Carlos Romao. Willy Edel. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. Brazil has produced a number of Magic’s brightest and best despite the barriers inherent to reaching the Pro Tour from a country with only a handful of Pro Tour Qualifiers and a few yearly Grands Prix.

The next person on that list might just be Victor Fernando Silva.

Far from being discouraged, Victor redoubled his efforts. He began honing his signature R/W/U AngelFire list on Magic Online under the name _VFS_ and put up enough strong results that R/W/U maestro Gerry Thompson consulted with him on the deck. He then shot to the top of the standings with his version of the deck at Grand Prix: Rio de Janeiro before losing in the last few rounds to fall out of contention.

Then, he made the leap with that deck, winning the March 30 Magic Online PTQ with his same R/W/U deck with only a few changes, qualifying for the Pro Tour in Dublin. Given his place at or near the top of the Brazilian Magic scene, I caught up with Victor to talk about his unique take on R/W/U, Brazilian Magic, and qualifying for the Pro Tour.

His answers in Portuguese are found beneath the answers in English. He did his own translations with a very minor assist from your friendly author.

I know you pretty well by now, but introduce yourself to our readers. What is your name, where are you from, and how long have you been playing Magic?

Hello there; I’m Victor Fernando Silva from São Paulo, Brazil. I have played Magic since 2007 when I bought my first Time Spiral booster, and I, with my competitive spirit, became interested in playing in big tournaments. In 2008, I already wanted to play in every big local great tournament. That was the year I also made my first PTQ Top 8.

R-Olá senhores meu nome é Victor Fernando Silva, sou de São paulo/Brazil e jogo magic desde 2007 quando comprei meu primeiro booster de time spiral e então começei a jogar e com meu espirito competitivo começei a me interresar pelos grandes torneios e em 2008 e já queria jogar a maior quantidade de torneios grandes possiveis e foi nese ano que consegui fazer meu primeiro top 8 em um ptq.

What did you play for the PTQ you won? Can you include the decklist?

I played my own build, R/W/U AngelFire for this PTQ. The list can be found here.

[Blake: We’ll also make your life easier and post it below.]

R-eu joguei de uwr "angelfire" e a lista pode ser encontrada nesse link http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/5230519

"Victor Fernando Silva’s R/W/U AngelFire"

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Augur of Bolas
• 3 Restoration Angel
• 3 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Aurelia, the Warleader

• Spells (24)
• 2 Dissipate
• 2 Essence Scatter
• 2 Rewind
• 3 Sphinx's Revelation
• 3 Think Twice
• 4 Azorius Charm
• 4 Searing Spear
• 2 Pillar of Flame
• 2 Supreme Verdict

• Lands (26)
• 2 Island
• 1 Desolate Lighthouse
• 1 Moorland Haunt
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Clifftop Retreat
• 4 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Angel of Serenity
• 3 Clone
• 2 Detention Sphere
• 2 Dispel
• 3 Izzet Staticaster
• 2 Negate
• 1 Restoration Angel
• 1 Supreme Verdict

Buy This Deck

[Another note from Blake: Clone! Did I call it, or did I call it? Hint: I called it.]

Why did you pick that deck?

I chose this deck basically because it’s the deck I’m most familiar with. Since Return to Ravnica was released, I have played with variations of it. I think the deck pretty much fits my style—a good control deck with nice interactions.

R- Escolhi esse deck por ser o deck q mais entendo no standard, já que venho utilizando variaçoes de uwr

desde que return to ravnica surgiu,o que faz com que eu consiga montar minhas próprias decklists e tem um estilo de jogo que me agrada já que é um deck control com bastante interação.

I don’t actually know what to recommend to those who are going to play with the deck, but it’s basically: Know how to sideboard, and, obviously, practice.

R-nao sei em que posso estar aconselhando quem for utilizar o deck mas basicamente saber como fazer o sideboard correto é um bom passo e treinar o que nunca é ruim.

What are your good matchups? What are your bad matchups?

The worst matchup for the deck is probably Junk Reanimator, and the best matchups are against red-based aggro decks.

[Victor didn’t answer this one in Portuguese.]

At Grand Prix: Rio, you started off really well then lost several rounds at the end. How did that affect your deck for the PTQ?

Despite the fact that I didn’t have final result I wanted with the deck at GP: Rio, the deck wasn’t really affected overall. The simple changes on the deck were:

I added three Clones to the sideboard because _Batuinha_ said that Junk Reanimator was the most-played archetype on MTGO, and Clone is a pretty good response to that.

I added two Supreme Verdicts to the main deck, which were in the sideboard when I played at GP: Rio.

R-Apesar de não terminar o gp tão bem o deck para o ptq nao foi muito afetado as alteraçoes que foram feitas foram a adiçao dos clones no sideboard já que o _batutinha_ tinha me dito no dia do ptq que junk reanime era o deck mais jogado do MTGO e clone é uma otima resposta para junk e o maindeck ganhou 2 supreme verdicts que antes estavam no sideboard essas foram as mudanças mais importantes que o deck sofreu até o ptq

Magic Online helped me to improve a lot in the game since there, you play against good players from around the world and can play more often compared to real-life events. When you play against good players, you tend to become better. MTGO has a really awesome tool: the replays. With replays you can rewatch your game, checking which play was wrong or right and then note your mistakes and think about it then. Moreover, you can watch other good players’ replays and then think about their plays and why they played that way. It helps you to learn and improve.

R-o magic online me ajudou a melhorar muito no jogo já que nele vc joga com bons jogadores do mundo inteiro e tambem tem um tempo maior de jogo se comparado a participar em eventos na vida real e quando vc joga mais com pessoas melhores a tendencia é que melhore tambem alem de que o mtgo possui uma ferramenta que considero muito importante que são os replays atraves deles vc pode ver como vc jogou e começa a notar seus erros ou pensar se algo poderia ser feito melhor, pensar nas suas jogadas e se faria elas novamente alem de poder assistir jogos de bons jogadores o q faz com que vc consiga ver como eles agem e pq o fazem de tal maneira o q te leva a pensar no pq das coisas, resultando em aprendizado e melhora.

Last year, you could not go to the World Magic Cup because of a visa problem. How disappointing was that?

It was really, really frustrating for me. I became upset about it and thought that all my efforts to make it there were in vain, but it made me think; I thought that if I got there once, I could get there again soon, and when I realized the next Pro Tour would be in Europe, I decided I would commit to trying to play this event since it wasn’t in the United States. I would have had the chance to play in many of the online PTQs for Dublin, but I did it on the second try. And I’ll try to qualify for the MWC again.

R-Foi realmente muito desapontante fiquei triste e pensei que todo esforço para poder chegar ali foi em vão,

mas me fez pensar que se eu consegui me classificar pra um evento no estilo pro tour uma vez conseguiria me classificar a segunda e quando vi que esse ano haveria um pro tour e MWC na europa decidi que iria me empenhar para que conseguisse participar em algum deles já que poderia jogar muitos ptqs no mTGO e finalmente eu consegui.

I don’t know exactly how to describe the Brazilian field nowadays, but I believe there’re more stores looking to organize better events. But the fact remains that Brazilian players always search for excuses to not appear in great Magic events when those do happen, which discourages those stores from organizing events because of low turnouts. That’s really bad for those who always want to play a lot of events with large turnouts.

R-Não sei exatamente como descrever o cenário brasileiro do magic hj, mas creio que existem mais lojas

procurando organizar melhores eventos, mas o fato do jogador brasileiro sempre arrumar deculpa para nao

comparecer a bons torneios de mtg quando eles acontecem fazem com que as lojas que querem com que o mtg brasileiro cresça acabem muitas vezes por desistir de fazer a organização de certos eventos pela falta de participação do jogadores msm isso é muito ruim pra quem busca participar de eventos mais competitivos e com grande público

How excited are you to attend the Pro Tour in Dublin? How excited were your friends for you?

I’m really happy to have the chance to play this event; I’m going to practice a lot. My friends seem really excited about it, too. They supported me and cheered me on a lot because they knew that someday I would have the opportunity to play at a Pro Tour.

R-Estou realmente muito feliz de ter a oportunidade de participar de um pro tour e vou treinar bastante para que possa ter um bom resultado no evento, e meus amigos tambem estão felizes por eu ter essa chance de participar de um evento desse nivel, muitos torceram por mim e sabiam que eu conseguiria um dia participar de tal evento.

Thanks, Victor! And good luck at Pro Tour: Dublin and attempting to qualify for the World Magic Cup.