2002–03 Pro Tour season

Pro Player of the Year	Kai Budde
Rookie of the Year	Masashi Oiso
World Champion	Daniel Zink
Pro Tours	6
Grands Prix	21
Masters	4
Start of season	24 August 2002
End of season	10 August 2003
← 2001–02 2003–04 →

The 2002–03 Pro Tour season was the eighth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 24 August 2002 the season began with Grand Prix Sapporo. It ended on 10 August 2003 with the conclusion of the 2003 World Championship in Berlin. The season consisted of 21 Grand Prixs and 6 Pro Tours, held in Boston, Houston, Chicago, Venice, Yokohama, and Berlin. Also Master Series tournaments were held at four Pro Tours. At the end of the season Kai Budde was proclaimed Pro Player of the Year for the third time in a row.

Grand Prixs – Sapporo, London, Cleveland

Pro Tour – Boston (27–29 September 2002)

Boston saw Phoenix Foundation win once again. This put all team members on top in regards to overall Pro Tour victories as no other player had then won more than two Pro Tours. The victory was dryly commented as not surprising anyone anymore.^[1]

Final standings

Place	Team	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Comment
1	Phoenix Foundation	Dirk Baberowski	$60,000	24	4th Final day, 3rd Pro Tour win
		Kai Budde		24	7th Final day, 6th Pro Tour win
		Marco Blume		24	2nd Final day, 2nd Pro Tour win
2	2020	Steven Wolfman	$30,000	18
		David Rood		18
		Elijah Pollock		18
3	Courtney's Boys	Gary Wise	$18,000	12	3rd Final day
		Neil Reeves		12	2nd Final day
		Bob Maher, Jr.		12	3rd Final day
4	Slay Pillage Gerrard	Jonathan Sonne	$15,000	12
		Gerard Fabiano		12
		Scott McCord		12

Pro Player of the year standings

Rank	Player	Pro Points
1	Dirk Baberowski	24
	Marco Blume	24
	Kai Budde	24
4	David Rood	20
5	Elijah Pollock	18
	Steven Wolfman	18

Grand Prixs – Hamburg, Utsonomiya, Copenhagen, Philadelphia

Pro Tour – Houston (8–10 November 2002)

Pro Tour Houston featured the Extended format. The Ice Age and Mirage-blocks had just rotated out of the format along with 5th Edition, thus removing several of the former key cards from the format. Also Onslaught had become legal for Extended play shortly before the tournament. The most played deck was a "Reanimator"-deck that aimed to get a big creature into the graveyard early via Entomb. Afterwards it would try to get that one into play with Reanimate. Other much-played decks included a combo-deck revolving around Aluren and a green-black midrange control deck called "The Rock".^[3]

Justin Gary won Pro Tour Houston with a deck revolving around Oath of Druids. His teammates of "Your Move Games" (YMG), Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle, came in second and third. Instead of breaking the format with one kind of deck the YMG players in the top 8 even played all different decks, thereby losing games exclusively to one another.^[4] It was Rob Dougherty's fifth final day appearance.^[5]

Jens Thorén from Sweden won the final of the Master Series against Gary Wise.^[6]

Final standings

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Comment
1	Justin Gary	$30,000	32	3rd Final day
2	Rob Dougherty	$20,000	24	5th Final day
3	Darwin Kastle	$15,000	16	7th Final day
4	John Larkin	$13,000	16	3rd Final day
5	Peter Myrvig	$9,500	12
6	Mattias Jorstedt	$8,500	12
7	Bob Maher, Jr.	$7,500	12	4th Final day
8	Jeroen Remie	$6,500	12

Pro Player of the year standings

Rank	Player	Pro Points
1	Justin Gary	36
2	Dirk Baberowski	34
3	Bob Maher, Jr.	33
4	Kai Budde	31
5	Rob Dougherty	29

Grand Prixs – Melbourne, Los Angeles, Reims, New Orleans

Pro Tour – Chicago (17–19 January 2003)

In Chicago Kai Budde won his seventh Pro Tour. On his way to the title he defeated, William Jensen, Jon Finkel, and Nicolai Herzog, some of the most accomplished players in the game.^[8] Finkel had his tenth Top 8 showing, a feat matched even today only by Kai Budde and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa.^[5] In the Masters final Franck Canu defeated Ken Ho.^[9]

Final standings

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Comment
1	Kai Budde	$30,000	32	8th Final day, 7th Pro Tour win
2	Nicolai Herzog	$20,000	24	2nd Final day
3	Jon Finkel	$15,000	16	10th Final day
4	Dustin Stern	$13,000	16
5	Eugene Harvey	$9,000	12
6	Fabio Reinhardt	$8,500	12
7	Bram Snepvangers	$8,000	12	2nd Final day
8	William Jensen	$7,500	12	2nd Final day

Pro Player of the year standings

Rank	Player	Pro Points
1	Kai Budde	64
2	Dirk Baberowski	42
3	Bob Maher, Jr.	40
4	Justin Gary	38
5	Nicolai Herzog	34

Grand Prixs – Hiroshima, Sevilla, Boston

Pro Tour – Venice (21–23 March 2003)

Osyp Lebedowicz won Pro Tour Venice with a white and red deck revolving around the Cycling mechanic. It was the second-most popular deck at the tournament trailing only the deck played by his opponent Tomi Walamies in the final. Walamies played a red deck with a Goblin theme.^[11] The Masters was won by the Japanese team "PS2".^[12]

Final standings

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Comment
1	Osyp Lebedowicz	$30,000	32	2nd Final day
2	Tomi Walamies	$20,000	24	2nd Final day
3	Jordan Berkowitz	$15,000	16
4	William Jensen	$13,000	16	3rd Final day
5	Gabriel Nassif	$9,000	12	2nd Final day
6	Darwin Kastle	$8,500	12	8th Final day
7	Akihiro Kashima	$8,000	12
8	Mattias Jorstedt	$7,500	12	2nd Final day

Masters – Team Rochester Draft

	Quarter-finals					Semi-finals					Finals
	1	Jokas
	8	PS2	2
						PS2		2
						Panzer Hunters
	4	Panzer Hunters	2
	5	Phoenix Foundation
											PS2		2
											2020		1
	2	Outland
	7	2020	2
						2020		2
						Courtney's Boys
	3	Courtney's Boys	2
	6	Illuminati

Team	Player		Team	Player
2020	David Rood		Outland	Nicolai Herzog
	Steve Wolfman			Eivind Nitter
	Elijah Pollock			Bjørn Jocumsen
Courtney's Boys	Gary Wise		Panzer Hunters	Reiji Andou
	Neil Reeves			Kazuyuki Momose
	Bob Maher, Jr.			Itaru Ishida
Illuminati	Alex Shvartsman		Phoenix Foundation	Kai Budde
	Zvi Mowshowitz			Dirk Baberowski
	Patrick Sullivan			Marco Blume
Jokas	Eric James		PS2	Masahiro Kuroda
	Kyle Rose			Katsuhiro Mori
	Norman Woods			Masahiko Morita

Pro Player of the year standings

Rank	Player	Pro Points
1	Kai Budde	69
2	Dirk Baberowski	48
3	Osyp Lebedowicz	47
4	Justin Gary	46
5	Bob Maher, Jr.	42

Grand Prixs – Kyoto, Singapore, Prague

Pro Tour – Yokohama (9–11 May 2003)

Making the final eight for the third time this season Mattias Jorstedt won Pro Tour Yokohama. Jon Finkel also made another Top 8 appearance thus extending his lead in this category to eleven.^[15] In the final of the last Masters tournament Bob Maher, Jr. defeated Gabriel Nassif.^[16]

Final standings

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Comment
1	Mattias Jorstedt	$30,000	32	3rd Final day
2	Masashi Oiso	$20,000	24
3	Tsuyoshi Ikeda	$15,000	16
4	Jon Finkel	$13,000	16	11th Final day
5	Benjamin Caumes	$9,000	12
6	Jose Barbero	$8,500	12
7	Ben Seck	$8,000	12
8	Richard Hoaen	$7,500	12

Pro Player of the year standings

Rank	Player	Pro Points
1	Kai Budde	72
2	Mattias Jorstedt	60
3	Dirk Baberowski	52
4	Osyp Lebedowicz	51
5	Justin Gary	49

Grand Prixs – Pittsburgh, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Detroit

2003 World Championships – Berlin (6–10 August 2003)

German Daniel Zink won the 2003 World Championship, defeating Jin Okamoto from Japan in the finals. Both players played manaheavy control decks built around Mirari's Wake. Kai Budde was declared Pro Player of the year for the third time in a row as none of his pursuers made significant points at this tournament. The United States won the national team competition, defeating Finland in the finals.^[17]

Final standings

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Comment
1	Daniel Zink	$35,000	32
2	Jin Okamoto	$23,000	24
3	Tuomo Nieminen	$15,000	16
4	Dave Humpherys	$13,000	16	5th Final day
5	Jeroen Remie	$9,500	12	2nd Final day
6	Peer Kröger	$8,500	12	3rd Final day
7	Wolfgang Eder	$7,500	12
8	Gabe Walls	$6,500	12

Pro Player of the year final standings

After the World Championship Kai Budde was awarded his fourth Pro Player of the year title.

Rank	Player	Pro Points
1	Kai Budde	80
2	Justin Gary	64
	Mattias Jorstedt	64
4	Dirk Baberowski	58
5	Bob Maher, Jr.	56

References