Owen Turtenwald

Owen Turtenwald
Born	West Allis, WI
Nationality	American
Pro Tour debut	Pro Tour Valencia 2007
Winnings	US$221,820 [1]
Pro Tour wins (Top 8)	0 (4)
Grand Prix wins (Top 8)	4 (21)[2]
Lifetime Pro Points	418[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, the 2011 and 2015/2016 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, Turtenwald made his first Top 8 and reached the finals of Grand Prix Columbus, which was contested in the Legacy format. In 2008, Turtenwald would make the Top 8 of the Vintage World Championship.^[5] At Gen Con 2010, Turtenwald 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, Turtenwald 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, Turtenwald writes articles and makes videos for ChannelFireball.com.^[9]

In the 2011 season, Turtenwald would make seven Grand Prix Top 8s, an at the time unprecedented number for a single season,^[10] in a wide variety of formats, including Standard, Extended, Legacy and Limited. However, Turtenwald 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] Turtenwald '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 Turtenwald . These players were Luis Scott-Vargas, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Josh Utter-Leyton, all of whom were also Turtenwald 's teammates as part of the ChannelFireball team. Turtenwald 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 Turtenwald , those three players would lose their quarterfinal matchups and Turtenwald would win the 2011 Player of the Year title.^[8] In doing so Turtenwald 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, Turtenwald 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, Turtenwald would make his first Pro Tour Top 8 at Pro Tour Gatecrash.^[14] Turtenwald would lose his quarterfinal match against ChannelFireball member Eric Froehlich, but still finished in 5th place in the event overall.

Turtenwald held the record for most Grand Prix Top 8 appearances without a win (11), but in the 2013-14 Season, Turtenwald finally won a major sanctioned event when he won Grand Prix Washington, D.C, his 12th Grand Prix Top 8.^[15] Turtenwald would continue this success, winning the very next Grand Prix in Albuquerque.^[16] In doing so, Turtenwald 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. Turtenwald 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, Turtenwald 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.

Turtenwald, alongside teammates William Jensen and Reid Duke, won Grand Prix Portland, the very first event of the 2014–15 Season. At Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in Honolulu later that year, Turtenwald looked poised to make his third Pro Tour top 8, but he got paired down against Yuuya Watanabe in the last round and lost, finishing 11th in the event.^[18] At the 2014 World Championship, he finished 13th, but at the 2014 World Magic Cup, he captained the US National team to a fourth-place finish, losing to Greece in the semifinals. Turtenwald ended the season on 55 points, good enough for Platinum status in the Pro Player Club, and an invitation to the 2015 World Championship.^[19]

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
2015–16	Grand Prix	Detroit	Team Limited	15–16 August 2015	3
2015–16	Worlds	Seattle	Special	28–30 August 2015	2
2015–16	Pro Tour	Milwaukee	Standard and Booster Draft	16–18 October 2015	5
2015–16	Grand Prix	Atlanta	Sealed and Booster Draft	13–15 November 2015	2
2015–16	Grand Prix	Houston	Standard	27–28 February 2016	1
2015–16	Grand Prix	Washington, D.C.	Team Limited	12–13 March 2016	3
2015–16	Grand Prix	Minneapolis	Standard	28-29 May 2016	6
2015–16	Pro Tour	Sydney	Standard and Booster Draft	August 5–7, 2016	2

Last updated: 30 May 2016
Source: Event Coverage at Wizards.com

Notes

^I Turtenwald finished third at Grand Prix San Jose 2012 with teammates Conley Woods and Eric Froehlich,^[20] 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. "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. 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. 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. "FINAL STANDINGS". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 2015-08-03.
19. "2015 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP COMPETITORS". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 2015-08-03.
20. "Grand Prix San Jose Round 17 Standings". Wizards of the Coast. 2012-10-14. Retrieved 2014-09-08.