One of the world’s greatest card players passed away a few days ago at the age of 46. Kai Budde was the international “Magic the Gathering” icon. The 1999 and 2002 World Champion still holds the record for the most Pro Tour victories today. He shaped the MTG landscape as a pro from 1997 to 2004 and as a person until today like no other player. Through his successes, his appearance as “The German Juggernaut”, but above all through his creativity and personality, Budde brought masses of players into contact with the trading card game in its competitive form. In the poker scene, too, Budde, who grew up in Cologne and Hamburg, inspired many players who dared to make the leap to pro based on his example.
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Magic the Gathering World Champion, Record Holder, Hall-of-Famer
The star of Hamburg-born Kai Budde rose in the Magic sky in 1997 when he qualified for the (Junior) Pro Tour for the first time. Already in the following year, he made a mark internationally with several tournament successes and was thus able to qualify for the 6th Magic the Gathering World Championship, which was held in Yokohama (JPN). There, he became the first German Magic player to win the title, at just 19 years old. He achieved this with his legendary Red Artifact Wildfire Deck.
What followed were a total of 7 Pro Tour victories (13x Top-8), a mark that remains unmatched to this day. 5 times he won solo (3x Constructed, 2x Limited), 2 times in a team (2x Limited) with the “Phoenix Foundation”. Not only do the Pro Tour victories represent a record, but his 7 Grand Prix victories (15x Top-8) are also a record that still stands today. No other player has dominated the Magic scene between 1998 and 2004 like Kai Budde did, and perhaps no one ever will again.
Budde was known not only for records, but also for putting more love, time, and thought into the card game than anyone else. In his time, there was no one who tested and tried out his decks as extensively as the German – and that without computer simulations, but against Magic players of all kinds or himself. It was probably a mixture of the knowledge of having prepared everything down to the smallest detail and his balanced personality that he acted so calmly yet determinedly at the table and was always absolutely sure of his decisions. His combos, planned for months, were playfully absolutely devastating, even if he almost always spoke of having had card luck in the winner interviews. This was also the case, for example, in his World Championship final victory, which he achieved 3:0 in under 20 minutes of playing time … another record for eternity.
In May 2002, Kai Budde became German Champion, a title that had been missing from his collection until then. As a result, he also became part of the German national team that competed in the World Championships in Sydney in August of the same year. Here he showed once again what a team player he was and led the team around Mark Ziegner and Felix “xflixx” Schneiders to victory.
On the final days of the big tournaments, Kai Budde was almost unbeatable, which made the phrase “Kai doesn’t lose on Sundays” a household word. The consistency of the Cologne resident by choice at the top international level was also reflected in the Pro Tour points collected, for which he regularly set record marks. In 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003, he became Pro Player of the Year.
