More than 300 competitors traveled to sunny Las Vegas for Pro Tour Secrets of Strixhaven, the second Pro Tour of the year and the second in a row to feature a Standard format that continues to defy expectations. Once again, the most popular deck in the field from the start of the weekend struggled at the top. In Las Vegas, it was Izzet Prowess (which had 30% of the Day One metagame) that failed to convert into a Top 8 finish for any of those players.
Instead, we were treated to a Top 8 filled with surprises, landfall, and Llanowar Elves.
The Top 8 kicked off with a decklist that came together less than 24 hours before deck submission: the Selesnya Ouroboroid list that renowned deck-builder Matt Nass developed. And Nass's Selesnya deck could go fast. Turn one, Llanowar Elves. Turn two, Badgermole Cub. Turn three, Ouroboroid to pump the team. Turn four, remove blockers with Seam Rip and swing for more than enough. That was the recipe for a lightning-quick first game of the Top 8, and we were off to the races at Pro Tour Secrets of Strixhaven.
The second game looked much like the first for Nass, only without a copy of Ouroboroid. But while he built his board, Stefansson built a dice tower—a pair of Szah's Chocobos quickly began ticking up thanks to a pair of Escape Tunnels. The strike knocked him down to 12, and Nass added more Pawpatch Recruits to his board but stared down an uncastable Brightglass Gearhulk in hand while Stefansson was all-in on the Birds.
Several attacks later, Nass found himself down at 7 life, but he finally unlocked a second source of white mana and could cast the Gearhulk that had been locked in his hand, fetching a Seam Rip to begin cleaning away the opposing Sazh's Chocobos. That would mark the corner turn for the Pro Tour champion, and when Ouroboroid arrived two turns later, it looked like it might be the beginning of the end for Stefansson. But the Canadian rallied, and thanks to Sapling Nursery and a whole lot of triggers, he was able build out a board that just went too wide for Nass to keep up with regardless of Ouroboroid, and Stefansson evened the match.
Game 3, though? That was the Badgermole Cub game. Both players had a pair of the Cub by the third turn, and the game would go to whoever could make the most use of the mana immediately. That turned out to be Nass, who powered out an Ouroboroid. The game ended shortly thereafter. Game 4 flipped the script, and in an extremely quick Sunday morning run we were soon staring down our first five-game match.
The Brightglass Gearhulk package was one of the key innovations that Nass brought to the Top 8, and it was the star of the final game. After both players spammed the board, Nass used Gearhulk to dig up a removal spell (Melstrider's Resolve) to clear away blockers and swing for lethal in the opening match of the Pro Tour Top 8.
Not bad for a spicy deck!
We swung over to the next match, where Rui Zhang was already up a game and was deep into Monument to Endurance triggers in the second tilt against Zevin Faust's innovative Azorius Tempo deck. The deck—also known as "Azorius Prison" per Faust's suggestion—helped him become one of the final players to squeak into the Top 8. It's also the second Pro Tour in a row that Faust has played the archetype, with his creation also carrying him deep into Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed.
But the second game went no better than the first for Faust, and he was forced to turn to his sideboard, which contained some much-needed help. The deck's core engine of High Noon; Aven Interrupter; and Aang, Swift Savior had been a potent combination all weekend, including against Izzet decks, and he would need it to deliver in three straight games to advance.
The comeback began. Faust quickly established a presence with High Noon and Ghost Vacuum, which was immediately a huge bane to the spell-heavy, graveyard-synergistic Izzet deck piloted by Zhang. Though it took a dozen or so turns from there, the Vacuum never left the battlefield, Gran-Gran never got going, and a desperate Boomerang Tactics on High Noon to unlock a big turn wasn't quite enough for Zhang (otherwise known online as the combo master and acclaimed deck-builder cftsoc). Faust was now on the board, and after just a single turn in Game 4, so was Ghost Vacuum. Once again, the artifact was joined by High Noon—and once again that pair carried the game, forcing a decisive fifth bout between Faust and Zhang.
Zhang was back on the play in the final game and made the most of it. This time, there was no Ghost Vacuum, but there was an Artist's Talent on Zhang's side. That created all the card flow that the Izzet player could need. Over the course of the first handful of turns, Faust was never able to exile Zhang's graveyard. That dynamic will always favor the Accumulated Wisdom deck, and Zhang piled up small advantages. As the game wore on, those advantages slowly accumulated. At the conclusion of an epic fifth game, it was Zhang who finally landed an unanswered threat in the form of Monument to Endurance.
Two semifinalists down, two to go. The next match was the classic matchup for this Standard environment: Landfall versus Izzet. In this case, defending Pro Tour champion Christoffer Larsen squared off against first-time Top Finisher Maxx Kominowski, who was part of the Team Handshake surge that saw three members of the squad advance to the Sunday stage.
The pair split the pre-sideboard games, turning the match into a best-of-three as they turned to their sideboard options for help. But the Izzet deck could not find help—or removal spells big enough—that could deal with the quickly growing Szah's Chocobo that Larsen deployed on the first turn. One of the reasons to play Landfall is that the deck can sometimes get out ahead of damage-based removal, and that's exactly what Larsen did to take the edge in the match.
It was Kominowski's sideboard that showed out in the next game, with Sunderflock making a clutch appearance to keep the Izzet player in the clear midway through the game. But the Pro Tour champion just calmly scooped up his creatures and replayed them over the next two turns. With the American at a more-precarious-than-it-seemed 13 life, Lumbering Worldwagon threatened to swing immediately as the creatures rejoined the board. That kept Kominowski on the back foot, and when his next draw step failed to yield another answer to Mossborn Hydra, he extended his hand to congratulate Larsen on his fourth straight win in the Top 8.
That left one more quarterfinal match, between another of the Handshake trio in Stefan Schütz, and the Team Cosmos Heavy Play member and former World Champion Nathan Steuer. Schütz's team had nailed the well-known deck and excelled with Landfall, and the Mono-Green list had been great for Schütz, who excelled this weekend with a perfect 6-0 run through the Secrets of Strixhaven Draft rounds. Steuer, on the other hand, is in the midst of an explosive return to Magic, with this weekend marking his first Top Finish since his historic two-year run ended with him taking the title at Pro Tour March of the Machine.
It was a fast Landfall mirror. When we joined the match, the former World Champion had reeled off two straight victories. And as the third game progressed, the Steuer train didn't stop rolling—a pair of Erodes cleared the way as he swept into the semifinals.
That sent us into the semifinals, which began with one of the best matchups that could have possibly been conceived before the tournament started: Nass and Steuer. Two Pro Tour victors, two titans of the game with their own place in the Magic history books, and one match to decide which of them would play for another Pro Tour title.
And their match delivered. The first game showed off just how quickly these lists could build up a board presence. By the fifth turn, both sides of the battlefield were absolutely loaded down with creatures and counters. As had been the case all weekend, it was Nass's Ouroboroid that made all the difference, breaking through the board stall to take the first game.
If the first game showed just how serious these decks were about dumping their hand onto the board, the second showed just how silly a game could look when both players fired on all cylinders. Just a handful of turns saw Steuer deploy Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam for card advantage, and at one point, Nass's entire team picked up a total of seven +1/+1 counters thanks to Ouroboroid. But Nass didn't have enough creatures for a lethal swing. While Steuer's creatures were a bit smaller individually, he did have more of them. The former World Champion used that advantage to push through a lethal swing to tie things up at a game apiece.
To the sideboards we went, and when the players returned, they had more interaction than they started with. The third game featured opposing Seam Rips and Sheltered by Ghosts. Once again, it came down to which player could create a wider board. Thanks again to Brightglass Gearhulk fetching up Meltstrider's Resolve, it was Team TCGplayer's Nass that had the board-breaking play.
Just a game away from the finals, Nass looked like he would soon return to the finals table to try and add to his victory from Pro Tour Aetherdrift when he started the fourth game off with a pair of Badgermole Cubs. But despite the mana, he never found anything particularly powerful to do with it. Meanwhile, Steuer found Icetill Explorer and took his own engine to the next level with additional land drops. And when he paired that with a follow-up Mightform Harmonizer, the resulting attack was far too much for Nass to handle.
And so it came down to a fifth and final game, and sadly it did not live up to its predecessors. Nass was forced to take a mulligan down to five cards. Despite finding a functional hand, he was never able to find a payoff for his mana-producing creatures—which cleared the way for Steuer to take the match and the first seat in the finals.
Now, he just needed an opponent. And so we turned to the final semifinal between Zhang and Larsen, where things started off ideally for Zhang's Izzet list, systematically removing Larsen's threats until the board was clear enough to resolve and protect a Monument to Endurance. It was a textbook game from the classic Izzet Lessons list, and put Zhang in the driver's seat early.
But it wouldn't last. When Zhang tapped out for a Monument in the next game, Larsen was able to instantly punish the play thanks to a charged-up Earthbender Ascension empowering a massive attack that was far more than Zhang could withstand. And the next game featured an even more impactful enchantment from Larsen's sideboard: Rest in Peace. The powerful two-drop cut the legs out from under the Izzet deck's synergies. As a result, even an Artist's Talent that was churning with a Monument to Endurance out wasn't enough card advantage to keep up with the monstrous attacks that Larsen could deliver turn after turn.
In a flash, the semifinals had turned. Now Larsen was playing for a chance at his second straight Pro Tour final, and Zhang's deck was flailing to keep up with the teched-out list that Larsen's Team Cosmos Heavy Play brought to bear. The final game went in moments, with a pair of early Szah's Chocobos completely overrunning Zhang before they could do anything but play an Artist's Talent and an Accumulated Wisdom to try and get off the ground. Just like that, Larsen flipped the script, won three games in a row, and punched his ticket to the finals of Pro Tour Secrets of Strixhaven, where he would face his friend and teammate, Nathan Steuer.
