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Lee and the Hall of Fame

By Lee Steht ⋅ July 7, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

“Vot­ing shall be based upon the player’s per­for­mances, play­ing abil­ity, integrity, sports­man­ship, and con­tri­bu­tions to the game in general.”

That’s the Magic: The Gath­er­ing Hall of Fame Mantra. It’s hard to believe that our game has really got­ten to a point where we’re rec­og­niz­ing these attrib­utes within a person’s “game”. For a per­son, like myself, I don’t take this sport lightly nor do I take my posi­tion on the Hall of Fame Com­mit­tee lightly. Not because I’m a power hun­gry inter­net pod­caster who has had delu­sions of a pro tour vic­tory over the world, or um at least I don’t think I do. It’s not the biggest task ever, you sim­ply pick 5 peo­ple out of a list of peo­ple who have com­piled 100 or more pro points. What is a big deal to me is these peo­ple, if selected into the “Hall”, will gain eter­nal fame while hav­ing a life­time invi­ta­tion to the Pro Tour with Level 5 sta­tus, a super cool Hall of Fame Ring and invi­ta­tion to this year’s World Cham­pi­onships. Being a Level 5 player and have an invi­ta­tion to Worlds is an oppor­tu­nity some would kill for. Throw in the ring and the eter­nal fame and you’ve got a pretty nice lit­tle pack­age for just being a player with abil­ity, integrity, sports­man­ship, a few con­tri­bu­tions to the game and be for­tu­nate enough to have per­formed well in “The Show.”

What I wanted to do with this arti­cle is eval­u­ate the finer points of the cri­te­ria above and ask your opin­ion on the poten­tial hall of famers. So, let’s begin by just knock­ing out Per­for­mance. It takes 100 life­time Pro Points to merely be con­sid­ered for enshrine­ment and that’s NO small task. You have to win a major tour­ney or two to get a con­sid­er­able amount of points so we don’t really need to talk much about this. I’ve been to quite a few pro­tours with a hand full of grand prix day 2s and have only accu­mu­lated 37 points. Now, the DCI wasn’t always so gen­er­ous in hand­ing out points you get for Grand Prix. You were only given points for top 8s, and before then you didn’t even get pro points. 10 points for win­ning a grand prix or a national cham­pi­onship and 25 for win­ning a pro tour or world cham­pi­onship shows that achiev­ing 100 is no slice of cheese. So for that alone, these peo­ple are great!

Play­ing Abil­ity is a rel­a­tively vague attribute to deter­mine. All of these indi­vid­u­als have dis­played an abil­ity to play the game and win. So, how can we deter­mine a person’s abil­ity to play? At Pro Tour Berlin, guar­an­teed Hall of Famer Luis Scott Var­gas (LSV) won his title after being down in his first top 8 match, he was down for MOST of the top 8. This pro tour dis­played the power of the Elf Combo deck which pro­vided the mage who played first a HUGE advan­tage. LSV’s play skills allowed him to over­come the deficit of being down AND the advan­tages of his opponent’s play option and snatched the title from some of the world’s best. THAT is play­ing abil­ity! How­ever, that’s an easy exam­ple from a player who is a sure fire first bal­lot hall of famer. I think that mul­ti­ple vic­to­ries is a good mea­sure of abil­ity, but that doesn’t dis­count the jour­ney­man who has played at a high level and accu­mu­lates points through qual­i­fy­ing and decent fin­ishes. That is unless, we deter­mine that there are Per­for­mance Enhanc­ing Drugs that pro­vided a dis­tinct advan­tage over other competitors.

Which leads me to my next item, Integrity. We don’t always have judges view­ing play. There are no cam­eras that view a player’s hand and bat­tle­field. So we put a cer­tain amount of trust in our oppo­nents to play the game. Obvi­ously, it doesn’t always hap­pen. Now, the flip­side to this is there’s a con­tested rule and you call a judge over and that per­son wins the rul­ing. It doesn’t make them a cheater. I’ve observed sev­eral pros who allow “take backs” or advised of bad moves or inac­cu­ra­cies that would ben­e­fit them and they call for cor­rec­tion, THAT is Integrity.

Sports­man­ship, on of the ele­ments that I feel many Magic play­ers today are lack­ing. The pre­ma­ture “good game” or the absence of the hand­shake are sim­ple signs of sports­man­ship and some­times excus­able or often times over­looked. I’ve viewed MANY of the Japan­ese play­ers call out their own play mis­takes or man­aburn. One of Japan’s top play­ers was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a lim­ited grand prix trial on a Fri­day night and had a VERY good sealed pool. This per­son already had 3 byes for the next day’s event and was unde­feated cur­rently in the last round before the byes were awarded. He con­ceded to his oppo­nent, giv­ing the byes away, and sim­ple said that he needed more prac­tice and didn’t want to cut some­one off who would need the byes.

THIS final item is one that truly defines where we stand as play­ers, pro­mot­ers and mem­bers of the Magic world. It is, to me, what a per­son does out­side of play­ing the game. Whether it be men­tor­ing, report­ing, writ­ing or being a good­will ambas­sador, ALL of these things are impor­tant to the devel­op­ment, pro­mo­tion and gen­eral good­will of our game. When you look at a per­son, their demeanor, their actions, their prod­uct, one would hope that they’re all done with pos­i­tive inten­tion. While per­sonal gain is ok too, pro­vid­ing good advice that might help some­one achieve a dream or goal over­shad­ows whether that per­son is get­ting paid or not (at least in my opinion).

Nor­mally, I look for rea­sons to put a per­son into the Hall as opposed to find­ing rea­sons to keep them out. How­ever, I think that selec­tion should be a double-edged sword and that win­ning alone isn’t enough. It’s tough and there are lots of peo­ple that I don’t know and for that I’ll need to do some research. What I also wanted to do in con­clu­sion, was to hear what you all have to say about your favorite play­ers or the per­son you think deserves the Hall of Fame. Don’t for­get to par­tic­i­pate in our Forums with your opin­ion or feel free to per­son­ally mes­sage me. With­out fur­ther ado, con­grat­u­la­tions to ALL of the 2009 Hall of Fame Candidates:

• Ryu­uichi Arita
• Jose Bar­bero
• Chris Benafel
• Marco Blume
• David Brucker
• Franck Canu
• Tiago Chan
• Patrick Chapin — The “Inno­va­tor”. I don’t usu­ally believe in Deck Builder Hype, but “The OTHER Patrick” (as I like to call him) is a great player. I didn’t real­ize he had 100 pro points! He’s a fine ambas­sador, and com­mu­ni­cates to thou­sands of loyal fol­low­ers through StarCi­tyGames. He’s the real deal when it comes to intel­lec­tual magic AND deck theory.
• Daniel Clegg
• Kamiel Cor­nelis­sen — 1 of only 10 peo­ple to have over 300 life­time pro points!!! WTF!!!
• Jeff Cun­ning­ham
• Brian Davis
• Antonino De Rosa — A truly enter­tain­ing per­son! “Ant” beats you and gets your to smile about it. I’ve known this guy since he was a cute young lad and know that he’s become a cute OLD lad. Hard to beat his accom­plish­ments on the national level, he’s also a good person.
• Eric Froehlich
• Osamu Fujita
• Justin Gary — Never really a guy to say too much dur­ing play, Justin might have been one of THE most dif­fi­cult peo­ple to read and play against. I do recall beat­ing him with 5 Ophid­ians once, it might have been his ONLY match loss EVER. This guy knew how to play this game.
• Ger­ardo Godinez Estrada
• Mike Hron
• Masami Ibamoto
• Tsuyoshi Ikeda — Only 3 other Japan­ese play­ers are ahead of him in life­time pro points and those 3 play­ers, Shu­uhei Naka­mura, Tsuyoshi Fujita and Tomo­haru Saitou are con­sid­ered to be Legendary.
• Itaru Ishida
• William Jensen
• Scott Johns
• Craig Jones
• Mat­tias Jorstedt
• Mark Jus­tice — This guy is one of Magic’s FIRST celebri­ties. He was famous before the inter­net cre­ated famous magic play­ers and famed writer George Bax­ter made him Iconic. Justice’s rule was before Pro Tours, Pro Points and Magic Sites and his name still tran­scended the game. His decks and build­ing the­ory are still part of the under­ly­ing the­o­ries behind Mana Ramp Decks and the like. It was an honor just to play dur­ing this age.
• Frank Karsten
• Mat­tias Kettil
• Brian Kibler — Kibler wins. Period. What I think is sig­nif­i­cant about his suc­cess, is that he’s done it in dif­fer­ent eras. Not a lot of peo­ple talk about it, but AGE means a lot in Magic. It’s con­sid­ered to be a “young man’s game” and Brian has been suc­cess­ful both youth and in recent times. Per­haps we all grow and mature, but win­ning while grow­ing old and matur­ing is sweeter than wine. It takes a lot to win at Magic and Brian does it when he wants to.
• Masashiro Kuroda
• Nico­las Labarre
• Matt Linde
• Raf­faele Lo Moro
• Michael Long — EVERY sport has one. John Daly, Den­nis Rod­man, Mitch Williams, Ron Artest, Club­ber Lang they all played a huge part to their sport and it’s not always clear why. The bad guy every­one loves to hate, but has the largest fan turnout. Every sport has one of these to keep it in check. To keep the sport from becom­ing a mun­dane pool of peo­ple who look and act the same. Mike made “rules lawyer­ing” a pro­fes­sion and forced the DCI and Magic to become bet­ter at judg­ing, play­ing and orga­niz­ing. Peo­ple watched him because of his antics, what he would put on the table and pos­si­bly what he put under it. He would win, but how he would do it would always come under con­tro­versy and spec­u­la­tion. You couldn’t trust the guy when he’s across the table from you, but you’d never know it if you talked to him out­side of a match. Two things I can remem­ber from Pro Tour Paris: a Mul­li­gan rule and a Mike Long victory.
• Pierre Mal­herbaud
• Casey McCar­rel - It was dur­ing a U.S. National cham­pi­onship, early in the Stan­dard por­tion of the tour­ney. I mul­li­gan to 5 first game, 6 the sec­ond game and 6 the third game after I asked him to keep his eyes away from the deck when shuf­fling my deck. Later he was dis­qual­i­fied for stack­ing oppo­nents’ decks. First hand expe­ri­ence tells all and that’s all I can tell you about Mr. McCarrel.
• Patrick Mello
• Eivind Nit­ter
• Jin Okamoto
• Daniel O’Mahoney-Schwartz
• Steven O’Mahoney-Schwartz — They might be the ONLY sib­lings to have reached the 100 point plateau, with­out being asso­ci­ated to cheat­ing, and that MUST be cool. At least you’re never in need of a playtest­ing part­ner. These two guys were every­where you could find com­pet­i­tive Magic, and they won when they were there. Dar­win Cas­tle is in the Hall and the “broth­ers O’Mahoney-Schwarts” part­nered, teamed and won with their Castle.
• Wes­sel Oomens
• Rickard Oster­berg
• Diego Ostro­vich
• Jamie Parke
• Brock Parker
• Chris Pikula
• David Price — The epit­ome of aggro, burn and moun­tains. David Price would never lead you to believe he played magic. Nor would you ever think he won at it. When he played, how­ever, his cards would be blaz­ing. A class act and a good player.
• Michael Pustil­nik
• Neil Reeves
• Car­los Romão
• Antoine Ruel — The “Other Ruel” brother, Antoine might be the bet­ter of the two. In a team Grand Prix Colum­bus years ago, my team was faced against theirs. They sat down and began speak­ing Fran­cais. For­tu­nately for us, one of my team mem­bers spoke French flu­ently. I won’t tell you what was said, but let’s just say the match went more smoothly. It’s sad that the Ruels have con­tro­ver­sies that might over­shadow their accom­plish­ments, because I KNOW they can play magic. As I said with the O-Brothers, it’s a tremen­dous accom­plish­ment to have a sib­lings achieve 100 pro points (actu­ally Antoine has 300+ and brother Oliver has 400+). Much has been said about the Japan­ese and their tal­ent, but of the top 6 all time pro point hold­ers (where Antoine is cur­rently 6th) 4 are French!!!
• Brian Selden
• Alex Shvarts­man — THE jour­ney­man of Magic. There was a time where Alex and I were neck and neck for THE most matches played in the WORLD. I’m glad one of us was able to cap­i­tal­ize. I’ve said ear­lier that every sport has ele­ments that are the same and Jour­ney­men are a part of all sports. And, Alex has that crown.
• Bram Snep­vangers
• Ben Stark — “The Boy Genius” we used to call him here in Florida. At the pin­na­cle of Ben’s suc­cess, he took time off to play poker (as many Magic play­ers have). In my mind, he’s miss­ing the titles that would cer­tainly make him a first-balloter. But, he’s back to play­ing and win­ning. He’s THAT good.
• Hel­mut Summersberger
• Mike Thomp­son
• Jens Thorén
• Tom van de Logt
• Tomi Walamies
• David Williams — David’s fame extends into the highly her­alded realm of Poker as well. He’s a fan­tas­tic per­son­al­ity and obvi­ously a tier one thinker to go with his per­son­al­ity. After his finals appear­ance at Poker’s main event, I often won­dered if he’d lend me 20 bucks hehe. All jok­ing aside, David has accom­plished a lot. How­ever, he’s miss­ing an elu­sive title that helps. He’s still got game in him so don’t think he can’t beat you. For me the biggest pos­i­tive for David Williams ISN’T his 100+ Pro Points or his suc­cess out of the game in poker (which could be equated to being an ambas­sador), the biggest pos­i­tive for David Williams is his per­son­al­ity. One of the game’s biggest celebri­ties and one of the nicest guys.

I’ve men­tioned, to a point of read­ing, Age in magic and Sib­ling suc­cess. Magic is also a game that has many other demo­graph­ics. The FACT is that Magic is played pri­mar­ily by Cau­casians males ages 14 to 24. We often men­tion the Japan­ese, the French, this and that. While he would NEVER men­tion it, David Williams is the all time leader in Pro Points amongst African Amer­i­can or Black play­ers. I will rec­og­nize, in the same man­ner, when a woman achieves 100 points or some­one achieves 100 points AFTER their 40th birth­day. It speaks highly about our game’s diver­sity and I feel I would NOT be doing jus­tice to my posi­tion or the com­mit­tee if I didn’t rec­og­nize the dif­fer­ences in all of the indi­vid­u­als above. They’re ALL fine play­ers, but what sets them apart is what I look for. I’m not vot­ing for friends or peo­ple merely on wins alone. I’m vot­ing for peo­ple who make a dif­fer­ence AND win at Magic.

The high­lighted indi­vid­u­als are NOT my picks, I thought I might give you insight into why they may or may not be who I select and giv­ing you the why. I just wanted to say “Thanks” for read­ing and good luck. I look for­ward to hear­ing your feedback…

Lee