Slow and steady. Steady and slow. That's the way my Pro Tour train goes.

Since returning to the paper Pro Tour last year, my performances have been the epitome of "solid but unexciting."

• 9-6-1 for 46th place at Pro Tour Phyrexia
• 9-7 for 58th place at Pro Tour March of the Machine
• 10-6 for 49th place at Pro Tour Lord of the Rings
• 8-5 for 40th place at the 2023 World Championship
• 9-7 for 84th place at Pro Tour Murders of Karlov Manor

And now 10-5-1 for 25th place at Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction, my best of the bunch, but still outside of the "Top Finishes" that every Pro Tour player is judged by. Consistency is great, and it has kept me on the tour for much longer than I anticipated, but in a lot of ways high level Magic rewards inconsistency - ironically, you'd rather go 0-8, 0-8, 16-0 than 9-7, 9-7, 9-7, even if the more consistent result has a better win rate in the long term. High level Magic rewards the outliers, so hopefully I can put it all together at one of these things!

But despite the good finish on my part, Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction wasn't a great one for the team.

I'm not usually one to register the "best deck" in a format for a Pro Tour. Frankly, I want an edge in deck-building, and coming into an event with a deck that everyone is prepared to beat isn't my style. That being said, we unfortunately just didn't have anything better. For the last Pro Tour we broke it with Rakdos Vampires and almost the entire team played the deck, but not only is that a difficult thing to do for each Pro Tour, but it was also super difficult to do this time around with barely a week between the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and the deck submission deadline.

We had a lot of sweet brews we were trying out with new Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Big Score cards, but we had to be so fast to discard any idea that wasn't blowing it out of the water because we couldn't risk being 24 hours from deck submission with no deck. As such, the team was pretty divided for this event, with most of the team split between Esper Midrange, Golgari Midrange, and Azorius Control. I was one of five Esper Midrange players, and while we did put Arne Huschenbeth in Top 8, we didn't do super well otherwise.

By the end of the event, I was referring to our deck as "No Good Matchups Esper" as I was having trouble finding a deck at the top tables that would be a good matchup for us.

No Good Matchups Esper | OTJ Standard | Jim Davis, 25th Place Pro Tour OTJ

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Ertai Resurrected
• 3 Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition
• 3 Faerie Mastermind
• 4 Deep-Cavern Bat
• 4 Raffine, Scheming Seer

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 The Wandering Emperor

• Instants (10)
• 3 Cut Down
• 3 No More Lies
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Virtue of Loyalty
• 4 Wedding Announcement // Wedding Festivity

• Lands (26)
• 1 Island
• 1 Plains
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 2 Caves of Koilos
• 2 Shattered Sanctum
• 2 Underground River
• 3 Deserted Beach
• 4 Concealed Courtyard
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Restless Anchorage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 The Wandering Emperor
• 1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal // Temple of the Dead
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1 Loran of the Third Path
• 2 Tishana's Tidebinder
• 3 Pest Control
• 1 Duress
• 1 Negate
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Long Goodbye
• 1 Cut Down

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For what it's worth I do think our list was good, as we did spend a few days ironing it out, but Esper Midrange is definitely a 49% win rate deck, with no awful matchups but no great ones either. If I could go back in time, I would definitely play a different deck, but honestly I'm not sure which; we really just needed another week to prep.

I only went 5-4-1 in Constructed, which means my good finish was mostly propped up by two very solid draft decks. I'd go 3-0 in the first draft with Green/White Commons, with a single awesome rare in Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero, and run it right back on day two with a 2-1 with Green/White Commons again, this time with zero rares.

Green/White is probably the best archetype in the format, and while it was hotly contested in our house drafts it was reasonably open in both of my Pro Tour drafts. Usually, I tend to be a bit more contrarian in Pro Tour drafts, fully happy to draft the "bad" colors if everyone else wants to fight over the good ones, but this time it just sort of worked out that the good colors were open. I never saw any rares beyond the first, but was very pleased with both decks.

And that was my Pro Tour! But realistically, there's so much more to a Pro Tour than the event itself.

Before every Pro Tour my team rents out an Airbnb for about five days leading up to the event, to be able to completely focus on preparation and work together in the same room. It's obviously logistically very useful, but it's also just a blast getting to get away from it all and hang out. I am beyond fortunate to work with Team CFB & Friends for these events, as not only is it an incredible experience to work with living legends of the game, but it's also a great group as well.

And there's also the afterhours!

Wizards of the Coast was kind enough to rent out a bar/restaurant on Saturday evening for a party with free food and drinks for all competitors, staff, and judges, and it was the perfect palette cleanser after a week of preparation two long and difficult days of Magic. Just getting to hang out and share a drink with other players from all over the world was fantastic.

Aside from the official stuff, there's also just great meals, getting to hang out, eat dinner, and watch some hockey playoffs at the hotel bar with the team, it's all just a major part of the experience and enjoyment of being at a Pro Tour.

And I get to do it all again in two months for Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 in Amsterdam!

Prediction Results

But before we go, let's take a quick look at last week's predictions for the Pro Tour and see how I did:

Prediction One: Esper Midrange Will Be The Most Played Deck

Result: Correct!

Not exactly rocket science.

Esper was the safe choice for this Pro Tour, and frankly there wasn't enough time for that many folks to take the risk and deviate. As such, we get a Pro Tour with 30%+ Esper Midrange.

Esper didn't do particularly well at this Pro Tour as it was well targeting, making this metagame graphic a little misleading as far as Esper Midrange being a "tier zero" deck or something. Esper is certainly very beatable, as the Pro Tour showed.

Prediction Two: There Will Be At Least One Unexpected Deck In Top 8

Result: Correct!

While not the sort of deep surprise rooted in Outlaws of Thunder Junction cards that I expected, team Sanctum of All put two players into Top 8 with their Four-Color Legends deck, which going in to the event was more of a fringe archetype.

Honest Rutstein was the big new pickup in the deck, but it is largely fueled by Slogurk, the Overslime and the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty channel lands.

Prediction Three: There Will Be At Least One Copy Of Caustic Bronco In Top 8

Result: Partial Credit

Okay, this one didn't end up being technically correct, but Caustic Bronco was prominently featured in a pair of decks played by multiple players in the tournament. Four players from my team Team CFB & Friends played a Golgari Midrange deck with Caustic Bronco as a major player, while two more players played a unique new deck called Orzhov Bronco centered around putting a Shadow of Mortality on top of your library with Insatiable Avarice and saddle-attacking with the Bronco.

With both Golgari Midrange Bronco players as well as both Orzhov Bronco players making deep runs into day two, I'm giving myself partial credit here. Also, if you want to see this deck in action, I'll be playing it right here on CoolStuffInc.com this Monday in my video article!

Prediction Four: Both Decks That 3-0 Their Featured Pods Will Feature Green

Result: Incorrect

Oh boy, waaaaay off.

While Green is definitely the no-contest best color in OTJ Draft, it was actually Rakdos domination at the featured tables. Both Justin Warden and Javier Dominguez drafted solid Rakdos decks to run the table at their respective featured pods.

Prediction Five: The Top 8 Will Contain At Least One Member Each From Team CFB & Friends And Team Handshake

Result: Incorrect

Hey, we did our part!

Unfortunately for Team Handshake they had a big team kill in the penultimate round, with two of their best in Javier Dominguez and Simon Nielson having to faceoff with four losses apiece. Javier would win the match, but go on to fall to my teammate Arne Huschenbeth in the final round to get knocked out of Top 8 contention.

Instead, the big story of this event was team Sanctum of All, who not only put two players in Top 8, but two more in Top 16, which is an extremely impressive showing. They were definitely the team of the tournament!

Wrapping Up

The Pro Tour pace this year has been fervent, with an event pretty much every two months, and we'll be doing it all again in June for Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 in Amsterdam, before taking a big break for the World Championship in October.

A good finish at Amsterdam will hopefully qualify me for Worlds again, but either way I'm also qualified for the first Pro Tour of 2025 so the train rolls on!