Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and had approximately thirty-five million players as of December 2018, and over twenty billion Magic cards were produced in the period from 2008 to 2016, during which time it grew in popularity.
The Magic: The Gathering World Championships(Worlds) have been held annually since 1994. It is the most important tournament in the game of Magic: The Gathering, offering cash prizes of up to $100,000 to the winners. With the exception of the first edition, Worlds is an invitation-only event, and from 1996 to 2011 World was the last event of each Pro Tour season. The invitees were mostly top finishers from the National championships, the top-ranked players of the DCI and high-level pro players. Since 2012 the World Championships are held after the season and the most successful 16 or 24 players have been invited to the tournament.
Gabriel Nassif is a French professional card player. He is known for his continuous success on the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and was the 2004 Pro Tour Player of the Year. He also enjoys playing poker, having moderate success at the World Series of Poker in recent years. In 2010, Nassif was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
Mirage was the first official block structure in Magic: The Gathering. This new block structure consisted of three expansion sets and would continue for nearly two decades, finally ending with Khans of Tarkir in 2014. The new block structure also set up the precedent that the first set in the block also became the name for the entire block. Mirage block consisted of three sets: Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight.
Randolph E. "Randy" Buehler Jr. is an American game developer. He was the Vice President of Digital Gaming at Wizards of the Coast, Inc., now a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., as well as the commentator for the Magic Pro Tour. He was formerly a weekly writer for Magicthegathering.com's "Latest Developments" column and former Magic Pro Tour player.
Michael Long is a former professional Magic: The Gathering player who was a high-profile figure on the Pro Tour in its formative years.
Robert Maher Jr., is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He picked up the Magic game after sustaining a football injury in high school, and has gone on to become one of the most celebrated players in the game's history, earning the nickname "The Great One".
Eric Froehlich is an American professional poker player, professional Magic: The Gathering player, and member of the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife, Magic: The Gathering streamer Athena Huey. As of 2023, Froehlich's total live poker tournament winnings exceed $2,682,733. His 48 cashes at the WSOP account for $1,930,090 of those winnings.
Magic: The Gathering formats are various ways in which the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game can be played. Each format provides rules for deck construction and gameplay, with many confining the pool of permitted cards to those released in a specified group of Magic card sets. The Wizards Play Network, the governing body that oversees official Magic competitive play, categorizes its tournament formats into Constructed and Limited. Additionally, there are many casual formats with the Commander format being one of the most popular formats of the game.
Raphaël Lévy is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He was inducted to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in November 2006. He is the first player to have been inducted while active on the Pro Tour. He is one of only six players to have won a Grand Prix on three different continents. He's holding the second most lifetime Pro Points behind Shuhei Nakamura.
The 2002–03 Pro Tour season was the eighth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 24 August 2002 the season began with Grand Prix Sapporo. It ended on 10 August 2003 with the conclusion of the 2003 World Championship in Berlin. The season consisted of 21 Grand Prixs and 6 Pro Tours, held in Boston, Houston, Chicago, Venice, Yokohama, and Berlin. Also Master Series tournaments were held at four Pro Tours. At the end of the season Kai Budde was proclaimed Pro Player of the Year for the third time in a row.
Katsuhiro Mori is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player. He is the most successful player in the individual portion of World Championships, winning one tournament and making the top eight of two others.
Luis Scott-Vargas, commonly known as LSV, is a professional Magic: the Gathering player from Oakland, California, USA, currently living in Denver, Colorado. His accomplishments include fifteen Grand Prix Top 8s and ten Pro Tour Top 8s. In 2013 he was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame. As well as being a prominent player of the game, LSV is also known for writing about the game. He was a writer for StarCityGames.com before becoming the editor and vice president for ChannelFireball.com, a Magic: The Gathering shop and strategy website. LSV still writes for ChannelFireball but ended his tenure as editor in 2012 to work as a game designer at Dire Wolf Digital, specifically on Eternal, and in 2021 LSV joined Good Luck Games to work on Storybook Brawl.
Masashi Oiso is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player. He is one of the most successful players to have played on the Pro Tour, being one of only seven players to have reached the top eight six times. Along with Kenji Tsumura, he is the player with the most top eights to have never won a Pro Tour. In 2012 Oiso was voted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame. His induction was conducted at Pro Tour Return to Ravnica in October 2012.
Carlos Eduardo Romão is a Brazilian Magic: The Gathering player. He is known for his win at the 2002 World Championships. Along with Diego Ostrovich, he is widely regarded as the first South American to achieve success on the Pro Tour, and was the first South American to win a Pro Tour.
Steven O'Mahoney-Schwartz is an American Magic: The Gathering player. At the height of his career in the late 1990s, he was considered one of the best players. He is well known as a friend and teammate to Jon Finkel.
Tsuyoshi Ikeda is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player. His success include four top eights at the Pro Tour level, and six on the Grand Prix level, including one win. He is ranked 12th on lifetime pro points.
Guillaume Wafo-Tapa is a French Magic: The Gathering player. Best known for winning Pro Tour Yokohama in 2007, Wafo-Tapa's career has featured three other Pro Tour top eights, and six Grand Prix top eights. He is also known as a deck designer and for his strong preference for control decks. In 2014, Wafo-Tapa was voted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
Makihito Mihara (三原槙仁) is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player best known for winning the 2006 World Championship, 2011 Team World Championship and being inducted into the 2014 Hall of Fame. Mihara's resume includes four more Pro Tour top eights, and eight Grand Prix top eights, including two wins.
Guillaume Matignon is a professional trading card game player from Bordeaux, France. He has earned numerous accolades during his career including the World of Warcraft TCG 2007 World Championship and the Magic: The Gathering 2010 World Championship.
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