A jam-packed MagicCon. A format that will be remembered in the Magic history books. A massive celebration of what makes gaming so magical. Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ through Sunday afternoon had it all—except a winner.

That would be determined by a final match, played by two of the game's most exciting players. On side was Ian Robb, a veteran card gamer who was fresh off his first Pro Tour Top 8 at Pro Tour Aetherdrift and had now advanced all the way to the finals of his second Top Finish. The American tested with Flexslot Diamond, a squad that had come together under the leadership of Pro Tour veterans Corey Burkhart and Mark Jacobson and quickly pulled together a collection of the best talent not entrenched elsewhere. Their weeks of planning, prep, and playing had paid off with Robb's Top 8 appearance.

Ian Robb

On the other side sat Ken Yukuhiro, a longtime Magic player who had done basically everything in Magic except for winning a PT, a feat he came tantalizingly close to when he finished as the runner-up to Kenta Harane at Players Tour Nagoya 2020. Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY brought Yukuhiro's biggest finish since then, as he added an eighth career Top Finish to a resume that already includes two Grand Prix titles.

Ken Yukuhiro

Quick candid we got while @death_snow was preparing for his next #PTFINALFANTASY match.

On camera now at https://t.co/glt0Vc0v0l! pic.twitter.com/TblOqKdtl3

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) June 22, 2025

The decks were fitting, as well. The Top 8 divided itself perfectly along the lines of the two top decks in the room this weekend: four Izzet Prowess decks and four Mono-Red Aggro decks. Coincidentally, the decks also ended up splitting the bracket, so Robb's path to the finals involved mirror match victories over Christian Baker and Toni Portolan and Yukuhiro's went through two Mono-Red mirrors against Andy Garcia-Romo and Yuchen Liu.

The Games

Monstrous Rage
Heartfire Hero
Cori-Steel Cutter

The matchup between these two decks can go by in a flash, and that's exactly what happened in the opener as Yukuhiro's Mono-Red Aggro deck absolutely burned through Robb and his Izzet Prowess deck, putting the American on the backfoot. Already feeling like he was climbing uphill in the matchup, Robb now had to completely shift the way he had played his deck in the mirror to the way he would need to play his deck in the finals, and against Mono-Red Aggro, it's a very different equation.

The second game would go better for Robb. His early cantrips like Opt found a pair of Cori-Steel Cutters, and aided by being on the play Robb was able to begin developing Monk tokens with his life total still at a relatively reasonable 11 as he untapped for his big turn.

That turns began with Stormchaser's Talent, adding another Prowess threat onto the board, and was followed by one of the more interesting inclusions in the list: Wild Ride. That turned the Otter into an immediate threat alongside the Monk tokens, but Yukuhiro was far from helpless, having added Manifold Mouse and Hired Claw to his board previously. That created the opportunity for some blocks, and like clockwork Robb had the Monstrous Rage to push through damage and knock Yukuhiro down to 13.

But one huge swing begets another. Yukuhiro was down, but not out. And with a souped-up Heartfire untapping along with several other attackers, it wouldn't take much for Yukuhiro to push through for lethal damage. That's exactly what he did, and in blazingly fast fashion, Yukuhiro had taken a 2-0 lead in the Pro Tour finals.

Dueling one-drops opened the third game: Heartfire Hero for Yukuhiro and Stormchaser's Talent for the Robb. But it was another one-drop, coming out of the sideboard, that clutch for Robb: Unable to Scream took care of Emberheart Challenger before it could bring Yukuhiro any card advantage, and a second Talent saw Robb progress his board even Yukuhiro's other creatures pressed him down to 11 life.

Yukuhiro had more action: two copies of Suplex alongside his Emberheart Challenger to give him access to spells, albeit one a turn at a time with only three lands in play. When Cori-Steel Cutter arrived for Robb and made a Monk token, those copies of Suplex looked a little lackluster as a catchup tool.

But this was not a matchup about catching up on board—it was about finding a way to push through those final points of damage after the initial burst, and Yukuhiro was deep in the think tank working through how best to achieve that after drawing the brand-new Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY staple that matched the treasured FINAL FANTASY V shirt Yukuhiro wore into the finals: Self-Destruct.

Self-Destruct

So when Robb's next attack dropped Yukuhiro down to a scant 6 life in the face of three prowess creatures ready to roll in again the next turn, Yukuhiro knew his time was now. He made an aggressive attack that took Robb down to 2 life, preserving his own lethal crackback, and then simply passed the turn as if we were about to head to Game 4 of the finals.

That's what Robb hoped for, at least, when he geared up for the big turn. After a cantrip to dig deeper with one card left in his hand—a single Into the Flood Maw—Robb made the pivotal decision: cast the Flood Maw on Yukuhiro's lone blocker, clearing the way for lethal. And Yukuhiro, swiftly and nonchalantly passing priority with every action Robb took, baited the trap perfectly. And Robb, with no other real choice than to go for the win, fell right into it.

Robb pointed his last card in hand, Into the Flood Maw, at Yukuhiro's blocker. Yukuhiro then instantly revealed his last card: the Self-Destruct. He pointed it at his own Heartfire Hero and Robb's last two points of life, and the rest is history.

Congratulations to Ken Yukuhiro, the champion of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY!