Pro Tour 25th Anniversary

Last week marked one of the biggest events in Magic: The Gathering’s lifespan, Pro Tour 25!



Pro Tour 25 celebrates Magic’s 25th birthday (a tad older than yours truly) and over those 25 years the game has gone from strength to strength. Over 20 million players playing and around 20 thousand unique cards produced it’s easy to see how Magic has become one of the biggest trading card games of all time. So why not a huge team event for such a big anniversary. PT 25 was a team trios event. For those of your that don’t know what that means I’ll explain: There are three players on each team and each player adopts a deck from one of three formats - Standard, Modern and Legacy. Each round the Standard format player will play their counterpart from the team they gave been paired against and the same goes for the Modern and Legacy players. Each team is looking for at least two of their players to win there match - regular best two out of three games rules apply - at which point they will have won the round. Pretty simple right?

165 teams of three entered - to put that into perspective that’s 495 people playing Magic over one weekend - It sounds glorious! All 165 teams weren’t just playing for their love of the game oh no, they were also playing for a share of $850,000!

Over this three day event 14 rounds of Swiss would be played with a cut to the top 4. With three different constructed formats being played at the same time there’s a lot to mull over and very little overlap of strategies, this meant that all the games had a good chance of being unique. With that said there were some very interesting decks coming into Pro Tour 25 that are definitely worth a look...

Going into PT25 it was a certainty that Red/Black Aggro would be the deck to beat and that was confirmed with it having a 40% of the field. Steel Leaf Stompy was next in line with just under 19% and all other decks coming in with under 10%. Esper Control and Reservoir Combo stood out but the deck I’ve chosen specifically is Turbo Fog.



Created by Gabriel “Yellowhat“ Nassif and Mark “Heezy” Herberholz Turbo Fog is a very reactive deck. It aims to build up its mana using Gift of Paradise/Beneath the Sands while holding off any combat with Root Snare and Haze of Pollen. The Core 2019 Buy-a-Box promo takes centre stage in this deck as well. Nexus of Fate isn’t just to take all the turns though, coupled with Teferi to rack up the loyalty and you can ultimate Teferi in no time. A one-of in the deck that’s very interesting is Oath of Teferi, a five mana enchantment that lets you activate planeswalkers twice a turn instead of just once which is absolutely devastating. Because Turbo Fog came slightly out of left field a lot of decks weren’t prepared for it and it became the silver bullet in the room, especially with the top two decks being Aggro decks it looked like it would be in a good spot.

In Modern the big bad wolf was Five Colour Humans. A deck with such consistency and power just got a nice boost in both those areas with the addition of Militia Bugler.

Humans is very hard to beat and offers a Swiss-army knife type of play style that can adapt to any situation so it’s no surprise that it was represented by over 16% of the field.

Black/Red Vengevine caught my eye however, looking like a hybrid of the old Vengevine Aggro decks and Black/Red Hollow One decks.

The utilization of the recurring effects on Vengevine and Gravecrawler is the basis of this deck and they work very well in conjunction with Insolent Neonate, Bombay Courier and another new boy, Stitcher’s Supplier. At heart Black Red Vengevine is an aggro deck but it comes with a bit more resilience that other Aggro decks. Being able to build up your board position out of nowhere with Gravecrawlers, Vengevines and Hollow Ones without spending a tonne of mana is hard for some decks to deal with once let alone over and over again.

Legacy is the most open of the three formats so the numbers are always going to be a lot more spread. Grixis Control took the top spot in the field with 12% but my pick of the legacy decks is Blue/Black Death’s Shadow.

At first glance this looks like a pretty straight forward controlling Death’s Shadow list until you get to the land base. A load of fetches and original dual lands but, what’s this? 3 Watery Graves and only 2 Underground Sea?

This is a nice little addition to the deck to help your life total plummet right off the bat. Blue/Black Death’s Shadow is designed to restrict your opponent’s options with Thoughtseize, Snuff Out and Force of Will while using it’s life total as a resource very effectively. Those three cards have that in common as well, they are all effective spells that you can use to drop your own life total and then there’s the kicker, Reanimate! Reanimating a Gurmag Angler to dome yourself for 7 enabling your Death’s Shadow and giving you two pretty big threats is a great line of play and, if you’re lucky, could happen as early as turn 2.

So those are the decks that resonated with me over the weekend but how did the event go I hear you cry!

At the end of day one, after 7 rounds, there was only one team standing tall and undefeated. Utter-Leyton, Stark and Juza - a team with a tonne of pedigree - had absolutely run the tables and shown everyone who was boss. Martin Juza’s deck choice was no surprise, Red/Black Aggro being the best deck in standard and all. His teammates however, that was a different story. Ben Stark has gone for a more combo oriented deck with the Krark-Clan Ironworks combo. For those of you that don’t know how this works: essentially the deck all revolves around Krark-Clan Ironworks, an artifact that allows you to sacrifice other artifacts to add 2 mana. The other artifacts in your deck either add mana, draw cards, damage you opponent or return artifacts to your hand. You can probably see how easy it would be to go infinite which is why the deck is so powerful, it’s also not very interactive so you can do your thing and let your opponent do theirs without worry. Josh Utter-Leyton on the legacy side of things had switched it up a bit with the previously looked at Blue/Black Death’s Shadow. A much more streamlined, controlling take on the recently more aggressive Death’s Shadow lists but consistency is key for this deck. A player with Josh’s ability would have no trouble piloting this and he showed how good it was in his hands in the first day, imagine what else he could do with it.

Throughout day 2 Utter-Leyton, Stark and Juza would drop points but had the top spot all the way up until the end of round 11. They now found themselves sitting in second place separated only by a small percentage from 3 other teams: Sukenik/Nagro/Cochran, Froehlich/Nassif/Williams and Carvalho/Saporito/Ramao. Some of these names will be familiar to you and that’s because between them they are sporting 15 Grand Prix wins, 2 Pro Tour wins, 2 Nationals wins and a Worlds win.

The team that had usurped Utter-Leyton, Stark and Juza - Wu, Hull and Orange of team Hotsauce games - managed to hold on until the end of the day finishing a point above the day one leaders.

The top four bracket was set: Wu/Hull/Orange, Utter-Leyton/Stark/Juza, Carvalho/Saporito/Ramao and Gregoir/Neirynck/Van Der Paelt.

Semifinal 1 - Wu/Hull/Orange vs Gregoir/Neirynck/ Van Der Paelt

Here we’re looking at control vs combo for the standard portion, Humans against Hollow One for the modern portion and Death and Taxes against Eldrazi Stompy for legacy.
Things got off to a flying start on the legacy table for Wu when Death and Taxes did it’s thing perfectly and took the first game I’ve Eldrazi. Neirynck took a look at this and thought “I want a piece of that”, swiftly taking his game one soon after with Humans over Hollow One. The eternal formats had been quick so moving back to the standard table where both players were locked in a card advantage game took the pace off a bit. Van Der Paelt’s game plan was to land a God-Pharaoh’s Gift and ride it to victory though he had had a little trouble doing that. Eventually he thought he had managed it with help from a Refurbish through a counter war but Orange was dangling the bait as he made short with work with it via Blink of an Eye. It went down to the wire when Van Der Paelt thought he had Orange right where he wanted him. Two Ipnu Rivulet triggers targeting Orange’s library with only a handful of cards in it looked like a lock, until a Torrential Gearhulk was able to bring Memory into the game to reshuffle everything into players libraries. It was a bold effort by Van Der Paelt but alas not enough.

Back to the other tables and it was no surprise when Wu went 2-1 up over Gregoir, the Death and Taxes gameplay isn’t what Eldrazi decks want to see. It especially doesn’t want to see an Umezawa’s Jitte with a tonne of counters on it controlling the board and securing the win for Wu in game 4. As far as Humans vs Hollow One went it wasn’t going well for Hull. He was 2-0 down and having to fight for his life, going as far to ditch a Hollow One due to its bad matchup against some of the Humans bullets. Game 3 was looking different though: he was at 6 but had Neirynck down to 3, had two Hollow Ones in play and Neirynck only had a Mantis Rider in play. It was looking like going to a fourth game until Neirynck’s newly appointed guardian angel, a Core 2019 new boy in the shape of Militia Bugler, stepped in to find a Phantasmal Image. The image copied a the Mantis Rider and that was enough, Neirynck evened up the scores.

So it was all down to the standard table, Orange was 2-0 up and definitely in control. He had lent heavily on his counter magic and managed to prevent Van Der Paelt from amassing any sort of board position. Getting into the late game the advantage had swung very much in Orange’s favour and when Van Der Paelt had landed another Refurbished God-Pharaoh’s Gift Orange was ready with a Torrential Gearhulk back a Forsake the Worldly to deal with the seven mana artifact and, with the robot and a Teferi in the board, that was enough to take the third game and put Wu, Hull and Orange through to the final.

Semifinal 2 - Utter-Leyton/Stark/Juza vs Carvalho/Saporito/Romão

If you thought the first semifinal was quick then make sure you keep your eyes on this one.

Starting at the legacy table Josh Utter-Leyton held the advantage with his Blue/Black Death’s Shadow deck and the pressure could have been enough if it weren’t for Márcio Carvalho’s turn one Aether Vile. With Utter-Leyton playing fast and loose with his life total as Death’s Shadow decks tend to do it all came to a head with an attack from an 8/8 Death’s Shadow. The single mana Avatar was met with an Aether Viled Flickerwisp to stem the attack which would then pick up a Sword of Fire and Ice to secure game one for Carvalho.

Meanwhile on the standard table, Juza was already 1-0 up over Romão and was able to nab the second game thanks to the superstar tag-team of Hazoret and Glorybringer, things weren’t looking good for Carlos Romão.

Back to legacy and things in game 2 started off similarly to game 1. Utter-Leyton built up a board position but this time Carvalho couldn’t find a Flickerwisp to keep his opponent’s creatures in check, with a final attack Utter-Leyton had done enough to even up the score.

The modern tables had gotten on to a good start for Ben Stark, even against the run of play. Stark’s Ironworks Combo deck traditional has a bad match up against Humans, though it didn’t come together for Saporito in time which allowed Stark to do his thing and take the first game. It wouldn’t last long however as Saporito’s Humans finally kicked into gear and showed Stark why the match up wasn’t in his favour. Three quick wins in a row later and Saporito had put his team 1-0 up, one more match win and they would be on their way to the final.

With Juza 2-0 up against Romão the momentum was well and truly on his side. Romão has to play a scrappy game to start mounting a come back and he did just that. With an Unlicensed Disintegration from Juza meeting Romão’s Rekindling Phoenix and a Chandra into Abrade to clean up the token it would have been easy for Romão to get distracted by the red planeswalker, he was able to put it out of his mind long enough to swing in and finish Juza off with a Cut//Ribbons in his graveyard. Juza 2-1 Romão.
With a tonne of threats coming out of Juza’s deck Romão had a hard time dealing with them all. He found an Hour of Glory for Juza’s Glorybringer but Juza followed that up with a Hazoret, it went from bad to worse for Romão and Juza took game four to even if up. 1-1 on matches.

Back in legacy town and it looked like the match was going to go all the way. Game three was difficult for Carvalho with Utter-Leyton landing a Dread of Night, the new appearance from Palace Jailer and a Batterskull however gave Carvalho some hope to get to the line. It was looking good until the point Carvalho tried to replay his Batterskull which was met by a Daze from Utter-Leyton. With no real threats Carvalho’s momentum dwindled and Utter-Leyton took over to take the third game.
Despite being under a Dread of Night again in game four Utter-Leyton wasn’t able to get anything going. A Phyrexian Revoker kept Utter-Leyton’s Liliana of the Veil locked out of the game and, from an advantageous position, Carvalho was able to take the fourth game and push it to a decider.
It must be nice when you just get the natural Delver of Secrets flips on turn two without any manipulaion. Utter-Leyton has just that, so right off the bat he had a flying threat that Carvalho needed to deal with and made things even worse with a Hymn to Tourach. A fight back from Carvalho looked like it could lead somewhere but the constant threats being deployed from Utter-Leyton’s side of the table was too much. To put it in perspective, Utter-Leyton ended the game with a board position consisting of 2 Delver of Secrets, 2 Gurmag Angler and a Death’s Shadow.

Utter-Leyton/Stark/Juza 2 - 1 Carvalho/Saporito/Romão

The Final

On one side you have a team of hall of famers, on the other GP grinder favourites. There was a lot riding on this game and both teams had come to play and weren’t going down without a fight.

That showed as the first games on both the standard and modern tables were very quick. Orange’s Blue/White control deck held Juza off long enough and Hull’s Hollow One deck was just too quick for Stark. Utter-Leyton wasn’t going to go down as easy and had to give the Channel Fireball hope, that he did. Death and Taxes isn’t the easiest of match up for Blue/Black Death’s Shadow but Utter-Leyton picked his spots well to take down game one.

Back with standard and modern and Juza and Stark managed to flip the results for game 2 by clawing back into the game, with Stark showing Hull just what his deck could do. Juza seemed to be in the driving seat for game 3 but a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria showed up just in time to save Orange and allow him to take the first sideboarded game.
Legacy was definitely the more interesting of the tables. Wu’s Death and Taxes deck is quite low to the ground with some of the “weaker” but more effective creatures. Despite that they all share one common trait: they’re all white. Dread of Night is therefore a difficulty of course, but two Dread of Nights? Utter-Leyton was hanging on when he lost his Gurmag Angler to a Batterskull token (equipped of course), so he must have been dreaming when the next sequence of events transpired.

Wu: return Batterskull to his hand at the end of turn.
Wu: untap 7 mana and cast Batterskull.
Utter-Leyton: tap 2 to Daze.
Wu: pay 1.
Utter-Leyton: return an island to Daze.
Wu: pay 1.
Utter-Leyton: return an island to Daze.
Wu: (bemused face) resolves, Batterskull is countered.

Even with this ridiculous 3 Daze play Wu dug in and was able to take a very scrappy game.
All eyes turned onto the standard table where Greg Orange put on a masterclass. The control Mage had an answer for everything, picking Juza’s spells off one by one. The pay off came eventually when Juza ran out of threats and Orange could turn the corner to put team Hotsauce Games one win away from victory.

On the modern table Krark-Clan Ironworks was doing its thing and building up artifacts while Hollow One was busy putting a lot of creatures into play. Stark looked like he was taking the advantage until Hull’s digging rewarded him with a Leyline of the Void out. The four mana enchantment makes things hard for Stark as the deck relies heavily on its graveyard to win. A glimmer of hope for Stark when he managed to stick a Sai, Master Thopterist which gave him some time to find a way to win. But then it happened. Ancient Grudge off the top for Hull was enough to clear the thopters away and allow him to attack for lethal. Stark extended the hand after thinking for a bit and Team Hotsauce Games had done it. After 14 rounds of Swiss and 2 top eight matches Wu, Hull and Orange has bested the team of hall of famers to take the trophy! 

Congratulations to Team Hotsauce Games. These guys have been on the Magic scene for a while and this could be their opportunity to start another deep run. So the Pro Tours over and all is said and done, a lot of magic was played and enjoyed and eventually champions were crowned. Remember, if you want to catch any of the live coverage for Grand Prix's or Pro Tours head to Twitch.tv, there’s always something to watch. Check us out on twitter at @gcgamingtank, in the mean time though keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.