The Return of the Hall of Fame

We just witnessed the first Pro Tour in a long time with a Limited top 8. I haven't gone back to watch the draft, as I've been so burnt out from Marvel Limited that I can't comment on how the draft went. I know Yuuki Ichikawa, a long-time Pro Tour mainstay, hoisted the trophy in the end.

Yuuki not only won the Pro Tour, but he may benefit from one of the most exciting announcements — reinstatement of the Hall of Fame.

The new rules are simple. There's a minimum of five top finishes from some of the most prestigious tournaments to get on the ballot. Unfortunately, not all top finishes are weighed equally.

In addition to the five top-finishes requirement, candidates have to receive 60% of the vote from a hand-selected group of 40 voters to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

There's a shortlist of players on the ballot. Let's take a look below.

Javier Dominguez

Marcio Carvalho

Ken Yukuhiro

Jean-Emmanuel Depraz

Ondrej Strasky

Andrea Mengucci

Brad Nelson

Jan-Moritz Merkel

Sam Pardee

Andrew Cuneo

Yuta Takahashi

Yuuki Ichi Kawa

Akira Asahara

Eduardo Sajgalik

Logan Nettles

Mike Sigrist

Matt Nass

Shahar Shenhar

These are the names on the ballot in order of top finishes. Hey! That's me on there. But don't worry, I'm not getting in any time soon.

This is a list of truly incredible players. While I do not have a ballot, and as far as I know, no one on the ballot has a vote, which is a good thing, I'll break down who would be on my ballot and why.

1. Javier Dominguez

Javier has been nothing short of dominant for nearly a decade now. My career mostly started in 2015 when I first got back into the game and returned with a roar, winning Player of the Year during my first full year on the tour. At the time, Javier was a relatively unknown player. I first played against Javier the following season deep into Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. I was impressed by how fast he played and how well he processed the complicated board state, especially not knowing him at all.

It didn't take long after that for Javier to rack up more accolades than anyone, except maybe Seth Manfield, winning Worlds twice since then as the hallmark of his finishes. To me, any two-time World champ should eventually be in the Hall of Fame. For years, I said I'd vote for Shahar the second he was eligible on back-to-back Worlds wins and not PT top 8s. An accomplishment like this is so rare that it deserves to be celebrated. There are far more people with five or six PT top 8s than there are double Worlds winners. Javier is one of them, in combination with all-time top-five stats.

Javier is a slam dunk.

2. Ken Yukuhiro

The last time I was allowed to vote, Ken was sixth on my ballot. I didn't vote for him because I knew from talking with friends who weren't voting for him that he didn't have a shot at getting in. I found him worthy then, and he's put up three Pro Tour top 8s since, including a win.

Ken usually brings a unique deck to events and is an unbelievable deck builder. My fondest memory of Ken involved testing for Worlds one year. I was playing on a burner MTGO account, so he didn't know it was me, but I knew it was him. I must have played him ten times in leagues. He played the exact list he brought to Worlds, a Mono Blue Flash deck. I played Dimir Midrange with The Scarab God, and we played some epic games. I learned a lot playing against him and tuned my deck for the matchup. Of course, I got to battle him again on day one. I lost a close match, which was how many matches on MTGO played out, as it was a tough matchup.

I had the instinct to cut Glint-Sleeve Siphoner from my main deck before the event because of Goblin Chainwhirler's dominance. Ultimately, I decided not to because I thought there would be some control. I knew Ken would bring this deck, and I felt comfortable against RB Midrange.

Ken's one blemish on his resume is from this tournament, in which he got DQd for not pointing out he drew a sideboard card in game one against Shahar in a top 4 win. This was a harsh penalty. It taught him a lesson, but it was a reason why some wouldn't vote for him at the time.

I never held this lapse in judgment against him, but it was reasonable at the time to wait and see how things played out. I haven't heard anything similar since then, and with many years under his belt, his reputation is stellar. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who has played as long as he has who hasn't had an awkward situation happen.

Pros highly regard Ken as one of the world's best deck builders. It's unusual to see players with that title also have results as good as his.

Ken is another slam-dunk candidate who I'd be shocked if he's not selected.

3. Jean-Emmanuel Depraz

JED is one of the best players I've ever had the pleasure of watching. He has finished in the Worlds finals multiple times and has played fantastically each time I've seen him.

He has a unique mind for the game, but his biggest handicap is his deck choices. He often plays decks that perform poorly at Pro events, yet still has a longer list of accolades than most could ever dream.

I remember this issue standing out in MPL's first year. During my first time playing against Jean, he played his pet Phoenix deck, which was incredibly bad in the format. Despite this, his familiarity with the deck enabled him to overperform. I recall thinking it would be a bye for me because of his deck choice. I did win, but the match was much tougher than I anticipated.

There's a shortlist of people I've watched play or played against where it almost hurts when I notice they're better than me. The following is a list of players who have impressed me in this manner.

Ben Stark: We were both around 16 years old and knew each other online. We talked at a team Pro Tour and played a game waiting for rounds. He played so well, clean, and fast. For literally the first time in my life, I felt outclassed by my opponent. At the time, I had played against all the best players in the world, including Jon Finkel, but Ben impressed me the most, likely due to a combination of his talent and age.

Luis-Scott Vargas: When I have watched LSV and played against him at Grand Prix, his incredible processing speed and accuracy have felt unfair. No one has ever doubted how great Luis is, and he outperforms expectations.

Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa: The first time I played against Paulo was in a testing house side draft. En route to the house, Jacob Wilson and I discussed a Pro Tour fantasy draft, killing time by selecting the entire team.

Paulo was the last pick in the fantasy draft. He had been silver the prior year, and we expected that he was washed and didn't play anymore.

In the house draft, it took me less than a game to realize that he's one of the best players, if not the best player, whom I've ever played against. He made a weird play on turn four that I asked him about. Six or seven turns later, he gave a brilliant, well-thought-out explanation about his reasoning for the play. There were plenty of other players in the house who I thought would make me feel outclassed. None of them did, except for Paulo.

There may be another name or two I could add to this list, which has become a bit of a tangent, but you can see what I mean about JED. He is in an elite class of players who are World Champions with robust results to back up their reputations — and who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

While I wouldn't be shocked if JED misses this round, I would be disappointed.

After my first three choices, it gets more complicated. There are many deserving names on this list, almost all of whom have dedicated so much time, energy, and effort to this game and have been incredible ambassadors for the game.

There are two names I'm going to float who are both reasonable for induction into the Hall of Fame.

4b. Marcio Carvalho

Marcio is no doubt one of the best to have ever played the game. He almost has enough accolades to get into the Hall of Fame twice. Unfortunately, Marcio has a checkered past, and many players believe he should be eliminated from induction forever.

Personally, I like to see the good in people, and I hope they can learn from their mistakes and better themselves. To me, people who do that are worth honoring and celebrating. One problem is Marcio, who was banned many years ago, broke trust that most players won't ever forgive. If it were up to me, I'd probably wait another cycle because of the massive backlog of deserving players, and I'd let him in if he remains clean. I believe anyone caught cheating or similar while in the Hall of Fame should be permanently banned, but that is not the case here, and his infraction was well over a decade ago.

I like Marcio. We get along, so I may be a bit biased. Similar to Ken from years ago, I would not put Marcio's name on a ballot because I don't think he has a chance to get in currently, as a large swath of voters will never vote for him.

4a. Sam Pardee

Sam is a close personal friend of mine. I am biased, but it's my job to hype Sam up because of this relationship.

Sam doesn't have all the flashy Worlds wins and such like other Hall of Fame contenders. He has one "fake", as self-described by Sam, top finish, which is a MOCS top 4 in a 16-person event that cut to the top 2. However, he has a win and has shown consistently that he's one of the best players in the game.

There was an old pro I respect, I believe Paul Rietzl, who once said that he considers whether there was ever an argument for that person to be the best player in the world when voting for Hall of Fame induction. If I held anything against voting for Sam, it would be that he never lined up like this for me, but he did play in a tough era with Seth, Javier, JED, Paulo, etc. Sam definitely could have been in the top 3 for many years. However good you think he is, I assure you he's better.

Sam is not only incredible on the field, but he's one of my favorite people I've ever met off the field. He's genuinely kind-hearted, generous, and happy at all times, which is something I try to emulate myself.

I once asked Sam if he could try to get me a PT-stamped card during one of the first PTs I missed. He didn't respond to me or "ya ya'd" me. I love stamped cards and asked for some common that wasn't a Constructed staple. I believe it was Deduce. I didn't expect him to actually get it.

Then one day, a package arrived at my house with no return address. It was marked as coming from Denver, so I suspected it was from Sam, Matt, or both.

Inside the package, there was a puzzle box. It took me around 10 minutes to figure it out and open it. When I did, I found a bunch of crumpled-up cards. There was Basic Mountain Origin art (the crappy landbox basics I used in the finals of PT Origins), a foreign-stamped Longtusk Cub (the card I made the biggest blunder of my career with in the top 8 of PT Ixalan), and of course, the stamped Deduce.

This is the kind of person Sam is. He will go so far out of his way to make people happy that it feels impossible to keep up.

This translates over to Sam as a teammate. My first real testing team was face-to-face games. It was a small team with Sam, Alex Hayne, Jacob Wilson, Jon Stern, Josh McClain, and Dave Shiels as the core members.

Dave put in a word for me to get on the team. I tested with them from that point on. Without a doubt, Sam was the most important member of the team. He didn't speak without confidence and knowledge. He always had a good grasp of both Constructed and Limited. Whenever anyone was uncertain about a deck choice, Sam was the person we trusted.

Sam is probably my favorite teammate ever and one of my favorite people. To boot, he has recently achieved dominant stats, and he's someone I'd want to honor.

I really hope Sam can sneak in, and I think his reputation can help get him there.

I believe there are a few viable selections from the rest of the list. The voting will be tough, especially with how the system works. Let's say there are ten or so players who could have made it in past years. Three of these are a cut above the rest, and then the rest of the players are fighting for that last slot, so the votes will trip over each other. Fifteen voters may write down Sam, ten may choose Ondre, five Mengu, five Marcio, and so on.

I would love it if induction into the Hall of Fame were just meeting a specific number of top finishes, rather than also including that players are voted in based on intangibles. I would have increased the number to seven or eight top finishes and inducted everyone who met that threshold at the next ceremony.

The TLDR of this post is that my ballot would be:

1. Javier

2. Ken

3. JED

4. Sammy P

There is a list of at least five or so other players who I believe have had finishes good enough to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I hope that we continue to see the maximum number of players this year and the next cycle. PT champ Yukiro Ichikawa, Yuta Takahashi, and maybe Ondrej Strasky are all valid picks, as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see any of their names written down, but unfortunately, I doubt any are selected for induction this time.