Last weekend was a real rollercoaster.

Part of what makes the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour so special is how important it feels. Such a huge amount of preparation time goes into the event for each player, and that's not including the amount of time and effort spent trying to actually qualify as well. The air is electric as 250ish of the best players at something that millions of people play every day all gather in one place to do battle.

As such, it makes the highs really high. Success is thrust onto the screen on twitch.tv, as well as on YouTube and all sorts of social media platforms. Nothing tops doing well in a room full of your peers, or the kind words from friends back home cheering you on.

Of course, this also means that the lows are low. These events are very stressful, as you're constantly being pushed to your limit by needing to play against the best players in the world every single round. The tournament only has one winner, only eight players in Top 8, and only so many players who requalify. Many more players "lose" the tournament than "win" it.

Last weekend I got to experience both.

Once again, I had the privilege of testing with the actual best players in the game, Team CFB & Friends, and our sixteen-player roster was an unbelievable mix of accomplished talent. With the defending champ Reid Duke on the team, we were looking to once again make a big mark.

Unfortunately, I think we spent a bit too much time drafting.

Unlike for Pro Tour Phyrexia, where almost the entire team played the Izzet Creativity deck that Reid won with and also put Gab Nassif in Top 8, for this event we splintered into three camps. There was a Grixis Midrange group mostly comprised of the Europeans, an Invasion of Amonkhet-focused Grixis Reanimator group comprised of many of the Denver folks, and then a Rakdos Breach group which I fell in.

Rakdos Breach | MOM Standard | Jim Davis, 58th Place Pro Tour March of the Machine

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness
• 2 Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 4 Bloodtithe Harvester

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Chandra, Hope's Beacon

• Instants (9)
• 1 Abrade
• 2 Cut Down
• 3 Big Score
• 3 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (7)
• 2 Breach the Multiverse
• 2 Duress
• 3 Invoke Despair

• Enchantments (7)
• 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
• 3 Reckoner Bankbuster

• Lands (26)
• 2 Mountain
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1 Xander's Lounge
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Haunted Ridge
• 4 Sulfurous Springs

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Lithomantic Barrage
• 2 Duress
• 2 Cut Down
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Obliterating Bolt
• 1 Soul Transfer
• 1 Gix's Command
• 2 Razorlash Transmogrant
• 1 The Cruelty of Gix
• 1 Etali, Primal Conqueror
• 1 Reckoner Bankbuster

Buy This Deck Export text format Export Arena format

Seth Manfield had been playing this deck for much of the testing process, and a day or two before the event he sold me, Reid, Jakub, Raph, and Will on it.

Obviously, all of the Rakdos cards are very good, but the idea of the deck is to try to do the usual "go over the top to win the mirror while still playing all the good cards" strategy. There ain't much bigger in the format than Breach the Multiverse, which of course gets even better if your opponent is playing some sort of reanimator deck.

With decks set, it was time for the start of the Pro Tour.

Draft One Draft

My first draft pod was an odd ten player one, as because the number of players in the event was not divisible by eight, the last two pods had ten players each. I was greeted in pack one with some shine:

I've done a more in-depth breakdown of the draft itself on my Bronze to Mythic channel, but after opening Elesh Norn and being a big fan of the multicolored Green decks when they're topped off by rares, I second picked a Blighted Burgeoning and never looked back, ending up with this deck.

Draft One | Jim Davis | Pro Tour Machine

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Etched Host Doombringer
• 1 Firja, Judge of Valor
• 1 Halo Forager
• 1 Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn
• 1 Ravenous Sailback
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 War Historian
• 1 Wary Thespian
• 2 Herbology Instructor
• 2 Portent Tracker

• Instants (2)
• 2 Seed of Hope

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Blighted Burgeoning
• 1 Phyrexian Awakening
• 1 Realmbreaker's Grasp
• 1 Sculpted Perfection

• Battles (5)
• 1 Invasion of Vryn // Overloaded Mage-Ring
• 2 Invasion of Lorwyn // Winnowing Forces
• 2 Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave

• Lands (16)
• 1 Island
• 2 Swamp
• 3 Plains
• 6 Forest
• 1 Blossoming Sands
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 2 Jungle Hollow

• Sideboard (5)
• 2 Mountain
• 1 Invasion of Tarkir // Defiant Thundermaw
• 1 Into the Fire
• 1 Volcanic Spite

Buy This Deck Export text format

One very interesting note was that I actually boarded out of Blue and into Red in about half my games, when I felt the early game Red removal and sweeper was more important to stay alive over the grindier Blue cards. I'd run up a nice 3-0 with this deck, going into Standard undefeated.

Day One Standard

Moving on to the Constructed rounds was quite the ride.

After dispatching Nonthakorn Kositaporn's Azorius Control deck in the first round, I was called up to the feature match area for a match against teammate Luis Scott-Vargas. This was actually my first feature match ever at a paper Pro Tour, and was fortunate enough to take it down. A win against Joe Lossett's Mono-Blue Tempo, and it was on to the main stage for matches against Hall of Famer Shota Yasooka and up and comer Pedro Perrini, both playing Esper Legends.

This left me as the only undefeated player left in the whole tournament at the end of the day! Awesome, right?

Day Two Draft

Uh... right.

Day two did not go nearly as planned.

Draft Two | Jim Davis | Pro Tour Machine

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Converter Beast
• 1 Herbology Instructor
• 1 Omen Hawker
• 1 Sandstalker Moloch
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Wildwood Escort
• 2 Portent Tracker
• 2 Thunderhead Squadron
• 2 Wary Thespian

• Instants (4)
• 1 Cosmic Hunger
• 1 Tandem Takedown
• 1 Wicked Slumber
• 1 Zhalfirin Shapecraft

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Eyes of Gitaxias
• 1 Temporal Cleansing

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Corruption of Towashi
• 1 Tangled Skyline

• Battles (3)
• 1 Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia
• 1 Invasion of Vryn // Overloaded Mage-Ring
• 1 Invasion of New Phyrexia // Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir

• Lands (17)
• 2 Plains
• 6 Island
• 8 Forest
• 1 Thornwood Falls

Buy This Deck Export text format

We were on the main stage for the featured draft, and I think I was a bit too enamored with the Green deck I had in the first draft and dipped too hard into Green early without a good reason to do so (like a big seven-mana bomb).

At the featured table drafting with some of the best players in the world, I'd end up with an underpowered and scrappy Simic deck splashing for Invasion of New Phyrexia // Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir which I opened in pack two. While I think the deck was probably good for a win or two, some mulligans and rough matches meant it was not to be and I'd start the day with a rather ugly 0-3.

Day Two Constructed

They say sometimes it's not your day, and the beatings continued and morale did not improve. I would lose a bunch of tough matches, most notably to Rakdos Midrange far more times than I'd expect given how we thought the matchup was good, and ultimately end up going a very ugly 1-7 on the day.

While 9-7 overall was good for 58th place overall, $1500 in prize money, and most importantly a requalification to the next Pro Tour in Barcelona, squandering such an impressive start stings pretty badly.

And the beats would only continue, as after a very nice meal with some of my teammates at a steakhouse, I'd head back to my hotel room feeling a little off, only to get fairly sick throughout the night. I spent all of Sunday sick in my room, missed the rest of MagicCon (as I was really looking forward to seeing the actual con on Sunday and doing my usual content creator stuff; I never left the Pro Tour hall on Friday and Saturday), and flew home and have been sick ever since.

The swings are real! From top of the Magic world on Friday, to not even feeling well enough to stream now this week.

Unsurprisingly, I also had perhaps one of my worst Pro Tour Prediction records ever too!

Prediction One: Rakdos Midrange Will Have A Sub 50% Win Rate

Result - False

Whoa boy did we miss the mark as a team on this one.

We had Esper Legends mostly poised as the "deck to beat" going into the tournament, also assuming that Grixis Midrange would outpace Rakdos Midrange, as we assumed Rakdos Midrange was just too basic to do well. We were wrong, and it cost us dearly on day two.

Prediction Two: There Will Be Zero Copies of Basic Forest In The Top 8

Result - False

A very close one, as Green was the least played color at the Pro Tour by an astronomically high margin, but David Olsen was able to sneak into 8th place with his version of Five-Color Domain which played a whopping four copies of Forest.

Domain | MOM Standard | David Olsen, 8th Place Pro Tour Machine

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness
• 4 Archangel of Wrath
• 4 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
• 4 Topiary Stomper

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Sunfall
• 4 Herd Migration

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Leyline Binding
• 4 Ossification

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Reckoner Bankbuster

• Battles (4)
• 4 Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave

• Lands (26)
• 1 Island
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 4 Forest
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 2 Mirrex
• 4 Jetmir's Garden
• 4 Spara's Headquarters
• 4 Ziatora's Proving Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Lithomantic Barrage
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse
• 1 Sunfall
• 2 Vanquish the Horde
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Temporary Lockdown
• 4 Tyrranax Rex

Buy This Deck Export text format Export Arena format

Prediction Three: Jeskai Control Will Make Top 8

Result - False

This prediction was made a bit more with my heart than my head because I'm a big fan of the deck, but while there were a few Jeskai Control players in the event, the best finish was Jeff Pyka at 80th place with the deck. He did actually go 7-3 in Constructed, but a poor Limited record kept him from a better finish.

Prediction Four: Blue And Black Will Be The Most Commonly Played Colors Among The 6-0 Drafters

Result - True!

Hey, I got one!

The three undefeated drafters were my teammates Luis Scott-Vargas and Brent Vos (not surprising considering we drafted too much), as well as Tom Kessler, and here are the decks they did it with:

Luis - Knights /

Brent - Knights /

Tom - Sac / Soup

Every deck is either Blue or Black, with three base-Dimir decks. Nailed it!

Prediction Five: Two Players From My Team Will Top 8

Result - False

Ouch!

It was a rough event for the squad. We had me at 8-0 and a number of players at 6-2 going into day two, but just couldn't pull it together on the second day. I obviously imploded, Reid lost two back to back win-and-ins (after starting 0-2 in the event, much respect), and Seth and Luis's great starts also trailed off.

Brutal!

Still, despite all the doom and gloom about crashing on day two and getting sick, there's still nothing like Pro Tours.

Here's my video recap of the event, and I'll be doing some match reviews on my main channel as well as draft reviews on my Bronze to Mythic channel once I'm feeling a bit better.

The Road Goes Ever On And On

The good news is that I get to try again soon enough in July at Pro Tour Lord of the Rings in Barcelona! I'm also in a good spot to make Worlds based on the at-large points leaderboard, as well as potentially put together a few more qualifications.

I've been "semi-retired" from Pro Magic since starting content creation full-time over five years ago, so it's truly a blessing to still be able to travel and play this game at the highest level alongside some of the best to have ever played. I'm honestly not sure how I got so lucky, even despite blowing an 8-0 start!