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.
Kai Budde, is a semi-retired 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.
Zvi Mowshowitz is a former professional Magic: The Gathering player who also held a developer intern position at Wizards of the Coast Magic R&D. He is known for having created innovative and sometimes game-breaking decks TurboZvi and My Fires. His first-place finishes include a Pro Tour and a Grand Prix. He has placed in the top eight of four Pro Tours, and earned over $140,000 playing Magic competitively. In 2007, Mowshowitz was elected into the Magic Hall of Fame.
Darwin Kastle Mess, more commonly known as simply Darwin Kastle, is a champion Magic: The Gathering player from the United States of America, and was a member of the inaugural class elected to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in 2005. Kastle also ranks 12th on the all time Pro Tour earnings list. Kastle's likeness is depicted on the card Avalanche Riders, which he also designed after winning the second Magic Invitational.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anton Jonsson is a Swedish Magic: The Gathering player. He has retired from professional Magic. At the height of his career, Jonsson was considered one of the best players in the game, and was especially known for his proficiency at Limited, having reached the Top 8 of a Pro Tour five times. In 2010, Jonsson came back to play in Grand Prix Gothenburg, where he reached yet another Top 8, five years after his last Top 8 appearance. He was voted into the Magic The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in 2011 along with Steve O'Mahoney-Schwartz and Shuhei Nakamura.
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.
Justin Gary is an American Magic: The Gathering player. At age 17, Gary was U.S. junior champion in 1997. His most notable Pro Tour finish is his win at Pro Tour Houston 2002. Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle who both tested with Gary finished second and third respectively at the same event. In 2010, Gary founded Gary Games. In August 2010 the first product, Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, was introduced at Gen Con. The deck-building game, designed by Gary along with Brian Kibler, John Fiorillo, and Rob Dougherty, received a larger introduction in 2012 through a Kickstarter campaign. That same year the company changed its name to Stone Blade Entertainment, and in 2013 they followed up their release of Ascension with the development and limited production of SolForge, a digital-only collectible card game.
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. 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.
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.
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.
Wise Wizard Games LLC is a games company founded in 2013. They are the creators of Star Realms, Epic Card Game, Hero Realms, and Sorcerer. Their CEO, Rob Dougherty, and Creative Director, Darwin Kastle, are both in the Magic The Gathering Hall of Fame.
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