Demonic Tutor

Magic: the Gathering in the UK

Hey Dan,

 

Due to being in China (facebook, twitter, etc. etc.). I will put my comment here. I agree completely with your voting criteria of voting only for the most deserving, I think basically that anyone who didn't vote for finkel/budde deserves to have their vote taken away for playing the system. That said, there are 2 people you MUST vote for on this ballot:

 

1) PV (no explanation required)

 

2) Kenji Tsumura

Kenji is technically one of the best magic players who has ever played the game (easily in most players top 5 lists, at his peak, was in most people's top 3). He was also a great deck designer, one of the key players responsible for the Japanese GW Ghazi-Glare deck that destroyed Worlds in... 2005? Kenji was also one of the best amabassadors for the game, he was the first Japanese player to really try to bridge the culture gap between West and East. Finally, a vote for Kenji WOULD actually make a difference, he has had to cut back on his play in recent years due to study, but still plays the occassional gp, and you see his influence on Japanese deck design from time to time and he is still a well respected member of the community.

 

The next question to ask, is how you see the hall. Do you want to prioritise highly skilled players? Players who have contributed to the community? Players who shaped the way we see the game today? Because of high ranking in each of these categories, I think there is one person you SHOULD vote for:

 

3) Shuuhei Nakamura

Has played the game for a long time, previous player of the year, Platinum PPC, a dedicated player who has consistently played on the PT and consistently placed highly for nearly a decade. Writes on CFB, as the only Japanese author, and plays a big part in the Japanese pro magic scene. Most of the voters for this award are English speaking, and only see the soft sided, quiet side of Shuuhei, and given his record, it's frankly pretty disgraceful he wasn't voted in last year.

 

That leaves 2 votes, and these depend on your priorities:

In terms of skill, the best 3 players are:

Mike Long (*)

William Jensen (Finkel said so!)

Masashi Oiso (there are many Japanese on this list, but they dominated the game in these years)

 

Community Association:

Patrick Chapin (obvious)

Gerry Thompson (*, because no really consistent PT finishes but one of the deck designers who often breaks formats: Thopter Depths, Delver, a key person in the development of dredge as a deck etc. etc.)

Gerard Fabiano (would take too long to explain this here)

 

My vote: I personally like the story of the PT, I like characters and people who have helped to build the history of the game, through great rivalries, trailblazers, etc.). I would personally vote for:

Alex Shvartsman

Its difficult to imagine what the PT was like in the early days. People staying in isolated testing groups, before the advent of the internet, and basically didn't travel much outside of PTs. Alex was THE first person to travel widely to play magic. For several years he did "play the game, see the world" playing GPs non stop. This doesn't sound that impressive today, but one of the reasons the pro culture exists is because Alex came back to the US, and wrote about how amazing his adventures were. One of the reasons mtg took off in Japan was because of players (Alex first, others later) coming to GPs, interacting with the players, and basically making friends with them and including them into the community. He was the first real ambassador of the game, and so I think deserves a vote.

 

Mike Long

Firstly, make no mistake, there are disadvantages to this vote. He probably won't get in this year, so it might be a wasted vote, he is a pretty obnoxious human being, and would probably have been banned multiple times if he played today (although I don't think he would have attempted so much cheating with better enforcement of rules). However, he was a) one of the first celebrities to ever play the game (even if people loved to hate him), b) one of the most decorated and highly skilled players of magic's early year, c) someone who might actually come out of retirement given the vote, which would greatly increase the entertainment on the PT, d) a figure that is really legendary and captures the imagination (often larger than life!) in only the way that Finkel or Budde can. Chapin or Jensen might be safer votes, but I would vote for Long.

 

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Peter, Shuuhei did make it in last year.

PV, Oiso and Kenji  seem to be the 3 that have to be voted for this year.  I assume they will all make it without much hassle.

Not sure if anyone else can get enough of the vote this year, maybe Chapin and or GerryT?  But I dont think the quite have the results to get there.

P.S. Congrats Dan.

according to the website of wizards he didn't :S

Oiso then for 3rd pick, for all the shuhei reasons, with yasooka moving up into oiso' slot

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/halloffame.aspx?x=mtgevent/ho...

Maybe you can see the updated site through firewall?

He was top of the ballot on 2011 HOF class.  Shuhei Nakamura, Anton Jonsson, and Steve O'Mahoney-Schwartz.

I stood in front of a giant poster of Shuuhei at Worlds.  He definitely got in.  I think he was almost certainly top of the voting.

PV, Kenji, Chapin, GFabs, and probably Oiso as the last slot.  But you've already researched it deeper than I have.

vote for Da Rosa then leave the other slots blank, obvs

PV & Kenji definitely, will wait for the rest of the potentials before deciding on the rest. I'm 50/50 on Chapin, mainly because of his out of game "achievements" 

What a horrible use of my 5 votes, no.

Cheers everyone else for the discussion/suggestions though!



Philip Dickinson said:

vote for Da Rosa then leave the other slots blank, obvs

Yea... I don't think that is particularly relevant to what I am judging on here, which is contributions to the game of Magic, which I don't think anyone will argue are not excellent.

Paul Hodgson said:

PV & Kenji definitely, will wait for the rest of the potentials before deciding on the rest. I'm 50/50 on Chapin, mainly because of his out of game "achievements" 

Just because he had a  witness murdered before they testify against him doesn't detract from the fact that he builds a mediocre control deck every season. 

(P.S. I think you should vote for him)


Dan Barrett said:

Yea... I don't think that is particularly relevant to what I am judging on here, which is contributions to the game of Magic, which I don't think anyone will argue are not excellent.

Paul Hodgson said:

PV & Kenji definitely, will wait for the rest of the potentials before deciding on the rest. I'm 50/50 on Chapin, mainly because of his out of game "achievements" 

(Because he has your family tied up in a basement.)

Thom Richardson said:

Just because he had a  witness murdered before they testify against him doesn't detract from the fact that he builds a mediocre control deck every season. 

(P.S. I think you should vote for him)


Dan Barrett said:

Yea... I don't think that is particularly relevant to what I am judging on here, which is contributions to the game of Magic, which I don't think anyone will argue are not excellent.

Paul Hodgson said:

PV & Kenji definitely, will wait for the rest of the potentials before deciding on the rest. I'm 50/50 on Chapin, mainly because of his out of game "achievements" 

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