2011 Hall of Fame

I already submitted my 2011 Hall of Fame votes, 4 of them were very easy for me, but I had a really tough time picking the last one. I considered for a while just doing a "PV" thing and not submit the full 5 votes, not because I feel there aren't five names worthy of HOF but because it was so hard to come up with one.

First, my four easy votes.

Shuuhei Nakamura

Cut Shuuhei's accomplishments in half, and he would still be inducted. Because with Shuuhei almost everyone is voting for the man, and not the player.

Anton Jonsson

I voted for him last year, will do it again this year, and I believe he will make it this time. There are better persons out there to explain why voting for Anton should be a must. My personal experience with Anton is losing countless semifinals of the now extinct 9-5 queues.

Osyp Lebedowicz

I don't think I ever played or even talked to Osyp before, but he's my favourite writer, one of my favourite players to watch. As a fan at home, reading coverage, articles and watching videos I would like to have Osyp on the tour again. Isn't the HOF also about players who everyone wanted to watch for one reason or another (read Mark Rosewater on Mike Long).

However Osyp is not only a fan favourite, an entertainer. His stats are comparable to Mark Herberholz's. They're both PT Champions, have 3 and 4 PT Top 8 respectively, both have 4 GP Top 8, Osyp even won one with Affinity. But by reading other persons opinions some think Mark Herberholz is HOF eligible and very few mention Osyp which I think is kind of unfair.

I also never played Mark Herberholz before, so I can't really compare them with my former-Pro Player point of view, but as a fan, I vote Osyp over Heezy. (more on Heezy later).

Carlos Romao

Why I will always vote for Carlos Romão: If Tsuyoshi Fujita was an auto vote for most of us because of being the pioneer of Japanese Magic, Carlos Romão is the Latin American Tsuyoshi Fujita, a community lacking the resources of Japanese Magic which has and keeps producing some of the finest players around.

Tsuyoshi Fujita was inducted in this ballot. Rubin and Turian were left out, in 2007 Top 5 would make it.

1 Kai Budde 90.42%
2 Zvi Mowshowitz 62.28%
3 Tsuyoshi Fujita 49.74%
4 Nicolai Herzog 41.50%
5 Randy Buehler 35.58%

6 Ben Rubin 35.21%
7 Michael Turian 31.87%

If you voted Tsuyoshi Fujita over Rubin, Turian, or even Nico, then you should probably be voting Carlos Romao over someone else. I did voted Tsuyoshi Fujita by the way. If I remember correctly I think I voted Kai, Nico, Zvi, Fujita, Turian. After the results were announced, Jelger made me promisse to vote for Ben Rubin the following year.

Fifth Vote

I considered many names for my final vote, and eventually I decided I would vote for an American because most of the names on the list were American and more or less from the same timeline so it would be easier to compare them.

Patrick Chapin; Antonino de Rosa; Eugene Harvey; Mark Herberholz; William Jensen;

Even tough Antonino is the one I know best, he has 1 PT Top 8 while the others all have 4. I like to vote on the man over the stats, but here Antonino had to go. I was surprised, because some years ago I used to see Antonino's pictures holding a trophy week after week on the coverage.

About Heezy. I read all his recent articles, at least the non-premium ones. They were all highly entertaining. I liked the fact that not only he cared about the HOF, and he actually did something to put him back on everyone's radar. He has an impressive curriculum, seems like he's impersonating the modern days Pro Tout stereotype of a bad boy to make a point. Clearly what makes Heezy different from the other 4 on that small list his is attitude. But that's what I get from reading. I never played or talked with him before. So in my mind I kind of picked Osyp vs Heezy, but I will keep considering Heezy in future ballots.

I already talked a little about Chapin last year, so I'll focus on William Jensen and Eugene Harvey. By watching them play, I was most impressed with these two. And I did played against them and watch them play behind them. I'm sure this vote will be unfair to a dozen of other players on the ballot, but I had to choose and in the end I voted William Jensen. Let's imagine I had forgotten who I voted for, and I had to through the process again, the fifth name would probably be different.

So My 2011 Ballot

Shuuhei Nakamura
Anton Jonsson
Osyp Lebedowicz
Carlos Romao
William Jensen

Bonus section: About Steve OMS

Steve OMS is only a name for me, altough a name with a high place in Magic history. I never played him, talked to him or even saw him. I didn't read about him in the coverage and I never read anything written by him. He's just too old school for me. You have to understand that with so many players on the list that I played against, watched them play live, read their stuff, and got to know the person behind them, it's very dificult for me to vote for just a name and stats.

However, most of the community seems to be supporting Steve OMS as a deserving Hall of Famer. So many of us can't be wrong. That's why I promisse, if Steve OMS doesn't make it into the HOF this year, he will be the first name on my 2012 ballot, regardless of whoever else is in there.

Next on my Blog:

- The second part of my PT Nats report I'm almost finishing writting it
- My list of the Top 10 greatest Portuguese players of all time
- My Magic Invitational created card, the biggest Magic leak since... uh well New Phyrexia I guess!

So you have plenty of reasons to keep checking it.