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Pro Tour Thunder Junction Standard Metagame Breakdown

The decklists are in, the data is ready, and the second Pro Tour of 2024 begins tomorrow! At Pro Tour Thunder Junction , taking place April 26–28 in Seattle, 207 of the world's best Magic: The Gathering players will compete for $500,000 in prizes, several Magic World Championship invites, and a prestigious trophy. Standard now features more than 3,300 legal cards, so the competitors had to tackle the challenge of navigating some of the highest power levels we've ever seen in this format.

The field includes top players from Regional Championships, online qualifiers, and preceding Pro Tours, as well as Magic Hall of Famers and reigning World Champion Jean-Emmanuel Depraz. The formats are Outlaws of Thunder Junction Booster Draft in the morning of Friday and Saturday, followed by Standard for five rounds afterward each of those days. Standard is also the Top 8 format on Sunday.

To follow all the action, catch the stream at twitch.tv/magic , which begins at 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday and Saturday and at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on Sunday. Take a look at the viewer's guide for more information.

Standard Metagame Breakdown

Standard is a 60-card format that rotates every fall. Currently, it allows expansion sets from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt forward. Standard is often dominated by midrange decks, and it's no different this time around. Yet the newly added cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction have shaken things up. The metagame at the Pro Tour breaks down as follows.

The metagame features a lot of Esper Midrange, but it looks quite diverse beyond that. There are dozens of different archetypes, including aggro, midrange, control, ramp, combo, and plenty of spice. All Standard Constructed decklists for the tournament will be published on the Pro Tour Thunder Junction event page on Friday April 26 at the beginning of Round 4 gameplay, approximately at 2 p.m. PT.

The most-played nonland cards across all main decks and sideboards were Go for the Throat , Cut Down , and Deep-Cavern Bat . These staples remain the pillars of the format, and they can be found in a variety of decks, most notably the black midrange strategies. Creatures that die easily to Go for the Throat , such as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse , are seeing comparatively little play.

Although the metagame bears many similarities to the one right before the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction , which I covered in last week's Standard primer , the introduction of hundreds of new cards has shaken things up. Let's take a closer look at four of the most important takeaways, developments, and surprises from Pro Tour Thunder Junction.

The Dominance of Esper Midrange

Over the past few months, black midrange strategies had typically formed 30–40% of the Standard metagame, but it was never clear what the best color combination was. Dimir Midrange was the most prominent right before the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction , leveraging its smooth mana base, low curve, and efficient countermagic, but the new set has changed things. After the introduction of Outlaws of Thunder Junction , Esper Midrange decisively took back the crown.

With Concealed Courtyard to improve its mana base, as well as Rest in Peace and Pest Control to swing the previously difficult matchups against Temur Analyst and Boros Convoke after sideboard, it has become worthwhile to run white. Many Pro Tour competitors arrived at the same conclusion: Esper was now superior to Dimir. Indeed, nearly one-third of the field registered Esper Midrange, with Concealed Courtyard as an undisputed addition and Pest Control as a near-universal sideboard inclusion. There is some variations across the builds—for example, Esper Midrange players are split on whether or not to use cards like Wedding Announcement , Deep-Cavern Bat , or Duelist of the Mind —but everyone uses Raffine, Scheming Seer , arguably the best three-drop in the format.

The Resurgence of Four-Color Legends

Over the past few months, Four-Color Legends had been a fringe player in Standard, typically claiming 1–2% of the metagame. Combining elements of midrange, combo, and ramp, the deck excelled at fueling mana from Relic of Legends into Slogurk, the Overslime loops. Slogurk grows whenever you discard a land to Rona, Herald of Invasion , discard a land to Inti, Seneschal of the Sun , or channel Otawara, Soaring City or Takenuma, Abandoned Mire . As it's so easy to bounce and reply, you can channel multiple lands every turn for value.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction offered a substantial boost to the deck in the form of Honest Rutstein . It shaves a mana off your key creatures, provides resiliency against spot removal, and even enables new infinite combos. If you control Relic of Legends and Rona, Herald of Invasion , then two copies of Honest Rutstein can be looped indefinitely. Tap Rona and Rutstein to untap Relic of Legends , cast Rutstein, lose one to the legend rule, return it, and repeat. This allows you to win the game with Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier . Less common ways to exploit this loop include Tinybones Joins Up ; Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim ; Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines ; or Annie Joins Up . For homogeneity, any base blue-black-red-green deck with a single white card is still labeled as Four-Color Legends at the Pro Tour.

The Disappearance of Bant Toxic

While most of the attention will go to the decks on top of the metagame, it's also important to recognize what is not there: Bant Toxic. Over the past months, the archetype had fluctuated around 4-8% of the metagame, preying on the slow nature of Domain Ramp while sidestepping the life gain lands from Temur Analyst with its poison counters. At the Pro Tour, however, zero players registered Venerated Rotpriest or Skrelv's Hive .

The deck did not gain anything of note from the latest set, while its favorable matchups had dwindled and sweeper effects were ticking up. As a result, no one will be poisoned out of the game at Pro Tour Thunder Junction, barring a stray Mirrex .

A Plethora of Novel Strategies

Between the main Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) set and The Big Score (BIG) bonus sheet, the latest set was one of the biggest Standard releases ever, introducing an abundance of new build-arounds. I will highlight the most exciting options in tommorow's article on the spiciest decklist from the Pro Tour, but one thing is for sure: the Standard rounds on the West Coast are going to be wild.

Some players may use Insatiable Avarice to put Shadow of Mortality on top of their library, allowing Caustic Bronco to hit the opponent for 15. Others aim to combine Bloodletter of Aclazotz with Rush of Dread , forcing the opponent to lose all of their life points. Meanwhile, a few tables over, a Slickshot Show-Off brew might face off against a dedicated Simulacrum Synthesizer deck. And perhaps in the feature match area, an Aftermath Analyst player might sacrifice dozens of lands to Pitiless Carnage , only to be defeated by their opponent's combination of Kellan, the Kid plus Djeru and Hazoret . Sure, the Standard metagame at the Pro Tour features a lot of Esper Midrange, but it also showcases a wide diversity of innovative competitive decks.

Most-Played Cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Despite the high bar set by the existing Standard card pool, Outlaws of Thunder Junction had a considerable impact on the format. The following table breaks down all new-to-Standard cards among Pro Tour decklists. There's a lot.

The most-played new cards are Concealed Courtyard , Pest Control , Rest in Peace , Duelist of the Mind , all of which I had already mentioned while talking about the dominance of Esper Midrange. Duelist of the Mind is an exciting one because it's Nathan Steuer's card for winning the 2022 World Championship. It's easy to enable in a deck full of interactive, crime-committing cards, and its power-scaling ability synergizes particularly well with Raffine, Scheming Seer . Beyond these additions to Esper Midrange, various other cards for disparate archetypes stand out as well.

The enemy-color fast lands make a huge difference for the early-game mana consistency of aggro decks. Previously, it could be difficult for Boros Convoke to cast Novice Inspector and Voldaren Epicure consistently on turn one. With Inspiring Vantage , the deck's mana consistency increases by a few percentage points, leading to fewer mulligans and bringing it even closer to its Pioneer counterpart. Several Boros Convoke players also included Nurturing Pixie , which can produce value by returning Knight-Errant of Eos or Case of the Gateway Express .

Blue players gained several new tools as well. For control players, Three Steps Ahead is reminiscent of Cryptic Command due to its flexibility and potential for card advantage. It's arguably the best Cancel variant ever, and it has enabled an uptick in Azorius Control. Meanwhile, Bonny Pall, Clearcutter has been a popular choice for Temur Analyst players as a secondary game plan that dodges graveyard hate after sideboard.

For red aggro players, Slickshot Show-Off has been one of the most exciting cards from the new set. It provides a fast clock, can be plotted to dodge removal and sweepers, and flies over most blockers. It's easy to fill your deck with a large number of noncreature spells to trigger it consistently. Twelve players (5.8% of the field) included at least one copy of Slickshot Show-Off : 7 Mono-Red Aggro, 2 Gruul Aggro, 2 Temur Prowess, and 1 Boros Aggro. Many of them also included Demonic Ruckus , which can boost Slickshot Show-Off or sometimes even target an opposing creature to draw a card after burning it.

Black decks also gained several new tools. Shoot the Sheriff is not as popular as Go for the Throat because new outlaws like Honest Rutstein ; Tinybones, the Pickpocket ; or Forsaken Miner cannot be targeted. At the same time, it does deal with the Incubator token from Sunfall , so various players have embraced a mix of the two removal spells. Forsaken Miner , in the meantime, has enabled a new wave of Rakdos Aggro decks that can come out of the gates quickly and commit crimes to press their advantage.

The Road to Magic World Championship 30

At Pro Tour Thunder Junction, all competitors who clinch 36 match points and/or reach the Top 8 will receive an invitation to Magic World Championship 30 —the crown jewel of organized play in 2024. As we count down the weeks leading up to that tournament in late October, each week I'm taking a look at a great deck from a past Magic World Championship. After reviewing the World Championships from 1994 , 1995 , 1996 , 1997 , and 1998 in preceding weeks, let's go back in time to 1999.

At the 1999 Magic World Championship, which took place in Tokyo on August 26–28 of that year, 208 players from 32 countries competed across Rochester Draft, Standard, and Extended. In the Standard Top 8 playoffs on Sunday, Kai Budde from Germany emerged victorious in what would be the first of his seven career Pro Tour victories.

In the finals, Budde defeated Mark Le Pine 3-0 in about 20 minutes, the fastest World Championship finals in history. "The games in the finals were not close," Budde recalled. "I just had Voltaic Key / Grim Monolith / Thran Dynamo pretty much every game. He'd play a Fireslinger , and I'd play a Covetous Dragon ."

Budde's deck contained more than 30 artifacts, which he used to generate huge amounts of mana and speed up the game. This allowed him to quickly deploy big creatures like Masticore or Covetous Dragon , which could live through Wildfire . A well-timed Wildfire could leave the opponent with zero permanents, locking them out of the game, while you could retain several mana rocks and a creature to finish them off. Enormous amounts of mana could also be sunk into Mishra's Helix or Temporal Aperture , allowing you to dominate the game. This archetype was 8% of the Standard metagame at 1999 World Championship, and Budde piloted it masterfully.

There is quite a contrast between 2024 Standard and 1999 Standard. This year, the format has been in a good spot, with aggro, midrange, control, ramp, and combo all being viable as macro-strategies. Four cards are banned (Meathook Massacre , Fable of the Mirror-Breaker , Invoke Despair , and Reckoner Bankbuster ) but the card designs from the past three years have largely been balanced, fair, and interactive.

By contrast, Standard in 1999 was not in a good spot. During the 98–99 "combo winter," which is when I started playing competitive Magic , everyone was using the overpowered cards from Urza block to go infinite or combo off. Urza block was one of the most broken of all time, as all of its free mana and incredible card draw led to busted decks. You could rip through your library, produce absurd amounts of mana in a single turn, and assemble degenerate combos as early as turn one.

The "combo winter" resulted in errata of free spells and an incredible number of Standard bans: Tolarian Academy , Windfall , Dream Halls , Earthcraft , Fluctuator , Lotus Petal , Recurring Nightmare , Time Spiral , Memory Jar , and Mind Over Matter . Nowadays, many of these cards are banned even in Legacy, so just imagine the Standard where they were all legal! The running joke was that shuffling was the early game, mulligans were the mid-game, and turn one was the late game.

By the time of the 1999 World Championship, these bans had restored the format to a more balanced state, and Magic R&D had learned valuable lessons for future card design. Yet despite these bans, Grim Monolith , Voltaic Key , Thran Dynamo , Ancient Tomb , and City of Traitors remained legal, so a turn-two Covetous Dragon or turn-three Wildfire was a common curve-out at the time. Dark Ritual , Yawgmoth's Will , and Vampiric Tutor were all Standard-legal as well at the time. Nowadays, the Standard format is much fairer, and ramping ahead requires far more deck construction effort.

Yet as Budde's victory shows, fast mana always has the potential to be broken. In today's Standard, Aftermath Analyst decks and Relic of Legends decks are built around the same principle. If you have access to far more mana than your opponent, then it's easy to overpower them. Esper Midrange players may have discard and countermagic as interaction, but it's still difficult to beat an opponent who has twice as much mana as you. To see which cards will come out on top at Pro Tour Thunder Junction and who will qualify for World Championship 30, don't miss the live action at twitch.tv/magic , starting this Friday, April 26!

Pro Tour Thunder Junction

Game: Magic: The Gathering

Organized by: Wizards of the Coast

Tournament Type: Tabletop

Formats are Standard Constructed and Outlaws of Thunder Junction Booster Draft. More information about Pro Tour Thunder Junction can be found at https://magic.gg/events/pro-tour-thunder-junction-fact-sheet-for-competitors

Free to Play | Invite Only | Format: Draft, Standard, Draft2 | Ended | 207 of 250 Enrolled Players

Pro Tour Thunder Junction Fact Sheet

For paper printouts generated for this tournament, participants' names will be displayed using their full real names, irrespective of their profile's name display settings. This specification applies solely to printed materials.

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The Pro Tour , abbreviated PT , is a series of major invitation-only DCI -sanctioned Magic: The Gathering tournaments, held about once every three months from 1996 to 2018. [1] [2] [3] The Pro Tour was reinstated for the 2022–23 Pro Tour Season . [4]

History [ | ]

Even early on in Magic history, there had been high-prestige tournaments that had attracted a lot of top players, most notably the 1994 World Championships , the first major tournament, which ran over three days of competition. However, the winner, Zak Dolan , received a trophy and a large number of booster packs from various sets, but no money. [5] Similarly, the 1995 World Championship winner, Alexander Blumke , won a box of Legends and some miscellaneous packs. [2] In 1995, Magic Brand Manager Skaff Elias felt that Organized Play needed to step up to the next level. Players had to have something to aspire to. Thus was the Pro Tour created. [6] [7]

As envisioned by Skaff Elias , the first Pro Tour - very briefly called the Black Lotus Pro Tour - was held on 16–18 February 1996 in New York City. [8] [9] Also known as "Pro Tour Speed Dial" and "The Showdown in New York", [10] Michael Loconto from the United States ended up the winner, taking down 1994 Worlds finalist Bertrand Lestrée in the final. Loconto pocketed $12,000 for the win, much more than the winners of the early major tournaments got, yet a lot less than future Pro Tour winners would earn. The event was not streamed live, but a video was later published by Wizards. [6] In addition to the main event, there was also a junior Pro Tour for players under eighteen. The junior Pro Tour continued for a couple of years, until it was transformed into the Junior Super Series . The first Pro Tour season included three more Pro Tour events, culminating in the final Pro Tour, the World Championships, held at Wizards of the Coast's corporate offices in Seattle.

Since 1996, Pro Tours have been held every year, with the number of events varying from three to seven per year. Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad in Madrid in April 2016 was the 100th Pro Tour event.

The prize purse of the Pro Tours increased rapidly, from $30,000 at the first Pro Tour to $100,000 at the second, Pro Tour Los Angeles 1996, to $200,000 at the 1997 World Championships (plus $50,000 for the team competition). However, since then, the prizes increased slowly; as of 2016, Pro Tours awarded $250,000 in prizes.

In 2019, more than twenty years after the first, the Pro Tours were rebranded as Mythic Championships . [11] In 2020 , this was changed again, to Players Tour . [12] At the same time, Wizards of the Coast introduced the short-lived Magic Esports competition with the Magic Pro League (or "MPL") and the Rivals League . MPL players would be invited to Mythic Invitationals and all Tabletop Players Tour events.

At the end of the 2022 season, the MPL and the Rivals League were terminated [13] and a modified old system was reinstated. [4] This Premier Play program once again featured Pro Tours.

Qualification [ | ]

2022 Premier Play pyramid

Pro Tours are invitation-only events. There are several ways to qualify. [14] The most common ways will be:

• Be one of the top finishers at the previous Regional Championship , with invites passing down as players earn multiple qualifications.
• Finish with ten or more wins at the previous Pro Tour.
• Magic: The Gathering Online Champions Showcases
• Players who finish with 39 or more Adjusted Match Points from the previous three Pro Tours (rolling).

For the transitional period between the sunsetting of the League structure and the first new Pro Tour in 2023, more invites will be given out for those beyond the normal cutoff point at the Regional Championships.

Members of the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame are invited to one Regional Championship and Pro Tour per season. Those events must be in the same round and cannot be in the same round in which they played in a Regional Championship Qualifier.

Structure [ | ]

Pro Tours are hosted by Wizards of the Coast . Currently, they are 16-round Swiss-paired events that are split into two mornings of three-round Draft pods and two afternoons of five-round Constructed. As of 2023, each year has one Pro Tour of each supported Constructed format in Standard, Pioneer and Modern; the Modern one often receives a new product in the summer supplementary period. Players strive for first a four-win record to qualify for Day 2, ten wins to requalify for the next Pro Tour, then twelve wins to qualify for the Top 8. At twelve wins, the player is removed from the pool and given winner's byes; this to avoid excessive intentional draws and is one of the holdovers from the online-only Players Tour era.

The Top 8 is a set of knockout rounds with best-of-five matches, as opposed to the traditional best-of-three. Sideboarding begins after the second game.

Pro Tour season [ | ]

The Pro Tour Season currently consists of three Pro Tour events spread through the calendar year. In previous seasons it had gone to four or five, with the Mythic Championship era having eight in the season at the highest.

Prior to the 2005 season, the season ran roughly from August to the following August, culminating with Worlds in August or early September. The 2005 season was extended, with it beginning after the 2004 World Championships in September 2004, and ending with the 2005 World Championships in December 2005. From 2005 to 2012, the seasons were run as a unit of year (half year in 2012), which consisted of three to five Pro Tour events spread throughout the calendar year.

Starting with the 2012 season, all Pro Tour rounds were named after the most recent expansion instead of the location of the venue, and were held two weeks after the release of that expansion. The season hence started with rotation in September and ends in July to August. Starting with Pro Tour Ixalan , the interval between the expansion and the Pro Tour were no longer fixed, and as of Mythic Championship Cleveland 2019 , Pro Tours were no longer tied to sets, though each release did have an event attached to it.

For Premier Play, the expansion release date and Pro Tour schedule were generally decoupled. There are three Pro Tours each year, with the first Pro Tour in February, which is after the third expansion of the rotation season is released. The third Pro Tour is after the supplementary summer set, while Worlds (currently always Las Vegas) is immediately after rotation. Two are set in the United States and the third one in Europe, but locations may expand to Canada or Asia in the future.

Trivia [ | ]

• Levy is also the player who has attended the most consecutive Pro Tours, with 91 starting with the 1998 World Championships and ending with Pro Tour Hour of Devastation in 2017.
• The player with the current longest active streak of Pro Tours attended is Shuhei Nakamura , who, as of PT Guilds of Ravnica , has attended 60 in a row since the 2004 World Championships. Whether this streak broke depends on how one defines the Mythic Championships and regional Players Tour events. His streak continues for those named Pro Tour, having attended all three in 2023.
• The largest individual Pro Tour was PT Guilds of Ravnica , with 510 players.
• Nicolai Herzog won back-to-back Limited -format Pro Tours in 2004, winning in Amsterdam and San Diego. However, Pro Tour Kobe, a Block Constructed event, happened between those Pro Tours.
• Simon Nielsen has chained four events: Pro Tour March of the Machine , Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings , 2024 World Championship and Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor .
• The player with the most money finishes in consecutive Pro Tour events is Jon Finkel , who cashed every Pro Tour from PT New York 1997 to PT Los Angeles 1999, ten in total.

See also [ | ]

• Pro Tour Collector Set
• Pro Tour Player Cards
• List of PT events

Promos [ | ]

• Promotional card#Pro Tour cards
• Pro Tour Qualifier#Promos

References [ | ]

• ↑ Mark Rosewater (August 09, 2004). " On Tour, Part 2 ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ a b Mark Justice (June 01, 2009). " Musings on the History of the Magic Pro Tour ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Blake Rasmussen (November 24, 2014). " Magic's First Pro Tour Top 8 ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ a b Wizards of the Coast (March 31, 2022). " Return of the Pro Tour, Your Path to Playing Magic at the Highest Level ". Magic.gg .
• ↑ Zak Dolan (2004-08-26). " ZAK DOLAN'S WORLDS DIARY ". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2015-09-25.
• ↑ a b Mark Rosewater (July 26, 2004). " On Tour, Part 1 ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Brian David-Marshall (February 2, 2016). " An Oral History of the First Pro Tour ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Mark Rosewater and Henry Stern (August 21, 2006). " Inside "Showdown in New York" ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Mark Rosewater (December 12, 2011). " Flashback to the Future ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Magic the Gathering Showdown in New York 1/10 . YouTube. Retrieved on 2015-09-29.
• ↑ Elaine Chase (December 6, 2018). " The Next Chapter for Magic : Esports ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Elaine Chase (August 14, 2019). " The Future of Magic Esports ". Magic Esports .
• ↑ The new ORGANIZED PLAY announcement and how it affects competitive players (Video). Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa . YouTube (May 14, 2021).
• ↑ Wizards of the Coast (March 31, 2022). " Return of the Pro Tour: Details ". Magic.gg .
• 1 Eighth Edition/Theme decks
• 2 Modern Horizons 3/Commander decks
• 3 Rad counter

Magic: the Gathering

Competitive

Standard: 5 Decks to keep an eye post-Pro Tour Outlaws

The Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction brought Standard's latest news and tech into the spotlight. In this article, we present five decks that stood out at the event and could dictate the next tournaments and ranked matches in Magic Arena!

translated by Romeu

revised by Tabata Marques

In this article, we present decks that stood out in the Pro Tour with new features which, naturally, you will find more frequently in Magic Arena Ranked matches, Magic Online Leagues or Challenges in the coming weeks!

5 Decks from Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction to Keep an Eye on

Orzhov bronco.

Considered one of the event's breakout decks, Orzhov Bronco is an Aggro-Combo aimed at the interaction between Caustic Bronco and high-cost cards - more specifically, Shadow of Mortality .

Caustic Bronco was one of several attempts to emulate the cost and effect of Dark Confidant in Standard. However, due to the way its ability triggers, we can also use it to our advantage when we sadde it with another of our creatures, dealing damage to the opponent equal to the mana value of the revealed card.

Therefore, with Shadow of Mortality , Caustic Bronco is capable of dealing 15 damage to the opponent the moment it attacks, commonly winning the game given the deck's proactive game plan with low-cost creatures with relevant effects - and to ensure we don't need too many copies of a virtually dead card in our hand, we resort to Insatiable Avarice to put Shadow of Mortality on top for the combo.

The rest of the list is made up of efficient ETB effects coupled with high-impact cards, such as Anointed Peacekeeper , Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Steel Seraph , along with a good combination of removals to maintain our flow during the games.

Given the explosive nature of the Orzhov Bronco and its ability to win games suddenly, it's common for it to become one of the most prominent new archetypes post-Pro Tour, with players adapting lists to see how best to keep it fresh against the Metagame now that it is on the radar.

Jund Analyst

Just like the Temur versions, Jund Analyst's game plan is to play many lands in the graveyard to return them to the battlefield with Aftermath Analyst , but Outlaws of Thunder Junction brought two good reasons to give up of blue in favor of black in the archetype:

In a deck that puts so many lands into play, Pillage the Bog is as efficient as a tutor on most occasions, commonly allowing to look at a third or even half of your list as the game goes on, making it easier to find the right cards for the game, or recur to other cards in your graveyard with Shigeki, Jukai Visionary and prepare a massive Worldsoul's Rage the next turn.

Pitiless Carnage , on the other hand, has an almost broken interaction with Aftermath Analyst and Splendid Reclamation , where we sacrifice our lands to it to draw an absurd number of cards and then return all them to the battlefield.

Just like the Temur version, the Jund Analyst is one of the archetypes that suffers most from the insertion of Rest in Peace . However, at least on the Pro Tour, that didn't stop it from being one of the highlights and having the highest winrate in the Standard portion of the tournament.

Azorius Control

After constant absences due to the predominance of Domain Ramp, Azorius Control returned to the radar, and much of this result is due to the best Cancel ever printed - Three Steps Ahead

Three Steps Ahead is a great example of how the Spree mechanic can be used functionally when all card modules are equally useful for your deck's strategy.

A counterspell that allows you to draw cards has seen play previously in Standard and to this day in other formats, and while the cost to do so is higher and less comprehensive than Cryptic Command , the new spell can be useful at any moment - even to speed up the clock when copying a token created by The Wandering Emperor .

Azorius Control is a competitive Magic classic and favorite of many players who, even when the archetype was declining, continued to play with it in ranked matches. Now that it is regaining traction in the competitive Metagame and had an excellent result in the Pro Tour with Yuta Takahashi, it is likely that its presence in the format will increase in the coming weeks and consolidate it as one of the main decks in the format.

Golgari Midrange

Led by Reid Duke in the tournament, Golgari Midrange is another classic archetype with many enthusiasts in Standard, and Outlaws of Thunder Junction brought some great additions, with the main one being Caustic Bronco as another means of generating card advantage early.

Due to its theme, it is a flexible choice that seeks to use the best cards in its color combination to respond to different cases in the Metagame and has presented satisfactory results to remain one of the current best decks.

Four-Color Legends

With one of the highest win rates of the event and two copies in the Top 8, Four-Color Legends went from an average strategy to one of the format's main competitors, demonstrating the potential that adding new legends to each expansion can bring when cards like Relic of Legends are in a competitive format.

The insertion of Honest Rutstein with Outlaws of Thunder Junction and its interaction with Rona, Herald of Invasion and Relic of Legends allows us to have a combo approach, where we can use two copies of Honest Rutstein to return the other one to the hand with his ability while we use Rona's looting to dig through the deck searching for the cards we need and even for a combo-kill with Slogurk, the Overslime .

Although it is not easy to pilot and has some timer problems in both Magic Online and Magic Arena which might hinder some players, its combination of cards and a combo that is difficult to disrupt without removals will make Four -Color Legends a mainstay in the format until the next rotation.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!

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My Road to Winning the MTG Pro Tour

After finally being crowned Pro Tour champion, Reid's giving the inside scoop on how he got there.

By Reid Duke | @ReidDuke | Published 2/25/2023 | 8 min read

While there have been plenty of sweet and highly-competitive Magic tournaments, there hasn't been a Pro Tour since 2019. The combination of a world-wide pandemic and an emphasis on Magic Arena changed the landscape of MTG's organized play for 2020, 2021, and 2022.

I did my best to roll with the punches in these years. I love playing MTG in any form, and was grateful to be able to play some high-level Magic while everyone was stuck at home. However, I never felt quite the same excitement as in the old days, when players from all across the world would converge on one tournament hall to battle it out.

Worse yet, I never really hit my stride. I managed to keep my head above water when it came to my ranking and qualifications for tournaments. However, despite playing in every major event, I never broke through to a top finish during this play-from-home era.

But the Pro Tour is back, baby, and so am I!

If you want a more in-depth report, I suggest checking out my article on CFB Pro as well.

Preparation

Truth be told, this tournament didn't represent the peak of either my preparation or my confidence.

I had gone "all in" for Worlds back in October, with weeks of practice and study. I strove endlessly to make every card choice and draft pick perfectly, and not leave any possible advantage on the table. That resulted in a "just okay" 8-6 finish .

The Worlds experience burned me out, and I knew I'd need some time to recharge before I'd be able to repeat that process for a future tournament. Instead, my goal for Pro Tour Phyrexia was mainly to have fun, and enjoy getting back to tabletop MTG. I wasn't expecting any particular result. I think that in a strange way, this worked in my favor, as it helped me to stay calm and play my best throughout the event.

Team Line-Up

I started practicing full-time the Friday before the tournament (so about one full week of dedicated preparation). I shared a house in Philadelphia with an awesome team. I couldn't have done it without their help.

Here was the team line-up.

PT Competitors:

• Jim Davis (USA)
• Eli Kassis (USA)
• Martin Juza (Czech Republic)
• Ben Lundquist (USA)
• No Ah Ma (Korea)
• Seth Manfield (USA)
• Gabriel Nassif (France)
• Logan Nettles (USA)
• Sam Pardee (USA)
• Luis Scott-Vargas (USA)
• Mike Sigrist (USA)
• Jakub Toth (Czech Republic)
• Brent Vos (Netherlands)

Outside Assists:

• Kai Budde (Germany)
• Andrew Cuneo (USA)
• Frank Karsten (Netherlands)
• Will Kreuger (USA)
• Raphael Levy (France)
• Carolyn Pardee (Canada)

The "testing house" experience is always a lot of fun. It's a great excuse to gather friends from all over the world to hang out and play Magic. There's always some amount of stress, as we all want to do well in the tournament. But I find there's no better - or more fun - way to challenge each other to be our best. For instance, everybody hyping up Siggy (Mike Sigrist) and Martin Juza as the best drafters, and wondering who'd be able to take a match off of them!

Plus, No Ah Ma brought us a lifetime supply of snacks from Korea!

We had a really great team dynamic and a great experience. At various points, people would stop to point out how good it felt to be playing again. Of course, it was not without the normal gaming house snafus.

This was me minding my own business with a Magic Online draft as two of my teammates decided to pass a flimsy box of hot pizza over my head…

During my best years on the Pro Tour, I felt that I had a bigger edge in the Booster Draft rounds than in the Constructed rounds. Most players qualify for the PT by playing Constructed. Plus, while you can get a crash course in a Constructed format over the course of a few weeks, the best drafters tend to be the ones who've played thousands and thousands of drafts over the course of a long career.

Combine the experience advantage with an elite team capable of figuring out a draft format quickly, and I often feel pretty confident sitting down for a Pro Tour draft.

I had a fair bit of driving to do going between New York and Philadelphia, so this time around I stayed up to date with the Limited Resources, Lords of Limited, Drafting Archetypes and Mystical Dispute podcasts. Each was helpful in their own way.

My draft strategy was to build a solid deck, and not go "all-in" on the toxic strategy, which can sometimes go badly when things don't work out for you. My favorite color is red, and I only planned to draft blue if it proved to be very, very open at the table.

It's a good thing the Limited preparation went well, because I felt totally lost in Pioneer. I believe the format is very balanced, with all of the big decks having strengths and weaknesses. You can fall in love with a deck after a good set of games, but if you play it long enough, you'll inevitably hit a bad run, or encounter a bad matchup that'll scare you off of it.

My goal was to choose a deck that was powerful, proactive, and for which we had a good deck list.

My favorite Pioneer deck, Mono-Blue Spirits, simply wasn't going to be a good choice in a world where Rakdos Midrange, Gruul, White Weenie and Rakdos Sac are among the top decks. Rakdos Midrange and Lotus Field appealed to me, and I had a good run when I played Gruul, but none of them really felt "special" as a deck that would give me an edge over the field.

In the end, I trusted my team when it came to the Izzet Indomitable Creativity deck. As a team, we'd put a ton of work into it (especially Mike Sigrist, who had played the most), so I knew it would be a solid choice.

Magic: The Gathering TCG Deck - Izzet Creativity by Reid Duke

'Izzet Creativity' - constructed deck list and prices for the Magic: The Gathering Trading Card Game from TCGplayer Infinite!

Created By: Reid Duke

Event: Pro Tour Phyrexia

Market Price: $350.83

Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

Choose target spell or permanent that's red or green. Its owner puts it on the top or bottom of their library.

Flash This spell can't be countered. Whenever you cast a spell, choose up to one — • Return target spell you don't control to its owner's hand. • Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.

Trample When Worldspine Wurm dies, create three 5/5 green Wurm creature tokens with trample. When Worldspine Wurm is put into a graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into its owner's library.

Counter target noncreature spell.

{T}: Add {C}. {T}: Add {U} or {R}. Shivan Reef deals 1 damage to you.

{T}: Add {U}. Channel — {3}{U}, Discard Otawara, Soaring City: Return target artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker to its owner's hand. This ability costs {1} less to activate for each legendary creature you control.

Fiery Impulse deals 2 damage to target creature. Spell mastery — If there are two or more instant and/or sorcery cards in your graveyard, Fiery Impulse deals 3 damage instead.

Casualty 1 (As you cast this spell, you may sacrifice a creature with power 1 or greater. When you do, copy this spell and you may choose a new target for the copy.) Counter target spell unless its controller pays {2}.

Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) Look at the top seven cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

Destroy X target artifacts and/or creatures. For each permanent destroyed this way, its controller reveals cards from the top of their library until an artifact or creature card is revealed and exiles that card. Those players put the exiled cards onto the battlefield, then shuffle.

Copy target instant or sorcery spell, then return it to its owner's hand. You may choose new targets for the copy.

Spirebluff Canal enters the battlefield tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands. {T}: Add {U} or {R}.

({T}: Add {R}.)

{T}: Add {U}.

Put any number of cards from your hand on the bottom of your library, then draw that many cards plus one.

{T}: Add {C}. {1}: Mutavault becomes a 2/2 creature with all creature types until end of turn. It's still a land.

Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create an X/X blue Shark creature token with flying, where X is that spell's mana value. Cycling {X}{1}{U} ({X}{1}{U}, Discard this card: Draw a card.) When you cycle Shark Typhoon, create an X/X blue Shark creature token with flying.

(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.) I — Create a 2/2 red Goblin Shaman creature token with "Whenever this creature attacks, create a Treasure token." II — You may discard up to two cards. If you do, draw that many cards. III — Exile this Saga, then return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.

Indestructible As long as your devotion to red and green is less than seven, Xenagos isn't a creature. At the beginning of combat on your turn, another target creature you control gains haste and gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is that creature's power.

This spell can't be countered. Rending Volley deals 4 damage to target white or blue creature.

Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays {2}.

Spikefield Hazard deals 1 damage to any target. If a permanent dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.

If you control two or more other lands, Hall of Storm Giants enters the battlefield tapped. {T}: Add {U}. {5}{U}: Until end of turn, Hall of Storm Giants becomes a 7/7 blue Giant creature with ward {3}. It's still a land. (Whenever it becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, counter it unless that player pays {3}.)

As an additional cost to cast this spell, discard a card. Draw two cards and create two Treasure tokens. (They're artifacts with "{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.")

This spell costs {2} less to cast if it targets a blue spell. Counter target spell unless its controller pays {3}.

Fire Prophecy deals 3 damage to target creature. You may put a card from your hand on the bottom of your library. If you do, draw a card.

Investigate. If this spell was cast from a graveyard, investigate twice instead. (Create a Clue token. It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.") Flashback {3}{U}

Stormcarved Coast enters the battlefield tapped unless you control two or more other lands. {T}: Add {U} or {R}.

({T}: Add {U} or {R}.) As Steam Vents enters the battlefield, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, it enters the battlefield tapped.

{T}: Add {R}. Channel — {3}{R}, Discard Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance: Create two 1/1 colorless Spirit creature tokens. They gain haste until end of turn. This ability costs {1} less to activate for each legendary creature you control.

Counter target spell with mana value 4 or greater.

The Tournament

Red is my favorite color to draft in Phyrexia: All Will Be One , and I was fortunate to wind up with two solid red decks in the draft portions of the tournament.

First, I finished 3-0 in the first draft with R/G, which is a great start. I still had no expectations for how I'd finish in the event, but I was having fun, and it felt great to get a Pro Tour Draft "trophy" again after it had been so long.

After going 3-2 in the Pioneer rounds, I was thrilled to finish the day at 6-2. Before the event started, I would've been relatively happy with any result that let me play Day 2. At 6-2, I wasn't really picturing myself battling for Top 8, but I felt like I was at least on track for a solid finish.

In the day two draft portion, I went 2-1 with R/W (losing to R/G in the finals, humorously enough).

I rattled off three Pioneer wins, then defeated my teammate Gabriel Nassif in the "win-and-in" round to make the top 8!

Quarterfinals against Nathan Steuer

I drew a scary pairing for the first round of Top 8: World Champion Nathan Steuer with Lotus Field combo. The matchup is bad in game 1 because I only had "soft counters" like Make Disappear, while his deck could generate astronomical amounts of mana. This would force me to race towards my own combo, but that would also mean walking straight into Otawara, Soaring City on Worldspine Wurm, and there's basically no counterplay against that.

My 0-2 start against Nathan Steuer was discouraging, especially because I felt like I'd had pretty good positions at a couple of points in both games. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at keeping calm and staying focused, so I knocked the negative thoughts out of my head, continued playing my best, and managed to turn things around!

The first time the trophy felt within my reach was when I won the quarterfinals. Before that moment, I was just happy to be playing and was prepared for any outcome. But suddenly I felt like I could actually win the whole thing!

Semifinals and Finals

I thought my sideboarded games against Derrick Davis's Enigmatic Incarnation deck would be favorable, so when I was able to win one of the pre-sideboarded games, it boosted my confidence. I wasn't sure how the finals would go, since Selesnya Auras is a volatile and scary deck. Ben Madsen mulliganed a lot, and that influenced the outcome of the match. If he'd kept seven-card hands with Gladecover Scout every game, I suspect you'd be reading his tournament report instead of mine right now!

Winning the Pro Tour is a dream come true.  I don't attribute the result only to myself, but also to my team, and the great network of support I have in my life.

It didn't hit me right away when the finals ended, because I was still in "game mode," trying to stay calm and focused. It was only when Cedric Phillips called me to the front of the stage and announced, "Pro Tour Phyrexia Champion - Reid Duke," that it became real. I teared up a little at that moment.

In the next few days, I've been overwhelmed by the amount of support and encouragement I've received. Knowing how many people were cheering for me, and were happy to see me win – that's almost better than the win itself.

Thanks to all of you for following my progress over the years. Long live the Pro Tour!

On my way out from the tournament site, I stopped at Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market to get something to eat. I sat down at a table next to a father and son who'd attended the convention. They recognized me and we started chatting. They had me sign a card, and I asked them how their weekend had been.

After about 10 minutes, they asked me, "So did you do the Pro Tour Qualifier today?"

"No," I said, "I won the Pro Tour."

There was a pause. "What do you mean? Like the main event?"

"Yeah," I said, "I won. The trophy's in that case right there."

They were duly impressed, and went home with some cool photos.

Five-Color Legends by Brian Kibler

Format: Standard Event: Pro Tour Thunder Junction , 2-3 Deck Source: magic.gg Deck Date: Apr 26, 2024 Archetype: 5c Legends

• My Price Tabletop Arena MTGO
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MTG Standard meta at Pro Tour Minneapolis healthy mix of old decks and new cards

A healthy mix of Magic: The Gathering Standard Constructed decks were submitted for the second Pro Tour of the 2022-2023 season beginning on May 5, from Aggro to Control. 

The Standard meta within MTG competitive play has reached a healthy spot leading up to fall rotation. Many tried-and-true builds like Rakdos Midrange, Grixis Midrange, and Esper Legends still rank as the best three decks within the format. New cards from MOM and ONE have improved the existing top MTG decks while also supporting less popular Traditional builds like Five-Color Ramp, Mono-White Midrange, Mono-Red Aggro, and a host of reanimator decks. 

Over 200 MTG players from around the globe are competing at Pro Tour Minneapolis , which features MOM Draft and Standard Constructed gameplay. Of those 200-plus players, the most popular submitted deck was Rakdos MIdrange, according to WotC . 

• Rakdos Midrange : 47 players and 18.7 percent of field
• Grixis Midrange : 39 players and 15.5 percent of field
• Esper Legends : 30 players and 11.9 percent of field
• Rakdos Reanimator : 23 players and 9.1 percent of field
• Grixis Reanimator : 18 players and 7.1 percent of field
• Domain Control : 12 players and 4.8 percent of field
• Five-Color Ramp : Nine players and 3.6 percent of field
• Mono-White Midrange : Nine players and 3.6 percent of field
• Jeskai Control: Seven players and 2.8 percent of field
• Rakdos Breach : Seven players and 2.8 percent of field

Roughly half the field at MTG Pro Tour Minneapolis brought decks that have a solid record of performance within a competitive Standard best-of-three format. And no one build is dominating the field over the others. The other half of the players at the second Magic Pro Tour of the season chose to bring decks like Domain Control, Rakdos Breach, Five-Color Ramp, and even Soldiers. 

• Azorius Soldiers : Three players
• Grixis Incubate : Three players
• Mono-Blue Tempo : Three players
• Four-Color Legends : Two players
• Orzhov Toxic: One player
• Orzhov Phyrexians : One player
• Mono-Black Midrange : One player

Many Pro players likely chose decks they were comfortable playing and have tested at various organized play tournaments prior to the Pro Tour at Minneapolis. But that doesn’t mean the lesser-played decks are bad. Azorius Soldiers has beaten out Control and Midrange builds before and is solid against other Aggro decks. In addition, Orzhov Phyrexians is a new Standard deck following the release of MOM and has proven powerful on the MTG Arena Ranked ladder along with Mono-Black Midrange and Grixis Incubate. 

Fans can watch the action unfold at MTG Pro Tour Minneapolis from May 5 to 7. Six rounds will feature MOM Draft while the remaining Swiss rounds and playoff rounds will showcase Traditional Standard Constructed.

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Apple Announces iPad Pro With M4 Chip, New iPad Air Models

Along with an apple pencil pro and a revamped magic keyboard..

Apple has announced that it’ll be putting out new versions of its iPad Pro and iPad Air in a livestream on Tuesday.

Introduced by CEO Tim Cook , the iPad Pro is being updated with the next-gen M4 chip, the next stage in Apple’s progress in the AI space. All iPad models currently pack the M1, M2 or M3 chips but the M4 is being billed as an “outrageously powerful chip for AI.” For instance, M4 will allow users to isolate specific subjects when editing a video.

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