Owen Turtenwald

Owen Turtenwald
Born West Allis, WI
Nationality United StatesAmerica
Pro Tour debut Pro Tour Valencia 2007
Winnings US$111,770 [1]
Pro Tour wins (Top 8) 0 (2)
Grand Prix wins (Top 8) 3 (16)[2]
Lifetime Pro Points 280[3]

Owen Turtenwald is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He has achieved a number of accolades during his career including the 2010 Vintage World Championship and the 2011 Player of the Year.[4]

Magic: The Gathering

Owen Turtenwald first came to prominence playing the eternal formats, Vintage and Legacy. In the 2007 season, Owen made his first Top 8 and reached the finals of Grand Prix Columbus, which was contested in the Legacy format. In 2008, Owen would make the Top 8 of the Vintage World Championship.[5] At Gen Con 2010, Owen won the 2010 Vintage World Championship defeating Bob Maher, Jr. in the finals.[6][7]

Despite reaching the finals of Grand Prix Washington DC in the 2010 season, Owen claims he considered quitting, as he did not feel he was receiving enough reward for his effort.[8] However, he was persuaded to keep playing the game by an offer to join Team ChannelFireball. As of 2015, Owen writes articles and makes videos for ChannelFireball.com.[9]

In the 2011 season, Owen would make seven Grand Prix Top 8s, an unprecedented number for a single season,[10] in a wide variety of formats, including Standard, Extended, Legacy and Limited. However, Owen failed to win any of the Grand Prix events that he made the Top 8 of, a fact that was very disappointing to him.[11] Owen's success would cause him to hold the lead in the 2011 Player of the Year race for the majority of the season and going into the final event of the year, the 2011 World Championship. On the final day of the World Championship, three players were in the position to take the Player of the Year title from Owen. These players were Luis Scott-Vargas, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Josh Utter-Leyton, all of whom were also Owen's teammates as part of the ChannelFireball team. Owen noted a sense of conflict in wanting his friends to do well, but also needing them to lose if he was to take the Player of the Year title.[11] Fortunately for Owen, those three players would lose their quarterfinal matchups and Owen would win the 2011 Player of the Year title.[8] In doing so Owen became the first Player of the Year to not have made a Pro Tour Top 8 in the season they won the title.

In the 2012-13 Season, Owen started practising and preparing for tournaments with Team StarCityGames (currently known as Team Pantheon), alongside players such as Jon Finkel, Kai Budde and Reid Duke.[12][13] Shortly thereafter, Owen would make his first Pro Tour Top 8 at Pro Tour Gatecrash.[14] Owen would lose his quarterfinal match against ChannelFireball member Eric Froehlich, but still finished in 5th place in the event overall.

In the 2013-14 Season, Owen finally won a major sanctioned event when he won Grand Prix Washington, D.C, his 12th Grand Prix Top 8.[15] Owen would continue this success, winning the very next Grand Prix in Albuquerque.[16] In doing so, Owen became only the sixth player to win back-to-back Grand Prix events, the other five players to have achieved this feat being Kenji Tsumura, Kai Budde, Raphaël Lévy, Tomoharu Saito, and Yuuya Watanabe. Owen went on to finish the season with his second Pro Tour top 8 at Pro Tour Magic 2015,[17] where he lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Ivan Floch. Thanks to his 4th place finish, Owen earned captainship of the US National team for the 2014 World Magic Cup. He also qualified for the 2014 World Championship as the top ranked North American player, making him the US National Champion.

Turtenwald held the record for most Grand Prix Top 8 appearances without a win (11), until he won Grand Prix Washington, D.C. on November 17, 2013.

Accomplishments

Season Event type Location Format Date Rank
2007 Grand Prix Columbus Legacy 19–20 May 2007 2
2009 Grand Prix Minneapolis Sealed and Booster Draft 13–14 November 2009 5
2010 Grand Prix Washington DC Standard 22–23 May 2010 2
2011 Grand Prix Atlanta Extended 22–23 January 2011 8
2011 Grand Prix Denver Sealed and Booster Draft 19–20 February 2011 3
2011 Grand Prix Dallas/Fort Worth Standard 9–10 April 2011 3
2011 Grand Prix Providence Legacy 28–29 May 2011 5
2011 Grand Prix Singapore Standard 4–5 June 2011 4
2011 Grand Prix Santiago Sealed and Booster Draft 22–23 October 2011 3
2011 Grand Prix San Diego Sealed and Booster Draft 12–13 November 2011 6
2012 Grand Prix Seattle Sealed and Booster Draft 3–4 March 2012 8
2012–13 Grand Prix San Jose Team Limited 9–10 October 2012 3 [I]
2012–13 Pro Tour Montreal Standard and Booster Draft 15–17 February 2013 5
2013–14 Grand Prix Washington, D.C. Legacy 16–17 November 2013 1
2013–14 Grand Prix Albuquerque Standard 23–24 November 2013 1
2013–14 Grand Prix Barcelona Team Limited 1–2 March 2014 3
2013–14 Pro Tour Portland Standard and Booster Draft 1–3 August 2014 4
2014–15 Grand Prix Portland Team Limited 9–10 August 2014 1
2014–15 World Magic Cup Nice National team 5–7 December 2014 4

Last updated: 7 December 2014
Source: Event Coverage at Wizards.com

Notes

^I Turtenwald finished third at Grand Prix San Jose 2012 with teammates Conley Woods and Eric Froehlich,[18] and although the cutoff was to the top 2 teams instead of the usual top 4 for team events, it has been recognized as a counting Grand Prix top 8 finish by Wizards of the Coast.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Top 200 All-Time Money Leaders". Wizards of the Coast. 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Lifetime Grand Prix Top 8s". Wizards of the Coast. 2014-07-28. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
  3. ↑ "Planeswalker Points". Wizards of the Coast. 2014-08-04. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
  4. ↑ "2011 Pro Tour Player of the Year Standings". Wizards of the Coast. 23 November 2011. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
  5. ↑ Stark, Bill. "Feature: Vintage Championship Top 8 Coverage". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  6. ↑ "Gen Con 2010". Wizards of the Coast. 6 August 2010. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
  7. ↑ Turtenwald, Owen (29 October 2010). "X and Owen – Winning Vintage Worlds 2010". Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Price, Nate (20 November 2011). "Player of the Year: Owen Turtenwald". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
  9. ↑ "Owen Turtenwald". ChannelFireball.com. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  10. ↑ David-Marshall, Brian (20 November 2011). "Video Feature: Day Four Wrap-up". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Turtenwald, Owen (22 November 2011). "Owen’s a Win – Player of the Year". ChannelFireball.com. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  12. ↑ David-Marshall, Brian. "Owen Up to His Promise". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
  13. ↑ "The Team". StarCityGames.com. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "Pro Tour Gatecrash Coverage". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
  15. ↑ "Turtenwald Finally Triumphant in D.C.". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
  16. ↑ "Owen Runs it Back!". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
  17. ↑ "FLOCH IMMORTALIZED AT PRO TOUR". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 2014-11-19.
  18. ↑ "Grand Prix San Jose Round 17 Standings". Wizards of the Coast. 2012-10-14. Retrieved 2014-09-08.
Preceded by
United StatesBrad Nelson		 Pro Player of the Year
2011 		Succeeded by
Japan Yuuya Watanabe
Preceded by
Josh Utter-Leyton		 US National Champion
2014 		Succeeded by
Incumbent