Locations
It's Pro Tour weekend!
250 of the best Magic players in the world will be gathering today at MagicCon in Minneapolis for day one of Pro Tour March of the Machine! The formats are Standard and March of the Machine booster draft, and there's $500,000 of prize money, a slots for Worlds, and glory on the line!
This is the second paper Pro Tour since the pandemic, and the first was an awesome return to everything that makes high level Magic awesome. The sounds of the judge calling the draft echoing through the hall, the cascade of players shuffling at the start of each round, and the excitement of the latter rounds as dreams come true. In storybook fashion, hall of famer and fan favorite Reid Duke took the whole thing down, providing a perfect finish to a wonderful weekend.
And now we get to do it again!
I am very fortunate once again to be testing with Reid and the rest of what I guess can be called Team CFB for this event, as we look to try and go back to back.
Today I am once again going to be making my five predictions for the Pro Tour!
Prediction One: Rakdos Midrange Will Have A Sub 50% Win Rate
We get our metagame breakdowns early these days, and the most played deck is Rakdos Midrange.
This doesn't come as that much if a surprise, as Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki and Bloodtithe Harvester are certainly the backbone of the format.
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However, this is not exactly a new innovation. Everybody playing in this Pro Tour knew that Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is where you want to be, and Rakdos is perhaps the most "level zero" version of a Fable of the Mirror-Breaker deck in the format. Tons of decks are doing much more over the top and impressive things with the card, whether it's Reanimator trying to put Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Etali, Primal Conquerer // Etali, Primal Sickness into play, or decks looking to leverage Breach the Multiverse.
Typically, in matchups that involve similar decks, the one going bigger tends to come out on top, and this coupled with being public enemy number one does not bode well for Rakdos Midrange.
Prediction Two: There Will Be Zero Copies Of Basic Forest In The Top 8
For a long time, Green was where it was at.
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Green has been an absolute force in Standard for years now, with complaints often coming that after many barren years in the early days of Magic, it has encompassed far too much of the color pie. Collected Company decks, energy decks, adventure decks, and more have all been the "best" deck in their respective formats at many points.
It's safe to say that those days have passed.
Green has a number of major issues in Standard right now. The card quality isn't there in general, but there's also the issue that the color has in general when it comes to dealing with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker or the big Black cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse efficiently. Trying to be aggressive in the face of these cards is so difficult, as is answering them at parity or better.
As such, it's not easy being Green, and I doubt the color will see much success at this event.
Prediction Three: Jeskai Control Will Make Top 8
While I ultimately ended up not playing it at the event, I was very impressed by Jeskai Control when I played it at the Sunday 10k at Dreamhack.
Jeskai Control | MOM Standard | Jeff Pyka, US Regional Championship
- Creatures (3)
- 1 Wandering Mind
- 2 Sanctuary Warden
- Planeswalkers (3)
- 3 The Wandering Emperor
- Instants (15)
- 1 Destroy Evil
- 1 Fires of Victory
- 1 Flame-Blessed Bolt
- 1 Negate
- 2 Abrade
- 2 Dissipate
- 2 Make Disappear
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 3 Memory Deluge
- Sorceries (5)
- 1 Strangle
- 2 Depopulate
- 2 Farewell
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
- Artifacts (3)
- 3 Reckoner Bankbuster
Control decks have often done well in midrange and big spell metagames, which this certainly is, and the deck isn't making any concessions to power level by also playing Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Reckoner Bankbuster to their full effect.
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There's also no doubting the power of Farewell against the permanent based decks and counterspells against all the decks looking to put an Atraxa, Grand Unifier in play.
If you want to see more of this deck I'll be playing it in my Monday video right here on CoolStuffInc.com, but as for the Pro Tour there are seven players playing Jeskai Control in the event and I'm betting on one of them making the elimination rounds.
Prediction Four: Blue And Black Will Be The Most Commonly Played Colors Among The 6-0 Drafters
My team has done a lot of drafts to prepare for this event, and our results both online as well as doing in house drafts have this as a very Dimir-based format.
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Blue and Black are both just phenomenal main and support colors in this format, providing tons of removal options at common, as well as card advantage, solid creatures, and an almost zero-miss roster of incredible rares and mythics. The colors are also very well set up to play the longer games that the format craves while splashing bombs if necessary, giving them the double whammy of card quality as well as strategic advantage.
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With White being one of the most unimpressive colors in our drafts, some folks of my team have gone as far to say that they will take the mythic-level common Preening Champion over the ridiculous Boon-Bringer Valkyrie.
Personally, I hope these players pass me the Valkyrie in this Pro Tour, but there's no doubting the power of the two colors. As such, I predict that of Blue and Black will be the most popular colors among the drafters who go undefeated.
Prediction Five: Two Players From My Team Will Top 8
Last predictions article I took some flak on Twitter from none other than the German Juggernaut himself Kai Budde (he's won seven Pro Tours zoomers, look him up) for only predicting that one member of my 14 player testing team made up of World Champions, Pro Tour Champions, Hall of Famers, and Players of the Year would make the top eight of Pro Tour All Will Be One.
the team is 10% of the field with that roster and you predict one person will finish top 8? I hope you didn't lean too far out of the window there, Jim ... :)
— Kai Budde (@kaibudde) February 17, 2023
Of course, Reid Duke ended up winning the event and Gabriel Nassif joined him in top 8, making me look like I was really playing it safe.
Well no longer! We've increased in number to 16 players this time around, and the roster is as stacked as ever:
- Jim Davis
- Eli Kassis
- Jakub Toth
- Reid Duke
- Gab Nassif
- Sam Pardee
- Brent Vos
- Seth Manfield
- Logan Nettles
- Luis Scott-Vargas
- Arne Huschenbeth
- Andrew Baeckstrom
- Will Krueger
- Thoralf Severin
- Raph Levy
- Andrea Mengucci
We didn't come to a mostly clean consensus on deck choice this time around (last Pro Tour most of the team played the same Izzet Creativity deck that Reid won with), but it's hard to question the resume of players on this list.
I predict that two players from my team will make top 8 of this Pro Tour!
(Happy Kai?)
The Return Of The Pro Tour
There's no doubt that I am past the point in my life where the Pro Tour is my number one priority. I wasn't able to put as much time as I would have liked into this event due to work and family constraints, but even so it just feels amazing to be playing in Pro Tours again. The feeling of excitement and camaraderie as ~250 Magic players descend from all over the world to compete at the absolutely highest level at something is just a remarkable thing to be a part of.
Make sure you tune in today and all weekend to coverage on the official Magic Twitch channel, and see how I do with my predictions!
