The World Championship.

Some Magic events are hard to explain to your average person.

"I won an RCQ!"

"I made top 8 of an SCGCON!"

"I cashed a MTG Arena Open!"

You may as well be speaking French.

However, everyone understands what it means to be a World Champion at something. There is no higher accolade, and of course the $100,000 ain't bad either.

This weekend is the 2024 Magic: The Gathering World Championship, and today as usual I'm making my five predictions for the event!

Prediction One: This Will Be A Breakout Event For Enduring Curiosity

All the early Duskmourn hype has been around the Overlord cycle, but poised for a breakout is a member of the Enduring cycle.

Seriously, have you read this card?

A 4/3 Ophidian with flash is already a somewhat interesting card, but the snowball potential of drawing fistfuls of cards coupled with the resilience to removal makes Enduring Curiosity the best of the cycle and a card that has been seriously slept on in the early parts of Duskmourn Standard.

The card has shown up in a few other places, but has really found a home in the Dimir Midrange/Tempo decks as a far better version of Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor. These decks have great removal, great threats, and with a splash of countermagic and the ability to apply strong pressure and answer almost anything, are very well positioned.

Enduring Curiosity is going to have a big weekend.

Prediction Two: Leyline Of Resonance Will Not Make Top 8

Very often in life, and especially in Magic, perception does not match reality.

Leyline of Resonance was recently banned on MTG Arena in best of one Standard because of its ability to create possible turn two and three kills in Standard.

While sure, that does feel sorta bad I guess, the reality is that the deck fails much more than it succeeds, especially when facing relevant interaction. The deck just isn't consistent enough to see serious competitive play, which is why it will not do well at the World Championship.

Gruul Prowess/Mice will see a ton of play and be a major part of the Worlds metagame, but Leyline of Resonance will not be a factor.

Prediction Three: There Will Be At Least One Familiar Face Among The Draft 6-0s

Duskmourn is a phenomenal draft format.

However straightforward and "on rails" Bloomburrow felt, where it seemed like each color pair just did one thing and once you knew what colors you were you just tried to do the thing, Duskmourn is an absolute playground of possibilities. You can draft two decks in the same color pair that have very little in common, and there is a beautiful display of cross synergy interwoven between all the mechanics in the set.

As such, this is also a complex and intricate set, which will reward highly skilled and experienced drafters. This means that the cream will rise to the top, and I don't think there will be too many surprises among the few players who are able to score a perfect 6-0 record through the two drafts.

Prediction Four: Sanctum of All Will Bring An Unexpected Deck And Put A Player In Top 8 With It

Since the return of the Pro Tour, much of the storylines have revolved around two teams: Team CFB & Friends and Team Handshake, with each team securing a Pro Tour win each of the last two years. However, at the last few events Team Sanctum of All, with Jason Ye leading the charge, has really come on as a powerhouse that has not only performed exceptionally well, but done so with unorthodox and complicated decks over and over again in ways other teams have not been able to replicate.

There's no reason to expect this trend to change.

Sanctum will definitely be cooking up something spicy for this World Championship, and it would be surprising to see them not to well at this point.

Prediction Five: A Player From Team CFB And Friends Will Hoist The Trophy On Sunday

Usually this last prediction is reserved for something related to my Pro Tour team for the event, but it's usually related to a player on the team making top 8.

So why am I calling my shot here?

Two reasons. The first is that Worlds is a much smaller event than a Pro Tour. While a Pro Tour has 16 rounds for between 200 and 300 players, Worlds is just a little over 100 players. My team has ten players qualified for the event, making us a little less than 10% of the field:

• Seth Manfield
• Sam Pardee
• Reid Duke
• Kai Budde
• Arne Huschenbeth
• Brent Vos
• Matt Sperling
• Theo Jung
• Noah Ma
• Jim Davis

With two players in contention for player of the year, the literal best player to ever live, and a bunch of other great names (and me too!), it's hard not to want to bet on this team.

However, the second reason is having the inside scoop. The team is split between two decks for this event, Golgari Ramp and Dimir Midrange, and we are extremely happy with both of them. With constructed feeling great and an absolute ton of limited prep under our belts, I'm ready to say one of us will win it all!

The Biggest Event Of The Year

With that all being said, there's just one thing left to do... tune in and see if I'm right!

The World Championship will be streaming all weekend, and you should tune in to see how the event is going (and maybe how I'm doing too).

Look for a recap next week, hopefully it's a successful one!