Kai Budde

Finally a 44th-place finish at the World Championship in Toronto sufficed to make Kai the first double Pro Player of the Year.

Kai Budde (born 28 October 1979), is a professional Magic: The Gathering player, who holds the record for Pro Tour victories, and for a long time held the records for earnings and lifetime Pro Points.

His performances earned him the nicknames "The (German) Juggernaut" and "King of the Grand Prix".

Budde started playing Magic in 1994 when he learned about the game from fellow gamers.

As a player from Cologne he quickly became acquainted with more experienced players from the city such as later Pro Tour winner Frank Adler.

His rise to professional play coincided with that of Dirk Baberowski, another Magic player who had moved to Cologne.

Being at a comparable level of playing, both worked together to qualify for the Pro Tour.

Budde succeeded on his second attempt, thus qualifying for the 1997 Pro Tour New York.

As he had not yet turned eighteen Kai chose to attend the Junior Division of the tournament, eventually finishing among the best 32.

Afterwards, the Junior Pro Tour was discontinued and Budde was automatically qualified for the following Pro Tour in Mainz.

Kai finished 52nd in Mainz and for a while struggled to qualify for another Pro Tour but eventually managed to qualify for the 1998 Pro Tour Chicago.

Fellow player and now friend Baberowski had finally managed to qualify for the Pro Tour, too.

With these finishes Budde had racked up enough Pro Points to be in contention for the Pro Player of the Year title in the final event of the 1998–99 season.

Having not made a Pro Tour Top 8 appearance yet the leader in the Pro Player of the Year race did not consider him to be a threat, though.

Budde also won the 1999 Magic World Championship in Tokyo.

His cash winnings in six years of premier Magic: The Gathering tournaments are well over $300,000.

He has also been awarded a record four Player of the Year titles: 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003.

When Budde advanced to the final of the 1999 World Championship in Tokyo he had already secured the Pro Player of the year race.

He added the World Champion title by defeating Mark Le Pine in one of the quickest Pro Tour finals ever.

After adding an 11th-place finish at the next Pro Tour in London the rest of the 1999–2000 season turned out to be disappointing.

He was not able to make it beyond the first round in any of the newly introduced Masters events nor did he finish better than Top 64 at any of the succeeding Pro Tours.

It took Kai until November 2000 to make another final eight appearance.

A third place at Grand Prix Florence was followed by his second Pro Tour win.

The 2000 Pro Tour Chicago title made him the third player to win more than one Pro Tour, the other two being Jon Finkel and Tommi Hovi.

Winning Pro Tour Barcelona in the same season, Kai managed to surpass Finkel and Hovi to become the first player to win three Pro Tours.

In the semi-final at Barcelona Budde had even asked if he could concede to his friend Patrick Mello to make him eligible for the next Masters, but the officials had refused.

Budde also won the 2001 Magic Invitational tournament in Cape Town.

His prize was the rare opportunity to design an actual card; the result was Voidmage Prodigy.

The 2001–02 season started very well for Kai Budde with consecutive wins at Grand Prix London and Pro Tour New York.

For the Team Pro Tour New York Kai had chosen his friends Dirk Baberowski and Marco Blume, despite being able to play with virtually anybody he would have liked.

Dirk had retired from the game for some time, but Kai managed to convince him to come along for the Pro Tour.

Team "Phoenix Foundation" as they called themselves went on to become the most successful team in the Pro Tour history.

Pro Tour New York is also the origin of the saying "Kai doesn't lose on Sunday".

Kai left the game in late 2004 to focus on his studies, and his appearances in tournaments are less frequent than in earlier years.

Budde is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest Magic: The Gathering players.

He has won five individual Pro Tour titles (no other player has won more than three), and two Team Pro Tour titles (alongside fellow Germans Marco Blume and Dirk Baberowski).

In 2007, Kai Budde was inducted into the Pro-Tour Hall of Fame.

While Kai finished 19th Baberowski won the whole tournament.

After a second place at Grand Prix Birmingham Budde added three Grand Prix titles within six months.

The third one in Amsterdam even came by defeating Baberowski in the finals.