Kai Budde's performances earned him the nicknames "The Juggernaut" and "King of the Grand Prix".
24 Facts About Kai Budde
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Kai Budde is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest Magic: The Gathering players.
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Kai Budde has won five individual Pro Tour titles, and two Team Pro Tour titles.
4.
Kai Budde has been awarded a record four Player of the Year titles: 1999,2001,2002, and 2003.
5.
Kai Budde won the 2001 Magic Invitational tournament in Cape Town.
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Kai Budde's prize was the rare opportunity to design an actual card; the result was Voidmage Prodigy.
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In 2007, Kai Budde was inducted into the Pro-Tour Hall of Fame.
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Kai Budde started playing Magic in 1994 when he learned about the game from fellow gamers.
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Kai Budde's rise to professional play coincided with that of Dirk Baberowski, another Magic player who had moved to Cologne.
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Kai Budde succeeded on his second attempt, thus qualifying for the 1997 Pro Tour New York.
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Kai Budde finished 52nd in Mainz and for a while struggled to qualify for another Pro Tour but eventually managed to qualify for the 1998 Pro Tour Chicago.
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Kai Budde added the World Champion title by defeating Mark Le Pine in one of the quickest Pro Tour finals ever.
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Kai Budde was not able to make it beyond the first round in any of the newly introduced Masters events nor did he finish better than Top 64 at any of the succeeding Pro Tours.
14.
Dirk had retired from the game for some time, but Kai Budde managed to convince him to come along for the Pro Tour.
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Less than two months later Kai Budde added another Pro Tour title, this time in New Orleans.
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Kai Budde is still the only player in the game to have won back to back Pro Tours.
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In between, Kai Budde had won the Invitational which gave him the chance to create a Magic card of his own design.
18.
Only a week after Nice, Kai Budde won the German Nationals, securing another title he had not won before and thus making the national team.
19.
Kai Budde managed to make a few more Top 8 appearance at Grand Prixs, among those a victory at the then biggest Magic tournament ever at Madrid, but he found less success after 2004.
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Kai Budde managed an undefeated first day at Pro Tour Philadelphia in the following season, but was quickly eliminated from the event afterwards.
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Kai Budde has since been considered to be retired from Pro Play although he has shown up for a Pro Tour from time to time.
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In 2010 Kai Budde made his tenth Pro Tour top 8 in Amsterdam, and in 2011 he made his fifteenth Grand Prix top 8 in Paris.
23.
In 2023, Kai Budde made another Top 8 at Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings in Barcelona.
24.
On June 29,2024, it was announced that Kai Budde was diagnosed with cancer years prior and that things had taken a turn for the worse.