181 of the ANZ region’s best and brightest Magic players braved a chilly winter weekend in Sydney, gathering to see who would claim the 12 available Pro Tour invites - in addition, of course, to a single invitation to the World Championship later this year. After two days of fierce competition, a winner emerged: Ben Kemp, playing Mono-White Humans!

Congratulations to Ben Kemp!

Mono-White wasn’t the most popular deck this weekend, but it was certainly the best-performing: of the 15 players that turned up with it, four ended up in the Top 12, their Pro Tour invitations all locked up! The championship match was a Mono-White mirror, with Ben Kemp facing off against fellow white weenie enthusiast Willow Moon. In one brutal, game-winning turn, Kemp put 16 power into play after his Ossification removed an opposing Brutal Cathar with three creatures under it - as a result, the game, match, and tournament were decided in his favor.

Ben Kemp during the finals

Willow Moon during the finals

Outside the two Mono-White Humans decks that met in the finals, the Top 8 was composed of completely different archetypes - and, most notably, no-one playing Rakdos made the cut. Instead, we had other Pioneer staples with Mono-Green Devotion and Azorius Control, relative newcomer Boros Convoke, grizzled veteran Izzet Phoenix, a dedicated combo deck in Lotus Field, and a spicy Dimir Control list.

Jim Luo, Willow Moon, Matthew Anderson, Mark Zhou, Brennan Crawford, Michael Russell, Ben Kemp, Alex Lim

Despite not appearing in the Top 8, Rakdos didn’t have a terrible weekend. Plenty of Rakdos players missed the cut with strong X-2 records, showing that the deck is by no means a thing of the past. Azorius Spirits and Abzan Greasefang, on the other hand, didn’t have much of a tournament. Of all the Spirits and Greasefang players, only a single person managed to go better than X-3. What is truly notable is the fact that almost 30% of the field was composed of “other” decks - and plenty of off-the-wall brews did very well, like Matthew Anderson’s old-school Dimir Control deck, putting three copies of Rewind into the Top 8!

This was the biggest weekend of competitive Magic in the Australia and New Zealand region in years, and the ANZ community turned up in spades to show this little corner of the globe is ready to compete on the world’s biggest Magic stages. If you want to be a part of the next Regional Championship and see if you’ve got what it takes, be sure to find a qualifier happening near you so you can get in on the action!

Players gather for the player meeting at the beginning of the tournament

Zen Takahashi, Ben Kemp, and Anthony Lee are the Australia and New Zealand contingent for the World Championship in September!