James Dimitrov's and Zevin Faust's Magic journeys have a surprising number of parallels, which is particularly astonishing when you learn that those journeys both led to the players making the Top 8 of their very first Pro Tour. Looking at their paths from their Magic origins to that first Pro Tour stirs a curious kind of déjà vu; these unrelated players mirrored one another's paths through their Regional Championship fields to an incredible Top 8 finish. Now, both are set to make their return to the competitive field in Las Vegas.

Both Dimitrov and Faust began playing Magic when they were in sixth grade. After learning the game through the aptly named set Magic Origins, Faust played casually for the next decade. Dimitrov picked up the game that same year and didn't make the move to competitive play for almost ten years.

"I was in sixth grade, and some kids were playing [Magic] at the lunch table," Dimitrov said. "I picked it up and I really started loving it. I went to a local shop, and I've been playing it since."

Like many other players, both migrated to online play during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, though neither had event qualifications in mind. It wasn't until they returned to tabletop play on the other side of lockdown that they each felt the drive to try for the Pro Tour.

"I was playing online by then, but I was like, 'You know what, let me try getting back into paper Magic.' I just felt like I was a lot better than before," Dimitrov said. "As I was playing more competitively online, I started investing more time into the game and really profiting online. I thought that I could make something happen in paper. When I started playing tabletop Magic again, I wanted to get more competitive because I wasn't in school anymore and I thought I had time to. It took me about three RCQs. I lost in the Top 8, lost in the Top 8 again, then won the third one."

For Faust, success in an Arena Open and a brief abundance of free time sparked his foray into competitive play around the same time.

"I played on the MTG Arena [ranked] ladder during COVID, but I never really played anything past the Qualifier Weekends. I played in an Arena Open event, and I won a $2,000 cash prize. I didn't have a summer job and didn't have anything else to do that summer, so I figured that I might as well try to qualify for a Regional Championship. At that point, I wasn't really thinking about qualifying for the Pro Tour or anything, I just wanted play in a Regional Championship."

Like Dimitrov, Faust had minimal competitive experience prior to the first RCQs he played in. In yet another parallel, Faust earned his Regional Championship qualification in a Limited event, though his qualifying event was online.

"I'd never qualified for an RC before. I mostly played at my LGS, and I think I lost an RCQ final at some point. I decided to take it seriously and grind Magic Online, and I won a Sealed qualifier on Magic Online following Outlaws of Thunder Junction. I qualified for the event, but I didn't have a testing team. I went to college with Quinn Tonole [who made the Top 8 of World Championship 30]. Quinn reached out to me, and I joined his team. We ended up doing really, really well. I think we put four or five of us into the Pro Tour with Green-White Company in Pioneer."

4 Brushland 2 Kellan, Daring Traveler 4 Archon of Emeria 3 Anointed Peacekeeper 4 Skyclave Apparition 4 Branchloft Pathway 4 Aven Interrupter 4 Temple Garden 1 Shefet Dunes 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Collected Company 4 Elvish Mystic 4 Enduring Innocence 2 Werefox Bodyguard 3 Plains 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Voice of Resurgence 4 Razorverge Thicket 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire 2 Portable Hole 3 Brutal Cathar // Moonrage Brute 2 Elite Spellbinder 1 Anointed Peacekeeper 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Unlicensed Hearse 2 Werefox Bodyguard 1 The Wandering Emperor

For both Faust and Dimitrov, that fateful Regional Championship was the US RC in October 2024 in Washington, DC. While Faust was playing Selesnya Company alongside other members of Team Scrapheap, Dimitrov was on Rakdos Transmogrify, a Pioneer deck he helped popularize in Pioneer ahead of the RC. While he had settled on his deck for the event, he did have some reservations in the weeks immediately before.

"I was winning with the deck a lot when I first picked it up," Dimitrov said. "Then Duskmourn: House of Horror came out a before the RC, and those cards were really strong. I feel like everyone knew that, but there weren't any breakout decks with them right away, just old decks improving. I was kind of scared that my deck wouldn't be as good, and I wasn't winning as much as I was used to. But it was okay. It ended up being fine."

1 Swamp 4 Thoughtseize 4 Fatal Push 1 Hidetsugu Consumes All 3 Torch the Tower 3 Fountainport 1 Ob Nixilis, the Adversary 1 Duress 1 Extinction Event 1 Mountain 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Transmogrify 2 Reckoner Bankbuster 1 Bitter Triumph 1 Cling to Dust 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 1 Blazemire Verge 4 Case of the Stashed Skeleton 4 Haunted Ridge 1 Sulfurous Springs 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance 4 Blood Crypt 1 Volcanic Spite 2 Blightstep Pathway 1 Heartless Act 2 Mutavault 2 Atraxa, Grand Unifier 2 Go Blank 2 Damping Sphere 1 Ob Nixilis, the Adversary 1 Chandra's Defeat 2 Duress 1 Jegantha, the Wellspring 1 Reckoner Bankbuster 1 Hidetsugu Consumes All 2 Untimely Malfunction 2 Urabrask's Forge Jegantha, the Wellspring

Though both players now had a Pro Tour qualification in hand after their first Regional Championship appearance, neither was ready to set their sights solely on preparation for the Pro Tour. Two weeks ahead of Pro Tour Aetherdrift in Chicago, there was another US Regional Championship, this time in Portland. That Regional Championship would qualify players for the Pro Tour in Vegas to which, at the time, neither Faust nor Dimitrov had an invite.

Players tuned in to Magic's competitive environment know that qualifying for a Pro Tour through the prior Pro Tour is a daunting task, given that the field is full of the game's best players. Many choose qualifying for the next event as their Pro Tour goal, knowing that it's a challenging test of their skill and deck choice. Dimitrov and Faust had no way of knowing that in just a few weeks, they'd be set for invites to the year's remaining Pro Tours and the World Championship.

But playing in Portland meant that two weeks ahead of a Standard Pro Tour, they were testing and competing in Modern. Once Portland's Regional Championship was behind them, Faust and Dimitrov got to work on Standard.

Faust was part of Team Energy, which was split between three decks.

"The night before deck submission, I thought I'd play Mono-Red because I wasn't liking Golgari's matchup against Gruul," Faust said. "Then we found a card—Souls of the Lost, I think—that made our Gruul matchup significantly better. So, I decided that I should just play Golgari Graveyard instead."

Faust felt that the deck he landed on was ultimately not a strong choice despite his eventual results with it, as sometimes happens when players are up against the deck submission deadline.

"I think that deck was not that good. We only found it a couple of days before deck submissions, so we ended up not refining it. We didn't have Rubblebelt Maverick and were playing Molt Tender instead, which is a pretty significant downgrade. But it still worked out, for me at least. I didn't draw a lot of Molt Tenders."

In that same gap between events, Dimitrov was also feeling pressed for time. He ultimately settled on Domain Overlords a few days before the submission deadline.

"Portland's Modern Regional Championship was two weeks before the Pro Tour, so I was playing a lot of Modern. As soon as that wrapped, I started really grinding in Standard, but it really wasn't as much as I would've liked. I only had those two weeks to get ready for Limited and Standard. I only picked my deck for the Pro Tour a week before, which was only three days before the actual deck submission deadline. I only had three or four days with the deck before submitting it, which was really hectic. I was a little nervous and stressed about that."

In the first few rounds of Pro Tour Aetherdrift, these two players' mirrored paths diverged. Faust's strong start bolstered his modest expectations.

"It was pretty crazy," Faust said of making the Top 8. "I didn't have high expectations going in. I just thought that if I made Day Two I'll be ecstatic. Then I made Day Two pretty quickly because my Limited deck was really good. I had a 4-0 start and it's like, 'Well, let's see how far I can go, I guess.' And it worked out pretty well. I got very lucky."

Dimitrov, on the other hand, began the Pro Tour with a few rocky rounds that made him reevaluate how his event might shape up.

"On Day One, I started at 2-2 and was feeling really rough. I started questioning my goals because obviously I wanted to do well. After that I kind of lowered my expectations."

However, those early losses gave way to a streak of wins, and Dimitrov didn't lose another match on the first day.

"The thing about these bigger tournaments is if you're playing a faster deck, you have more time to think between rounds, you can really process each round," Dimitrov said. "But I'm playing a slower deck, so I have less time between rounds and couldn't really process each win after it happened. Then the wins kept coming. I lost my first match on Day Two and had to win six matches in a row to make the Top 8. I took it one match at a time, but I had no time to think between each match. So, it was win after win after win, but I couldn't process it well. After it all happened, I called my mom to come over to the venue. It was really wild."

Making the Top 8 of your first Pro Tour is the stuff of dreams for most players. Some of the game's best players can put together years of amazing finishes and have a Top 8 elude them. Making it there takes an alchemical mixture of great drafts, Constructed deck choices, and format knowledge. Making the Top 8 also solidifies the rest of the season for Faust and Dimitrov, who now have invites not only to the Pro Tour in Las Vegas but also Pro Tour Edge of Eternities and Magic World Championship 31 later this fall.

"I'm looking forward to playing it with more experience," Dimitrov said. "I know how it works. I know how everything happens, and I just, I'm going into it with more experience, knowing more about how to prepare, what to expect out of the competition, and the format and the process. I'm looking forward to not being the newbie and knowing more people."

"I wasn't particularly well prepared for the first one," Faust said. "My deck wasn't that tuned, and I didn't actually even end up going to the testing house because I booked my flight for the wrong time. So, I want to take this one a little more seriously and fully prepare for it. I got lucky enough to join Team Handshake, so I want to see if I can replicate my success with putting in all the work this time."

In just a few days' time, that question will have its answer. And if that answer isn't quite what Dimitrov or Faust hope for their second Pro Tour appearance, the good news is that they have so much more season ahead of them to see if they can put together that same kind of magical run again.