Gabriel Nassif

Gabriel Lillian Nassif is a French professional Magic player, often regarded as one of the best Magic players of all time. He was the 2004 Player of the Year, and has won two Pro Tours: PT Atlanta 2005 and PT Kyoto 2009.

Professional play
Gabriel Nassif first qualified for the Pro Tour in 2000 at the age of 16, when he finished 45th at Pro Tour Chicago. One year later, he got his breakout performance with a runner-up finish at Grand Prix London, followed up with a runner-up at PT New York 2001, his second Pro Tour, alongside teammates Amiel Tenenbaum and Nicolas Olivieri. From then on, he was a fixture on the professional circuit, and did not miss a single Pro Tour until Pro Tour Nagoya 2011.

In the early 2000s, Nassif established himself as one of the top players in the world, and became particularly well known as a standout deckbuilder, usually designing his own decks for events. In 2003 and 2004, Nassif finished in the top eight of three Constructed-only Pro Tours, including runner-up finishes at PT New Orleans and PT Kobe, and ultimately became the Player of the Year after placing seventh at the 2004 World Championships, overtaking Nicolai Herzog's two Pro Tour wins. Nassif thus became the first player other than Kai Budde to win the title since Jon Finkel did it in 1999–00.

Nassif had by then gained a reputation as a notorious silver collector, having finished runner-up at three Pro Tours, a Grand Prix, and a Masters, but having never won a premier event. That changed in 2005, as Nassif joined forces with Canadian former professional players David Rood and Gabriel Tsang, and together they won the Team Limited Pro Tour in Atlanta, which was Nassif's sixth PT top eight. Over the next few years, Nassif's commitment to the game diminished, pursuing a career in Poker instead, but he did finish in the top eight of both the 2006 and 2007 World Championships. In the semifinals of the 2006 World Championships against Makihito Mihara, Nassif opted to tap out for Proclamation of Rebirth instead of holding up mana to gain life with Martyr of Sands, which allowed Mihara to go off with his Dragonstorm deck and win. At the 2007 World Championships, Nassif faced friend and teammate Patrick Chapin, with both players on the same Mono-Red Dragonstorm combo deck. In game four, 1–2 down, Nassif mulliganed to four, but famously survived against all odds against Ignite Memories. However, Chapin came back and won the fifth and deciding game, ultimately finishing 2nd in the event.

At Pro Tour Kyoto 2009, Nassif piloted a 61-card 5-Color Control deck all the way to victory. In the quarterfinal, against Matteo Orsini-Jones, with the match tied 2–2, Nassif needed to topdeck Cruel Ultimatum to take the match, and famously did so in a called shot. Nassif then defeated Akimasa Yamamoto before facing Luis Scott-Vargas, winner of the previous non-Worlds Pro Tour, in the final. In what has been considered one of the best-ever matches on live webcast, Nassif won 3–2 and became a two-time Pro Tour champion, at the time the 7th in the history of the game. After this result, most pundits regarded Nassif as the clear third-best player of all time, behind only Jon Finkel and Kai Budde.

With the win in Kyoto and a win the following weekend at Grand Prix Chicago, Nassif was in prime position to win another Player of the Year title. However, with professional Magic not being prioritized, he was overtaken later in the season, and ultimately Yuuya Watanabe took the title. In the following years, Nassif continued to go to most Pro Tours, but his commitment to the game decreased substantially. Despite this, he achieved strong results such as 10th-place at PT Return to Ravnica and 13th-place at PT Dragon's Maze.

For years, Nassif and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa were considered essentially tied for the title of third-best player of all time. But at PT Battle for Zendikar, Damo da Rosa picked up his 10th top eight, and many considered him to have overtaken Nassif's position on the list of all-time great players. In an article after the Pro Tour, Nassif stated: "This might be the motivation I needed to start taking Magic seriously again" And Nassif indeed returned to being a full-time Magic player, becoming a popular streamer and creating regular articles for ChannelFireball. He has not posted any additional top eight finishes at the Pro Tour level, but has posted several high-profile finishes in a short amount of time, including 16th at PT Aether Revolt, 18th at PT Rivals of Ixalan, and 5th at PT 25th Anniversary. The latter, alongside teammates David Williams and Eric Froehlich, is not regarded as a Pro Tour top eight due to it being a team event, where top four is considered the equivalent of a regular Pro Tour top eight. Later that year, Nassif posted his first Grand Prix top eight in nine years when he finished runner-up at GP Lille.

As a Top 4 Challenger, he won a place in the 2020 Magic Pro League.