On Saturday, we went to the North American Challenge finals at Milford, which Jessi had qualified for on Wednesday. Luckily, they took me on as a judge that day so I had something to do there. Jessi didn’t fare so well, unfortunately. They had brought in Sheldon Menery, a level 5 (“Professional level”) judge from the Maryland/Virginia area, as the Head Judge. We were ridiculously overstaffed, as there were 8 of us for a 90 player tournament, but that helped everything go relatively smoothly.

While there, I learned that Shelden was holding a judging seminar on Sunday for a few hours. I went there and it was very informative and helpful. Also, he gave out a very nice rare (and valuable) judge promo Balance to each of the attending judges, which was a very kind gesture on Wizards’s part.

Also at the event, one of the other judges recognized my name from my activity on rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules. It’s kinda cool to be recognized.