Arrival

I arrived in Chicago for the first Pro Tour of 2025 in the middle of February, just like I did in the year before. This time I flew in from Puerto Rico, where I had spent the previous couple of weeks chilling on the beach, studying and playing Magic Online events in Starbucks – the only café I could find that had power outlets for customers.

After meeting Karl Sarap at the airport we took an Uber to our pre-party AirBNB with Stefan Schutz, Allen Wu and Alex Friedrichsen. After the sandy beaches and humid heat of the Caribbean Sea, the weather in Chicago felt like a significant downgrade. I was thrilled to see my friends again, but much less fond of the thick blanket of snow covering the ground.

Our first dinner was at a place that called itself an Irish Pub, but it only seemed to fit the description in a very technical sense. It did have an Irish theme, as it had lots of Irish memorabilia in the decoration. And I suppose you could also make the argument for it being a pub too, although I would say the vibes were much closer to a diner.

The tables were polished, neatly ordered and covered by pristine white tablecloths, there were squeaky clean booths with couch seatings, and the music was playing gently in the background. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pub like that in Ireland. If real Irish Pubs were wild wolves, then this one would have been a domesticated dog.

When we got back to the house and started drafting, Karl had a big 《Mendicant Core, Guidelight》 in play with max speed enabled and I made a joke about how that is a Mendi-Can, not a Mendi-Can’t. A few drafts later Karl opened up a booster with a normal Mendicant and a foil Mendicant in it, and asked: “Would you take the Mendi-Can… or the Mendi-Can’t?”

In addition to drafting, we played some of the more common Standard matchups on the side. Two days went by in a flash, and then we moved into a bigger AirBNB when the rest of the team arrived. Eli Kassis, Simon Nielsen, Julien Henry, Daniel Sondike, Arne Huschenbeth and Jonny Guttman arrived during the day, and Jesse Hampton and Charles Wong came after I had already gone to bed.

Fun and Games

Once we were all together in the same location, it was time to get to work! Which is to say, it was time for having fun by playing a card game and goofing off with friends from early morning hours till late in the evening, all day every day.

For the next few days we focused on Standard. Eli was working on a Blue-White Control brew, which looked to me like it was a deck from ten or twenty years ago. In the first playtest sessions it mostly won when piloted by Eli himself. This made me suspect that those wins had more to do with Eli’s skills as a player than the strength of the deck.

I had also made a new year’s resolution that I’m only going to play fast decks this year. In last year’s tournaments I was severely hurt by draws, and I know I’m not exactly the fastest player on the circuit. As one of my favorite fictional characters tends to say: you’ve got to be realistic about these things. At Pro Tours I rarely have enough practice under my belt with the decks I’m playing to be able to play quickly without the quality of play suffering.

On the other hand, I do think I’m pretty good at finding the right plays if I have the time to do so. It’s as if my brain had great software, but it was running on a Windows 95 computer that my grandpa bought from a thrift store in the 90’s. Playing faster decks would let my P5 Pentium processor have the time to properly analyze the lines. Azorius Control didn’t check that box, so I took a calculated risk and ignored it.

Julien and a couple of others were working on another brew, an aggressively slanted Green-White midrange deck with 《Brightglass Gearhulk》, but no 《Collector’s Cage》 like the stock versions. I tried the deck for a bit, and while the 《Brightglass Gearhulk》 itself was definitely a powerful card, the rest of the deck seemed less promising.

Green-White Midrange decks often have the problem that your good matchups aren’t as good as your bad matchups are bad, and in this particular case the Domain matchup was very unpleasant. This didn’t make the deck unplayable, but I also couldn’t see an outcome where I would want to register it over the other options.

We also tried Domain for a bit, as we had the idea of improving the mana base by playing actual color producing lands instead of 《Cavern of Souls》. It had some really good matchups, but we expected Gruul to be very popular, and that matchup was rough. I played a set of games against Allen with me playing Domain and Allen playing Gruul, where I lost all 8 pre-board games and then 5 more postboard games in a row, until I finally won a game and called it quits.

The matchup obviously isn’t as bad as that set of games would imply. An important skill for testing on teams is being able to recognize anomalous testing sets and what you can and can’t infer from them. I think my draws were below average and Allen’s were above average, and we tried some novel plans for the Domain side which were clearly ineffective.

That said, the baseline was clearly low as the Domain deck was slow and its answers did not line up well against Gruul’s threats. For example, sweepers like 《Split Up》 didn’t even clear the board reliably, making it hard to catch up. This set of games coupled with the scar of getting a draw in a Domain mirror at Worlds were enough for me to give up on the deck. That put Domain in the same spot as Green-White: I didn’t think the deck was bad, but I also couldn’t see myself registering it.

Out of the big decks, Pixie never seemed very appealing to us, except maybe to Allen and Jesse. While it was a powerful deck in a vacuum, its position in the metagame did not seem great. We didn’t find the matchup against competent Gruul pilots to be as good as the public seemed to think it was, and we couldn’t find a plan for the Domain matchup that we would be happy with. It was also an underdog against decks like Golgari that people were playing online. The good draws of the deck felt broken, but there were also some major issues with consistency.

Between testing sessions we had the chance to enjoy delicious meals cooked by Julien and Eli, such as butter chicken and Japanese curry rice. Julien had thoughtfully planned ahead for the trip by preparing spice mixes at home and packing a chef’s knife in his luggage.

While most of our focus was on Standard, we also did some drafting in the evenings. At some point Simon checked the replays of a single elimination draft on Magic Online and excitedly posted a “Hey, look what I found!” screenshot to our Discord server about how somebody had drafted a very similar deck to one that Karl had posted about playing with.

After some sarcastic comments it eventually dawned on Simon that there was a reason why it looked so similar. In fact, it looked exactly like Karl’s deck. Simon just didn’t recognize the name of the account.

After some more drafts, we discussed the various archetypes, and how none of us had really found any success with Red-White. There was a picture on a screen of one of the few Red-White decks we had drafted, and Simon asked Karl how he ended up in those colors.

“Well, Magic Online made the first 14 picks of the draft for me…”, Karl replied with a grin on his face. “That explains a lot”, said Simon, and we all burst into laughter.

In the meanwhile, Eli had managed to convert a couple of followers to the Azorius Control camp, most notably Alex and Charles. They had made some significant improvements to the deck, like adding 《Stock Up》, and I had to admit that the deck looked a whole lot better than it had a few days ago. I stood strong in the face of temptation though and still didn’t touch it.

The last two decks that I was still considering were Gruul and Convoke. Gruul had been a solid performer throughout testing, as it was a consistent deck with a strong, proactive game plan.

That said, the thought of registering the deck felt a bit disappointing. We didn’t have any real improvements over the stock lists, and everyone at the tournament would have practiced against it tons of times. It also didn’t really gain anything from the new set. Where was the edge? Was that really the best we could do?

Convoke, on the other hand, got a couple of new cards: 《Sunbillow Verge》 and 《Nesting Bot》. These made it possible to build a straight Red-White version, which made the mana base much better. The old Jeskai versions had somewhat problematic mana with all fast lands and painlands and needing all of the colors on turn 2. In comparison, the new two-color version felt smooth as silk.

One of the biggest problems for Convoke used to be the Gruul matchup, and we got excited when we found a plan that turned the matchup around. We filled the flex slots of the deck with 《Regal Bunnicorn》 and 《Sheltered by Ghosts》, which worked extremely well together while also being totally fine on their own.

In addition, we found 《Surge of Salvation》 to be great in the matchup. Most Gruul lists had 《Lithomantic Barrage》, 《Pyroclasm》 and maybe a couple of 《Screaming Nemesis》 as sideboard cards against Convoke, and 《Surge of Salvation》 shut all of them down effectively.

It’s obvious why the 《Surge of Salvation》 is good against 《Lithomantic Barrage》 and 《Pyroclasm》, but it’s easy to miss just how brutal it can be against 《Screaming Nemesis》. If the 《Screaming Nemesis》 blocks, say, a big 《Regal Bunnicorn》, and you cast the 《Surge of Salvation》 before combat damage, the opponent will be in trouble. The damage trigger from 《Screaming Nemesis》 is not a “may” ability, and neither your creatures nor you are legal targets, so they are forced to deal the damage to another one of their own creatures or their own face.

That made us hyped about Convoke until we found a new problem with it. Without the counterspells available in Jeskai, the straight Red-White version was struggling against Domain. This made us return to the old Jeskai mana base and 《Spyglass Siren》, with only a pair of 《Nesting Bot》 as new cards.

Reverting back to the counterspells fixed the Domain matchup, but created a new weakness. We started losing a lot of games against Pixie due to the additional damage taken from painlands, which let the Pixie deck win the races with 《Hopeless Nightmare》 and unblockable flying creatures. It was almost comical how much a couple points of damage per game changed the matchup.

When Karl and Simon, our leading Convoke experts, worked on the Pixie matchup and talked about potential sideboard cards, one of them said “Oh I don’t think that card would really help, it would just be the first card you discard to 《Hopeless Nightmare》.” While that card did not indeed help, this comment sparked an idea in our heads. How about a card you actively wanted to discard?

This led us to trying 《Wilt-Leaf Liege》, first one copy and then two. The 《Wilt-Leaf Liege》 put the Pixie player in an awkward bind, as casting a 《Hopeless Nightmare》 now involved a significant risk. If you got 《Wilt-Leaf Liege》 on turn 1 it was usually game over on the spot, but if you waited, you gave the Convoke player more time to find the 《Wilt-Leaf Liege》.

Some Pixie lists could board out some of the 《Hopeless Nightmare》 to mitigate the issue, but that would make their deck less consistent at executing its own game plan and took a great deal of pressure off of the Convoke player – remember, many of the games came down to racing.

While the matchup was still unfavorable for Convoke, it was no longer bad enough to be a disqualifying factor.

Eventually time was running out and decisions had to be made. We had a team meeting where we estimated the metagame shares of the most popular decks and each candidate deck’s win rates against them. Based on the numbers, Azorius Control would be our best choice thanks to good matchups against Gruul and Domain.

Our Green-White Gearhulk deck had pretty bad numbers due to the horrible Domain matchup, so even the last champions of the deck gave up on it. Gruul and Convoke both had good but not particularly exciting numbers, and the teammates who were not comfortable with UW were split among these two options. Since Gruul and Convoke were roughly equally good choices in an “objective” sense, the choice came down to which one would be better for each of us personally.

As a tiebreaker I decided to play the one that my future opponents would have tested less against. Gruul has been the top dog for months, so I knew that everyone would have practiced the matchup a ton and would be prepared with solid plans against it. Most likely, many of my opponents would have practiced more against Gruul than I would have against their decks, and I try to avoid spots like that unless a deck is clearly better than the rest.

Convoke, on the other hand, was much less on other people’s radar. With Convoke I would almost always be the one who had practiced the matchup more than my opponent, and if nothing else, that would give me peace of mind.

In the end, Simon, Karl, Stefan, Daniel and Jonathan chose Convoke as well, whereas Allen and Julien decided to play it safe with Gruul. Eli, Jesse, Charles, Alex and Arne chose to play Blue-White Control.

Jeskai Convoke – Pro Tour Aetherdrift

After the deck submission deadline we had some paper drafts and a Limited meeting and figured out how to get the cards for our Constructed decks. Then it was time for the player party, and then Karl’s birthday dinner, where Simon was opening booster packs and simulating a pod draft on his seat even after the food came to the table.

Dawn of a New Day

On the morning of day 1 I wished that I had gotten a bit more sleep, but felt good about our preparation for the event. We ate breakfast at the hotel cafe before heading to the site, and I was unusually relaxed despite needing a good result from this tournament to qualify for the next one. After having a bad run in Amsterdam I needed a 9-7 to get enough AMP’s for PT Las Vegas.

Pack 1 pick 1 I opened up a 《Spectacular Pileup》, which I gladly took. UW Artifact Control was one of my favorite archetypes in the format and I didn’t want to fight for the overly contested green cards. However, it was not the most flexible pick, as it doesn’t fit the other White archetypes nearly as well. To be fair, I didn’t really want to draft the other White archetypes anyway.

White felt quite open in pack 1, but I had a hard time finding a second color. Pack 2 I was excited to open an 《Aether Syphon》, which fits the UW Control strategy very well, but other than that I saw very little Blue.

Later on I got a 《Boommobile》, which I ended up splashing despite it being double Red, because I had multiple dual lands to support it and a 《Transit Mage》 to tutor it up. I also just needed more raw power for the deck, which I suspected would have a hard time closing out the games.

In the end I wasn’t happy with the deck, but also couldn’t really think of anything I should’ve or could’ve done differently.

When the first round started, my opponent mulliganed to 5 and I had the 《Spectacular Pileup》 in my opening hand, so things were looking good. However, they did not look good for long. The opponent played a couple of 《Deathless Pilot》 that laughed at my handful of reactive cards, and then an 《Ooze Patrol》 that forced me to use the 《Spectacular Pileup》.

I had a 《Boommobile》 in hand that I was looking to kill his next threat with, but the next threat was another massive 《Ooze Patrol》. I could exhaust the 《Boommobile》 for 8, but that was not enough against the 10/10 Ooze, and I died.

In game 2, I got stuck on mana for a while and had to cycle away the 《Spectacular Pileup》, thinking that I’m eventually going to lose because I don’t have enough hard removal for his big green threats. By some miracle I managed to claw my way back to the game and somehow even won it, but then lost game 3, where I wasn’t lucky enough to overcome the fact that my opponent had both drafted a better deck and played better than I did.

Repurposing Bae

In round 2, I got paired against Rei Zhang, a.k.a. cftsoc, and we had a battle between two slow control decks. Game 1, I kept a one-lander with high potential on the draw, but didn’t find the second land and conceded when Rei got max speed for their 《Aether Syphon》. Game 2 was also short, as they conceded quickly to my 《Aether Syphon》.

For game 3, I made a move that some would call lunacy and others brilliance, as I boarded in a 《Repurposing Bay》, a card that under normal circumstances is close to unplayable. I felt like the 《Aether Syphon》 was my best chance of winning the matchup, and thus I was willing to board in a tutor for it, even if it was as unreliable and costly as the 《Repurposing Bay》.

As the third game started, we both developed our boards and traded some cards until I finally drew and cast the 《Repurposing Bay》, which got a curious response from Rei. I then executed my plan and tutored up the 《Aether Syphon》 and started to build up speed.

In the meanwhile, Rei cycled a 《Valor’s Flagship》 for X equals a lot and all of a sudden I was in trouble. I knew what I needed to do though, and dug deeper into my deck. Fortunately, the 《Spectacular Pileup》 was near the top of my library, so I was able to sweep the board before dying to the Pilot tokens.

But then Rei threw another wrench in the works in the form of 《Cursecloth Wrappings》, which was conveniently turbocharged by the 《Aether Syphon》. While I was able to clog the board enough to not take damage from combat, Rei embalmed a 《Pactdoll Terror》 into play with a graveyard full of artifacts.

The race was tight – I was milling them with the 《Aether Syphon》 every turn while they were draining me with the 《Pactdoll Terror》, getting back an artifact every turn with 《Cursecloth Wrappings》. I counted their library and checked their graveyard to try to figure out the remaining contents of their deck, until I realized it doesn’t really matter.

A song was playing in my head by legendary Finnish band Leevi and the Leavings. One of their most famous songs is called “Teuvo, King of the Country Roads”, where the main character is a rally driver who says that races aren’t won by being scared. Staying true to the spirit of Aetherdrift, I pressed the pedal to the medal and kept milling, even if every activation could also put one final artifact into the graveyard to kill me.

In the end, Rei had three cards left in their library, and I was at 1 life. I passed the turn with the 《Aether Syphon》 untapped and we both knew that there was at least one more artifact left in the deck, a 《Wreckage Wickerfolk》. It all came down to this turn. I held my breath and crossed my fingers.

They drew their card and started thinking. That was a good sign. If the draw had been an artifact they would’ve cast it already and I would be dead, there would be no thinking required. But thinking was also not a great sign. If it had been, say, a land, there would also not be any thinking required.

Then they tapped their mana, cast 《Keen Buccaneer》 and activated it, trying to find the last artifact. In response, I used my 《Aether Syphon》 to mill out the last two cards of their deck, which made the card draw from the 《Keen Buccaneer》 fatal for Rei.

Whew. What a game.

After that, the last round of the draft was much less exciting. My opponent played a 《Riverchurn Monument》 in both games and I could neither race nor remove it.

Oh well, at least there was plenty of time for lunch!

Fading Light

When we moved into the Constructed rounds, things kept going downhill. I was paired against Pixie, and mulliganed into the following hand on the draw:

While the hand was not ideal, it did have a high potential upside, and mulliganing to 5 against a deck with 4 《Hopeless Nightmare》 was not an appealing prospect either. I had lots of outs: blue lands, 《Novice Inspector》, 《Nesting Bot》 and 《Resolute Reinforcements》. Even something like 《Warden of the Inner Sky》 into 《Regal Bunnicorn》 could sometimes steal games against the lower end of their range.

I died without ever casting a spell.

Game 2 was not much of an improvement. I mulliganed into this:

With this hand I needed to find a white source specifically, but there were a lot of them in the deck, and I could even afford to use the Map from 《Spyglass Siren》 to find it, as I could then use the 《Novice Inspector》 to fuel the 《Gleeful Demolition》. Depending on their draw I might even be able to afford whiffing for a turn.

While I did find the white land, I did so too late and I died another hopeless death. At least this time I got to cast a spell or two before it was over.

With two absolutely miserable rounds in a row and a 1-3 start, things were looking grim. I had plenty of time before the next round, and as I watched the sun setting over Lake Michigan I wondered if the sun was setting on my pro career too. Day 2 seemed like a distant dream.

The thought of retirement was not entirely unappealing. I wouldn’t mind spending my Februaries somewhere warmer than Chicago, or my Junes somewhere less hot than Vegas. Or September pretty much anywhere other than Atlanta. When I first heard that the third PT of 2025 would be in Atlanta, my immediate reaction was “well, at least it’s a city that I haven’t been to before!”

A few moments later I realized that I actually HAD been there before. It was just one of the most forgettable places I’ve ever been to. Sorry, Atlantans.

I also wouldn’t mind spending more time with my family and friends back in Finland. Or having normal, relaxing holidays instead of spending all of my vacation days from work on Magic tournaments. While I love playing the PTs and practicing for them, I would not describe the weeks spent in testing houses as relaxing.

Anyway. There was still Magic to play, and I had recovered from worse starts than this in the past.

As the next round began, I was fully focused again and ready to take on a Green-White Gearhulk deck. All I remember from the match is that in game 2 my opponent made a very confusing attack. I had a huge board, including a flying 《Warden of the Inner Sky》, a 《Regal Bunnicorn》, a 《Knight-Errant of Eos》, and about seven or eight tapped little creatures that had pumped the 《Warden of the Inner Sky》 on my turn. My opponent attacked with all of their creatures, including two that had 《Sheltered by Ghosts》 on them. I made blocks where my creatures survived and his didn’t.

Post-combat he cast 《Split Up》 for untapped creatures, which explained the attack. However, I wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for him to cast it on tapped creatures instead. That way he wouldn’t have lost any of his own creatures, and killing my tapped little creatures would have halted the 《Warden of the Inner Sky》’s growth and made the 《Regal Bunnicorn》 significantly less regal. Among the creatures that survived was another 《Warden of the Inner Sky》, which won the game soon thereafter.

The next round, round 6, was against Dimir Midrange. If I could choose a matchup to play every round of the tournament, I think this would be it. I had good draws and my opponent didn’t have any cheap sweepers in their sideboard, so I won quickly and easily.

At 3-3 the world seemed a much brighter place than it had a few hours before. After that I also beat Gruul in round 7, locking me up for day 2. In the last round of the day I lost to Seth Manfield on Domain, but at least I lived to fight another day with a 4-4 record.

Day 2

In the Day 2 draft I drafted another Blue control deck, this time a Blue-Black one due to being passed a late 《Winter, Cursed Rider》 in pack 1, a clear signal that the color combination was open. The Esper colors have a lot of artifact synergies so I picked mana fixing quite highly, but ended up not seeing anything other than a 《Ride’s End》 to splash.

The most unusual thing about the draft and the deck was that I chose to be on the draw. This deck couldn’t really pressure anyone on the play, and thanks to the 《Grim Bauble》 and a multitude of 2 drops I wasn’t worried about getting overrun either. I even had a third 《Grim Bauble》 in the sideboard, which I brought in from the sideboard in all three rounds.

Just like on Day 1, I got paired against a Monument that my control deck couldn’t handle, this time a 《Monument to Endurance》. I grimaced when my Blue-Red opponent cast it, and when he cast a second copy as a follow-up and started chaining cyclers, I knew there was no light to be found at the end of this particular tunnel and pressed the concede button. Fortunately, the other two matches were easier and 《Possession Engine》 carried me to a 6-5 record.

Moving on to Constructed, I got paired against Gruul Leyline, which used to be even harder to beat for Convoke than normal Gruul, so at first I was scared of the matchup. We also hadn’t really tested much against the 《Leyline of Resonance》 version specifically, as we expected the vast majority of Gruul players to be playing 《Innkeeper’s Talent》 instead.

While the Leyline version can be fast and furious and run you over quickly, to my pleasant surprise I found that it was also much softer to the 《Sheltered by Ghosts》 that we were now packing, and I won 2-0.

Next I got paired against Esper Pixie, and after getting to start my first turn of the second game with a 《Wilt-Leaf Liege》 in play, I found myself at an 8-5 record.

In the following round I had the rare pleasure of playing against another Finnish player, Aarni Rantamäki. Aarni played his first Pro Tour in Chicago last year, and has kept chaining invites ever since, which is quite impressive.

Along with other members of Team Rampant Growth, Aarni was playing Gruul with 4 main deck copies of 《Sentinel of the Nameless City》 and 《Torch the Tower》. They also had a couple copies of 《Audacity》, which I hadn’t seen before. Those didn’t change the matchup significantly compared to the stock lists, however, and I was happy to see that their team didn’t have any 《Pyroclasm》 in the sideboard.

After winning a short game 1, I think I made a mistake in game 2. My starting hand had 《Spyglass Siren》, 《Resolute Reinforcements》, 《Torch the Tower》 and 《Knight-Errant of Eos》, and after Aarni played a tapped land on turn 1 I passed the turn back with an untapped 《Spirebluff Canal》, holding up the 《Torch the Tower》. I figured that after the tapland on turn 1 he’s likely to cast a 2 drop on turn 2, and casting the 《Torch the Tower》 on this turn wouldn’t slow down the scheduled arrival time of my 《Knight-Errant of Eos》.

However, Aarni then cast a 《Heartfire Hero》, and as I tried to 《Torch the Tower》 the mouse at the end of his turn, he was able to protect it with 《Monstrous Rage》. After that exchange I was unable to stop the trampling 《Heartfire Hero》 and died. My line had its upsides as well, and could’ve worked out great against another type of hand, but put me in a really bad spot in this one as Aarni was able to play around the telegraphed burn spell.

In retrospect, I would just play the 《Spyglass Siren》 on turn 1. Drawing any 1 mana creature would let me 《Torch the Tower》 on turn 2 while still having a 《Knight-Errant of Eos》 on 3, and drawing a 《Gleeful Demolition》 would enable the 《Knight-Errant of Eos》 immediately on turn 2.

Even if I don’t draw those, I can still cast the 《Resolute Reinforcements》 on turn 2 and on turn 3 cast both the 《Knight-Errant of Eos》 and the 《Torch the Tower》. If I cast the 《Spyglass Siren》 first, I also have the option to 《Torch the Tower》 for 3 damage, which makes it harder for him to protect his creatures with 《Monstrous Rage》.

Fortunately, Aarni returned the mistake in game 3, as he attacked with 《Screaming Nemesis》 into my 《Knight-Errant of Eos》 in a spot where I was happy to block. This let me clear his other big blocker, a 4/5 《Sentinel of the Nameless City》, with 《Case of the Gateway Express》, and after that I had a wide board that was hard for him to stop.

On the last turn he could’ve still drawn a 《Manifold Mouse》 to kill me, as it would have been lethal in combination with 《Rockface Village》, 《Monstrous Rage》 and 《Audacity》, but luckily for me he didn’t find one and I won. The ninth win locked me up for PT Vegas too, and my happy mood continued even after getting rolled over by Sean Goddard’s 《Omniscience》 combo in round 15.

In the last round I was paired against Akira Kobayashi. Akira is deaf and Japanese, but communicated very clearly with non-verbal gestures. I wrote “Ganbatte!” on a piece of paper to wish him good luck. This was my favorite match of the day, as Akira simply radiated love for the game of Magic, and I found that contagious.

We had a close match and Akira played well, but in game 3 I had a timely 《Destroy Evil》 in response to his 《Temporary Lockdown》 trigger, and that let my soldiers crash through for victory and a final record of 10-6.

Despite great overall win rates for Team Handshake in both Constructed and Limited, we didn’t put anyone into the top 8 this time, not even Simon. It was a close call though, as Arne was left out of the top 8 on tiebreakers with a 12-4 finish, after a dominating 9-1 run in Standard with Azorius Control. All 13 of us made day 2, and 12 out of 13 requalified for Vegas.

We finished the day off with a traditional team dinner at Avec.

The Blue-White Control players on our team had a fantastic combined win rate in Standard, almost 70%, and I wonder if that would’ve been the better choice for me too despite the increased risk of draws. With Convoke I went 7-3, so it worked out well for me too, but our overall win rate was clearly lower with Convoke than with Control.

On Sunday we watched from the sidelines as Matt Nass won the tournament with a Domain list that had cut 《Cavern of Souls》 for a more consistent mana base. Maybe we should’ve pursued that idea further…

Epilogue

As the journey was nearing its end, Chicago was warming up and the last slivers of snow had retreated from the main streets to shadowy alleys. I finally had time to look up and around me, and I came to appreciate the beauty of Chicago. It has a very distinct style and identity, and a rich history that it cherishes. In Anthony Bourdain’s words: “You wake up in Chicago, pull back the curtain, and you KNOW where you are.”

The sturdy metal structures and the clanging sound of the railway reminded me of steampunk video games, and the golden light of old-fashioned street lamps provided a warm contrast for the cold winter air, especially at night.

I remember once seeing a meme that art nouveau buildings look like they were built by elves, and art deco buildings look like they were built by dwarves. Famous for its art deco style, Chicago definitely looks like it could’ve been built by dwarves.

A part of me is excited that I have more time to play Magic this year than I’ve had before, and hopefully I can use that time to improve as a player and see how far I can get. I love the thrill of competing at the highest level and trying my best.

But another part of me is more pessimistic: when all the PTs are in the U.S. and the prize money for 10-6 is barely enough to cover the flights, it makes me question the sensibility of the lifestyle. It would probably be more profitable to focus on playing Arena Directs from home than to work hard for weeks for the Pro Tours.

The one thing I know for sure is that the best part of Magic is still the Gathering. On Monday after the Pro Tour I got to attend a delayed bachelor party for Zen Miyaji-Thorne, formerly known as Zen Takahashi. The celebration brought together friends from all across the world and across team lines – a perfect way to wrap up the trip.

Matti Kuisma (X)