Guillaume Wafo-Tapa is a French
Magic: The Gathering player. Best known for winning
Pro Tour Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
in 2007, Wafo-Tapa's career has featured three other Pro Tour top eights, and six
Grand Prix
Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural Grands Prix), is a name sometimes used for competitions or sport events, alluding to the winner receiving a prize, trophy or honour
Grand Prix or grand prix may refer to:
Arts and entertainment ...
top eights. He is also known as a deck designer and for his strong preference for control decks. In 2014, Wafo-Tapa was voted into the
Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
Career
Beginning his Pro Tour career in 2001 at Pro Tour
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
, Wafo-Tapa first came to prominence not for his playing abilities but for his deck design. In collaboration with
Guillaume Matignon, he designed the deck used by Pierre Canali to win Pro Tour
Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
in 2005. The
following season, he had his first strong finish on the Pro Tour. Playing a deck that would later be known as Wafo-Tapa control, he finished 12th at Pro Tour
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
, missing the top eight on tie-breakers. Wafo-Tapa would play every Pro Tour that season, and earn enough points to qualify him for every event the following season. His standard deck from the World Championship, Dralnu du Louvre, became one of the defining decks in standard over the following months.
The 2007 season was Wafo-Tapa's break-out year. Following a top sixteen finish in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, he made the top eight of Pro Tour Yokohama, joining a group that featured Hall of Fame member
Raphaël Lévy
Raphaël Lévy is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He was inducted to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in November 2006. He is the first player to have been inducted while active on the Pro Tour. He is one of only six ...
, Japanese star-player
Masashi Oiso, and players like Mark Herberholz, and
Tomoharu Saito
is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players and the owner of Hareruya Store in Tokyo.
Career
Saitou debuted at Pro Tour Chicago 2000. An 83rd-place finish meant he fell just short of making money. Later the same seas ...
who had both won Pro Tours in the previous season. Defeating Paulo Carvalho and both Pro Tour Honolulu champions (Mark Herberholz, 2006, and Kazuya Mitamura, 2009), Wafo-Tapa won the tournament. With a 14th-place finish at Pro Tour Valencia, a 22nd-place finish at the World Championships, and an unremarkable 123rd place at Pro Tour San Diego, Wafo-Tapa finished third in the player of the year race.
To begin the
2008 season, he reached the top eight of a Pro Tour a second time. The Pro Tour
Kuala Lumpur
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top eight featured three other Pro Tour Champions, including Hall of Famers
Jon Finkel
Jon Finkel (born May 18, 1978)Jon Finkel 2006 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Time Spiral expansion) is an American ''Magic: The Gathering'' and poker player. Finkel is one of the most decorated players in the history of professio ...
and Nicolai Herzog. Wafo-Tapa lost his quarterfinal match to Jon Finkel, the eventual champion, without winning a single game. Wafo-Tapa's success continued through the next event, finishing 13th at Pro Tour
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
. Quick 'n' Toast, the deck he designed for the event, also became one of the format defining decks. The rest of the 2008 season was not very remarkable, with Wafo-Tapa finishing below 200th place at both the remaining Pro Tours. This trend continued through the
2009 season. He earned only ten Pro Points that year and lost his standing invitation to the Pro Tour. This did little to deter Wafo-Tapa, who went so far as to tell coverage reporter Rich Hagon that "It will be fine".
This prediction turned out to be true. While his finishes at Pro Tours
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
and
San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to:
Places Argentina
* San Juan Province, Argentina
* San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province
* San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province
* San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...
, were rather unimpressive, he made back to back top eights at Pro Tour
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
and the World Championship. Once again, Wafo-Tapa's fellow top eight competitors in Amsterdam featured multiple winners in the form of
Brian Kibler
Brian McCormick Kibler (born September 7, 1980) is an American collectible card game player, game designer, and streamer. In 2016 Kibler helped design ''Drawing Dead''. Previously, he designed Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer with Justin Ga ...
, and the German Juggernaut,
Kai Budde
Kai Budde (born 28 October 1979),Kai Budde 2005 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Ravnica expansion) is a semi-retired professional Magic: The Gathering player, who holds the record for Pro Tour victories, and for a long time held ...
. Wafo-Tapa lost in the quarterfinals a second time, to Belgian Marijn Lybaert. At the
2010 World Championship, he made it all the way to the finals before losing to long-time friend and colleague,
Guillaume Matignon.
On April 28, 2011, Wizards of the Coast announced that Guillaume Wafo-Tapa was suspended for a year and a half, until October 2012, following a confession of his involvement in the spoiling of the ''New Phyrexia'' "God Book" several weeks before Wizards of the Coast was due to commence its spoiler season. The so-called "God Book" contained a spoiler of the entire set. Wafo–Tapa's teammate
2010 Magic World Champion Guillaume Matignon received the "God Book" so that he could write an article for the French magazine ''Lotus Noir'' about the upcoming release.
Achievements
World of Warcraft TCG
Guillaume Wafo-Tapa has also had some success playing other trading card games. Wafo-Tapa took part in the
World of Warcraft TCG
The ''World of Warcraft Trading Card Game'' (''WoW TCG'') is an out-of-print collectible card game based on Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG, ''World of Warcraft''. The game was announced by Upper Deck Company, Upper Deck Entertainment on August 1 ...
2011 World Cup, a national team event, playing alongside fellow Frenchmen Raphael Ait Slimane and Laurent Pagorek in a team called 'B-B-B'. The team would make it all the way to the finals of the tournament where they were defeated by an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
team called 'The Warriors', consisting of Ben Isgur, Matt Markoff and James Kandziolka.
WOW TCG 2011 World Cup Finals Coverage
/ref>
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wafo-Tapa, Guillaume
1985 births
Living people
French Magic: The Gathering players
Sportspeople from Nantes