In a word: YES

I'm not going to leave it at that; I'll be generous enough with my prose to explain.

The title "Master" implies a solid level of expertise. It says the titled person is seriously good, can hold their own against the best on a consistent basis. It implies someone who can be learned from (look at how many people review some of the top tournament games).

Of the 91 active Lobby Master players around these days, how many meet that simple definition? I know my own play isn't always up to scratch... at best maybe 5% of my own games are played with sufficient care and attention. (I believe that one should be free to play a lot of games as casual/social games... tantrix should not be purely competitive.)

Does everyone who has reached a 950 lobby ranking deserve to be called a Master? Given how farcical the lobby ranking system is - how cheatable it is - the answer is absolutely no.

I have personally had times when I have seen someone literally pop out of nowhere and become a master. The first time their name stood out enough to be noticed was a week or so before they qualified. In any other sport, this would be laughable. It takes years of practice, much effort and perseverance to become good enough to stand out above the crowd in any other field. It takes really proving yourself.

The criteria for becoming a master need to be tightened, and in that tightening, many of the currently qualified masters would be demoted. This suggests that some form of "old criteria master" status is called for to at least acknowledge what had been achieved under the old system.

Criteria also need to be in place so that questionable qualification attempts are caught and appropriately dealt with.

We are talking here about achieving a consistent level of play, and there will always be issues in judging this. In my opinion, it should be nigh on impossible for someone to qualify as a master in less than a year, with the average time to qualification being more like 2 years for those who play a lot. This, for many people, would be considered as a long time. On the one hand, I say that if you are not going to take the game seriously enough for long enough, then you do not deserve to be a master. On the other hand, players need several stepping stones along the way to mark their progress, to feel they are progressing. The current 100 games, 900 lobby ranking, 950 lobby ranking steps are not enough, especially over what I should be a multi-year process.

The means of raising the master bar belong in another thread.