Welcome to the Magic World Championship.

It's been eleven months since Jean-Emmanuel Depraz won Magic World Championship XXIX, three Pro Tours, dozens of Regional Championships, hundreds of matches and thousands of hours and preparation—plus a lot of Monstrous Rages along the way—and it's all led here.

Magic World Championship 30.

There were 113 competitors for the event that caps the 2024 season and also neatly caps three decades of Pro Tour and World Championship events that have taken us around the world and back many times over. As Magic's historic 30th World Championship kicked off with Duskmourn Draft, the players were surrounded by a sold-out MagicCon: Las Vegas, tens of thousands of people streaming through the massive event hall. It was a crowning celebration of both Magic's history and its future as we look toward the game's next great era.

At the center of it all was the World Championship, where defending champion Jean-Emmanuel Depraz arrived looking to become just the second Magic player to ever win a second Worlds title (Shahar Shenhar accomplished the feat back to back in 2013 and 2014). The rest of the field included the usual mix of Pro Tour and Regional Champions, Hall of Famers, and the most-feared combo players in the world.

Not to mention Simon Nielsen, last season's Player of the Year who has been on what is perhaps the most joy-filled streak of any of the previous winners of the trophy now known as the Kai Budde Player of the Year Trophy. Its namesake, the German Juggernaut himself, was also competing at the World Championship, the event he won in 1999.

A new set in Duskmourn: House of Horror, a new Standard rotation that brought out a hugely diverse field and soon another World Championship trophy awarded.

Welcome to Las Vegas and Magic World Championship 30.

Depraz Dances Alone

The day opened with three rounds of Duskmourn Draft—and trust us, players have explored every nook and cranny of the House in preparation for this event. With three rounds of Limited followed by four rounds of Standard (instead of the usual five) on each day, the Draft rounds were more important than ever—and they're almost always pivotal to making a championship run (with the notable exception of 2021 champ Yuta Takahashi, who overcame a disastrous draft to win out in an epic run).

Fourteen players finished the Draft rounds undefeated, and then the Standard showdown began in earnest. When the dust cleared, it was a familiar sight:

Jean-Emmanuel Depraz, alone at the top.

His road there was anything but simple. Depraz dispatched Regional Champion winners, Pro Tour champs, Player of the Year recipients—he defeated Nielsen in Round 5—and did it all while dropping just two games all day. He'll pace the field of 57 competitors who return for Day Two and their chance at the Top 8.

Duskmourn Draft Debuts

Because Duskmourn released a month before the event, the myriad of testing teams that came together had a lot of time to explore the Draft format and search for unusual strategies. The format drew praise for its overlapping mesh of mechanics and potential to reward players who were willing to take the right risks.

And what could be riskier than playing a card that deals 20 damage to yourself?

Just ask the champ.

The Recording + Beseech deck looked fun, so I decided to draft it 🙃

— J-E Depraz (@JEDepraz) October 25, 2024

Cursed Recording plus Beseech the Mirror wasn't a deck anyone brought to the tournament, but it was considered by Team Sanctum of All, who have been responsible for some of the most significant and significantly convoluted decks of the past few years. Depraz took up the Cursed Recording challenge in Duskmourn Limited, in the biggest tournament of the year, pairing it with spells like Commune with Evil and Let's Play a Game.

"I've been playing with Cursed Recording in Constructed, so I know how powerful it can be," Depraz explained. "You get a lot of the spells you want to copy very late, so it's not that hard to build your deck around it if you can."

It paid off beautifully. Depraz was one of fourteen players who emerged from the Draft rounds undefeated, along with Nielsen and a host of the field's best Limited players. They largely described the format as a one where the key was prioritizing strong "signpost" uncommons in each color pair, but World Championship competitors knew Duskmourn goes much deeper than that. In fact, if you dig deep enough and then play Say Its Name, you can do what Nicole Tipple did and summon Altanak, the Thrice-Called directly to the battlefield.

Game 1 of my first World Championships and I exiled 3 say its names to get an Altanak from my deck! 1-0 and officially have won a match at worlds!!! #MTGWorlds

— Nicole Tipple (@NicoleTipple) October 25, 2024

Say Its Name Altanak, the Thrice-Called

Or take a page out of Depraz's book and use Valgavoth's Faithful to reanimate boss Demon Valgavoth, Terror Eater on turn five. Or manifest dread Valgavoth and flip it face up for the full nine mana. Depraz did them both on his way to a 3-0 draft.

Overall, White-Red Boros was the archetype that put together the most 3-0s at three, with Black-Red Rakdos taking two players to the promised land and nine other combinations representing the undefeated to that point.

We have standings after the first draft of #MTGWorlds!

Congratulations to the fourteen 3-0 drafters now leading the field! pic.twitter.com/f4pnOS1AP0

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) October 25, 2024

Standard Shows Off

The Duskmourn Draft rounds obviously featured the new set heavily, but as it turned to the Standard portion of the day, we found that the House had plenty to offer Standard as well; every single Standard deck at the World Championship contained at least one Duskmourn card—and not because a card from every set was required, as was the case in a few of the Pro Tour's earliest days.

Instead, it's simply that Duskmourn is too strong to ignore.

673599 673428 669057 Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber

Standard has something for everyone right now. The most popular deck in the field, Gruul Prowess, rewarded players for committing to a blisteringly fast start that, with Leyline of Resonance, could kill as early as turn three, but in the week leading up to the World Championship, many players instead opted for a slightly slower, more resilient build of the aggressive deck. While there was nothing close to a consensus "best deck" entering the World Championship, Gruul was at least considered the threat keeping the rest of the field honest.

As the world's best went to work, all kinds of strategies emerged. Token decks with Caretaker's Talent were performing well on Magic Online in the weeks leading up to the event but did not show up in force in Vegas. Instead, teams went largely in their own directions.

For Team Sanctum, that meant their signature flare: a powerful deck with a combo angle to keep opponents guessing.

4 This Town Ain't Big Enough 2 Island 4 Enduring Vitality 1 Mountain 3 Analyze the Pollen 4 Stormchaser's Talent 4 Torch the Tower 3 Fabled Passage 2 Song of Totentanz 2 Roaring Furnace 2 Bitter Reunion 4 Thundertrap Trainer 1 Questing Druid 4 Copperline Gorge 1 Hedge Maze 4 Botanical Sanctum 2 Forest 4 Valley Floodcaller 2 Up the Beanstalk 1 Yavimaya Coast 1 Tarnation Vista 3 Bushwhack 1 Karplusan Forest 1 Pawpatch Formation 2 Pawpatch Formation 2 Ghost Vacuum 2 Negate 1 Into the Flood Maw 1 Pyroclasm 1 Blue Sun's Twilight 2 Dissection Tools 1 Screaming Nemesis 1 Up the Beanstalk 1 Abrade 1 Volcanic Spite

For others, the answer turned out to be Dimir Demons, featuring Archfiend of the Dross and Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber—that sent Adrián Iñigo Tastet to a 5-2 finish. Or Jeskai Convoke, which Hall of Famer Willy Edel piloted to a 5-2 Day One record as well.

You can find all the decklists here and Frank Karsten's usual selection of the spiciest decks here.

Maybe attacking and blocking and ... playing lands on the first isn't your thing. Then you'll love the Abhorrent Oculus decks.

So many of the best World Championship stories of the past 30 years begin with a Flash of Insight in the late hours before final decklist submission. It remains to be seen whether Magic World Championship 30 will go down in lore as one of those events, but it's a possibility very much on the board after Eli Kassis went 5-2 with Azorius Oculus featuring the last-minute inclusion of Founding the Third Path. That supplemented Plan A of getting an Oculus into the graveyard to revive with Helping Hand and helped to close the gaps in the deck's game.

"I was doing a final scroll through Magic Online while everyone else was asleep the night before decklists were due, and I just happened upon it," Kassis explained. "I tried it out in a league, and I started 4-0. I thought, 'What are the odds this gets posted before submission?' and went ahead and played the last round. I won, and of course the list ended up getting posted a few hours later."

Abhorrent Oculus Helping Hand Founding the Third Path

"The next day, the other teams saw it and were testing it out at 9 a.m.," he added with a laugh.

Whether the cat was out of the bag or not, Kassis's innovation delivered. He said he was thrilled with all three modes of it throughout the day in the deck, and he went 3-1 with it en route to a 5-2 Day One finish, his only Standard loss coming to Depraz in a blockbuster Round 7 feature match.

1 Plains 5 Island 3 Floodfarm Verge 4 Haughty Djinn 4 Helping Hand 4 Meticulous Archive 4 Moment of Truth 4 Picklock Prankster 4 Chart a Course 2 Recommission 3 Adarkar Wastes 4 Abhorrent Oculus 2 Negate 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Sleight of Hand 2 Get Lost 2 Into the Flood Maw 4 Founding the Third Path 3 Elspeth's Smite 2 Negate 1 Destroy Evil 2 Exorcise 4 Monastery Mentor 1 Into the Flood Maw 2 Split Up

And then there was Gruul. The deck lived up to the billing for many, including the champ; Depraz finished undefeated, dropping just two games on the day. And he did it with Leyline of Resonance.

Turn 4? What turn 4? pic.twitter.com/fvMdhvuVzr

— J-E Depraz (@JEDepraz) October 23, 2024

That's the power the Gruul deck possesses. Its explosive possibilities force other decks to play around it before the first card is even played; forcing opponents to take aggressive mulligans means the Gruul deck could start with a slightly higher number of cards in hand than opponents throughout the course of fourteen rounds, a slow but very real advantage.

As he wrapped up his 7-0 finish, Depraz showed the hundreds of thousands of Magic fans across the world exactly why the deck—and its extraordinary pilot—was so special.

Checking in on the Player of the Year Race

Like Depraz, Simon Nielsen had something to defend in Las Vegas: his Player of the Year title. He entered the tournament with a large lead for the trophy—in fact a semifinals appearance here would prevent anyone from catching him—but there were eight players in all who came to Vegas with a chance.

Here's how that group, ordered as they were before the tournament, did on the first day of competition:

• Simon Nielsen (5-2)
• Seth Manfield (6-1)
• Jason Ye (4-3)
• Javier Domínguez (5-2)
• Sam Pardee (1-4)
• Eli Kassis (5-2)
• Sean Goddard (3-4)
• Yuta Takahashi (2-5)

With five of the elite eight advancing to Day Two, there's lots more action to come in this race.

Looking Ahead

As we look ahead to Day Two, the 56 other competitors who qualified are all looking up at Depraz, who will enter Saturday in pole position for a Top 8 berth and a chance to truly make Magic history.

But it will be a brutal path there. Lurking just behind Depraz are a handful of 6-1 players: Lucas Duchow, Quinn Tonole, Márcio Carvalho, Ivan Errico, and Hall of famer Seth Manfield, with five different decks among the top six finishers.

Can anyone overtake Depraz before he reaches the Top 8? We'll find out tomorrow. You can catch all the action live at 2 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CEST / 3 a.m. JST) with three rounds of Duskmourn: House of Horror Draft followed by four rounds of Standard Constructed that will determine our Sunday stage competitors.

The race to the Top 8 begins tomorrow at Twitch.tv/Magic!