Class of: 2006
Hometown: Framingham, Massachusetts
Debut: Pro Tour-New York 1996
Career winnings: $123,502
Lifetime Pro Points: 226

• Cornerstone and founder of Your Move Games
• Five Pro Tour Top 8s, with a team win at D.C. 1999 with YMG's Darwin Kastle and Dave Humpherys
• One of the game's top deck designers
• Instrumental in New England Magic scene as player, store owner, and tournament organizer

Rob's induction covers all three players from Your Move Games, the winners of the first team Pro Tour in Washington, D.C. Rob has not only been playing the game since before the beginning of the Pro Tour, he has been nurturing and growing it as a store owner and tournament organizer. Somehow he still found the time to make five Pro Tour Top 8s, be one of the top Constructed deck designers in the game, and be part of one of the most dominating finishes in a Constructed Pro Tour ever by a single team.

Perhaps splitting votes with teammate Dave Humpherys from committee members who did not want to vote for all three YMG members on the same ballot, Rob found himself just missing the class in Year One. He was nervous but optimistic about his chances for this season, and will certainly be playing in Paris in addition to accepting his ring.

"I did very well in the voting last year, so I was hopeful... nervous, but hopeful," Rob said. "Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is such a great honor, I can't imagine not being there."

The tour has come a long way since that first stop in New York. Dougherty thought back on that process and the luck he had in making it into the field.

"They didn't have qualifiers for the first Pro Tour," he said. "You had to call Wizards on the phone and sign up. I dialed the phone and was lucky enough not to get a busy signal. I kid you not.

"I had done quite well in Nationals that year (my Constructed deck went undefeated) so I was relatively confident going into the first PT," Rob recalled of his high hopes for that tournament after a tantalizing but frustrating experience at Nationals.

"U.S. Nationals was the start of my long struggle with Limited formats," explained the Constructed guru. "The event had been advertised as entirely Constructed. I was armed with a metagame-crushing deck that got me through a meat grinder, but during the Nationals itself they took a show of hands vote on whether they should do half the rounds with this new Sealed Deck format (no, seriously, a show of hands vote). I did great in Constructed and okay in Sealed and just missed the cut to Top 8."

Your Move Games has been at times both a specific three-man team and a larger entity made up of great players who all made each other better. Rob struggled between those two incarnations when searching for his favorite Pro Tour moment. "God, that's a hard question. Making my first Top 8 was great, as was the Team YMG win in D.C., but the best has to be YMG's absolute dominance in Pro Tour-Houston.

"I've loved playing Magic since I first tried it way back in the 'Alpha' days. Being publicly recognized as one of the greatest players in the game's history is an incredibly gratifying honor," Rob prefaced before thanking the players who helped him achieve that honor. "Darwin, Dave, Justin, Zvi, Alex and the rest of team Your Move Games. Practicing with them gave me the skills to excel on the Pro Tour and their company and camaraderie made it fun."

Career Statistics

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Career Highlights

• In addition to being a top player, Rob is a store owner and tournament organizer or Your Move Games.
• Rob made his Pro Tour debut at the first Pro Tour–New York.
• His first notable finish was in Dallas 1997 when he placed 17th.
• After a couple more Pro Tours, Rob disappeared from the Pro Tour scene as a player for several seasons.
• He returned with a vengeance for Pro Tour–New York 1999 when he finished 5th with the deck known as Utility Belt.
• Dave Humpherys also finished in the Top 8 of that event with Rob's deck. It was the first inkling that Rob might be in elite deck design territory.
• Rob won Pro Tour–Washington D.C. with a team bearing the name of his store. All three members of that team are now enshrined in the Pro Tour Hall of Fame.
• Rob Dougherty's third Sunday appearance was in Chicago 2000 and included Kai Budde, Jon Finkel, Mike Pustilnik, Brian Kibler, Zvi Mowshowitz, and Kamiel Cornelissen – a Top 8 that could put half its members through to the Hall by the third class.
• Osaka was up next for Dougherty. Rob's Mono-Black Control deck with Stalking Bloodsuckers was the number one deck after the Swiss and landed Rob in third place overall.
• Rob's fifth and final Top 8 was the crowning achievement of the Your Move Games empire with three different players at Pro Tour–Houston playing three different decks finishing first, second, and third. Rob was second overall.