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Day Two Highlights at Pro Tour Edge of Eternities

September 28, 2025
Corbin Hosler

The final Pro Tour of the year before the World Championship rolled on Saturday, as 188 players returned to Pro Tour Edge of Eternities for their chance at the Top 8 and all the trappings that come with it. In addition to the obvious stakes, there were also points-based World Championship invitations on the line, meaning that no matter where you were at Day Two, you found a very meaningful match of Magic.

It started with three final rounds of draft to send off Edge of Eternities, and concluded with a five-round sprint through the wide-open Modern format, one that defied definition even after ten rounds showing off everything it offered, from hyper-aggressive Affinity decks to big-mana Eldrazi Ramp decks to the impossible puzzle that is Amulet Titan.

It all came together in a marathon day that began with clubhouse leader and Day One undefeated player, Shuhei Nakamura, cruising after his perfect run with Affinity, continued when Justin Schabel secured the top seed with a Round 14 win over Nakamura, and ended as the final match closed with Horiuchi Makoto locking up the final spot in the Top 8.

Here is your Top 8 at Pro Tour Edge of Eternities:

  • Justin Schabel (Izzet Prowess)
  • Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer (Tameshi Belcher)
  • Mikko Airaksinen (Tameshi Belcher)
  • Mason Buonadonna (Amulet Titan)
  • Francisco Sanchez (Azorius Control)
  • Jonny Guttman (Esper Goryo's)
  • Noé Offman (Simic Neoform)
  • Horiuchi Makoto (Esper Blink)

Here's how we got there.

Vintage Value

How do you know a card is good in 2025? When it draws comparisons to cards printed in 1995. That's how we kicked off the day's Draft, with Pro Tour Aetherdrift Top 8 competitor Lucas Duchow playing a Limited deck featuring Uthros, Titanic Godcore. "Duchow is playing Vintage Cube" is how the combo was described. While Duchow didn't have quite as many artifacts as he would have liked, he still regularly made eight (or more) mana with Godcore on his way to a 2-1 Day Two Draft record.


The other thing to draw that comparison this weekend? That would be the breakout Modern Affinity deck that was described as a half-Vintage, half-"attacking with Memnite" deck. Affinity propelled Nakamura and Alex Friedrichsen into the Top 16, and was one of the best-performing Modern archetypes in the room—more on that later.

The End of Edge of Eternities

It was a weekend of big plays as well as the final send-off for Edge of Eternities at the Pro Tour. The event's Limited experts left all on the Pro Tour field to gain an edge—even if that edge might be smaller than in events past given the extensive level of prep time everyone had. When a set is brand new and there's limited time for Limited games—not to mention a lack of accurate data from online play—the players and teams with the best processes rise to the top. Drafting a set that's (in theory) well understood was a challenge for even the most experienced Pro Tour competitors.

"I think this Limited format coming after a couple of months lent itself well to me. I learn well, but I don't always have great intuition," explained Team Handshake's Jonny Guttman. "But when everyone has drafted 100 times already, the biggest edge you can find is in gameplay."

To wit, Guttman parlayed his gameplay edge to a perfect 6-0 Draft record, putting him alongside Justin Schabel and Daniel Goetschel.

"Coming in, our team's strategy was to take the best card in each of the first five packs, then look for signals," he said. "You don't want to head down your first pick, or you'll just get rinsed."

One unexpected development of the longer cycle is that some teams actually had less cohesion than usual—with dozens if not hundreds of drafts to build beliefs and preferences—and as a result there was still plenty of tension during the draft. Throw in some huge wins by teams, and the Edge of Eternities Draft format showed it had fresh life for at least one more weekend.

The team that broke it, so to speak, was Worldly Counsel Heavy Play, captained by Miyaji-Thorne. The squad posted an absurd 71% win rate against non-teammates in Limited. That helped propel sixteen of the team's seventeen members into Day Two.

Sights and Sounds of the Tournament

Cedric Phillips has been a seasoned, storied Magic commentator for over a decade. In that time (much of which has been spent with Patrick Sullivan), some extremely memorable moments have emerged. After Pro Tour Edge of Eternities, you can add another to that list.

Around the corner from that nonsense was this nonsense:

After a weekend of watching Amulet Titan run the tables—which put Buonadonna into the Top 8—we can safely say that Harvey's book could use another chapter or two. The classic Primeval Titan deck seems to change with every other set. This weekend, the addition of Icetill Explorer gave the deck yet another angle, this time from the graveyard.

Amulet Titan is alive and well in Modern. Dominic Harvey has now, quite literally, written the book on the subject. At this rate, the Dominic Harvey special may soon outpace the famous book dedicated entirely to casting Gush.

On the battlefield, Modern was just as explosive as advertised, especially when Schabel was running Izzet Prowess all the way to the Top 8, or when Buonadonna executed a huge combo turn with Amulet Titan.

Reid Goes on a Run

While most of the tournament attention rightfully is directed toward the top tables, the truth is there's always meaningful matches Magic being played regardless of record. The best example of that was Reid Duke, who was playing to secure a World Championship invitation with a solid Day Two run. That sounds doable enough for a Hall of Famer, right?

Reid Duke


But no one is immune to an unfortunate draft. For Duke, things spiraled until he found himself in a 1-4 hole and on the brink of elimination. That's not something anyone had on their predictions card.

But the fact that Duke would go on a huge winning streak after that was something we could predict. To no one's surprise, Duke clutched it for about the millionth time, winning nine rounds in a row on the way to a strong 10-6 finish.

Modern Metagame All Mixed Up

Heading into Pro Tour Edge of Eternities, the Modern metagame seemed as wide open as it ever has in its long history. No deck entered the arena on Saturday with more than 17% of the field. In fact, the "other" category of decks had more pilots than the top deck, a sign of just how many deck choices were available to competitors.


When the dust settled, things were even more open than before. Control decks like the Jeskai lists piloted by Eli Kassis and Raja Sulaiman overperformed after relatively few competitors brought them, while the aggressive Boros Energy deck struggled mightily along with the Esper-based lists both with and without Psychic Frog and Quantum Riddler.

Among the big decks, Amulet Titan had a strong weekend despite many players identifying it as possibly too complex to play well. But with a Top 8 showing along with a solid winrate, Primeval Titan is still kicking.

And Goblin Charbelcher is still belching, except its been reimagined as a blue deck loaded with countermagic. The deck can eliminate an opponent with a Goblin Charbelcher activation or sometimes, as several players showed this weekend, win by attacking with Hydroelectric Specimen.

As always with Modern, there were some players who went their own way, and went there successfully. Benton Madsen finished 7-2-1 with Basking Broodscale Combo (and landed in 18th-place overall), while Paul Tsao went 7-3 with Samwise Gamgee Combo. Tsao deck featured two recent additions: Arachne, Psionic Weaver and Silk, Web Weaver. You can find all of Pro Tour Edge of Eternities's spiciest Modern decklists here.

Here's how the Top 8 archetypes broke down:

  • 2 Belcher
  • 1 Amulet Titan
  • 1 Azorius Control
  • 1 Esper Goryo's
  • 1 Simic Neoform
  • 1 Esper Blink
  • 1 Prowess

When extended to the Top 16, the metagame looks even sweeter.

  • 2 Belcher
  • 2 Azorius Control
  • 2 Eldrazi Tron
  • 2 Izzet Affinity
  • 1 Esper Goryo's
  • 1 Simic Neoform
  • 1 Esper Blink
  • 1 Izzet Prowess
  • 1 Amulet Titan
  • 1 Eldrazi Ramp
  • 1 Boros Energy
  • 1 Azorius Blink

Twelve different archetypes in the Top 16? That's a Modern metagame for the ages.

Looking Ahead

With the Top 8 set and the World Championship invitations decided for all the players we'll see again later this year, all that remains is to crown the winner of the eleventh Modern Pro Tour. Coverage begins at 7:00 a.m. PT on Sunday, September 28. We'll be covering the action live, and you won't want to miss it!

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