Looking Back on 7 and a Half Years of Activities as Hareruya Pros

Hola!

Today I come with some news. Hareruya and I are going to follow different paths going forward, so this will be my last article on the site.

It’s been a wild ride! I joined the Hareruya family around the fall of 2017, which means we’ve been together for 7 and a half years!

Nowadays, I’m a player with a couple top finishes (PT/Worlds Top8/Top4), but when I joined Hareruya I had a grand total of… 0.

That’s right, the 2017 World Championship was my first tournament with Hareruya but also my first top finish. I had been around the Pro Tour for some years as I got a few 9th places, but that was the first time I finally managed to break through.

My second article for Hareruya was the 2017 Worlds report, where not only did I explain how I approach tournaments but also talked about a very special deck to me: Ramunap Red.

Ramunap Red is truly the deck I leveled up with in terms of Constructed Magic. Since it was a deck that could operate in many directions, it really offered a good opportunity to get deeper at understanding the game. There have been many decks like that across Magic history, but this was the best at the time I was ready to get to the next level.

After all it’s no coincidence that 《Fervent Champion》 and 《Hazoret the Fervent》 share part of their names.

As it turns out, things started to go extremely well. A few months later, I got my first Pro Tour Top8 at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, in Bilbao, Spain.

After so many years playing the circuit, this tournament meant that being the runner-up of the 2017 Worlds wouldn’t be my only top finish. Modern decks truly looked different back in the day, eh?!

After that, I had a very good season!

Little did I know it would look considerably worse than the ones that would come in the future. If you had told me that, I would have sincerely thought you were joking, but here we are. This also made me travel for a moment to the GP era – we played a lot of tournaments!

And then it came. The tournament that changed it all.

To this date, this is probably the tournament I have tested the most for, and it will likely remain like that forever. Reading this report once again brought back many of the memories I have from this event and also of how much love I put into these reports. I also can see in the details that I have changed quite a bit in some things, but I am still essentially the same Magic player approaching the game in a similar way.

After winning worlds, I was a bit afraid of not being able to find the fire or the luck to do well in more tournaments. I was wrong.

Shortly after came Mythic Championship II (Pro tour War of the Spark) where I also made Top8.

If Ramunap Red is the deck I leveled up with, Izzet Phoenix is probably the deck I have played the best in my whole career. Feeling confident with our War of the Spark draft preparation, I started the tournament 0-2, which eventually converted into a top8, which wouldn’t be the last 0-2 to become a Top8 eventually.

In this tournament report, I talked briefly about pulling off one of the most dramatic comebacks in my whole career. It’s February 2025, and I think that’s still true in terms of in-game scenarios.

I also got to win a Pro Tour match with the [-8] ability of 《Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God》.

2019 was truly wild in terms of results, as Mythic Championship V provided me a win that was even more unexpected than most wins are, which is to say a lot.

Winning a tournament with a brew that basically didn’t exist in the metagame was something I didn’t think I was able to do, but that weekend, carried by how broken 《Once Upon a Time》 was and the power of the by-the-time relatively unplayed 《Embercleave》, I took it home. That was probably one of the luckiest tournaments I’ve ever had.

But it wasn’t even over yet! A few months later, Seth Manfield decided to break it.

This was an event Brad Nelson and I both followed Seth’s lead in terms of deckbuilding, and we both got rewarded with a Top8. My 3rd place there is still among the best finishes of my career, and on that tournament I learned a lot about the benefits of following someone that knows what they are doing. I also played 《Kenrith’s Transformation》 in my sideboard, surely one of the worst cards I’ve top8ed a major event with.

After that, the pandemic came and the competitive Magic scene stopped for a while, as most of the world did.

During pandemics I wrote one of the articles some of my friends like the most.

Most things I say here still apply to how I think you can extract the best value while playing cantrips.

And then the post-pandemic Pro Tour era began. I certainly didn’t know what was coming. Keep in mind that Wizards restarted the whole system, so when they announced Pro Tour Phyrexia in 2023, I wasn’t even qualified. Luckily enough, I qualified to the PT on the Regional Championship and then managed to qualify there for Pro Tour March of the Machines.

Then, a Top8 happened powered by the broken Rakdos Midrange deck with 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》, 《Invoke Despair》 and the Anthony Lee-brewed combo of 《Light Up the Night》 and 《Chandra, Hope’s Beacon》.

My relationship with Magic was a bit more relaxed after the pandemic which made me think I would probably not going to be able to get to play on a Sunday Top8, but it happened. After that, I locked the Pro Tours for a year, which would mean a huge change from playing without being qualified for the next one…

And then, back to back Pro Tour Top8s.

As of today, I think our Tron deck for Pro Tour Lord of the Rings is still easily among the best decks I’ve played in a Pro Tour compared to the field.

And with that we arrive at 2024.

After a 9th place at Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor:

And a 10th place at Pro Tour Thunder Junction:

I made Top8 at Pro Tour Nadu:

……Playing Jeskai Control brewed with my teammates, not Nadu.

Writing this article is making me realize how much of a “brew” player I actually am. Interestingly enough, in a way, I see myself as a “Stock Tier 1 Deck player”, but in reality a relevant percentage of my best finishes actually come from brewed decks.

Speaking of winning a tournament with a brew…

The end of this period of my life comes after becoming the 2024 World Champion.

In the End

When I joined Hareruya, I was dreaming of finally making Top8 of a Pro Tour, and then I got second at Worlds which felt surreal. Then, I won Worlds and I also made a couple of other Top8s.

And last year I won worlds for a second time. To say what I have lived since I joined Hareruya has been like a dream come true is simply an understatement, as I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of getting a title like that twice.

For Hareruya believing in me before my big results, I am grateful. For them bringing me support and care whenever I needed something all these years, I am grateful. For them providing me a platform where I can write my articles and talk about how I see and live the game, I am grateful. For you, all my dear readers and friends that have followed me and my articles across the year, I’m grateful.

Thanks for reading me once more and for all the love and support.

どうもありがとう！

Javier Dominguez (X / Twitch)