Owen Turtenwald

Last updated

Owen Turtenwald
NicknamesORAT
Born (1989-04-16) April 16, 1989 (age 34)
West Allis, Wisconsin
Residence Las Vegas, Nevada
Nationality Flag of the United States.svg American
Pro Tour debut Pro Tour Valencia 2007
Winnings US$345,570 [1]
Pro Tour wins (Top 8)0 (5)
Grand Prix wins (Top 8)4 (21) [2]
Lifetime Pro Points418 [3]

Owen Turtenwald (born April 16, 1989) 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. [4] 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. [5] He has not participated in any Wizards of the Coast sanctioned Magic: The Gathering tournaments since the incident. [6]

Contents

Magic: The Gathering career

Owen Turtenwald first came to prominence as a player of Magic's eternal formats, Legacy and Vintage. In the 2007 season, Turtenwald made his first Top 8 at GP Columbus, finishing in second place with a Legacy Goblins deck and qualifying for PT Valencia (where he finished in 18th place with an Extended version of the Goblins deck). In 2008, Turtenwald made the Top 8 of the Vintage World Championship. [7] At Gen Con 2010, Turtenwald won the 2010 Vintage World Championship defeating Bob Maher, Jr. in the finals. [8] [9]

Despite reaching the finals of GP Washington DC in the 2010 season, Turtenwald considered quitting, feeling as though he wasn't performing well enough for his efforts. [10] However, he was persuaded to keep playing with the support of Team ChannelFireball. As of 2015, Turtenwald writes articles and makes videos for ChannelFireball.com. [11]

In the 2011 season, Turtenwald made seven Grand Prix Top 8s, an at-the-time unprecedented number for a single season [12] in a wide variety of formats, including Standard, Extended, Legacy, and Limited. However, Turtenwald failed to win any of the GPs at which he made Top 8, a fact that was very disappointing to him. [13] Turtenwald's success caused him to hold the lead in the 2011 Player of the Year race for the majority of the season. On the final day of the 2011 World Championship, three players were in the position to take the Player of the Year title from Turtenwald. These players were Luis Scott-Vargas, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, and Josh Utter-Leyton, all of whom were also Turtenwald's teammates as part of the ChannelFireball team. Turtenwald noted a sense of conflict in wanting his friends to do well but also needing them to lose if he was to take the Player of the Year title. [13] Fortunately for Turtenwald, those three players lost their quarterfinal matches; Turtenwald won the 2011 Player of the Year title. [10] In doing so, Turtenwald became the first Player of the Year to not have made a Pro Tour Top 8 in the season in which they won the title.

In the 2012-13 Season, Turtenwald practiced and prepared for tournaments with Team StarCityGames (currently known as Team Pantheon), alongside players such as Jon Finkel, Kai Budde and Reid Duke. [14] [15] Shortly thereafter, Turtenwald made his first PT Top 8 at Pro Tour Gatecrash. [16] Turtenwald lost his quarterfinal match against ChannelFireball member Eric Froehlich but still finished in fifth place in the event.

Turtenwald continued to hold the record for most GP Top 8 appearances without a win (11), but in the 2013-14 Season, Turtenwald won GP Washington DC, his 12th GP Top 8. [17] Turtenwald continued this success, winning the next GP in Albuquerque. [18] In doing so, Turtenwald became the sixth player to win back-to-back GP events, the other five players to have achieved this feat being Kenji Tsumura, Kai Budde, Raphaël Lévy, Tomoharu Saito, and Yuuya Watanabe. Turtenwald went on to finish the season with his second PT Top 8 at Pro Tour Magic 2015, [19] where he lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Ivan Floch. Thanks to his fourth-place finish, Turtenwald earned captainship of the US national team for the 2014 World Magic Cup. He also qualified for the 2014 World Championship as the top-ranked North American player.

Turtenwald, alongside teammates William Jensen and Reid Duke, won GP Portland, the very first event of the 2014–15 Season. At Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in Honolulu later that year, Turtenwald looked poised to make his third PT Top 8, but he got paired down against Yuuya Watanabe in the last round and lost, finishing 11th in the event. [20] At the 2014 World Championship, he finished 13th, but at the 2014 World Magic Cup, he captained the US national team to a fourth-place finish, losing to Greece in the semifinals. Turtenwald ended the season with 55 pro points, good enough for platinum status in the Pro Player Club and an invitation to the 2015 World Championship. [21] He finished second, losing the Championship to Seth Manfield.

Turtenwald's 2015-16 season began with a Top 8 finish at PT Battle for Zendikar. His powerful performance continued throughout the season with three more GP Top 8s and a win at GP Houston that put him in contention for a second Player of the Year title. However, Seth Manfield's late-season performance would put him twenty points ahead of Turtenwald heading into PT Eldritch Moon. In the wake of his Hall of Fame induction alongside Yuuya Watanabe, Turtenwald secured his fourth PT Top 8, finishing in second place, which deposed Seth Manfield as Player of the Year and World Magic Cup captaincy. His finish with 98 points was the first for Player of the Year to finish above 90 points since Kai Budde in 2002; he became the third player to have two Player of the Year titles, after Budde and Watanabe.

In 2019, Turtenwald became one of the original 32 members of the Magic Pro League (MPL) - an esports competition of professional Magic: The Gathering players contracted through Wizards of the Coast. [22]

On March 26, 2019, and just a day prior to the first Magic: The Gathering Mythic Invitational, the esports division of Wizards of the Coast announced on Twitter that Turtenwald would not participate in the tournament. He was replaced by Brian David-Marshall. [23] Two days after the announcement, Kotaku published an article claiming that multiple people had come forward accusing Turtenwald of engaging in "inappropriate behavior toward female players and fans for years." [24] To date, neither Turtenwald nor Wizards of the Coast have addressed these claims, and there have been no public statements by either party regarding Turtenwald's removal from the Mythic Invitational.

A month after Turtenwald's sudden removal from the Mythic Invitational, Turtenwald's name was removed from the official Magic Pro League roster on Wizards of the Coast's website. Kotaku released an article stating that Turtenwald's now-vacant spot in the Magic Pro League would be filled by Autumn Burchett, the professional player who won Mythic Championship I in February 2019. Turtenwald has since deleted his public social media content and has not participated in any sanctioned Magic: The Gathering events. [25] [26]

Achievements

 Season  Event type  Location   Format    Date   Rank 
2007 Grand Prix ColumbusLegacyMay 19–20, 20072
2009 Grand Prix MinneapolisSealed and Booster DraftNovember 13–14, 20095
2010 Grand Prix Washington D.C.StandardMay 22–23, 20102
2011 Grand Prix AtlantaExtendedJanuary 22–23, 20118
2011 Grand Prix DenverSealed and Booster DraftFebruary 19–20, 20113
2011 Grand Prix Dallas/Fort WorthStandardApril 9–10, 20113
2011 Grand Prix ProvidenceLegacyMay 28–29, 20115
2011 Grand Prix SingaporeStandardJune 4–5, 20114
2011 Grand Prix SantiagoSealed and Booster DraftOctober 22–23, 20113
2011 Grand Prix San DiegoSealed and Booster DraftNovember 12–13, 20116
2012 Grand Prix SeattleSealed and Booster DraftMarch 3–4, 20128
2012–13 Grand Prix San JoseTeam LimitedOctober 9–10, 20123 [I]
2012–13 Pro Tour MontrealStandard and Booster DraftFebruary 15–17, 20135
2013–14 Grand Prix Washington, D.C.LegacyNovember 16–17, 20131
2013–14 Grand Prix AlbuquerqueStandardNovember 23–24, 20131
2013–14 Grand Prix BarcelonaTeam LimitedMarch 1–2, 20143
2013–14 Pro Tour PortlandStandard and Booster DraftAugust 1–3, 20144
2014–15 Grand Prix PortlandTeam LimitedAugust 9–10, 20141
2014–15 World Magic Cup NiceNational teamDecember 5–7, 20144
2015–16 Grand Prix DetroitTeam LimitedAugust 15–16, 20153
2015–16 Worlds SeattleSpecialAugust 28–30, 20152
2015–16 Pro Tour MilwaukeeStandard and Booster DraftOctober 16–18, 20155
2015–16 Grand Prix AtlantaSealed and Booster DraftNovember 13–15, 20152
2015–16 Grand Prix HoustonStandardFebruary 27–28, 20161
2015–16 Grand Prix Washington, D.C.Team LimitedMarch 12–13, 20163
2015–16 Grand Prix MinneapolisStandardMay 28-29, 20166
2015–16 Pro Tour SydneyStandard and Booster DraftAugust 5–7, 20162
2016–17 Grand Prix San AntonioTeam Unified ModernApril 1–2, 20172
2016-17 Grand Prix ClevelandTeam LimitedJune 24–25, 20171
2017-18 Grand Prix ProvidenceTeam LimitedSeptember 30–October 1, 20172

Last updated: April 9, 2018
Source: Event Coverage at Wizards.com

Personal life

Turtenwald used to live with fellow Pro Tour Hall of Famer William "Huey" Jensen and two-time World Champion Shahar Shenhar.

Notes

^I Turtenwald finished third at Grand Prix San Jose 2012 with teammates Conley Woods and Eric Froehlich, [27] and although the cutoff was to the top 2 teams instead of the usual top 4 for team events, it has been recognized as a counting Grand Prix top 8 finish by Wizards of the Coast. [2]

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References

  1. ↑ "Top 200 All-Time Money Leaders". Wizards of the Coast. July 15, 2014. Archived from the original on September 13, 2014. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
  2. 1 2 "Lifetime Grand Prix Top 8s". Wizards of the Coast. July 28, 2014. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Planeswalker Points". Wizards of the Coast. August 4, 2014. Retrieved August 4, 2014.[ dead link ]
  4. ↑ "2011 Pro Tour Player of the Year Standings". Wizards of the Coast. November 23, 2011. Archived from the original on April 10, 2011. Retrieved November 24, 2011.
  5. ↑ D'Anastasio, Cecilia (March 29, 2019). "Pro Removed From $1 Million Magic Tournament Accused Of Harassing Women". Kotaku. Retrieved September 4, 2019..
  6. ↑ "Nonbinary Magic Champion Replaces Pro Removed From League After Harassing Accusations". April 25, 2019. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
  7. ↑ Stark, Bill. "Feature: Vintage Championship Top 8 Coverage". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on August 27, 2008. Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  8. ↑ "Gen Con 2010". Wizards of the Coast. August 6, 2010. Archived from the original on August 11, 2010. Retrieved November 24, 2011.
  9. ↑ Turtenwald, Owen (October 29, 2010). "X and Owen – Winning Vintage Worlds 2010" . Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  10. 1 2 Price, Nate (November 20, 2011). "Player of the Year: Owen Turtenwald". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on November 23, 2011. Retrieved November 24, 2011.
  11. ↑ "Owen Turtenwald". ChannelFireball.com. Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  12. ↑ David-Marshall, Brian (November 20, 2011). "Video Feature: Day Four Wrap-up". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on November 23, 2011. Retrieved November 24, 2011.
  13. 1 2 Turtenwald, Owen (November 22, 2011). "Owen's a Win – Player of the Year". ChannelFireball.com. Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  14. ↑ David-Marshall, Brian. "Owen Up to His Promise". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
  15. ↑ "The Team". StarCityGames.com. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
  16. ↑ "Pro Tour Gatecrash Coverage". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
  17. ↑ "Turtenwald Finally Triumphant in D.C." Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on November 18, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
  18. ↑ "Owen Runs it Back!". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on November 28, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
  19. ↑ "FLOCH IMMORTALIZED AT PRO TOUR". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved November 19, 2014.
  20. ↑ "FINAL STANDINGS". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  21. ↑ "2015 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP COMPETITORS". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Magic Pro League Members" . Retrieved April 3, 2019.
  23. ↑ "Owen Turtenwald will not participate in the Mythic Invitational" . Retrieved April 3, 2019.
  24. ↑ "Pro Removed From $1 Million Magic Tournament Accused of Harassing Women". March 29, 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2019.
  25. ↑ "Nonbinary Magic Champion Replaces Pro Removed From League After Harassing Accusations". April 25, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  26. ↑ "Owen Turtenwald has allegedly been removed from the Magic Pro League" . Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  27. ↑ "Grand Prix San Jose Round 17 Standings". Wizards of the Coast. October 14, 2012. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
Preceded by Pro Player of the Year
2011		Succeeded by
Preceded by Pro Player of the Year
2016		Succeeded by
Preceded by US National Champion
2014		Succeeded by
Preceded by US National Champion
2016		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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