The Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame was started in 2005 to honor the most successful Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour players. The first inductions came on the tenth anniversary of the first Pro Tour event, and new Hall of Famers will be determined annually. Players who are eligible for the ballot (as below) can be voted in the Hall of Fame if they get more than 60% of the election committee's votes. As of 2018, there are 48 players from 12 countries in the Hall of Fame.
In order to appear on the Hall of Fame selection ballot, a player must meet the following five requirements (or the first four requirements if they never appeared in any previous ballots): [1] [2]
(* Pro Tour includes all Magic: The Gathering World Championship before year 2011)
The Selection Committee votes on whom to induct into the Hall of Fame. The committee includes Wizards of the Coast employees, DCI members, judges, long-time reporters, developers, all Hall of Famers, and every Magic player with at least 150 Pro Points. [3] Every member of the Selection Committee gets to vote for up to five of the eligible players. Afterwards every player with at least 60% of the votes gets inducted into the Hall of Fame. If nobody gets 60% of the vote, the player with the most votes will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
If a player received 10% or less of the votes in 3 consecutive votings, they will be removed from the Hall of Fame ballot. They will be eligible again if they score 4 Pro Tour Points during a specific period (roughly the same period between two consecutive votings).
The selection procedure was changed several times. In 2005 the Selection Committee voted for five players, and the four players receiving the most votes were inducted. Then a Players' Committee voted for one player that was not already selected, and the player receiving the most votes was also inducted.
From 2006 members of the Selection Committee and the Players' Committee received the list of players eligible for induction. Each member selected five players for induction. The votes were tabulated by a weighted percentage: Selection Committee votes counted 2/3, and Players' Committee votes counted 1/3. In 2006 and 2007 the five players with the highest percentages were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Between 2008 and 2016 only the players with over 40% of the weighted votes were inducted or if no one meets this criterion the player with the highest percentage was inducted.
The Hall of Fame inductees will receive a number of benefits for the rest of their life (unless suspended by the DCI). As of 2016–17 season, it includes the benefits below:
If a Hall of Fame player is a current Platinum level member of the Pro Players Club, the higher reward will apply to them (i.e. they receive two instead of one bye in World Magic Cup Qualifiers, 20QP instead of 15QP in the Magic Online Championship Series).
Players who enter the Hall of Fame since will also receive a special commemorative ring at the induction ceremony.
In the ballot of 2010, Tomoharu Saito was voted into the Hall of Fame with a weighted percentage of 47.74%. [9] However, two weeks prior to the induction Saito was disqualified during Grand Prix Florence leading to an 18-month suspension from the game. The rules do not allow currently-suspended players to be voted into the Hall of Fame. Wizards announced without further explanation that Saito would not be part of the Hall of Fame based on the 2010 ballot. [19]
In the original ballot results for 2010, Bram Snepvangers received a weighted percentage of 39.95%, barely missing the required 40%. However, in the days following the publication of results it was discovered that there had been an error in the calculations. Weights of 0.667 and 0.333 had been used for the votes from the Selection Committee and Players Committee respectively while the rules clearly stated that 0.67 and 0.33 were the correct numbers. After recalculating the scores Snepvangers landed at 40.03% and was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with Nassif and Kibler. [10]
In April 2019, during a deck check at Mythic Championship II in London it was found that some of Watanabe's card sleeves had been marked in a distinct way. This led to his disqualification from the tournament. On May 9, 2019, Wizards of the Coast announced that Watanabe would be removed from the Hall of Fame for cheating, as well as receiving a 30-month ban from sanctioned events and being removed from the Magic Pro League. [20] This event made Watanabe the first and so far only player to ever be removed from the Hall of Fame.
| Country | Number of inductees |
|---|---|
 United States | 21 |
 Japan | 7 |
 France | 5 |
 Netherlands | 4 |
 Germany | 2 |
 Sweden | 2 |
 Brazil | 2 |
 Canada | 1 |
 Finland | 1 |
 Norway | 1 |
 Czech Republic | 1 |
 Hong Kong | 1 |
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.
Kai Budde, 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. 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.
Jon Finkel is an American Magic: The Gathering and poker player. Finkel is one of the most decorated players in the history of professional Magic: The Gathering play and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time. During his career he has won three Grand Prix events and made the Top 8 of a record 16 Pro Tour events, winning three of those. In the year 2000, he became the Magic: The Gathering World Champion, as well as playing for the United States National Team, which won the team portion of the competition.
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".
Olle Råde is a professional Magic: The Gathering player from Sweden. He was inducted to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class in 2005. Olle was also the first player awarded with the coveted Player of the Year award and was the first non-American player to win a pro tour event. He was also the youngest pro tour event winner at the time He appears in the artwork of Sylvan Safekeeper, which he designed after winning the first Magic Invitational. In April 2015 a poll was conducted by www.svenskamagic.com, the official Magic the Gathering-page of Sweden. There Olle was voted best Swedish magic player of all time, with 37.3% of the votes. In May 2016 Olle won the Swedish Open Championship of Magic the Gathering, playing his trademark deck white weenie with a red splash.
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.
Kenji Tsumura is a professional Magic: The Gathering player from Japan. He is one of only eight players to have reached the top eight of a Pro Tour more than five times.
Olivier Ruel is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players. He holds the record for most Grand Prix Top 8’s, and is one of twenty players with five or more Pro Tour top 8’s. After Pro Tour San Juan 2010, Olivier surpassed Kai Budde as the leader in lifetime Pro Points. However, Budde regained that title later that season.
Tomoharu Saitou is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players and the owner of Hareruya Store in Tokyo.
Shuhei Nakamura is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players. He has reached the Top 8 of six Pro Tours and won seven Grands Prix, as well as being the 2008 Pro Player of the Year. In 2011, he was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
The 2008 Pro Tour season was the thirteenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 15 December 2007, with Grand Prix Stuttgart, and ended on 14 December 2008, with the 2008 World Championship in Memphis. The season consisted of twenty-one Grand Prixs, and four Pro Tours, located in Kuala Lumpur, Hollywood, Berlin, and Memphis. The Grand Prixs from June until August were designated Summer Series Grand Prixs, awarding more prizes and additional Pro Points. At the end of the season, Shuhei Nakamura became the fourth consecutive Japanese player to win Pro Player of the year. Dirk Baberowski, Michael Turian, Jelger Wiegersma, Olivier Ruel, and Ben Rubin were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Bram Snepvangers is a Dutch Magic: The Gathering player. He is now considered retired, but has been on and off the Pro Tour for twelve years. In addition to his success playing Magic, he is known as a community builder both as a judge and a tournament organiser. Each year he hosts an invitational tournament for Dutch players called Bramvitational. Along with Willam "Huey" Jensen and Brad Nelson, Snepvangers is one of only three players to have eliminated Kai Budde in the knock-rounds of a Pro Tour. He qualified for every Pro Tour event held in the decade of the 2000s, and participated in all but one of them. He is second only to Raphaël Lévy on the list of players with the most Pro Tour appearances.
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.
Shouta Yasooka is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player. He is best known for his success in the 2006 Pro Tour season, when he won Pro Tour Charleston with Tomohiro Kaji and Tomoharu Saitou, as well as the Player of the Year title. In 2015, Yasooka was elected into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
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.
Brian McCormick Kibler is an American collectible card game player, game designer, and streamer. In 2016 Kibler helped design Drawing Dead. Previously, he designed Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer with Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty and John Fiorillo, and worked on Chaotic and SolForge and was the lead designer of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. As of 2016, he is a design consultant for Eternal, in addition to streaming and casting Hearthstone and certain associated tournaments.
Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa is a Brazilian Magic: The Gathering player. In 2011, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa became the youngest player to ever reach 300 lifetime Pro Points. He was elected into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame in 2012 as the first player from South America, and has seventeen Pro Tour Top 8 finishes, which puts him second for the most Pro Tour Top 8s of all time, and in 2020 Da Rosa won the world championship for the 2019 season. Da Rosa is the all-time leader in prize money won playing professional-level Magic.
Yuuya Watanabe (渡辺雄也) is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player and former World Champion.[I] With five Pro Tour top eights and 27 Grand Prix top eights, Watanabe is best known for his Rookie of the Year title in 2007, and his Player of the Year titles in 2009 and 2012. He is one of only three players to become Player of the Year more than once. He was elected to the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame in 2016, along with Owen Turtenwald, but removed in May 2019 after a cheating scandal involving marked card sleeves.
Owen Turtenwald is a former American professional Magic: The Gathering player. He won a number of awards during his career, notably the 2010 Vintage World Championship and 2011 and 2015-16 Player of the Year. In 2016, he was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame. He was briefly a member of the Magic Pro League in 2019 before being removed following sexual harassment accusations from women in the Magic community. He has not participated in any Wizards of the Coast sanctioned Magic: The Gathering tournaments since the incident.
Paul Rietzl is an American Magic: The Gathering player. His greatest success was his win at Pro Tour Amsterdam in 2010, but his resume includes three more Pro Tour top eights, and thirteen Grand Prix top eights, including two wins. He was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame in 2014.
