Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa | |
---|---|
Nicknames |
|
Born | Porto Alegre, Brazil | September 29, 1987
Pro Tour debut | 2003 World Championships – Berlin |
Winnings | $1,083,035 [1] |
Pro Tour wins (Top 8) | 3 (17) [2] |
Grand Prix wins (Top 8) | 2 (24) [3] |
Lifetime Pro Points | 588 [4] |
Planeswalker Level | 50 (Archmage) |
Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa (born September 29, 1987) is a Brazilian Magic: The Gathering player. [5] 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, [6] and has seventeen Pro Tour Top 8 finishes (with three wins among them), which puts him second for the most Pro Tour Top 8s of all time, [2] [7] [5] 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. [8]
Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa began his professional Magic: The Gathering career at the 2003 World Championship in Berlin. [9] A 55th-place finish put da Rosa at the bottom of the money winning places. A year later, he made his second Pro Tour appearance, again at the World Championship.
It was not until 2005 that he began to attract attention, when he reached the top 8 of Grand Prix Porto Alegre, his hometown. The following season da Rosa had his breakthrough. Alongside teammates Willy Edel and Celso Zampere, he made the finals of Pro Tour Charleston, before losing to Tomohiro Kaji, Tomoharu Saitou, and Shouta Yasooka. [10] Just two events later, da Rosa made the top eight again. At Worlds in Paris, he lost in the quarterfinals to the eventual champion, Makihito Mihara, who drew exactly the right card at the last possible moment to win the match. Da Rosa also captained the Brazilian national team to a fourth-place finish. [11] This finish earned him level six, then the highest level in the pro players club, qualified Carlos Romão for all Pro Tour events the following season, and earned invitations to Pro Tour Geneva for the other two members of the team.
2007 was a slower year for da Rosa. He failed to make the top eight of any Pro Tour, and failed to earn money at a Pro Tour for the first time at Pro Tour Yokohama. In 2008 he returned to the top eight. At Pro Tour Hollywood he reached the quarterfinal, losing to eventual player of the year Shuhei Nakamura. [12] Playing almost the same deck, he repeated this feat at the World Championship in Memphis. Despite being considered a heavy favourite, he lost his quarterfinal match to American player Jamie Parke. [13]
2009 started weakly for da Rosa, with day one exits at Pro Tours Kyoto, and Honolulu. However, da Rosa excelled off the Pro Tour, with two Grand Prix top eights and a win at the Brazilian national championship. At Pro Tour Austin, da Rosa made the top eight again, making him the first South American to reach the top eight of five Pro Tours. He made yet another quarterfinal exit, losing to Tsuyoshi Ikeda. [14]
In the 2010 season, da Rosa became only the seventh player to reach six Pro Tour top eights when he won Pro Tour San Juan. [15] At the World Championship that year, da Rosa reached his seventh top eight, losing to the eventual champion, Guillaume Matignon, in the semifinals. [16]
Another Grand Prix top eight followed in Providence in the 2011 season, and just a week later he won Grand Prix Singapore. [17] Da Rosa went on to make his eighth Pro Tour Top 8 at the 2011 World Championship. Paulo made a strong start to the 2012 season, placing 3rd at Grand Prix Orlando and reaching the finals of his ninth Pro Tour Top 8 at Pro Tour Dark Ascension in Honolulu. Da Rosa was invited to the first Players Championship as the highest ranked South American player, where he finished 3rd. [18] The same year, da Rosa was voted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame, receiving 85.65% of the votes. [6] His induction was conducted at Pro Tour Return to Ravnica in October 2012.
The following seasons were less successful for da Rosa. He made no further Pro Tour top 8s, and at the end of the 2012–13 Pro Tour season he only had 28 points, [19] resulting in Silver level status in the Pro Players Club, where he previously had Platinum status or the equivalent of Platinum since 2006. He maintained his Silver status after the 2013–14 Pro Tour season, collecting 33 points. [20] He did put up three Grand Prix top 8 finishes in 2014, however, after none in 2013, and qualified for the 2014 World Championships, where he finished 23rd. [21]
After two disappointing seasons, the 2014–15 season was a successful one for da Rosa. Although he didn't finish in the top 8 of any Pro Tours, he made the top 8 of three Grand Prix events, winning one, and put up a strong 13th-place finish at Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir. [22] Most of his top finishes during this season were with the deck called 'Esper Dragons'. [23] By the season's end, da Rosa had amassed 51 Pro Points, good enough for Platinum status in the Pro Players Club, captainship of the Brazilian National team, and an invitation to the 2015 World Championship.
The 2015–16 season, Paulo took 11th place at 2015 World Championship. He would go on to make his tenth Pro Tour Top 8 at Pro Tour Battle For Zendikar, the first Pro Tour of the season. As such, Paulo was at that point in joint second for the most Pro Tour Top 8s of all time alongside Kai Budde. Paulo would also be joined in the Top 8 by the man with the most Pro Tour Top 8s, Jon Finkel, who extended his own record to 16 Pro Tour Top 8s.
In the 2016–17 season, Paulo gained two more Grand Prix placements (Top 4 at Team GP Rotterdam, and finalist at GP Prague), before breaking from Kai Budde's record to gain his eleventh Pro Tour Top 8 at Pro Tour Aether Revolt. In the final Pro Tour of the season (Pro Tour Hour of Devastation) he gained his twelfth Pro Tour Top 8 and second Pro Tour win, with this last accomplishment also making him the Player of the Year.
Season | Event type | Location | Format | Date | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | Grand Prix | Porto Alegre | Rochester Draft | 20–21 November 2005 | 6 |
2006 | Pro Tour | Charleston | Team Constructed | 16–18 June 2006 | 2 |
2006 | Nationals | Brazil | Special | 9–10 September 2006 | 1 |
2006 | Worlds | Paris | Special | 29 November–3 December 2006 | 6 |
2007 | Grand Prix | San Francisco | Block Constructed | 25–26 August 2007 | 3 |
2007 | Invitational | Essen | Special | 18–21 October 2007 | 5 |
2007 | Grand Prix | Daytona Beach | Sealed and Booster Draft | 17–18 November 2007 | 2 |
2008 | Pro Tour | Hollywood | Standard | 23–25 May 2008 | 8 |
2008 | Worlds | Memphis | Special | 11–14 December 2008 | 5 |
2009 | Grand Prix | Barcelona | Standard | 23–24 May 2009 | 3 |
2009 | Grand Prix | Seattle | Standard | 30–31 May 2009 | 3 |
2009 | Nationals | Brazil | Standard and Booster Draft | 25–26 July 2009 | 1 |
2009 | Pro Tour | Austin | Extended and Booster Draft | 16–18 October 2009 | 8 |
2010 | Grand Prix | Houston | Extended | 3–4 April 2010 | 6 |
2010 | Pro Tour | San Juan | Block Constructed and Booster Draft | 28–30 May 2010 | 1 |
2010 | Grand Prix | Portland | Sealed and Booster Draft | 11–12 September 2010 | 8 |
2010 | Worlds | Chiba | Special | 9–12 December 2010 | 3 |
2011 | Grand Prix | Providence | Legacy | 28–29 May 2011 | 4 |
2011 | Grand Prix | Singapore | Standard | 4–5 June 2011 | 1 |
2011 | Grand Prix | Santiago | Sealed and Booster Draft | 22–23 October 2011 | 6 |
2011 | Worlds | San Francisco | Special | 17–20 November 2011 | 5 |
2012 | Grand Prix | Orlando | Standard | 14–15 January 2012 | 3 |
2012 | Pro Tour | Honolulu | Standard and Booster Draft | 10–12 February 2012 | 2 |
2012 | Grand Prix | Baltimore | Standard | 25–26 February 2012 | 5 |
2012–13 | Players Championship | Indianapolis | Special | 29–31 August 2012 | 3 |
2013–14 | Grand Prix | Paris | Legacy | 15–16 February 2014 | 8 |
2013–14 | Grand Prix | Buenos Aires | Standard | 15–16 March 2014 | 3 |
2014–15 | Grand Prix | Nashville | Team Limited | 1–2 November 2014 | 2 |
2014–15 | Grand Prix | Kraków | Standard | 18–19 April 2015 | 3 |
2014–15 | Grand Prix | São Paulo | Standard | 2–3 May 2015 | 1 |
2015–16 | Pro Tour | Milwaukee | Standard and Booster Draft | 16–18 October 2015 | 7 |
2016–17 | Grand Prix | Rotterdam | Team Limited | 12–13 November 2016 | 4 |
2016–17 | Grand Prix | Prague | Sealed and Booster Draft | 28–29 January 2017 | 2 |
2016–17 | Pro Tour | Dublin | Standard and Booster Draft | 3–5 February 2017 | 6 |
2016–17 | Pro Tour | Kyoto | Standard and Booster Draft | 28-30 July 2017 | 1 |
2017–18 | Grand Prix | Indianapolis | Team Limited | 20-21 January 2018 | 2 |
2019-20 | Worlds | Honolulu | Standard | 14-16 February 2020 | 1 |
Last updated: 5 February 2017
Source: Wizards.com
Other accomplishments
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.
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.
Jelger Wiegersma is a Dutch Magic: The Gathering player. Though no longer a professional player, he still regularly attends Pro Tours. He won Pro Tour Seattle 2004 as a member of team Von Dutch with teammates Jeroen Remie and Kamiel Cornelissen. He also won two Grand Prix, in 2003 and 2008. In 2008, he was elected to the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
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.
Antoine Ruel is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He has reached the top eight at the Pro Tour four times, including a win in Los Angeles in 2005. With eighteen Grand Prix top eights, he is among the most successful Grand Prix players of all time. In 2009, Ruel joined his brother Olivier in the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
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.
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.
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.
The 2010 Pro Tour season was the fifteenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 13 February 2010 with Grand Prix Oakland, and ended on 12 December 2010 with the conclusion of the 2010 World Championship in Chiba, Japan. The season consisted of eighteen Grand Prixs, and four Pro Tours, located in San Diego, San Juan, Amsterdam, and Chiba. Gabriel Nassif, Brian Kibler, and Bram Snepvangers were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the World Championship in Chiba. Although the season formally ended with the conclusion of the World Championship, the final title of season was not awarded until three months later. Guillaume Matignon and Brad Nelson tied for Player of the Year. The title was decided by a single match between the two at the 2011 Pro Tour in Paris, which Nelson won by four games to two.
Benjamin "Ben" Stark is an American Magic: The Gathering player. His career accomplishments include back to back Pro Tour Top 8s in 2004 and winning Pro Tour Paris in 2011. In 2013, he was voted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
William "Huey" Jensen is an American Magic: The Gathering player. He won Pro Tour Boston 2003, and has finished in the top 8 of four additional Pro Tours. He also has 24 Grand Prix top eights, including six wins. Jensen is one of the few players to have beaten Kai Budde in the elimination rounds of a Pro Tour. In 2013 he was voted into the Hall of Fame. He is the current record holder of most Grand Prix top eight finishes within a single season, with eight in 2013–14. He is also the 2017 Magic World Champion.
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.
Martin Jůza is a Czech Magic: The Gathering player. Over the course of his career, Jůza has won the Czech national championship, made the top eight of a Pro Tour three times, and won four Grand Prix tournaments.
Richard Hoaen is a Canadian Magic: The Gathering player. Known for his skill in limited formats, Hoaen has reached the top eight of a Pro Tour just once. In addition, Hoaen has made the top eight of seven Grand Prix, winning three, and was runner-up to Tiago Chan in the last Magic Invitational.
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.
Josh Utter-Leyton is an American Magic: The Gathering player. Perhaps most well known for his work with Team ChannelFireball, he was the American national champion in 2010 and 2013, and the Player of the Year for the 2012–13 season. He has reached the top 8 of six Pro Tours, losing to the eventual champion each time.
Reid Duke is an American Magic: The Gathering player from Sugar Loaf, New York. He won the Magic: The Gathering Online Championship in 2011. His best finishes include one Pro Tour win, at Pro Tour Phyrexia; three other Pro Tour Top 8s, at Pro Tour Journey Into Nyx, Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, and Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan; a runner-up finish at the 2013 World Championships; five solo Grand Prix wins, at Grand Prix Nashville 2012, Grand Prix Miami 2013, Grand Prix Portland 2014, Grand Prix Oakland 2016, and Grand Prix Louisville 2017; and one team Grand Prix win, at Grand Prix Cleveland 2017.
Shahar Shenhar is an Israeli-American Magic: The Gathering player. In the twenty-one years since the first Magic: The Gathering World Championship, he is the only person to have won the competition more than once, winning the tournament in 2013 and 2014.