge friends (14 levels in total!) and bonus friend Sara “Mama” Mox, our wonderful Judge Community Manager, and did absolutely nothing judge-related for four days as we geeked out enjoyed my favorite convention. Cultivating the friendships I’ve gained through judging has been one of the most rewarding “side benefits” of being a judge, and it’s really what’s kept me going for most of a decade.<\/p>\n
\nI was asked a similar question recently on a post about mentors<\/a>. Here was my answer:<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span>\u2013 Eric is the judge who taught me the most early on and laid the foundation for my judge career. I went to every prerelease and every comp REL event I could get my hands on, and as the Event Coordinator for Superstars (AKA\u00a0<a href=”http:\/\/www.channelfireball.com\/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrerChannelFireball.com) he was the HJ or TO for almost all of them.\u00a0 He is a treasure trove of information on rules, policy, how tournaments run, investigations, diplomacy, how tournaments run, DQs, Head Judging, how tournaments run, and how the judge program works in general. He\u2019s a ton of fun to talk to about these things.\u00a0 In fact, he often has conversations in such an exciting way that his one-on-one mentorship sometimes turns into mini-seminars as judges gather around to figure out what he\u2019s so animated about. More than the things he taught me, however, it is his desire to bring out the best in people that I benefited the most from. He has trusted me early in my judge career to take on big roles that I would learn a lot from, going all the way back to the first midnight prerelease I was the head judge for, and eventually to recommending me to take over his spot at Channel Fireball. He set me up in situations at events where I was challenged but still had a safety net if I was in over my head (he knows about how tournaments run), and he taught me to do the same for my own judges and judge candidates later.<\/p>\n
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<\/span><\/span> \u2013 If you know me from JudgeCast<\/a> (shameless plug), you know Bryan Prillaman.\u00a0 What you may not know is that for the last 5 years we\u2019ve spent a lot of time behind the scenes of the podcast talking and learning from each other.\u00a0 He was the first on the show to hit L3, and with good reason.\u00a0 He is ever-involved in the Judge Program behind the scenes.\u00a0 This is becoming more apparent now that he\u2019s in charge of the entire Exemplar Sphere, but even before I met him he was involved in ways that weren\u2019t directly floor judging, even acting as a GP Judge Manager. We\u2019ve spent many late Tuesday nights (It\u2019s always Tuesday) talking about judges we\u2019re working with, event situations, nuances of policy, and so many things I can\u2019t mention them all. The most striking way that Bryan has helped me, however, is that he\u2019s the person I talk to that is most likely to disagree with me and challenge my ideas.\u00a0 There is a good kind of friction, one that polishes you, keeps you shiny.\u00a0 This is what Bryan has been for me for years, and I hope that I\u2019ve been that for him too. We disagree and then we argue about it.\u00a0 And we learn why the other person thinks what they do. Actually, that makes it sound very civil, which sometimes it isn\u2019t. We can get quite heated (or at least I can). But I\u2019ve learned more from disagreeing with someone I respect than from anything I\u2019d ever get out of an echo chamber.<\/p>\n
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