Owen Turtenwald

Owen Robert Alexander Turtenwald is a former American professional player. His greatest accomplishments include the 2011 and 2015–16 Player of the Year titles, five Pro Tour top eights, and five Grand Prix wins. In 2016, he was voted into the Hall of Fame.

Professional play
Turtenwald started playing Magic at a young age, having been taught by the owner of the local card shop. He first gained prominence as a player of Eternal formats - Legacy and Vintage - and his first success at the professional scene was at Grand Prix Colombus 2007, where he piloted a Legacy Goblins deck to a second-place finish. He thus qualified for his first Pro Tour, PT Valencia, where he took an Extended version of the Goblin deck to an 18th-place finish. In the following Pro Tour seasons, Turtenwald played several Pro Tours without quite making it onto the gravy train. He later stated that he was about to quit during the 2010 season due to performing poorly and not getting rewarded for the work he was putting in. But he joined ChannelFireball, which helped elevate his game, and by the end of the season, he'd achieved level 5 in the Pro Players Club.

The 2011 season started well for Turtenwald; he made the top eight of the season's first event, Grand Prix Atlanta, and followed it up with a 12th-place finish at Pro Tour Paris two weeks later. Turtenwald finished in the top eight of six additional Grand Prix events that year - at Denver, Dallas, Providence, Singapore, Santiago, and San Diego - equalling Ryan Fuller's record of seven GP top eights in a single season. When he finished 33rd at the World Championships and Luis Scott-Vargas failed to win his quarterfinal match, Turtenwald became the 2011 Player of the Year, the first to do so without making the top eight of at least one Pro Tour during the season they won. Turtenwald's title contributed to Platinum status in the Pro Players Club following the 2012 season, and qualified him for the inaugural 2012 Players Championship (later renamed the World Championship), where he finished 10th.

In early 2013, Turtenwald joined the team now known as The Pantheon, and at PT Gatecrash, he finally advanced to Sunday play at a Pro Tour, finishing 5th after losing to Eric Froehlich in the quarterfinals. Turtenwald renewed his Platinum membership, but came a few points short of qualifying for the 2013 World Championship. The 2013–14 season proved to be better, as Turtenwald won his first two Grand Prix tournaments, with back-to-back wins at Prix Washington, D.C. and Albuquerque, finished in the money at all four Pro Tour events; he finished 55th, 15th, and 29th at the first three, and then concluded the season with his second Pro Tour top eight appearance at PT Magic 2015, where he placed fourth after beating Patrick Cox and losing in the semifinals to eventual champion Ivan Floch. He finished runner-up in the Player of the Year race behind Jérémy Dezani. This qualified him for the 2014 World Championship, where he ended up in 13th-place; and he captained the United States national team to a fourth-place finish at the 2014 World Magic Cup.

A good start to the 2014–15 season, where he won Grand Prix Portland alongside Peach Garden Oath teammates Reid Duke and William Jensen, and finished 11th at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir, saw him take an early lead in the Player of the Year race. He would eventually be surpassed by multiple players, ending the season in 13th-place, but qualified for the 2015 World Championship. This would be the start of a great season for Turtenwald. He finished second behind Seth Manfield at Worlds, and then made his third Pro Tour top eight at PT Battle for Zendikar. He took his fourth Grand Prix title at GP Houston 2016, and scored four additional GP top eights. Despite his performances, he came into the last Pro Tour of the season, PT Eldritch Moon, trailing Seth Manfield in the Player of the Year race by 13 points, needing a top eight finish to have a shot at the title. Turtenwald started the event 11–1, but lost the next three matches, needing to win the last to clinch top eight and the PotY title. After being down a game against Daniel Cathro, Turtenwald came back and won, claiming both a top eight berth and his second Player of the Year title, becoming only the second player to win two, after Kai Budde and Yuuya Watanabe. Turtenwald eventually finished second in the event after dispatching Yuuta Takahashi in the quarterfinals and Luis Scott-Vargas in the semifinals, but losing the final match to Lukas Blohon. Turtenwald was also revealed to have been voted into the Hall of Fame as a member of the 2016 class alongside Yuuya Watanabe, having won 70.9% of the votes.

2016–17 was a comparatively quiet season for Turtenwald, although two Grand Prix top eights with the Peach Garden Oath, including a win at GP Cleveland 2017, along with a couple of solid Pro Tour finishes (18th and 32nd), were sufficient for Platinum membership in the Pro Players Club for the sixth season running, as well as qualification for the 2017 World Championship, where he finished eighth. In 2017–18, although he was never very deep in the Player of the Year race, Owen reached the top eight of a Pro Tour for a fifth time, at PT Dominaria, and thanks to overall stellar, if not flashy, finishes, renewed Platinum membership and qualification for the 2018 World Championship. This tied Turtenwald with Yuuya Watanabe and Reid Duke when it comes to number of post-2012 World Championship events played in, with six. Turtenwald finished at a very disappointing 21st-place at that tournament; however, Turtenwald's team's performance at the season's Pro Tours was good enough to qualify them for the Team Series taking place simultaneously, where they ended up taking down the Hareruya Latin team to claim the title. In December 2018, it was announced that Turtenwald would be one of the 32 players joining the upcoming 2019 Magic Pro League.

Controversy
On March 27, 2019 Magic Esports Twitter suddenly announced that Turtenwald wouldn't be participating in the Mythic Invitational for which he previously had been invited, and that he was replaced with Brian David-Marshall. No reason was given. Three days later unconfirmed rumors surfaced that Turtlewald had been behaving in an inappropriate manner towards female players.

On April 25, 2019, it became clear that Turtenwald was removed from the Magic Pro League altogether. He was replaced by Autumn Burchett.

Other achievements

 * Class of 2016 Hall of Fame member
 * 2011 Player of the Year
 * 2015–16 Player of the Year
 * 2010 Vintage World Champion
 * 2014 United States national champion
 * 2016 United States national champion