right now, in my circuit, Im Da Biz!
nah, seriously though.......I am.

Omnus is really good at this game. I would say he would be every bit as competitive as any gencon champ, simply cause he seems to always see something on the game, other very good players don't see. He won regionals in the seattle area and the 150 at pax this year (the only pax event he played in was 150pt)

How old are you?The Beatles made an impact in many ways, not just music.I AM THE EGGMAN!

Oh.. Bless your !

There are several ways to answer this question. You can look at DCI ratings, Gencon top finishes, Vassal tournaments, etc. But part of the problem is that even with all of these factored in together, not all of the players will face each other very often. So it can be hard to judge accurately. And it isn't always about winning either. Unless we are talking about mirror matches between players, played multiple times, who beats who isn't always a determining point. Often you would have to actually watch a game, and the guy who loses might well have been the better player in that match.

Anyways, the guys I will mention are people I have seen play, and who I recognize as some of the top players in the game. (Understand that as a limitation to my list, not as an insult to someone left off of it).

Dean Miller - You would have a hard time beating his GVL squad with your Tier 1 :) He doesn't play the best competition locally, but it's better than a number of other people's who make the top 20 dci ratings. About 1/2 of the top DCI players, are simply Big Fish in a small pond, and some are unproven. Dean is not one of those players.

Matt Peterson - Hasn't won Gencon, but finished, 2, 3, 6, 3, 14. In those tournaments, he is a combined, 28-7, including 2 top 8 finishes in the last 3 years (only two other players have accomplished that feat - I will mention another one next).

Aaron Bruekman (sp is wrong I know) - Lobostele on the boards. Top 8 3 times (only two of us who have done it all three years, and only 3 of us have even made it twice) at Gencon. This year was 7-0 through swiss.

Deri Morgan - This year's Gencon winner, always a tough match no matter what the format, and even though he doesn't think of himself as a top player, that's only because he loses to his former roommate Tim all the time. But Deri is the real deal.

Wedge Smith. Tactically speaking, he rarely makes a mistake, or misreads the meta.

Matt Hansen - Consistently one of the top placers at Gencon year in and year out, and always a tough opponent.

There are another 15-20 I could list next, but these are some good examples at least. I would add IKG and Gren and probably other foreign players, but I am not really qualified to comment on most of them.

I'm 34. I grew up inundated by The Beatles, and my entire adult life I've been told by everybody around me how great they are. They've just always bored me. I don't like the sing song hippie pop vibe. I'm a Rolling Stones/Animals fan. As to Millions upon Millions of people can't be wrong...of course they can. Go look at the current Billboard Top 20. Thankfully some kids nowadays are actually wising up to the fact that they're really not that good.

People have been killed for less than this.

Back on topic...



Hey now! I resemble that remark.

Maybe I'll have to bring Tier 1 stuff next time to play against Carl, so I get a better idea of how lacking my tactical skills really are

Joking aside, your point re: the DCI rankings is valid. They don't take into account who is playing against who. Carl is very good, but with pairings and our group being what it is, there is no guarantee he will always be playing the best of the rest of us.

I'm sure this is also the case at other venues, more often than not.

Yes I kind of got that was the jist of the OP.

HE was kind of naming Icons in their fields.

There are tons and tons of good players out there. But in the way he asked the question I kind of pictured what he meant by the best and most well known.
I threw in the Europeans guys because they are known here and are good so I imagine they are known in Europe.

If I was making a top twenty kind of like a college football poll that would be different. But I left my list very short because I tried to picture world wide going into a game store and throwing some names out there to see who would recognize them. The ones I gave would be recognized almost anywhere.

It is not a slight on anyone else out there. I guess maybe I read too much into his original post.

Of course that's true Micky. But DCI rating is much less accurate. I remember a short time ago when the world's top ranked DCI player was nothing but a Big Fish. Carl is a much better player than this guy, and he had a ranking of like 2100 something. That's my point, DCI ranking can only be part of the picture. This year's Gencon champ Deri for example, has a ranking of 1800. I don't think that accurately reflects his skill either.

The only real measuring sticks we have are when players of top level skill face off with one another, not what someone can do in their local area. The OP asked for the best in the world, well using DCI ratings isn't a good measuring stick for that. As for your other points, they are all good evidence, just not what I would consider enough to make the claim best of the best. As far as playing at Gencon or not, well, all I can say is this. Would a golfer be considered the best in the world if he never played in the Masters, US Open, or on any major PGA events simply because he couldn't afford it? He might be better than Tiger, but he won't ever get the moniker. Not a perfect comparison by any means, but I believe a valid one.

As far as the second point, I would put the sportsmanship of any one of the people I listed against anyone you could name. None of those players are as you described. Actually, the only people I've ever played like you described, tended to be Big local Fish. And I know Carl is not like that at all, but neither are any of these people. In the end, I have to go with who has proven it. And those people made my list.