This year, three players will enter the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame: Javier Dominguez, Ken Yukuhiro and Jean-Emmanuel Depraz. All three have won major titles, and all three have made Top 8s across multiple years and formats. Yet when you study the decks behind their greatest successes, a striking pattern emerges. Each player's best decks exemplify a different high-level aspect of deck building.

The contrast is clearest at the two events where all three inductees made the Top 8 together. At Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan in Bilbao, Spain, in February 2018, Yukuhiro reached the Top 8 with Hollow One, Dominguez with Five-Color Humans, and Depraz with Traverse Shadow. Twenty months later, at Mythic Championship V, Dominguez won the whole thing with Gruul Aggro, defeating Depraz's Bant Golos in the finals, while Yukuhiro finished eighth with Mardu Knights.

Although these decks shared the same Top 8s, each one carries a distinct signature. Dominguez's decks are flexible, with the tools to adapt to whatever the opponent is doing. Yukuhiro's decks are unexpected, built to catch an unprepared field off guard. And Depraz's decks are fine-tuned engines, configured so that every slot pulls its weight.

In this article, we'll take a closer look at each of these approaches, the decks that embody them, and how you can apply the underlying ideas to your own deck building.

Javier Dominguez: How Can I Have a Plan Against Everything?

Most aggressive decks are built like drag racers. They are magnificent in a straight line and helpless at the first sharp corner. If the opening hand curves out, the opponent is dead by turn four. If it doesn't, there is rarely a backup plan.

Javier Dominguez's decks, by contrast, are rally cars. I've always been impressed by how his best decklists pair an aggressive core with everything needed to finish the race on rough terrain: a well-balanced sideboard, a Plan B and a Plan C, and a way to keep functioning when the best cards don't show up. These decks can attack when that's the right approach, and they can change roles when it isn't.

"I focus mostly on understanding what my plan is supposed to be in each situation I can think of," Dominguez explained, and he always puts in the work to prepare: "Tournament Magic is pretty good at presenting puzzles that are unexpected, so the more work I have done in advance, the better prepared I am!"

2 Seachrome Coast 4 Unclaimed Territory 4 Cavern of Souls 4 Horizon Canopy 4 Ancient Ziggurat 1 Plains 4 Aether Vial 4 Mantis Rider 1 Kessig Malcontents 4 Reflector Mage 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Meddling Mage 4 Phantasmal Image 4 Kitesail Freebooter 4 Thalia's Lieutenant 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Champion of the Parish 1 Vithian Renegades 1 Mirran Crusader 1 Kataki, War's Wage 1 Auriok Champion 2 Xathrid Necromancer 2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 2 Sin Collector 2 Dismember 2 Izzet Staticaster 1 Grafdigger's Cage

Five-Color Humans, the most-played deck at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, may have looked like pure beatdown at first glance. Champion of the Parish, Thalia's Lieutenant, and Mantis Rider all enable fast starts that can end the game quickly. But look at what the other creatures do besides attacking. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben taxes noncreature spells, Meddling Mage shuts off a key card, Kitesail Freebooter takes a card out of the opponent's hand, and Reflector Mage keeps a creature off the battlefield.

As a result, Five-Color Humans was more than just an aggro deck. Its creatures also let Dominguez take a disruptive role, attacking his opponent's plan before attacking their life total. And the sideboard extended that flexibility, as each card offered another way to adapt to a matchup. Whether through removal for creature decks, counterplay against sweepers, or interaction against spell-based strategies, his sideboard contained a plan for everything.

1 Karn, Scion of Urza 1 Cut // Ribbons 2 Magma Spray 2 Heart of Kiran 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance 2 Doomfall 3 Abrade 2 Rekindling Phoenix 2 Pia Nalaar 2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider 2 Hazoret the Fervent 2 Glorybringer 4 Bomat Courier 4 Goblin Chainwhirler 4 Scrapheap Scrounger 1 Swamp 2 Aether Hub 4 Dragonskull Summit 4 Canyon Slough 14 Mountain 1 The Eldest Reborn 1 Sorcerous Spyglass 1 Siege-Gang Commander 2 Duress 3 Chandra's Defeat 2 Karn, Scion of Urza 1 Magma Spray 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance 2 Doomfall 1 Pia Nalaar

Seven months later, Dominguez won the 2018 World Championship with a deck that, at first glance, may look like the archetypal aggro deck of its Standard era. It had hasty threats like Bomat Courier and Hazoret the Fervent, along with an aggressive Scrapheap Scrounger that couldn't even block. Yet beneath the surface were three planeswalkers, eight removal spells, and a playset of the flexible Goblin Chainwhirler. When the deck couldn't win the race, it could assume a control role: blocking and trading with the opponent's threats until powerful planeswalkers and fliers would eventually take over the late game.

The card choices supported both roles. For example, Dominguez chose Doomfall over Unlicensed Disintegration because its two modes worked against creature decks and control decks alike. And with a range of removal spells and planeswalkers in the sideboard, he had the ability to switch gears based on the matchup and on whether he was on the play or the draw. When the aggro plan wouldn't work, he had a backup strategy. With careful maneuvering, he won it all and was then immortalized on his own Magic card, Fervent Champion.

4 Pelt Collector 4 Zhur-Taa Goblin 4 Gruul Spellbreaker 4 Bonecrusher Giant 3 Skarrgan Hellkite 4 Questing Beast 3 Paradise Druid 2 Kraul Harpooner 2 Embercleave 4 Once Upon a Time 3 Collision // Colossus 10 Forest 9 Mountain 4 Stomping Ground 2 Veil of Summer 1 Shifting Ceratops 2 Thrashing Brontodon 2 Shock 2 Redcap Melee 3 Domri's Ambush 3 Lovestruck Beast

A year later, Dominguez won Mythic Championship V with Gruul Aggro, and once again the deck had an answer for the draws that didn't go according to plan. That answer was Once Upon a Time, which he called "the best card in the deck." Gruul Aggro was mainly trying to curve out from one to four mana, ideally with Pelt Collector followed by a barrage of haste creatures. Once Upon a Time worked as a "joker card" that could be any of those pieces or even a missing land.

The sideboard let the deck change roles. Against aggressive decks, Dominguez explained that "you always have the option to transform into a bigger midrange deck" with Lovestruck Beast and Domri's Ambush, trading the attacker's role for the defender's. Gruul Spellbreaker and Skarrgan Hellkite could serve two purposes as well. They added hasty pressure on the play or against control decks but could also come down as large blockers on the draw or against aggro. Even Bonecrusher Giant could be a removal spell in one game and an attacker in the next. This ability to transform into a different deck gave Dominguez the opportunity to leverage his skill at the game.

Dominguez's instincts and knowledge extend beyond aggro. For instance, in 2019 he reached the Top 8 of Mythic Championship II with Izzet Phoenix, a deck that he said he "understood more deeply than any other during my career."

And the Dimir Demons deck that took him to victory at Magic World Championship 30 in 2024 was an Unholy Annex midrange deck featuring the game-winning combo of Doomsday Excruciator and Jace, the Perfected Mind. Writing about Unholy Annex in this list, Dominguez noted that "the challenge was how to make our deck functional in games where we didn't draw it." The solution was to add two-mana creatures like Faerie Mastermind and Caustic Bronco, which "made our deck a bit less coordinated on paper, but playing against it was suddenly extremely difficult."

It's an example of both the value of flexible backup plans and Dominguez's thorough testing process: a lot of games, many hours of tuning a deck, and multiple meetings. As his teammate Christoffer Larsen told me, the process often includes playtest games in which Javier uses split cards to test different possibilities, with a card serving as either a Counterspell or a Doom Blade. It also involves 2- to 4-hour meetings where Javier brings in everyone and asks their opinions. "Whenever Javier tells me I should play this deck, I listen," Larsen said, for a good reason: "I know it has been through 'the process.'"

The lesson for your own deck building: For every card you would consider adding to your deck, ask what it does in the games where your main plan fails. Even in decks that look aggressive, does that card allow you to take a control role if needed? Favor cards with more than one job, give the deck ways to find its key pieces, and build a sideboard that lets you transform into a different deck when the matchup calls for it.

Ken Yukuhiro: How Can I Surprise My Opponent with an Unexpected Strategy?

A Pro Tour metagame works a bit like an immune system. In the weeks before the event, testing teams learn to recognize the expected threats, and sideboards become antibodies. But an immune system can only fight what it has learned to recognize. Show it something truly new, and its defenses are not ready yet.

Ken Yukuhiro has built a career on finding the weird deck or unusual card that nobody else realized was good. He understands the strategic value of an unexpected strategy: opponents haven't tested against it, don't know which cards matter, and have to work out their plan on the fly.

"A consistent theme in Yukuhiro's deck choices," his compatriot and teammate Shuhei Nakamura said, "is that he opts for decks that either play to his strengths—specifically, those involving intricate combat—or operate on a different axis from the prevailing metagame, both of which make it easier for him to secure wins."

As Yukuhiro explained to me, he modestly believes that his own play skill is not always enough to set him apart if he plays the same deck as everyone else, so he often chooses options that challenge the popular strategies. "Also, I love building decks!"

4 Bloodghast 4 Flameblade Adept 4 Flamewake Phoenix 3 Gurmag Angler 4 Hollow One 4 Street Wraith 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang 4 Burning Inquiry 2 Collective Brutality 4 Faithless Looting 4 Goblin Lore 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 2 Mountain 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Arid Mesa 1 Stomping Ground 1 Swamp 2 Wooded Foothills 1 Collective Brutality 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Big Game Hunter 2 Blood Moon 3 Grim Lavamancer 3 Leyline of the Void 2 Fatal Push

At Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan in 2018, Hollow One made up just one percent of the field. The deck turned a basic rule of Magic upside down: discarding cards wasn't a cost but fuel. It used Burning Inquiry, Goblin Lore, Faithless Looting, and Street Wraith to discard a bunch of cards and put multiple Hollow Ones, each a 4/4, onto the battlefield for free, sometimes as early as turn one. Discarding Bloodghast and Flamewake Phoenix could also turn those cards into free threats, as they would quickly return from the graveyard.

For opponents, familiar habits broke down. How do you catch up when Yukuhiro puts so much power and toughness into play for free? Should you spend sideboard slots on graveyard hate? And how do you plan your turns when Burning Inquiry can force you to discard three cards at random? Few had rehearsed those answers, and Yukuhiro rode the chaos to the semifinals, where he fell to Luis Salvatto's Lantern Control, the eventual champion.

4 Steelclaw Lance 4 Embercleave 4 Rotting Regisaur 4 Rimrock Knight 4 Knight of the Ebon Legion 4 Inspiring Veteran 4 Blacklance Paragon 4 Acclaimed Contender 4 Fervent Champion 3 Swamp 4 Blood Crypt 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Godless Shrine 4 Tournament Grounds 5 Mountain 4 Angrath's Rampage 4 Noxious Grasp 3 Chance for Glory 4 Legion's End

Surprise doesn't always require a brand-new archetype. Yukuhiro made several Top Finishes with archetypes that were played by three to four percent of the field, yet with unique card-choice twists of his own. His personal favorite was Golgari Energy at Pro Tour Amonkhet because he was the only one in the entire venue to play Bone Picker, a masterpiece that shined for him. Likewise, at Mythic Championship V, Yukuhiro was not the only player to register Mardu Knights, but he stood out by putting four copies each of Rotting Regisaur and Embercleave in the main deck. Rotting Regisaur isn't even a Knight. But it's a 7/6 for three mana, and Embercleave allowed it to attack for lethal as early as turn four.

The real value lay in what this did to opponents. Anyone who had prepared for a swarm of small Knights suddenly had to rethink their approach. Should they save removal for a Regisaur instead of spending it on an early Knight? Should they aim to chump block or race, and how should they plan around an enormous 7/6 that could pick up an Embercleave? What should they bring in for Game 2? Questions like these are where mistakes creep in, and that is the power of surprise: it shifts the burden of figuring things out onto your opponent in the middle of an already tense match.

3 Gryff's Boon 4 Sentinel's Eyes 4 Ethereal Armor 4 Cartouche of Solidarity 4 All That Glitters 4 Karametra's Blessing 2 Favored Hoplite 3 Aphemia, the Cacophony 4 Hateful Eidolon 4 Alseid of Life's Bounty 4 Sram, Senior Edificer 1 Swamp 1 Mana Confluence 4 Godless Shrine 4 Concealed Courtyard 4 Caves of Koilos 6 Plains 2 Gideon of the Trials 2 Dead Weight 3 Brain Maggot 2 Baffling End 1 Grafdigger's Cage 3 Apostle of Purifying Light 2 Thoughtseize

At Players Tour Nagoya in February 2020, the Pioneer field was bracing for Dimir Inverter, a combo deck played by nineteen percent of the room. Only two of the 192 players, about one percent, registered Sram Auras. Yukuhiro was one of them, and he took the unconventional brew all the way to the finals.

The idea was to turn a single creature into a lethal threat. Sram, Senior Edificer drew a card for every Aura, so Ethereal Armor and All That Glitters would replace themselves. Meanwhile, the classic weakness of Aura decks—a single removal spell potentially wiping out multiple cards—was mitigated by the protective abilities of Alseid of Life's Bounty and Karametra's Blessing. Yukuhiro had prepared for that weakness. His opponents, by contrast, had to learn all that on the fly during the match.

Yukuhiro lost a close final to Kenta Harane, who admitted afterward: "I'd never playtested against Ken's deck!" That sentence captures the whole strategy.

Even when Yukuhiro plays one of the most popular decks in the field, he finds room for the unexpected. When he claimed the trophy at Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY, his Mono-Red Aggro list was far from stock. He played four copies of Twinmaw Stormbrood, a card that appeared in only a quarter of Mono-Red lists, using its Charring Bite half purely as removal. He also included a single Self-Destruct: an unusual choice that paid off in dramatic fashion, as he used it to deal the last points of damage in the finals.

Yet as fun as brewing rogue decks and finding unique card choices can be, causing Yukuhiro to always play with a smile on his face, they still need to hold up in a competitive environment. "The support of my teammates is a big part of it," Yukuhiro said when asked what gives him the confidence to play his decks at big events. "It's important to get feedback from excellent teammates and make sure before a tournament that my ideas will actually hold up."

The lesson for your own deck building: Ask what the field isn't prepared for, whether that's an overlooked mechanic, a card most lists have cut, or a threat that operates on an unexpected axis. Don't play bad decks for the sake of being different. Start from a powerful plan and use surprise as a multiplier. Every decision your opponent has to make for the first time, in the middle of a match, is a chance for them to get it wrong.

Jean-Emmanuel Depraz: How Can I Find the Perfect Balance of Cards?

A master watchmaker can spend weeks on a single movement, adjusting gears nobody will ever see, because the reward is a mechanism in which every part has a purpose. Jean-Emmanuel Depraz's best decks have that quality. They are technically complex configurations, often powered by search effects or intricate engines, where the gap between good and great hides in a perfect mix of card types or a lone one-ofs.

Depraz isn't the type of player who shows up at a Pro Tour with a brand-new archetype nobody has seen before. His edge lies elsewhere. Assuming everyone will be up to speed, he asks himself: "In a theoretically solved metagame, what deck would best allow me to express myself?" This perspective lets him focus on finely tuning his decklists: "I just spend more time and effort trying to find the perfect balance of cards," he explained.

Accordingly, he gravitates toward decks that are packed with decisions, and he has a knack for sensing which small adjustments will make a list better. Engines and search effects reward exactly that combination. Every tutor raises the question of which card to find, every engine raises the question of how to assemble it, and every one-of is a deliberate answer to a specific game situation. The more decision points a deck offers, the more room a precise player has to gain an edge, and Depraz chooses such decks in the hope that his technical play and sequencing will give him the upper hand.

2 Liliana of the Veil 4 Death's Shadow 4 Tarmogoyf 1 Grim Flayer 1 Snapcaster Mage 4 Street Wraith 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Thoughtseize 3 Traverse the Ulvenwald 3 Fatal Push 3 Stubborn Denial 1 Dismember 2 Abrupt Decay 2 Temur Battle Rage 4 Mishra's Bauble 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Bloodstained Mire 3 Polluted Delta 2 Marsh Flats 2 Overgrown Tomb 1 Watery Grave 1 Blood Crypt 1 Swamp 1 Forest 1 Fatal Push 1 Temur Battle Rage 1 Godless Shrine 2 Ancient Grudge 3 Collective Brutality 1 Kozilek's Return 1 Maelstrom Pulse 3 Lingering Souls 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 1 Hostage Taker

Traverse Shadow, the deck that carried Depraz to his first Top Finish in Bilbao, demands precise, carefully planned play, since every point of life paid to Street Wraith, Thoughtseize, or a fetch land makes Death's Shadow bigger. Depraz's list added a second layer to the puzzle: card types. Traverse the Ulvenwald normally finds a basic land, but with delirium, meaning four or more card types in your graveyard, it can find any creature or land instead. Tarmogoyf and Grim Flayer care about card types in the graveyard as well.

To enable these cards, the list featured a perfectly balanced mix of card types. Alongside creatures, instants, sorceries, and lands, it ran four copies of Mishra's Bauble as cheap artifacts and two copies of Liliana of the Veil as planeswalkers. With delirium online, every Traverse became a tutor for Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, a land, or the lone Snapcaster Mage, which could flash back the best spell in the graveyard. The sideboard had additional one-ofs for the toolbox, including Hostage Taker as removal and Godless Shrine to support Lingering Souls. Choosing what to fetch and when to fetch it are exactly the kinds of decisions Depraz thrives on, and consistent delirium enabled all that.

1 Azorius Guildgate 1 Boros Guildgate 1 Thornwood Falls 1 Castle Vantress 1 Plains 2 Island 1 Temple of Malady 2 Temple Garden 1 Plaza of Harmony 1 Blossoming Sands 2 Breeding Pool 1 Simic Guildgate 2 Fabled Passage 4 Field of the Dead 1 Tranquil Cove 1 Selesnya Guildgate 1 Orzhov Guildgate 1 Temple of Mystery 2 Forest 2 Hallowed Fountain 3 Teferi, Time Raveler 3 Time Wipe 4 Circuitous Route 1 Realm-Cloaked Giant 3 Once Upon a Time 4 Growth Spiral 1 Beanstalk Giant 3 Hydroid Krasis 2 Agent of Treachery 3 Arboreal Grazer 4 Golos, Tireless Pilgrim 3 Aether Gust 1 Glass Casket 2 Devout Decree 2 Disdainful Stroke 1 Mystical Dispute 3 Veil of Summer 1 Realm-Cloaked Giant 1 Hydroid Krasis 1 Agent of Treachery

In 2019, Depraz showed off the power of Bant Golos, the most-played deck at Mythic Championship V. The deck's engine centered on Field of the Dead, which creates a 2/2 Zombie whenever a land enters under your control, as long as you control seven or more lands with different names. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim fetched any land from the library, including Field of the Dead itself, while Arboreal Grazer, Growth Spiral, and Circuitous Route generated extra land drops. With the right setup, each additional land became another Zombie.

The beauty lies in the mana base. Depraz's 29 lands spanned 20 different names, with only a few repeats to ensure the deck retained enough untapped lands. The mana base was a careful balancing act between colors, names, and untapped sources. Depraz understood from Sealed that "any dual land you can play in your deck is a big deal," and Bant Golos took that idea to an extreme in Constructed. Each new land with a different name brought the horde of Zombies closer, providing inevitability in long games. Depraz reached the finals, where he lost to Dominguez, and days later Field of the Dead was banned in Standard.

2 Ertai Resurrected 4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 4 Raffine, Scheming Seer 2 Lord Skitter, Sewer King 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Dennick, Pious Apprentice 2 Rona, Herald of Invasion 3 Faerie Mastermind 4 Skrelv, Defector Mite 3 Go for the Throat 1 Make Disappear 4 Plaza of Heroes 3 Otawara, Soaring City 4 Seachrome Coast 2 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire 4 Caves of Koilos 1 Swamp 2 Shipwreck Marsh 1 Shattered Sanctum 2 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire 4 Darkslick Shores 2 Ao, the Dawn Sky 1 Blot Out 2 Disdainful Stroke 1 Negate 4 Cut Down 1 Surge of Salvation 4 Wedding Announcement

Even Depraz's World Championship-winning list, a seemingly straightforward midrange deck at first glance, was actually an elaborate, well-balanced engine. Raffine, Scheming Seer targets your attacking creature to connive X, drawing and discarding a card for each attacker, while Sheoldred, the Apocalypse gained two life for each of those draws. These payoffs were susceptible to removal spells, but with Skrelv, Defector Mite to protect them and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to tax the opponent's spells, the engine was complete.

The details reveal the craftsmanship. Of the 60 cards in the main deck, 33 were legendary, appearing as two, three, or four copies. For each legendary card, the exact number of copies achieved a delicate balance between the likelihood of drawing at least one and the risk of getting stuck with multiples. Most core engine pieces got four copies, and the rest got two or three. Deck builders can admire the beauty in each of those numbers, but it ultimately was Depraz's characteristically precise play that turned them into a trophy.

After becoming the Magic World Champion in 2023, Depraz earned the chance to have his likeness immortalized on a card. Fittingly, Formidable Speaker is a tutor: When it enters, you may discard a card to search your library for a creature card. That makes it a natural fit for creature combos and decks built around a carefully chosen set of silver bullets.

When a deck presents a branching tree of complex choices every turn, a technically precise player like Depraz can squeeze out extra percentage points. That same principle was evident in the Izzet Phoenix deck he piloted to the Top 8 of Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor in 2024. Its intricate engine of cantrips dug toward specific one-ofs while returning one or more copies of Arclight Phoenix from the graveyard.

Out of all the decks that Depraz had taken to a premier event Top 8, that Izzet Phoenix list was actually his favorite, "Because nothing made it special." It was the deck to beat coming in, with mostly standard card counts, yet the list was perfectly tuned for in-game skill expression. As Depraz said: "I love the experience of someone telling me they're favored in a match-up just for them to find out that's not the case when the cards are played properly."

His teammates admire that Depraz always brings his A-game, though that comes with a downside. "The fact that he is so good at technical play can be challenging at times," said his teammate Fauquenoi. "We always need to adjust testing results. There is a famous story during a French bootcamp where Jean-Emmanuel went 6-0 in a matchup. Then he switched decks with his testing partner and went 6-0 again! The only thing we learned after this session is that we were playing with one of the best players in the world!"

The lesson for your own deck building: The last few percentage points rarely come from headline cards or bold innovation. They come from a deck's precise configuration, such as the one-of tutor target, the balance of card types, or the conditional answer you can dig for with card selection. Those are the elements that technically proficient players can leverage into an in-game edge. So once a deck's core is settled, go through the list slot by slot and picture how each card supports the deck's engine and its tutors.

Conclusion

Put the six decks from Bilbao and Long Beach side by side again, and they no longer look like a random sample. Dominguez's Five-Color Humans and Gruul Aggro were built to handle every corner of the format. Yukuhiro's Hollow One and Mardu Knights were built to be the corner nobody had prepared for. Depraz's Traverse Shadow and Bant Golos were tuned so that every slot pulled its weight inside an intricate engine.

No single philosophy is the right one, and great players borrow from all three. So, before your next tournament, ask all three questions. Does my deck have a plan against everything? Is there a strategy that my opponents won't see coming? And have I found the perfect balance of cards?

On November 15, Javier Dominguez, Ken Yukuhiro, and Jean-Emmanuel Depraz will be inducted into the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame at MagicCon: Atlanta, with the ceremony streamed live on twitch.tv/magic and the Play MTG YouTube channel before the finals of Magic World Championship 32. Tune in to celebrate three remarkable careers, and the next time you build a deck, channel the approaches of these masterminds.