Magic: the Gathering 2008 Hall of Fame ballot musings

How will the change in induction criteria affect the 2008 Magic: the Gathering Hall of Fame class? Let's use historical precedent to find out. If the same method had been used for the past three classes, we would have four fewer members in the Hall of Fame at this point in time.

Here's who would have made the cut:

Year 1:
1 Jon Finkel 97.10%
2 Darwin Kastle (Mess) 62.32%
3 Tommi Hovi 52.17%
4 Alan Comer 46.38%

Year 2:
1 Bob Maher 60.01%
2 Dave Humpherys 56.78%
3 Raphaël Lévy 42.58%

Year 3:
1 Kai Budde 90.42%
2 Zvi Mowshowitz 62.28%
3 Tsuyoshi Fujita 49.74%
4 Nicolai Herzog 41.50%

Here's who would have missed out:

Year 3:
5 Randy Buehler 35.58%
Year 2:
4 Gary Wise 39.03%
5 Rob Dougherty 38.20%
Year 1:
5 Olle Råde 34.78%

So we should expect a class of 3-4 players this year rather than the five we have had for the past few years.

From the numbers above, we see that no players returning to the ballot from previous years have received 40% of the vote on any of the past ballots. Is there any hope for these older players to make it into the Hall of Fame? Actually, the answer is yes! Dave Humpherys finished ninth on the first ballot with only 19% of the vote but then skyrocketed up with a strong 57% in the second year of voting. Between the first and second year of the Hall of Fame, a players committee was added to the selection committee so you might think that Humpherys' boost was due to his popularity with the players. However, Humpherys actually received 49% of the players' vote and 60% of the selection committee's the year that he was inducted.

So what can we learn from the Humpherys case? First, I think it shows that there is still some hope for the players from the first three classes to make it in to the Hall of Fame. In addition to the players inducted in the first class, Humpherys ended up behind non-HoFers Michael Long and Mark Justice as well fellow second year inductee Robert Dougherty. Humpherys didn't really do anything between the first and second years of the Hall of Fame and he did not get a boost from the change in balloting system (though he might have been helped by some shake-up in the composition of the selection committee between the first and second years -- I'm not going to analyze each individual vote to check this). One conclusion that can be drawn is that Humpherys' jump from the first to the second year was due to Finkel, Kastle, Hovi, Comer, and Råde no longer diverting votes away from him.

So with Humpherys we have historical precedent for the five vote limit leading to a strong effect on percentage of votes received by the candidates. The fact that the five vote limit has some effect is obvious but that it has such a strong one might not be: a candidate strong enough to finish second in the balloting received only 18% of the vote in his first year. I don't see a problem with that when the number of inductees is fixed -- he just wasn't in the top five but would get in eventually. But when you remove the guarantee of five inductees, it makes the cap on votes allowed seem kind of silly. I agree with Xoomwaffle. I think if you are going to stop fixing the number of inductees the correct way to do so is to stop fixing the number of votes and just set a threshold for votes required for induction. Obviously you would not set the bar at 40% in this case. I'd say probably in the range of 70-75% would feel right. From the following statement: "We are handing over a lot of control to the selection committee and the players committee about exactly how many people deserve to go in from each class," it seems like the point is to let the committee determine how many people deserve to be in Hall of Fame but that's not what this system does. It does determine how many people get in to the Hall of Fame based on the votes of the committees, but it does so in a haphazard way (which depends on the number of good candidates) rather than giving the committees real control.

Errr, the point of this post was to look at voting history and speculate about who would get in from this year's ballot. We have gotten a little off track here. Before getting back on track, I will add while I'm discussing this funky balloting system that in coming up with the 40% mark surely those in charge of the Hall of Fame looked at the numbers I presented above. It is interesting to note that they chose the 40% mark which should lead to at least one less inductee per year rather than something like 35% which would have given the accustomed average of five players per year (4 for first year, 5 for second year, 6 for third year).

Okay, so who has a real shot at getting in this year? I'd say the following players seem to have a good shot: Ben Rubin, Michael Turian, Olivier Ruel, Dirk Baberowski, and Masahiro Kuroda. The following players also have some compelling cases but I can't see them beating out the other players I mentioned in aiming for that 40%: Patrick Chapin, Jelger Wiegersma, Carlos Romao, Ryuuichi Arita, Craig Jones, Marco Blume, Scott Johns, Bram Snepvangers, Steve O'Mahoney-Schwartz, Alex Shvartsman, and Mark Justice.

Personally, I think Olivier Ruel and Dirk Baberowski are solid. Ruel's PT top eights, life time pro points, and GP top eights speak for themselves. I think Baberowski should be a lock with 3 pro tour wins. In fact I would think two pro tour wins would be a lock for anyone but I'm not so sure about Marco Blume -- he's a little bit overshadowed having his two PT wins come in team events where his two teammates were both individual PT champions.

Rubin and/or Turian could be this year's David Humpherys. They were both close last year (35.21% for Rubin and 31.87% for Turian) and they both have strong numbers (PT top eights, lifetime pro points, Rubin's Masters successes). I give the edge to Turian because I can see him picking up some of the Randy Buehler (both current WotC employees, both from the same circle of playtesters) and Nicolai Herzog (fellow Limited master) votes from last year, whereas I'm not sure where Rubin will pick up extra votes (he also has not been as successful on tour this year as he was last year leading up to the ballot).

It's still another couple years before the real heavy hitting Japanese players make the ballot but I think Kuroda has the best chance of picking up the "Japanese vote" this year.

Of the other players, I think Wiegersma is the only real possibility. He's very popular with the players, he continues to excel at the game, and European players tend to do better than their raw statistics in the balloting. I don't understand why Shvartsman, Johns, and Justice have not made it in yet but I think they've missed the boat: Shvartsman and Johns have similar but less impressive resumes to some of the players I mentioned above and it just doesn't look like enough people respect Justice (maybe due to the shadiness of his later career). I have no idea how to analyze Chapin -- he's a solid player but he's not dominant. If he does not go in this year, at what point, if ever, will his numerous contributions to the game other than Pro Tour play pass the threshold?

With all this analysis, my predictions are....

2008 Hall of Fame inductees:
Olivier Ruel
Dirk Baberowski
Michael Turian

Near misses:
Ben Rubin
Masahiro Kuroda
Jelger Wiegersma

Rubin fails to pick up enough extra votes to get over the 40% mark. Kuroda draws a fair amount of votes but the fact that Tsuyoshi Fujita already got the first Japanese into the Hall vote last year combined with the fact that his resume is not much different from fellow countryman Ryuuichi Arita will doom Kuroda to a finish in the 30% region. Wiegersma will also show a strong finish. I could be wrong about him, but I feel he will not get as strong of a European bump due to Ruel and Baberowski also being on the ballot.

All that said, looking at the previous ballots, I can't really see any sort of pattern or consensus set of criteria for making the Hall of Fame. It's kind of a crapshoot popularity contest and I could be completely wrong. It will be very interesting to see what actually happens!