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We are going to try something new today. I want to begin a series of articles were I discuss decisions made at Wizards of the Coast. Topics will range from set design, to the premier events, to today's topic: the Pro Player Cards.

I guess I should start off by saying that I love the Pro Player Cards! I have collected over three hundred of them, and have autographed ones by Murray “The Mauler” Evans, Eugene Harvey, Masashi Oiso, Jeroen Remie, and even StarWarsKid (FYI: he doesn't even have his own card!). I tried to get Osyp to sign one, but he refused. I cried myself to sleep that night… maybe one day he will love me enough to sign one. Until then, I can only dream... Why, Osyp? Why?

Since Wizards announced that the Pro Player cards will be back in Time Spiral I have been as giddy as a schoolgirl. Not one of those Catholic schoolgirls, mind… just a regular public school one. But what should Wizards do with the cards this time? Are there changes that should be made to the layout? The information? The overall look? Who should be immortalized with their own Pro Player card this time around?

Well, I'm here to tackle all the issues that I know have been eating away at your innards.

I think that the front of the cards was a good first attempt. However, I would make some changes. I would recommend that they add “Time Spiral,” or the Time Spiral logo, so it is easier to distinguish the different series. I think it would be cooler to distinguish the series by block than by year or just numbers (i.e. series 1, series 2), because this is how Magic Players identify time. For example: whenever you ask someone when they first started playing Magic, they never say “1998,” or “2000.” They say “Urza's Saga” or “Invasion.” I myself say that I started in Legions not in January 2003. The other thing that should be added to the front of the card is major titles from 2005: for example, Player of the Year, World Champion, PT Champion, and Rookie of the Year.

The last change that I recommend is that they also produce foil versions of the Pro Players cards. Collecting all twenty-five was too easy, but if I had to collect twenty-five foil Pro Player cards… now that's a challenge.

This is where Wizards got a lot of criticism last time. It was entirely their own fault, by choosing to lead with Antonino's card. However, they have admitted that they handled it poorly, so let's move on. Now that the public is used to the idea of the Pro Player cards, the photos they choose should be less of an issue. That said, I still think that De Rosa's pose was a little over the top, but having action shots is a great way to distinguish the cards. As I look though the Ravnica series, four players are standing there with their arms crossed, and seven are there with their hands on their hips. Boring!

By comparison, I think the best five photos, in order, belong to:

Antoine Ruel
Osyp Lebedowicz
Masahiko Morita
Tsuyoshi Fujita
Jose Barbero

The biggest change that has to be made to the backs is the “stats” they listed. First they need to be split into 2005 season, lifetime, and maybe their best overall season. This will allows us to get a better sense of the player's career. The categories used for the Ravnica series were: Winnings, PT Top 8, GP Top 8, and Pro Points. So what other categories could we use? I think best categories to use are Money Finishes and average placing. Money Finishes could even be a combined result for Grand Prix and Pro Tours. Average Finish is just a neat stat that gives us a sense of the player's consistency on the year and throughout his career. I also feel that there should be a section below the stats that lists the last five premier event titles (PT, GP, Nationals) that the player has won. I liked the blurbs that Wizards produced on the players, and I would like to see them continued.

Now that we have covered the layout of the cards, the big question is…

Before we look at who should get a card, how about we remind ourselves who has one:

Tim “Turbo” Aten
Jose Barbero
Kai Budde
Pierre Canali
Kamiel Cornelissen
Antonino De Rosa
Murray “The Mauler” Evans
Tsuyoshi Fujita
“The Eugenius” Eugene Harvey
Dave Humphreys
Itaru Ishida
Anton Jonsson
Brian Kibler
Masashiro Kuroda
Osyp “No, I won't sign your Pro Card, and I hate all Canadians” Lebedowicz
Raphael Levy
Bob Maher
Masahiko Morita
Gabriel Nassif
Julien Nuijten
Masashi “Nut High” Oiso
Jeroen Remie
Antoine Ruel
Olivier Ruel
Terry Soh

ASIDE: I don't know if this story has been told, but Raphael Levy made one of the ballsiest plays ever last year. Raphael showed up at Worlds the day before the tournament without a deck. Now, most players would look around and bum a spare deck off a friend… not Raphael. He decided that he wanted to play Battle of Wits, and was going to build the deck, from scratch, the day before Worlds. He went to every player he knew, and a bunch he didn't, looking for cards for his deck. After a while, word spread amongst the players that some crazy guy showed up without a deck and was trying to build a 250-card Battle of Wits from scratch. As players heard about this they'd go and check if this story was true, and sure enough it was. When players found him, they'd chuckle to themselves and then ask if they could help. Raphael ended up getting the deck together mainly on word of mouth and the generosity of other players. I personally lent him two Final Judgments. So, to Raphael Levy, I salute you for the ballsiest play of 2005.
END ASIDE

What criteria should we use to determine who gets a card? I think we need to use a combination of a player's performance and their personality. In my mind, this is similar to the Writer's Ballot for the Invitational. You have to remember that these cards are meant to promote both the Pro Tour and the game of Magic itself; therefore you should be choosing players who accomplish this goal. The other thing to consider is this: should anybody be an automatic inclusion? I would argue “Yes”… the World Champion, Player of the Year, and Rookie of the Year should all get their own card. On top of this each of the most recent inductees into the Hall of Fame should also get their own cards.

For the Ravnica series Wizards also included three Rising Stars, and I think this should continue. Rising Stars should be people who made their first pro tour in 2005 or 2006 and have shown some success thus far.

Now that we have all that out of the way, lets move on to making some dreams come true and handing out some cards!

First, the auto-includes:

Jon Finkel – Hall of Fame
Darwin Castle – Hall of Fame
Olle Rade – Hall of Fame
Tomi Hovi – Hall of Fame
Alan Comer – Hall of Fame
Kenji Tsumura – Player of the Year
Katsuhiro Mori – World Champion
Pierre Canali – Rookie of the Year

I am still undecided as to whether or not I think Pierre should have a second card printed, but I am trying to stick to a plan so I guess he is in.

Now let us look at all players who got to fifty Pro Points last year, as they clearly meet the performance criteria:

Player	Country	POY 2005	Players Club
Kenji Tsumura	Japan	84	6
Olivier Ruel	France	83	6
Masashi Oio	Japan	80	6
Katsushiro Mori	Japan	69	6
Shuhei Nakamura	Japan	67	6
Tomohiro Kaji	Japan	64	5
Gadiel Szleifer	USA	62	5
Tsuyoshi Fujita	Japan	61	5
Frank Karsten	Netherlands	61	5
Shu Komuro	Japan	57	5
Antoine Ruel	France	55	5
Geoffrey Siron	Belgium	54	5
Akira Ashara	Japan	51	5
Masahiko Morita	Japan	51	5
Antonino De Rosa	50	5	0

Shuhei Nakamura
Tomohiro Kaji
Frank Karsten
Shu Komuro
Geoffrey Siron
Akira Asahara

With so many worthy players that have not yet had cards, I will not be reprinting any players in Time Spiral (other than Pierre, obviously). These players all had outstanding years and had not previously been rewarded with a Pro Player Card. Frank Karsten won the Fanatic Vote, and was a finalist at Worlds, and I understand that he writes weekly for some Magic-related website. Geoffrey Siron won a Pro Tour in historic fashion.

ASIDE: I was at London for Siron's historic 9-0 romp on Sunday, and one moment stands out more than any other. It was game 3 of the semi-finals and Siron was up 2-0 on Johan Sadeghpour. The game started and it was all Sadeghpour; Siron was just trying to stabilize the board. At one point Siron had his Undying Flame, including epic, countered by Moonlit Strider. Eventually Siron began to stabilize; he drew Red and White Honden but was down nineteen to eight at this point. Another attack brought Siron to one. Yes, boys and girls, Geoffrey Siron was down nineteen to one during his historic Pro Tour victory. The game ended a turn later and Siron was victorious! How?

Johan conceded after drawing a blank, and knowing he had no outs to double Honden. Technically the life totals were nineteen to five at that point, but I will always remember it as Siron opponent scooping up while at the happy end of a nineteen to one life tally.
END ASIDE

You will note that I have not included Gadiel Szleifer, and this is because in my conversations with him he said that he was glad he didn't get a card the first time out. Because of this, I assumed that he would want one this time around either, so I left him off the list. Don't worry Gadiel, no need to thank me!

Since I said that there should be Rising Stars, let's get them out of the way next…

J. Evan Dean
Julian Goron
Maximillian Bracht

Did you seriously think I wouldn't include myself? Besides, if I get a card then “Turbo” Tim Aten won't have to worry about having the least Winnings on a Pro Card anymore. Also, if you can't promote yourself in your own articles, then when can you?

Julian Goron was second in the Rookie of the Year standings last season. He won French Nationals and has already made two Grand Prix finals this season. An impressive resume he is building up for himself, no?

Maximillian Bracht finished tenth in the Rookie of the Year standing and had a twentieth place finish at Pro Tour London. This season he's made Top 8 at Grand Prix Lille and Pro Tour Honolulu. He is also one of only two Germans on the Gravy Train (Pro Club Level 3 or higher).

Hold on, is this right? Of the twelve non-Hall of Fame cards so far, I'm the only North American player to get a card? That can't be right... Luckily, there are a host of North Americans coming up!

Richard Hoaen
Mark “Heezy” Herberholz
Jon Sonne
Gabe “the Godfather” Walls
Neil Reeves
Sam Gomersall [Erm… excuse me? – Craig, an Englishman like Sam.]
Jelger Wiegersma [The Netherlands are calling, they'd like their player back. – Craig]

Richard Hoaen is, in my opinion, the best Limited player in the World. He should have had a card the first time round. Let's take a look at how he has done in the forty-card format over the last couple of years:

GP: Richmond – February 2006 - 1st
PT: London – July 2005 - 20th
GP: Detroit – April 2005 - 2nd
PT: Nagoya – January 2005 - 11th
PT: San Diego – May 2004 - 12th
PT: Amsterdam – January 2004 - 10th
PT: Yokahama – May 2003 - 8th
PT: Chicago – January 2003 - 22nd

Nice run. The only question with Rich is whether they can find a photo of him without a hat, hoodie, or headphones…

Did you know that Heezy won a Pro Tour? It's true! Did you know that was his third Sunday appearance? Did you that he is the self-proclaimed villain of the Pro Tour, and his goal is to put Jeff “ffeJ” Cunningham on permanent tilt? How's is going so far, ffeJ?

Did you know that I like questions? Did you know that I can do this all day? Did you know that this is annoying me as well? Did you know that I don't actually care?

Jon Sonne is an interesting case. Jon won a pair of Grand Prix titles last year, was in the finals of Grand Prix Richmond against Rich. He was also a member of the greatest team to have never won (Team USA 2005). There is no doubt that Jon Sonne is a great player, but I challenge anyone to get more that five words out of him at a Pro Tour or Grand Prix.

ASIDE: Jon Sonne reminds me of a story I once heard about former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge was once asked by his Vice President why he often sat silently through interviews: "Well, many times I say only 'yes' or 'no' to people. Even that is too much. It winds them up for twenty minutes more." In another incident his wife, Grace, recounted that a young woman sitting next to Coolidge at a dinner party confided to him she had bet she could get at least three words of conversation from him. Without looking at her he quietly retorted, "You lose."
END ASIDE

Remember what I said about personality? Gabe Walls has is spades. At Pro Tour Honolulu a couple of guys and I were lounging at the beach (jealous?) when Gabe's name came up. After sharing a couple of stories, we decided that he is the Godfather of American Magic. Everything flows through Gabe. Whether it Pros living in his house in Indy or organizing the Beach House in Hawaii, Gabe has had a hand in it.

As Anton Jonsson once said… “We're all Neil's barns.” Let's see what BDM has to say about Neil Reeves, as he may be a bigger fan of Neil than I am of Billy Moreno…

BDM on Neil Reeves (from MagictheGathering.com):
“Neil Reeves came out of retirement to make a run at a U.S. Nationals that saw him make the team - a team that went all the way to the Finals at the World Championships. He made the most of his scant Pro Tour appearances last season with the capper being a Top 24 at Worlds and a Top 64 in Los Angeles. A single Grand Prix appearance also yielded his one Grand Prix Top 8 appearance in Austin.”

I actually don't know a lot about Jelger Wiegersma, but he did get thirty-six points last year, and only failed to money in one Pro Tour. He is the highest-ranked active pro - in terms of Pro Points - without a card. That's good enough for me.

Well, that's twenty-four cards… We need one more player. It feels like I'm missing someone, but who could it be?

There is only one choice for the twenty-fifth card…

What can be said about Billy Moreno that has not already been said? Billy Moreno is a Constructed genius! In the last two Constructed Pro Tours he has finished second and eleventh; only Antoine Ruel has done better. He finished fifth in the Rookie of the Year standings, and is one of the funnest (yes, “funnest!”) players around. Billy always has a smile on his face, and never seems to take the game too seriously.

He is the future of American Magic… and the future is now.

I've always wanted to say something like that, about anything. Here's another one:

Adam Morrison is the future of the Porn ‘Stache… and the future is now.

Hey, this is fun! Let's try it again:

Angelina Jolie is the future of the milf… and the future is now.

Back to Billy…

He took a lot of criticism over some misplays against StarWarsKid at Pro Tour LA, but people fail to remember that, sure, he didn't play his best match in the semi-final… but he must have played very well in the previous sixteen rounds to get himself there.

In fact, I've written a poem about Billy Moreno… want to hear it? Haha, you don't actually get a vote, so here it goes:

Billy Moreno, he's so fine,
Tapping and attacking all the time…
No one's better on this whole planet,
He's so good, I just can't stand it.

That was awesome!

There we have it. Twenty-five new Pro Player cards with an improved layout. If Wizards does not use every one of my suggestions… then they're crazy, and clearly I need to be put in charge of the whole company.

Until next time, I wish that you all open a foil Billy Moreno card at the Time Spiral pre-release.

J. Evan Dean