TEAM TOGIT ARCHIVE

TOGIT currently holds two US National Champions, one Team Worlds Champion, one Pro Tour Champion, one Pro Circuit Champion, four Grand Prix Champions, and over three dozen Day 3 appearances in premier level M:TG and Vs. System events!

The formation of Team TOGIT began over the summer of 2001, when TOGIT held a series of qualifying tournaments at their local shop to win a trip to Origins, where the 5 winners would play in the Sideboard Team Challenge. The original winners of the qualifier series were Patrick Sullivan, Adam Horvath, Justin Page, Scott Kasliner, and Osyp Lebedowicz. Near-missers were Eugene Harvey, Jon Sonne, Eric Zeigler, and Gerard Fabiano, among others. What a pile of nobodies!

The team went on to take 2nd place at the Sideboard Team Challenge, and the idea of permanent team sponsorship was born. As the team grew and matured, it went through the expected series of additions, subtractions, play-test expectations and politics. TOGIT's requirements for sponsorship also became tougher as the team progressed. 

The end result of all of this was a team of 6 players, consisting of Osyp Lebedowicz, Eugene Harvey, Gerard Fabiano, Patrick Sullivan, Adam Horvath and Dan Ksepka. After being accepted to both Yale and Columbia for PhD Study of Dinosaurs, Ksepka left the team. 2003 Rookie of the Year contender (and now 2004 US National Champion) Craig Krempels joined not too long after, and then Paul Jordan, leaving us with a grand total of seven excellent players.  As occurs occasionally with this game, Paul quit and moved on to other things.  The team also chose to accept Matt Rubin, and Antonino DeRosa to their ranks.  The most recent members of Team TOGIT are Kate Stavola, making her tournament debut with a GP Top 8 at Columbus in 2004, and Jon Sonne, who played and tested with the team for over a year before accepting sponsorship.  This brings us to a total of 10 players representing Team TOGIT.

Eugene had his first major success at US Nationals 2001, only a month or so after our Team became official enough to have T-Shirts with their names on them. When he returned to college at CMU that fall, he joined Team CMU and became the bridge for the TOGIT-CMU testing conglomerate that has enjoyed so much success.  

And now, to meet the team!

Adam Horvath

Adam began playing Magic following the release of the Ice Age expansion, but got out of the game soon afterwards when the local store which held tournaments went out of business. Years later, the opening of The Only Game in Town marked Adam's return to the game, and he has been on the competitive scene ever since. When not playing Magic or pursuing a career in the field of Computer Science, "Vath", as he is known to his friends, likes to read, cook, spend time with friends, and follow baseball. He is a great fan of control and combination strategies, and prefers to avoid attacking with creatures if at all possible. His favorite decks include Sabre Bargain, Replenish, Pro Tour Junk, Illusions-Donate, Domain, Mirari's Wake, and Psychatog. Adam has qualified for multiple Pro Tours, and has had a great deal of success on the Grand Prix circuit.

Craig Krempals

Craig was first exposed to the wonderful world of Magic while serving a two year sentence in Juvenile Hall for arson. The game was popular among the older boys who had taken Craig under their wing.

Paroled a full six months early for good behavior, Craig vowed to focus on a hobby that would keep him off the streets, and pursued Magic with a passion. He dreamed of a run of successful finishes that would lift him from his humble beginnings and into the spotlight.

Shortly after Craig's release, his father managed to secure a highly lucrative patent on an innovative fire-retardant brand of crib and stroller mattresses, and moved the family from Pittsburgh to central New Jersey. It didn't take long for Craig to find the local gaming store, and from there to find other players who were as good at Magic as he had become.

Finally, Craig's new friends introduced him to TOGIT. There he played and tested with a then-little-known group of players like Eugene Harvey, Patrick Sullivan, Gerard Fabiano, Jon Sonne and Osyp Lebedowicz. Just like back in his Juvie days, Osyp took the fledgling Craig firmly under his wiang. Soon after, they joined up to create Team TOGIT, and Craig has been enjoying his successful run ever since.

Craig is currently the 2004 US National Champion. It should be noted that Craig did not submit his own Bio in a timely fashion, and nothing outside of this particular paragraph should probably be taken too seriously.

Eugene Harvey

This bio is coming soon. We'll be glad to fill you in on the basics, though. Eugene grew up in Hillsborough, NJ. TOGIT Co-Owner Patrick Sullivan has this to say about the Harveys, with whom he spent much of his youth:

"If you were to add up all the cards lying around in Eugene's basement and try to sell them, you'd get some indeterminate sum between One Hundred and One Billion dollars. Its difficult to speculate which end of the spectrum you'd be closer to."

Eugene's exceptional limited skills (and nearly God-like status at Infinite Mana Magic) likely arose from his upbringing in this setting, where one can still go today to catch the world's weirdest Anycard-drafts.

Eugene summers at TOGIT and tested with CMU during the school years until his graduation. Since his break-out Nationals performance in 2001, Eugene has served as the bridge between the two teams, finally leading to the successful Team TOGIT-CMU testing group.

Gerard Fabiano

Bio coming soon

Jon Sonne

Bio coming soon

Matt Rubin

Matt lives in Boston now, where he attends college at Northeastern, and he lives in NJ while he's away from school. What most people don't know is that Matt was originally born in a small farming community on the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois. He was raised there and spent much of his youth playing baseball in the corn fields with his friends. When Matt was a freshman in High School, he managed to make the JV baseball team, and was one of their star pitchers. After many successful games, the head coach took notice and bumped Matt up to Varsity. Sadly, in his first game on the Varsity team, Matt was hit in the shoulder with the ball and was sent to the hospital. His shoulder was badly damaged and the doctors needed to operate. They spent hours working on his shoulder and finally finished, claming the surgery was a success. There was one slight problem. For some reason, the procedure left several tendons in Matt's arm extremely taught, and it had some strange side effects. One day while Matt was at a Cubs game with some friends, he caught a foul ball in the bleachers. Rather than hold on to it, tradition states that if it's a ball from the opposing team, you should throw it back. It was at this time that Matt noticed the strange condition of his arm allowed him to throw the ball with incredible strength. Matt's new found ability was noticed by the Cubs manager, and he was quickly signed up, making him the youngest pitcher in league history. Matt's incredible arm carried the last place Cubs all the way to first, and he got to play in the World Series. But a problem arose in game 7 of their series versus the Yankees. With the lead at stake in the last inning, Matt was one out away from winning the series for his team. It was at this time though that Matt's arm let out on him and he could no longer throw the heat. He managed to get the first two strikes through some hijinks and wacky trickery, but the third one would prove to be most difficult. Matt was lost and didn't know what to do, until suddenly he got some help from the stands. His mother was watching him, and with a smile, told him to float it. Matt took her advice and floated the ball across the plate, getting the third strike, and making the Cubs the Worlds Series Champions.

After that season, no longer being able to throw hard, Matt gave up professional baseball and pursued Magic. He gained a lot of weight and has had some success.

Most of Matt's life may appear to resemble the plot from the hit movie "Rookie of the Year", but you would be mistaken.

Osyp Lebedowicz

"The Man behind the Black Perspective"

"He is my only true equal."-Anand Khare

Osyp was once the most talented, respected, and feared dancer on the East Coast. Having placed in the T20 for the past three years in a row, Osyp finally broke out in 1998, coming in first at the Northeast Regional Dance Championships (Latin/Salsa division). 1997-1998 was his season, and with several other high finishes people were already calling him the "Salsa King of New Jersey." Then, tragedy struck -- Captain Tragedy. Captain Tragedy was a flamboyant dancer from Connecticut who was quickly making a name for himself up and down the East Coast. Determined not to be outdone, Osyp practiced extensively for the Starlight Invitational held in Atlantic City. This competition would be the ultimate showdown between the two, proving once and for all who ruled the East Coast dancers. Osyp's arrogance got the best of him that day, however, and he threw out his leg trying to perform his signature Running Man into Robot technique (a maneuver that has yet to be duplicated). This injury ended Osyp's career, and it was a dark day for East Coast dancing.

With dancing no longer an option, Osyp had to find a new way to challenge his competitive drive. He tried Backgammon, Monopoly, Scrabble - but nothing worked. Then one day, a friend of his came by with some cards. He said it was a game called Magic and that it was a great way to meet girls. Always willing to meet girls, Osyp quickly studied the rules and built some decks to play at a local card store. Once he arrived, he noticed that instead of girls, there were a bunch of guys who would make a Dr. Who convention actually look cool. The game itself, however, still appealed to him, and he steadily grew to become quite obsessed with it.

He started practicing with a growing stable of solid NJ players like Gerrard Fabiano and Jon Sonne. Then, when TOGIT opened its door, the testing increased. Osyp struggled in the PTQ circuit until he finally broke out in a PTQ for PT New Orleans. With a 17th place finish there, he managed to qualify for his second PT. In San Diego, he was in T8 contention until round 13 when he lost two straight (coming in 35th.) This assured him that his rating would be high enough to qualify for PT Nice. In PT Osaka he managed to make T8, finishing 7th. This placed him on the gravy train and the Nice Masters. One year later at Pro Tour Venice, Osyp took the championship.

Although Osyp has achieved some success on the PT, he still yearns to return to the dance floor. With each passing day his leg heals more, and maybe one day it will back to full strength, and on that day he'll turn his back on the game forever and return to his one true love, dancing.

Patrick Sullivan


Patrick Sullivan began playing Magic around Revised, after getting a starter set for Christmas. From there, its been a wild and wacky journey towards becoming the below average pro magic player he has always dreamed of.

Spending his youth sharpening his skills with pro tour mainstays Eugene Harvey and Adam Horvath, and a whole host of awful Hillsborough area residents, Patrick first began trying to qualify for the Pro Tour in earnest after the release of Invasion. He qualified for his first pro tour, New Orleans, within a year. After nearly a year of not qualifying again, he has gone on to qualify for every PT since Boston 2002, and made top 8 at GP Philidelphia and GP New Jersey 2002. 

When not playing magic, Patrick enjoys listening to music, playing basketball, and drinking heavily. Most of the time he can be found enjoying at least one of these activities, and probably multiple at the same time. While his eyes are focused squarely on PT success for now, he dreams of the day that the hip-hop community will be ready to embrace a second white megastar.

TOGIT Hall of Fame

In our Hall of Fame you'll find a list of TOGIT money finishes at every premier level event since the team's inception. Please note that TOGIT regulars and members of Team CMU, though widely considered part of the team's success (particularly in regard to testing) are not listed. Nor are finishes from Team TOGIT members before they were members. JSS finishers are not team members either, but TOGIT is their home and we felt they deserved recognition for superb performances on the national level.