Reid Duke

Reid Duke is an American professional player from Sugar Loaf, New York. He won the Magic Online Championship in 2011. He has four Pro Tour top eight finishes, at PT Journey into Nyx, PT Eldritch Moon, PT Rivals of Ixalan, and Mythic Championship Cleveland 2019. Other results include a runner-up finish at the 2013 World Championships as well as wins at GP Nashville 2012, GP Miami 2013, GP Portland 2014, GP Oakland 2016, GP Louisville 2017, and GP Cleveland 2017. He also was a columnist for Magicthegathering.com, writing the article series "Level One". These were also released as an e-book.

Professional play
Reid Duke started playing in 1995, at age five, with his brother Ian Duke, who is now a member of the Magic R&D at Wizards of the Coast. For a time, he was primarily a Magic Online player, but made the transition to in-person competitive play. He qualified for Pro Tour Amsterdam 2010 via rating, and won a Magic Online Championship Series (MOCS) event to qualify for the 2010 Magic Online World Championship, where he finished 5th, as well as the 2010 Magic: The Gathering World Championships in Chiba, Japan. Although his finishes in his first Pro Tours were unspectacular, he has not missed a Pro Tour since Amsterdam 2010.

Duke first experienced success at paper Magic in 2011, when he reached the top eight of two Grand Prix events: Grand Prix Providence, where he finished fourth, and Grand Prix Montreal, where he finished fifth. He also won another MOCS event to requalify him for the Magic Online Championship, this year held in San Francisco concurrently with the 2011 World Championships. Duke ended up winning the event, defeating Florian Pils in the final. This qualified him for the inaugural Players Championship event (later renamed the Magic World Championship). At Pro Tour Dark Ascension in Honolulu, Duke finished in the money at a Pro Tour for the first time, placing 38th. From here, he would go on to finish in the money in eight consecutive Pro Tours. He also won his first Grand Prix when he defeated Todd Anderson in the final of Grand Prix Nashville. He has since 2012 been a part of the team now known as The Pantheon, alongside players such as Jon Finkel, Kai Budde, and Gabriel Nassif.

The 2012 Magic Players Championship did not go well for Duke; he finished the event with a 2–10 record, taking last place. Following this failure, Duke made it his mission to redeem himself by qualifying for next year's event and putting up a better performance, even going so far as to write down the mistakes he made in the tournament. Thanks to three Grand Prix top eight finishes, in Charleston, San Antonio and Quebec City, as well as stellar performance on the Pro Tour, he succeeded in requalifying for the World Championship when he finished 9th at Pro Tour Dragon's Maze in San Diego. He finished the 2012–13 season on 52 Pro Points, which was also sufficient for Platinum membership in the Pro Players Club.

Duke started the 2013–14 season well, winning his second Grand Prix, at GP Miami. Duke went on to dominate the Swiss rounds of the 2013 World Championship, finishing in first place before the knockout rounds. Duke faced Josh Utter-Leyton in the semifinals, defeating him 3–2. He was considered a substantial favorite against his final opponent, Shahar Shenhar, and did indeed take a 2–0 lead in the best-of-five match, but Shenhar came all the way back to beat Duke 3–2 in an upset. Duke thus took second place in the event. He put up three more Grand Prix top eight finishes during the season, in Detroit, Barcelona and Philadelphia, before finally posting a top eight performance at a Pro Tour. At Pro Tour Journey into Nyx in Atlanta, Duke finished fifth, losing in the quarterfinals to Yuuki Ichikawa. At this point, he was in position to win the 2013–14 Player of the Year title, but ultimately this was won by Jérémy Dezani. He was also overtaken by teammate Owen Turtenwald for captainship of the United States national team at the 2014 World Magic Cup when the latter made the top eight of the final event of the season, Pro Tour Magic 2015.

The 2014–15 season started well for Duke, with him and his Peach Garden Oath teammates Owen Turtenwald and William Jensen winning the very first Grand Prix of the season, Grand Prix Portland. At the 2014 World Championship, however, Duke posted a modest 14th-place finish, and his Pro Tour results throughout the season were average. He managed to reach two Grand Prix top eights, in Singapore and Montreal, towards the end of the season to retain Platinum status, but he did not qualify for the 2015 World Championship. In February 2015, Duke almost won a MOCS event for the third time, but lost in the final.

After failing to qualify for the 2015 World Championship, Duke had a much better 2015–16 season that included Grand Prix top eight finishes in Detroit; Quebec City; Washington, D.C.; and Barcelona, plus a win at GP Oakland. He was in the running for Grand Prix Player of the Year for almost the entire season, but ultimately the title went to Brian Braun-Duin. Duke still qualified for the 2016 World Championship, however, as his Pro Tour finishes were stellar. He came close to a second top eight at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar, but lost in the last round to finish 19th. He would still get his second Pro Tour top eight, as he finished seventh at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, the last event of the season.

2016–17 was also a strong season for Duke. He posted his fifth and sixth Grand Prix victories, at GP Louisville and at GP Cleveland (as a member of the Peach Garden Oath), and while he didn't add to his tally of Pro Tour top eights, he posted stellar finishes, including a 10th-place, a 20th-place, and a 37th-place. This resulted in third-place overall in the Player of the Year race, and as the highest ranking American, qualification to the 2017 World Magic Cup as a member of the United States national team, where they finished 13th. Duke had strong Pro Tour finishes in 2017–18 as well, cashing all events and posting his third Pro Tour top eight at PT Rivals of Ixalan. Towards the end of the season, Duke was in a three-person race for the Player of the Year title, but ultimately, his competitors, Seth Manfield and Luis Salvatto, finished ahead of him. However, Duke's team's performance at the season's Pro Tours was good enough to qualify them for the Team Series finals in Las Vegas, where they ended up taking down the Hareruya Latin team to claim the title. In December 2018, it was announced that Duke would be one of the 32 players joining the 2019 Magic Pro League.

In 2019, Duke was voted into the Hall of Fame. Because he finished in the Top 20 in the 2019 Magic Pro League, he could continue in the 2020 Season.

Other Magic-related work
Reid Duke was a Star City Games columnist from December 2010 to January 2014, at which point he started producing content for ChannelFireball in the form of articles and Magic Online videos. He was also a columnist at Magicthegathering.com, writing the article series "Level One" in 2015. In recent years, he has been a frequent color commentator at Grand Prix coverage, including Grand Prix Richmond 2018, where he famously both played the event and provided play-by-play commentary, and all of his matches were covered.