The Lost Caverns of Ixalan released just a week ago, but it's already leaving its mark on Magic, and in Pioneer in particular. The set enabled all-new archetypes in the format, and at the South America Magic Series Regional Championship Guillermo Sulimovich took full advantage and appraised his way to victory with the Discover combo deck.

Sulimovich's victory over Santiago Bigatti – playing his own new combo deck featuring Amalia Benavides Aguirre and Dina, Soul Steeper – in the finals of the Regional Championship was a thrilling (if fast-paced) ending to an incredible two-day tournament that brought 164 players to Santiago, Chile to compete for a pair of invites to the Pro Tour and a seat at next year's Magic World Championship.

More than 150 players came together in Santiago to battle for the title of Regional Champion, as well as the World Championship invite that came with it.

Pioneer has long been dominated by some familiar archetypes, but Sulimovich flipped that philosophy on its head last weekend. The Montevideo, Uruguay native came to the Regional Championship with ample experience: he has a Regional Championship Top 4 to his name earned earlier this year, and he's one of the smaller number of RC competitors who has previously played on the Pro Tour.

The 32-year-old didn't drop a game in the semifinals or finals, avenging his only loss in the swiss rounds in the process. Piloting the new Geological Appraiser Discover Combo deck that saw mixed results at Regional Championships over the weekend, Sulimovich showed what is possible with a teched-out build of the deck.

His only loss came in the second round of the tournament, to his eventual finals opponent Bigatti. Those two game losses were part of just five overall losses; Sulimovich finished the tournament with a 20-5 record in games played.

With the win over Bigatti in the finals, Sulimovich earned the title of Regional Champion and the seat at next year's World Championship that comes along with it!

Congratulations to Guillermo Sulimovich, the winner of the South America Magic Series and the new Regional Champion!

"The deck is so strong, it's a one-card win," Sulimovich explained of his deck choice.

That card is Geological Appraiser.

There's several steps involved once the Appraiser is cast, but the end state is always the same thanks to the discover mechanic, Eldritch Evolution, and a series of creature clone effects built into the deck. A huge army of Trumpeting Carnosaur and friends come in off just one Appraiser cast, and thanks to the combo always ending in Doomskar Titan, they'll have haste to end the game on the spot.

It's taken Pioneer by storm and forced players to have answers for the combo, but no one had the answers for Sulimovich at the REgional Championship.

Guillermo Sulimovich faced against Santiago Bigatti for the Regional Championship title.

Diverse Top 8 Battle for Pro Tour Invites

It was a stacked and diverse Top 8 field in Chile, with new card and combos popping up everywhere. In that way, the Top 8 was a great encapsulation of what came before it: eight rounds of play in a extraordinarily wide open metagame.

There were two Pro Tour invites on the line, making playing across the elimination rounds very tense. And Sulimovich wasn't the only one innovating; Facundo Conde was playing a Rona, Herald of Invasion and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast combo deck, while Santiago Bigatti would combine Amalia Benavides Aguirre, a lot of lifegain effects, Dina, Soul Steeper and a host of creature tutors to drain out opponents in one shot.

The Top 8 showcased how much The Lost Caverns of Ixalan has impacted the format, and along with Sulimovich it was Bigatti who adapted the best. He defeated Benjamin Vera's Mono-Green Devotion deck in straight games in the quarterfinals before edging past Julio Espejo and his Azorius Lotus Field deck to earn a spot in the finals and a qualification for the Pro Tour.

Santiago Bigatti also leaned on some new additions from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan to earn a seat in the finals and a spot at the Pro Tour.

The field at the Regional Championship was incredibly balanced, with no deck comprising more than 8% of the field. A pair of distinct Rakdos decks – Midrange and Sacrifice – led the way along with Azorius Control. Only six players in the field registered Geological Appraiser, five brought the Mono-White Humans deck that Joaquín Fuentes made the Top 8 with, just two players in the room were on Conde's Rona-Lukka combo, and Bigatti was the only competitor at all to bring Amalia.

That decision paid off, and now the pair of finalists will represent the regional at the Pro Tour in 2024. It was a fitting ending to a great weekend in Chile that saw extremely high-level Magic played by the region's best.