My Hall of Fame Ballot
As I mentioned last week, the Level 4 judges have been added to this year's Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame Selection Committee, an unexpected honor and pleasure. I've spent some time pondering my selections, and I want to share my reasoning and thoughts on the players who made—and didn't make—the cut on my ballot.

The Hall of Fame balloting rules outline five voting criteria: performance, play ability, integrity, sportsmanship, and contribution to the game. To my mind, performance is like rules knowledge for an L3 candidate: it has to be a baseline. You succeed or fail in the other categories, but you have to have the numbers to be considered in the first place. There are 66 players eligible for votes; perhaps a dozen have a combination of Pro Points, high finishes, and consistent results that make them reasonable considerations (This ballot is the first to feature the results of a rule that eliminates candidates after three successive ballots with less than 10% weighted score, so the list won't continue to grow with consensus non-HoFers).

As a judge, I feel that I have to weigh the integrity component more heavily than other voters. Particularly given that I'm voting to extend a permanent invitation to the Pro Tour, I'm sending an implicit endorsement of a player not just as a historic member of the Magic community, but as an asset to the Tour. It's easy for me to reject Mike Long for these reasons. At the same time, I respect the ability of players to grow as people and put their past behind them, so I'm comfortable with Bob Maher's place in the hall (Pat Chapin, apparently, claims that Mike has changed considerably for the better. I'd be willing to give Mike a second consideration if he publicly repudiated some of the less palatable parts of his approach to the game and put up some decent results at events where he was clearly well-behaved).

The most well-rounded candidate on this ballot, and in my opinion a disappointing omission from last year's class, is Mike Turian. A more pleasant, soft-spoken, good-humored winner, you would be hard-pressed to identify anywhere on the Pro Tour. Mike has the wins to justify his position, impeccable sportsmanship, and has contributed to the game both by building respect for the complexity of the game and his work as a member of Magic R&D. Like Randy Beuhler, Mike won't be immediately eligible to make use of his invite, should he win it, but he has earned it.

The second player on my ballot is in the rare air of players with 300+ Pro Points. Jelger Wiegersma has a Pro Tour victory and a pair of GP wins, spread out over an impressive span of time. Along with his Von Dutch teammates Kamiel and Jeroen, he helped define the Netherlands as a powerhouse of Magic gaming. And his recent GP win suggests that this is not simply a game for college students.

My third vote goes to a player I butted heads with a few times in my first year of judging high-level events. His occasionally glacial pace of play has earned him a decent share of slow play cautions and warnings, which are not always received gracefully, but the care and attention with which he approaches the game, and his work as a deckbuilder, has earned Ben Rubin a reputation as a great player from his earliest days as one of the youngest pros on the Tour.

My fourth vote is for Justin Gary. Randy Buehler and I have very different opinions on a number of Hall-related matters, but he makes an excellent case for Justin's performance. I will add only that Justin is the kind of friendly, easygoing personality that I believe is a credit to the Tour, and I would love to see him turning up again and trying to find his former form.

The last vote is the toughest, not because I'm conflicted between two of the remaining candidates, but because it clearly belongs to one player, and I'm not yet sure if I can bring myself to vote for him. Olivier Ruel, without question, has the numbers on every other player on the ballot. And in all honesty, Oli has been one of the most fun players to watch for many years. Charming, silly, gracious in victory and defeat, he is a player that you want your locals to emulate.

However, Oli's career is not without some tarnish. He's been DQ'd three times in high-level play, for three different reasons, and served a six-month suspension. There's some level of chatter to suggest that a portion of the pro community believes he's been caught less often than might be warranted. If there was a clear indication of whether he is a white hat or a black hat mage, this call would be easy. But every incident has come with admissions of guilt and explanations that he never meant ill. How long does that story play? I want to believe him. But I don't want to endorse shady or sloppy play, even (or especially) from the graceful and charming.

So I believe that I will spend the rest of the month talking with pros and judges, trying to get a sense of Oli's approach. If I convince myself that he really is sincere about his mistakes, he'll get my vote. If I don't get a sense, or (perhaps more likely) if I just find myself lacking convictions, I believe I will leave that space on the ballot empty.

It's Oli's space, whether he gets the vote or not.

Thanks for reading. Until next time... keep shufflin'.