Skip to main content Download External Link Facebook Facebook Twitter Instagram Twitch Youtube Youtube Discord Left Arrow Right Arrow Search Lock Wreath icon-no-eye caret-down Add to Calendar download Arena copyText Info Close
Magic: the Gathering | Esports Magic.gg Logo
Magic: the Gathering | Esports Magic.gg Logo
PLAY ARENA NOW

Day One Highlights at Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™

June 21, 2025
Corbin Hosler

Las Vegas has become the place where Magic dreams come true. The city's first Magic World Championship was played in this city in 2018–Javier Dominguez won–and it's been hosted in Las Vegas for three straight years–with Dominguez winning the last one, too.

Now the reigning Magic world champion and more than 300 other competitors are back in the very sunny Las Vegas, this time for Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™.


The event did not disappoint. A packed house, excited room of competitors, and eight intense rounds of Magic play left us with a single undefeated player: Christian Baker, who got there playing the talk of the format, Izzet Prowess.

Baker, who qualified for this event via the Regional Championship in Charlotte earlier this year, had a path to 8-0 that was anything but simple. He ran into 2022–23 Player of the Year Simon Nielsen in the third and final round of Draft, and needed the full three-game set to win all but one of his matches.

Whether it was in two or in three, Baker just kept winning. And after another exciting finish to Round 8, he was left as the last undefeated player at Pro Tour FINAL FANTASY.

Christian Baker


Setting the Stage

The hotly anticipated Magic: The Gathering–FINAL FANTASY is here, and now the best Magic players in the world are primed to put on a show with it. Today, they traversed six rounds of Magic: The Gathering–FINAL FANTASY Draft and ten rounds of Standard Constructed, which is incorporating Tarkir: Dragonstorm as well since the last time we saw it played on the Pro Tour stage.

That stage, of course, belonged to Matt Nass, who lorded his Domain deck over all challengers in Chicago en route to winning Pro Tour Aetherdrift.

Since then, Standard has changed. Nass was one of the many players who stepped away from the Overlords deck in that time, and many of them ended up registering Cori-Steel Cutter. The fate of this Izzet-filled Standard metagame is one of the many questions posed by Magic: The Gathering–FINAL FANTASY and Vivi Ornitier.

The field is deep, with the best of the last few seasons competing alongside several handfuls of the best players to ever sleeve up sixty, as twelve Pro Tour Hall of Fame members took to the field, including the 2020 World Champion–and arguable GOAT–Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa.

Let's dive in.

Finding the Way in a New Draft Format

Tidus, Blitzball Star
Locke Cole
Black Waltz No. 3
Gladiolus Amicitia
Garnet, Princess of Alexandria

"Through the first four or five picks of the draft, you probably want to take the best card no matter the color," was how Nathan Basser launched into his advice for Magic: The Gathering–FINAL FANTASY's Draft format. "You want to stay pretty open for as long as you can. Then you identify your lane this draft, and go from there. The win rates between all the archetypes were pretty similar, so there was no strong pull toward, or away from, any one color."

It's rare to get that kind of balance–especially after two furious weeks where Bassers, his squadmates on team Scryhard, and the rest of the Pro Tour field put the brand-new Limited format through its paces time and again to prepare for this event. Thousands of games went into the data that the field of over 300 competitors had to sift through, and many long hours of early mornings and late meetings later, the teams felt like they had a plan for Friday and Saturday's Draft.

Basser's team wasn't the only one to come to similar conclusions. All those weeks of testing led many players to the conclusion that this particular Draft format didn't reward careful maneuvering among preferred archetypes, instead encouraging players to get to know every archetype inside and out–and execute on that when the moment arose.

That was what Basser was able to do, with one of the best black-green decks you'll see in this format. With a ton of removal, including three copies of Sephiroth's Intervention, he continually cleared out his opponent's boards until all that remained was one large Gigantoad. The deck took the Australian to a perfect 3-0 start, and it came as a result of putting those prep lessons into practice.

"I started with a black card, and then second-picked a red spell I didn't play. But when I saw a fourth-pick Town Greeter, I started taking some green cards," he recalled of his perfect Pro Tour start. "I picked up a couple of Capital Cities, preparing to splash. I didn't get any crazy bombs, but I did play The Wandering Minstrel and Balamb Garden, SeeD Academy, which I transformed multiple times."

The "stay open, then commit hard" strategy was shared by many players in the room. Somewhat surprisingly, we did see a large variety in the undefeated archetypes.

The strong suite of removal anchored the black decks, with Sephiroth's Intervention, Vayne's Treachery, and Cornered by Black Mages coming very highly in team pick order. Overall, the format produced few blowouts over the course of the day, but with some extremely swingy events based on the power of bombs like Ultima or Summon: Knights of Round.

There were plenty of notables among the 3-0 drafters, from Spotlight Series runner-up Jody Keith, to Hall of Famers like the Dark Confidant himself, Bob Maher, not only finished the draft rounds unblemished but ran his record up to 5-0 before cooling off. All between signing copies of Dark Confidant, of course–Maher estimated he signed between 20 and 30 copies in between his Pro Tour rounds, on the lower end of average for a man once simply known as "the great one." Also among the players with 3-0 records were veterans Shota Yasooka, Ben Stark, and Ken Yukuhiro.

Hall of Fame Hangout

Bob Maher


One of competitive Magic's greatest strengths is undeniably its 30-plus year history. In over three decades of high-stakes events and gameplay, there's been only a few dozen have received an invitation to the Pro Tour Hall of Fame. It's the most prestigious honor in a Magic's pro's career, and also comes with a once-a-year Pro Tour invitation; no one was more excited to see Bob Maher compete than those who will now get to say they competed "against" the legend.

Maher was one of a dozen Hall of Fame members in attendance this weekend, from Patrick Chapin to Lee Shi Tian, and even including one former World Champion not seen for some time: Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa.

Paulo Vito Damo da Rosa at the Magic World Championship XXVI


Team Cosmos's new member, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, brought quite the resume. He's a two-time Pro Tour winner, World Championship, Elite Spellbinder, and top-three Magic player in history. And while the team didn't know exactly what to expect from him at this event, all accounts were that he exceeded expectations. Working with one of the very, very best to ever do it pays dividends.

Now PV and Maher's runs will continue, as both advanced to Day Two.

The Standard Metagame at the Pro Tour


As expected, Izzet dominated the field, surpassing the expectations of many–even those who brought the deck. The reasons for the spellslinging deck's success go beyond the usual combination of efficient card draw/selection–Opt, Sleight of Hand, and especially Stock Up– strong removal pieces–Torch the Tower and the incredibly flexible Into the Flood Maw. The deck's success can also be owed to the addition of Vivi Ornitier, which was a bit of a point of contention coming in.

But with or without Vivi Ornitier, Izzet lapped the field to a historical degree. But just how historical? Another Hall of Famer, our own Frank Karsten, broke it down in his piece.

"This weekend's competition showcases a broad spectrum of archetypes—aggro, midrange, control, combo, and a handful of innovative decks—but the spotlight belongs to Izzet Prowess. Commanding a staggering 42.3% of the metagame, it boasts the highest share of any deck since the Pro Tour's return in 2023, surpassing even Esper Midrange's 31.4% showing at Pro Tour Thunder Junction.

Between Izzet Prowess, Izzet Proft, and Jund Midrange, a combined 43% of the field is using Cori-Steel Cutter. Monstrous Rage appears in 56% of all decklists, and Stock Up shows up in 61%. While these figures stop short of the historic highs set by Oko, Thief of Crowns (69% at Mythic Championship VI) or Omnath, Locus of Creation (72% at the 2020 Season Grand Finals), they leave little doubt about the central role these cards now play in Standard."
–Frank Karsten, "Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Standard Metagame Breakdown"

That left just over half the field angling to defeat Cutter decks, and teams largely fell into three buckets: those who were played Prowess, those who had the team plan to beat Prowess, and those teams who reached their own conclusions and each came with either Prowess or a plan to beat Prowess.

The most popular choice to do so? Omniscience Combo, which has continued to gain recognition in recent months largely due to its perceived strong matchup against Izzet.

The Standard Dilemma: To Vivi Ornitier or Not to Vivi Ornitier?


That was the question when it came to a Standard format dominated by Izzet Prowess. The deck has been increasing in popularity ever since the addition of Cori-Steel Cutter in Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and things changed even more with the release of Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY, all thanks to one little Wizard.

"I've always been a blue-red player–my first qualification came with Izzet Phoenix–but coming into this event I was planning to play Omniscience. But Vivi Ornitier really changed a lot," explained Mark Stanton shortly after he moved to 5-1 on Day One while piloting the deck. "It's immune to Temporary Lockdown, and along with the sideboard it really flipped the matchup in our testing to Izzet's favor."

The breakthrough may be first traced back to Magic Online deck builder Isaac Bullwinkle, whom Stanton creditedwith the list. Not only that, he likened seeing it for the first time to "the clouds opening up" to what was possible with some newfound imagination on what could have been considered a stock deck. To wit, Stanton was one of the players who cut Monastery Swiftspear from their list entirely, subtly shifting how the deck plays and what lines of sequencing are most effective.

"At the end of the day, as I told my teammates I just want certainty, and to feel confident in my choice," he explained. "At my first Pro Tour they just printed some hate against Phoenix, so I chose to play Yorion instead and went 0-5 at my first Pro Tour, not even playing the cards I liked to play. I won't make that mistake again."

But when it came to Vivi Ornitier, not everyone was sold.

The Best of the Rest

It's a dominant weekend for Izzet, and the many variations among lists in Las Vegas show the lengths players went to to find an edge in the mirror. Of course, not everyone opted for the mirror, and a number of spicy decks found success.

That includes the Golgari Graveyard deck piloted by Jody Keith and other, or as the team nicknamed it after Up the Beanstalk, "Black Beans." The black brought removal and especially Overlord of the Balemurk, a key cog in the deck that helped Keith reach Day Two. You can find all Standard lists here.

Also finding some success was the revitalized Team Handshake, which for years has been one of the most consistent and successful teams on the Pro Tour. Often known for developing the best version of the best deck, this time Handshake went into the lab and came out with an experiment they were ready to unleash on the Pro Tour: Golgari Roots.

1 Swamp 1 Agatha's Soul Cauldron 4 Molt Tender 2 Llanowar Elves 2 Town Greeter 6 Forest 1 Coati Scavenger 4 Llanowar Wastes 2 Scavenging Ooze 4 Wastewood Verge 4 Blooming Marsh 4 Insidious Roots 2 Osteomancer Adept 4 Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler 2 Dragon Sniper 2 Rubblebelt Maverick 2 Disruptive Stormbrood 1 Great Arashin City 2 Cache Grab 4 Haywire Mite 4 Overlord of the Balemurk 2 Dredger's Insight 3 Dark Confidant 1 Skyfisher Spider 2 Go for the Throat 1 Coati Scavenger 1 Ghost Vacuum 1 Cankerbloom 2 Souls of the Lost 1 Voldaren Thrillseeker 2 Dragon Sniper 1 Gastal Raider

Sights and Sounds of the Pro Tour

From Arcades Arcade set up near the front of the 20,000-person strong MagicCon, to the Pro Tour trophy perpetually rotating in front of the 300 players who have spent large parts of their life chasing it, The Pro Tour never fails to entertain.

Case in point.

And while it may ultimately all be fun and games, there are always Pro Tour stories to remind us that Magic is much more than that.

Looking Ahead

With Baker pacing our field, eyes now turn to Saturday, where we will return with three more rounds of Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY draft. There are 10 players lurking just behind him at 7-1, including Ken Yukuhiro, Jody Keith, Connor Mackenzie, and Eli Kassis.

Join us for Day Two of the Pro Tour on Saturday, as the broadcast kicks off at 11 a.m. PST!

Share Article