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 PrixSapporo. 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.
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]
Prize pool: $200,100
Players: 363 (121 teams)
Format: Team Sealed (Odyssey, Torment, Judgment) – first day, Team Rochester Draft (Odyssey-Torment-Judgment) – final two days
Head Judge: Nat Fairbanks[2]
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]
Justin Gary's deck, named Turbo Oath, was designed to get a huge Cognivore into play with Oath of Druids quickly. The deck and sideboard was mainly blue, but also included black and green.
Turbo Oath by Justin Gary – Pro Tour Houston 2002[7]
Main Deck:
Sideboard:
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
2 Cognivore
4 Counterspell
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Foil
2 Forbid
3 Force Spike
2 Intuition
1 Krosan Reclamation
2 Living Wish
1 Mana Leak
4 Oath of Druids
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Forest
7 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
2 Underground River
4 Yavimaya Coast
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]
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]
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]
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]
Kai Budde
Masashi Oiso
Steven Wolfman
Neil Reeves
John Larkin
Peter Myrvig
Mattias Jorstedt
Jeroen Remie
Nicolai Herzog
Tomi Walamies
Gabriel Nassif
Jose Barbero
Ben Seck
United States (Justin Gary, Gabe Walls, Joshua Wagner)
Finland (Tomi Walamies, Tuomo Nieminen, Arho Toikka)