Kai Budde

Kai Budde
Nickname	The German Juggernaut [1]
Born	(1979-10-28) 28 October 1979 (age 44) Cologne, Germany
Residence	Hamburg, Germany [1]
Nationality	German
Pro Tour debut	1997 Pro Tour New York (junior) 1997 Pro Tour Mainz (senior)
Winnings	$426,720 [2]
Pro Tour wins (Top 8)	7 (10) [3]
Grand Prix wins (Top 8)	7 (15) [4]
Median Pro Tour Finish	44
Lifetime Pro Points	565
Planeswalker Level	49 (Archmage)

Kai Budde (born 28 October 1979), ^[1] is a professional Magic: The Gathering player, who holds the record for Pro Tour victories, and for a long time held the records for earnings and lifetime Pro Points. ^{[5] [6]} His performances earned him the nicknames "The (German) Juggernaut" and "King of the Grand Prix". Kai left the game in late 2004 to focus on his studies, and his appearances in tournaments are less frequent than in earlier years. Budde is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest Magic: The Gathering players. ^[7]

He has won five individual Pro Tour titles (no other player has won more than three), and two Team Pro Tour titles (alongside fellow Germans Marco Blume and Dirk Baberowski). Budde also won the 1999 Magic World Championship in Tokyo. His cash winnings in six years of premier Magic: The Gathering tournaments are well over $300,000. He has also been awarded a record four Player of the Year titles: 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003. ^[8]

Budde also won the 2001 Magic Invitational tournament in Cape Town. His prize was the rare opportunity to design an actual card; the result was Voidmage Prodigy. In 2007, Kai Budde was inducted into the Pro-Tour Hall of Fame. ^[9]

Career

Early years

Budde started playing Magic in 1994 when he learned about the game from fellow gamers. As a player from Cologne he quickly became acquainted with more experienced players from the city such as later Pro Tour winner Frank Adler. His rise to professional play coincided with that of Dirk Baberowski, another Magic player who had moved to Cologne. Being at a comparable level of playing, both worked together to qualify for the Pro Tour. Budde succeeded on his second attempt, thus qualifying for the 1997 Pro Tour New York. As he had not yet turned eighteen Kai chose to attend the Junior Division of the tournament, eventually finishing among the best 32. Afterwards, the Junior Pro Tour was discontinued and Budde was automatically qualified for the following Pro Tour in Mainz. ^[10]

Kai finished 52nd in Mainz and for a while struggled to qualify for another Pro Tour but eventually managed to qualify for the 1998 Pro Tour Chicago. Fellow player and now friend Baberowski had finally managed to qualify for the Pro Tour, too. While Kai finished 19th Baberowski won the whole tournament. After a second place at Grand Prix Birmingham Budde added three Grand Prix titles within six months. The third one in Amsterdam even came by defeating Baberowski in the finals. With these finishes Budde had racked up enough Pro Points to be in contention for the Pro Player of the Year title in the final event of the 1998–99 season. Having not made a Pro Tour Top 8 appearance yet the leader in the Pro Player of the Year race did not consider him to be a threat, though. When Budde advanced to the final of the 1999 World Championship in Tokyo he had already secured the Pro Player of the year race. ^[10] He added the World Champion title by defeating Mark Le Pine in one of the quickest Pro Tour finals ever. ^[11]

After adding an 11th-place finish at the next Pro Tour in London the rest of the 1999–2000 season turned out to be disappointing. He was not able to make it beyond the first round in any of the newly introduced Masters events nor did he finish better than Top 64 at any of the succeeding Pro Tours. ^[10]

Five Pro Tour titles in two years

It took Kai until November 2000 to make another final eight appearance. A third place at Grand Prix Florence was followed by his second Pro Tour win. The 2000 Pro Tour Chicago title made him the third player to win more than one Pro Tour, the other two being Jon Finkel and Tommi Hovi. Winning Pro Tour Barcelona in the same season, Kai managed to surpass Finkel and Hovi to become the first player to win three Pro Tours. In the semi-final at Barcelona Budde had even asked if he could concede to his friend Patrick Mello to make him eligible for the next Masters, but the officials had refused. ^[10] Finally a 44th-place finish at the World Championship in Toronto sufficed to make Kai the first double Pro Player of the Year.

The 2001–02 season started very well for Kai Budde with consecutive wins at Grand Prix London and Pro Tour New York. For the Team Pro Tour New York Kai had chosen his friends Dirk Baberowski and Marco Blume, despite being able to play with virtually anybody he would have liked. Dirk had retired from the game for some time, but Kai managed to convince him to come along for the Pro Tour. Team "Phoenix Foundation" as they called themselves went on to become the most successful team in the Pro Tour history. ^[12] Pro Tour New York is also the origin of the saying "Kai doesn't lose on Sunday". Several Pro Players had answered something to that extent when asked who their favorite amongst the final four teams was. ^[13] Less than two months later Kai added another Pro Tour title, this time in New Orleans. He is still the only player in the game to have won back to back Pro Tours. In between, Budde had also won the Invitational which gave him the chance to create a Magic card of his own design. The card eventually became Voidmage Prodigy.

Throughout the season a few more Grand Prix titles followed and eventually he managed another Top 8 appearance at Pro Tour Nice, this time losing in the quarter-final to Bram Snepvangers. Before the final event of the season, the World Championship in Sydney, Kai was already locked in to succeed himself as Pro Tour Player of the Year. Only a week after Nice, Budde won the German Nationals, securing another title he had not won before and thus making the national team. While he finished 44th individually at the World Championship, Kai led the German team with Felix Schneiders, a fellow player from his Cologne days, and Mark Ziegner to the team title.

Phoenix Foundation won the first Pro Tour of the 2002–03 season, giving Kai an early lead in the Pro Player of the Year race. Also this set the three Phoenix Foundation members in the top three spots in lifetime Pro Tour wins until Jon Finkel overtook Blume with his victory in Kuala Lumpur five years later. After a few mediocre finishes through mid-season Kai won his seventh Pro Tour in Chicago, beating some of the most accomplished players such as Jon Finkel, William Jensen, and Nicolai Herzog along the way. Despite making no further Top 8 appearances in the season Kai was able to take his fourth Pro Player of the Year title with a comfortable lead.

Decline, Cancer diagnosis, and Player of the Year trophy

In 2003–04 Phoenix Foundation managed to open with another top 4 appearance, but lost in the semi-final to the eventual winners. Kai managed to make a few more Top 8 appearance at Grand Prixs, among those a victory at the then biggest Magic tournament ever at Madrid, but his performances declined notably. He managed an undefeated first day at Pro Tour Philadelphia in the following season, but was quickly eliminated from the event afterwards. Budde has since been considered to be retired from Pro Play although he has shown up for a Pro Tour from time to time. Eventually he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2007 World Championship in New York. Over the next years he played on the Pro Tour occasionally, but without much success. However, in 2010 Budde made his tenth Pro Tour top 8 in Amsterdam, and in 2011 he made his fifteenth Grand Prix top 8 in Paris. Since Pro Tour Return to Ravnica Budde has been a part of the team currently called 'The Pantheon', alongside players such as Jon Finkel, William Jensen, and Gabriel Nassif. ^[14] In 2019, he made the Top4 of the Mythic Championship III, a rebranded version of the Pro Tour, which was entirely played on Magic Arena. Then, in 2023, Budde made another Top8 at Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings in Barcelona.

On June 29th, 2024, it was announced that Kai was diagnosed with cancer years prior and that things had taken a turn for the worse. In honor of him, Wizards of the Coast named the 2024 season trophy "The Kai Budde Player of the Year". ^[15]

Top 8 appearances

Season	Event type	Location	Format	Date	Rank
1998–99	Grand Prix	Birmingham	Block Constructed	17–18 October 1998	2
1998–99	Grand Prix	Barcelona	Limited	6–7 February 1999	1
1998–99	Grand Prix	Vienna	Extended	13–14 March 1999	1
1998–99	Grand Prix	Amsterdam	Limited	15–16 May 1999	1
1998–99	Worlds	Tokyo	Standard	4–8 August 1999	1
1999–00	Invitational	Kuala Lumpur	Special	2–5 March 2000	6
2000–01	Grand Prix	Florence	Extended	25–26 November 2000	3
2000–01	Pro Tour	Chicago	Standard	1–3 December 2000	1
2000–01	Pro Tour	Barcelona	Limited	4–6 May 2001	1
2001–02	Grand Prix	London	Block Constructed	1–2 September 2001	1
2001–02	Pro Tour	New York	Team Limited	7–9 September 2001	1
2001–02	Invitational	Cape Town	Special	5–7 October 2001	1
2001–02	Pro Tour	New Orleans	Extended	9–11 November 2001	1
2001–02	Grand Prix	Biarritz	Limited	24–25 November 2001	2
2001–02	Grand Prix	Lisbon	Extended	19–20 January 2002	1
2001–02	Grand Prix	Antwerp	Limited	2–3 March 2002	1
2001–02	Masters	Osaka	Team Limited	14–17 March 2002	1
2001–02	Grand Prix	Naples	Limited	6–7 April 2002	3
2001–02	Pro Tour	Nice	Limited	3–5 May 2002	5
2001–02	Nationals	Germany	Special	10–12 May 2002	1
2001–02	Worlds	Sydney	National team	10–14 August 2002	1
2002–03	Pro Tour	Boston	Team Limited	27–29 September 2002	1
2002–03	Grand Prix	Copenhagen	Limited	12–13 October 2002	3
2002–03	Masters	Chicago	Standard	16–19 January 2003	8
2002–03	Pro Tour	Chicago	Limited	17–19 January 2003	1
2003–04	Pro Tour	Boston	Team Limited	12–14 September 2003	4
2003–04	Grand Prix	Gothenburg	Limited	22–23 November 2003	4
2003–04	Grand Prix	Madrid	Limited	21–22 February 2004	1
2003–04	Grand Prix	Brussels	Block Constructed	29–30 May 2004	2
2005	Invitational	Los Angeles	Special	17–20 May 2005	7
2010	Pro Tour	Amsterdam	Extended and Booster Draft	3–5 September 2010	8
2011	Grand Prix	Paris	Limited	12–13 February 2011	5
2023	Pro Tour	Barcelona	Modern	28–30 July 2023	8
2024	Worlds	Las Vegas	Standard and Booster Draft	25–27 October 2024	8

Last updated: 27 October 2024
Source: Wizards.com

Other accomplishments

• Pro Player of the Year 1998–1999
• Pro Player of the Year 2000–2001
• Pro Player of the Year 2001–2002
• Pro Player of the Year 2002–2003
• Magic Hall of Fame class of 2007 vote leader

References

1. Kai Budde 2005 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Ravnica expansion)
2. "Top 200 All-Time Money Leaders". Wizards of the Coast. 15 July 2014. Archived from the original on 13 September 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
3. "Lifetime Pro Tour Top 8s". Wizards of the Coast. 7 August 2014. Archived from the original on 16 April 2016. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
4. "Lifetime Grand Prix Top 8s". Wizards of the Coast. 28 July 2014. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
5. "Top 200 All-Time Money Leaders". Wizards of the Coast. 17 April 2013. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
6. "Lifetime Pro Tour Top 8s". Wizards of the Coast. 19 February 2008. Archived from the original on 14 March 2006. Retrieved 23 March 2008.
7. David-Marshall, Brian (22 June 2012). "Hall of Fame Calisthenics". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 24 June 2012. Retrieved 22 June 2012.
8. "Comment le Poker peut s'inspirer des autres Jeux populaires". 26 February 2020.
9. "Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame Profiles - Kai Budde". Wizards of the Coast. 2007. Archived from the original on 3 December 2008. Retrieved 4 December 2008.
10. Wise, Gary (July 2001). "Kai Budde: The Juggernaut". The Sideboard . 6 (37): 50–51.
11. Rosewater, Mark (26 July 2004). "On Tour, Part 1". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 19 October 2008. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
12. Forsythe, Aaron (January 2002). "Pro Tour–Boston Champions". The Sideboard . 8 (44): 14.
13. "2001 Pro Tour New York Coverage". Wizards of the Coast. 9 September 2001. Archived from the original on 24 October 2001. Retrieved 17 March 2009.
14. "Team Pantheon". ChannelFireball. Archived from the original on 9 December 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
15. "Announcing the Kai Budde Player of the Year Trophy".

Preceded by Jon Finkel	Pro Player of the Year 1998–99	Succeeded by Bob Maher, Jr.
Preceded by Bob Maher, Jr.	Pro Player of the Year 2000–01, 2001–02, 2002–03	Succeeded by Gabriel Nassif
Preceded by Brian Selden	Magic World Champion 1999	Succeeded by Jon Finkel
Preceded by Jon Finkel	Magic Invitational Champion 2001	Succeeded by Jens Thorén
Preceded by Daniel Zink	Magic German National Champion 2002	Succeeded by Dirk Baberowski
Preceded by United States Eugene Harvey Trevor Blackwell Brian Hegstad	Magic: The Gathering Team World Champion With: Mark Ziegner Felix Schneiders 2002	Succeeded by United States Justin Gary Gabe Walls Joshua Wagner