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The Top 8 of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™

June 23, 2025
Corbin Hosler

More than 300 players traveled to sunny Las Vegas to compete at Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™, and the resulting three days of competition has been intense as the competition whittled down this point. Just three more rounds of Magic—Pro Tour Top 8 matches are always best-of-five—would deliver a trophy to the champion of Pro Tour Final Fantasy.


The event was part of the larger MagicCon: Las Vegas, which offered tens of thousands of people the opportunity for both some Magic and some gathering. That includes the dozen Hall of Famers who made up the 300-plus player field, and even when the Cori-Steel Cutters weren't cutting it, there was always something to do.

As for the Sunday stage, it was to be a series of mirrors from the top two decks entering the tournament. Izzet Prowess and Mono-Red Aggro have defined Standard this summer, and their dominance continued at Pro Tour Final Fantasy. And while Cori-Steel Cutter didn't necessarily live up to the hype—Izzet Prowess posted an archetype winrate below 50%—that slack was made up for by Monstrous Rage in Mono-Red Aggro, which posted the highest winrate of the big three decks—Izzet Prowess, Mono-Red Aggro, and Azorius Omniscience.

With each deck comprising half of the Top 8, the bracket such that every match would be a mirror until the finals, when a guaranteed Izzet Prowess would be guaranteed to face Mono-Red; a fitting conclusion to the Pro Tour the decks dominated.

The Quarterfinals

Ken Yukuhiro vs. Andy Garcia-Romo

The Top 8 kicked off with the first of the four mirrors to come: Ken Yukuhiro and Andy Garcia-Romo playing Mono-Red. The fastest deck in Standard, in the mirror. That meant games could end in the blink of an eye—and that's exactly what they did. An ideal Game 1 start for Garcia-Romo had Yukuhiro extend his hand by the end of turn three to congratulate him on picking up the opener, and with that three-minute burst of action the Top 8 of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY was off and running.

The second game would look little like the first, as both players were forced to do complicated combat math from the beginning. It was especially dicey for Yukuhiro, who found himself down to 7 life, with no creatures and staring down five creatures.

Then came Self-Destruct.

Self-Destruct

This Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY addition has given the red deck new reach, letting the deck close out the game even in the face of a sea of blockers. Yukuhiro showed off the power of this sweet new addition, pointing it at his own Soulstone Sanctuary and Garcia-Romo's face for the exact points of damage he needed for lethal damage.

That tied up the first quarterfinals match up at one game apiece, and sent the players into their sideboards. That further slows down games in typical Mono-Red Aggro mirrors, as burn spells that could go upstairs are often pointed at creatures instead.

Of course, that plan is a bit awkward against Screaming Nemesis, as the game bogged down as players traded their Spirits and Garcia-Romo then used two removal spells on Yukuhiro's creatures. Suddenly the mirror of the two fastest decks in the format was on turn six with no creatures in play, and both players still at double-digit life totals but zero cards in hand.

This would be typical of the Mono-Red Aggro mirror matches after sideboarding, and this match would come down to who drew better from that spot. That turned out to be Yukuhiro, who found another Nemesis on the next turn and was able to win an extremely close race against Garcia-Romo's Heartfire Hero thanks to yet another clutch copy of Self-Destruct.

The fourth and what would be the final game of the match went in the other direction, as both players flooded with creatures rather than removal this time. It's in that world that Screaming Nemesis is so good, and as the pair raced it was a Monstrous Rage in hand for Yukuhiro that helped seal the match and advance him to the semifinals.

David Rood vs. Toni Portolan

Next up was a former Pro Tour champion. David Rood qualified for his first Pro Tour in two decades and picked up right where he left off, having won Pro Tour Atlanta in 2005 alongside teammates Gabriel Nassif and Gabriel Tsang. The Canadian re-qualified and put his renowned Limited skills to work. His run with Izzet Prowess now brought him all the way to the Sunday stage again, where Toni Portolan awaited the mirror match.

Unlike the lightning-fast Mono-Red Aggro mirrors, the first game between the matching decks stalled while Rood's Drake Hatcher and Portolan's Cori-Steel Cutter developed their boards. As the Hatcher's fliers began to whittle down Portolan's life total, Vivi Ornitier joined the board for Portolan and began its own life total pinging—but a final flurry of spells from Rood gave him the edge in the opener.

Portolan took the second game with a quick rush of Otters and aggro, and as the players moved to their fairly different-looking sideboards it was time to see who had the best post-board plans, where the Otters were once again key; Portolan deployed three Stormchaser's Talent by the fourth turn on his way to an overwhelming board presence that translated into victory. Rood's back was against the wall, and things only devolved from there, as Portolan had double Cori-Steel Cutter in the decider, advancing the Sanctum of All member to the semifinals.

Yuchen Liu vs. Percy Fang

On the other side of the bracket, two more mirrors were taking place. We moved first to where three-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor Yuchen Liu was locked into a Magebane Lizard battle against US Regional Champion Percy Fang. It was Fang who ended up taking that first game, and with the seal broken they moved on to the next, where Fang once again landed an early Magebane Lizard.

Magebane Lizard

Magebane Lizard has been a huge addition to Mono-Red decks over the last month, with Fang and teammates like Quinn Tonole using it to great success against Izzet Prowess. It largely changed the shape of Standard when the team first began playing it, and helped Mono-Red players to a massive 60% winrate at the Pro Tour. But the Lizard is much better against the spell decks than it is the mirror, and eventually Liu was able to work around it to even things up.

The third game featured the kind of board stall that Screaming Nemesis makes possible, as a pair locked down Liu's growing board of Mice and Lizards in the next game. Time and again the red creatures turned sideways to attack, and the biggest theme as players traded life total was that blocking was simply not a viable strategy in the mirror outside of scant windows to chump-block with Heartfire Hero; it was almost pure racing as the pair split the next two games and sent the entire quarterfinals match in a winner-take-all Game 5.

That game belonged to Liu from the beginning. With a pair of Burst Lightning helping to keep the worst threats off the table, Liu's own army was able to start wearing down Fang's life total. And when his own deck failed to provide enough removal off the top to catch up, the quarterfinal ended in a flash with Liu moving on to the top four.

Christian Baker vs. Ian Robb

The final quarterfinal match was between Christian Baker, whose list brought him a perfect 8-0 Day One record. The wheels nearly came off in Day 2, but Baker was able to recover well enough to earn the seventh seed and a first-round Sunday matchup with Ian Robb. Robb is fresh off his first Top Finish, and this now makes the second Pro Tour in a row he has made it to the Sunday stage.

Robb took a quick first game, and the players settled into a stall in the second, as Baker managed two counters onto a Vivi Ornitier along with Cori-Steel Cutter. That much pressure turned a bad situation worse for the mana-flooded Robb, whose only hope was to go in on his lone Drake Hatcher that stuck around. Well, a flurry of spells including Monstrous Rage allowed the Hatcher to go counter-for-counter with the Vivi Ornitier, and suddenly the massive Drake Hatcher was the most imposing threat on the board—and a turn cycle later Robb's all-in play on Hatcher paid off as he found himself up 2-0 and a game away from the semifinals.

And Rob quickly established Cori-Steel superiority in that game. Abrade took care of Baker's Cutter on the second turn, and on the third Robb followed up with his own Cutter and Stormchaser's Talent. That put him in the driver's seat, and though Baker was able to answer back on the Cutter that only meant the way was clear for Robb's follow-up Vivi Ornitier with the coast clear. When Baker failed to find an answer for the legend, it quickly turned the corner and turned Top 8 over to the semifinals, with Robb facing Toni Portolan and Yukuhiro facing Yuchen Liu.

The Semifinals

Ken Yukuhiro vs. Yuchen Liu

Unlike some of the mirrors of the quarterfinals, the match between Yukuhiro and Liu drug out as players traded removal spells and, at times, the game fell into the familiar Screaming Nemesis board stall set over the course of the first two games. Both ultimately went to Yukuhiro as the player whose Nemesis screamed the loudest.

That turned the next game of the best-of-five match into a last stand for Liu, as every game from here on out would be; all would come with the sideboard involved. And as both Yukuhiro and Liu knew from their last round, there were several different ways that the post-sideboard games could go based on the mix of creatures versus removal versus pump spells.

Again, it was Screaming Nemesis for Yukuhiro, which stared down a pair of Hired Claw and a Emberheart Challenger from Liu. But this time the removal follow-up was lacking, and by simply lining up an attack large enough to make the damage trigger from the Nemesis irrelevant, Liu got on the board and back into the match. And if that game was encouraging, the next was exciting—a blazing fast start from Liu gave him the win and suddenly it was down to a single game for the finals of the Pro Tour.

It began with a mulligan for Liu and a healthy (but risky, four-land) seven for Yukuhiro. Both players needed something to go right for them, and as the first few turns played out both players found gas. Yukuhiro added a Heartfire Hero, while Liu was able to develop his board with three lands a couple of removal spells. The midgame had arrived, and with both players at 12 life, it would come down to the next, critical, turn:

With that, Ken Yukuhiro became the first finalist of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY.

Ian Robb vs. Toni Portolan

With one finalist spoken for, all eyes turned to Ian Robb and Toni Portolan, who would square off on the other side of the bracket in the Izzet Prowess mirror. And the first two games revealed some of the key differences in their maindecks; namely, Portolan was rocking the full playset of Monastery Swiftspear, while the other three Prowess players eschewed the one-drop entirely.

In fact, the variations in creature bases showed that there was no one prescribed way to build the Prowess deck. Robb had the full four Vivi Ornitier and three Drake Hatchers as the only creatures, while Portolan had three copies of Vivi Ornitier and the Swiftspears as the only creatures; other teams had tested up to 12 one-drops in the deck, showing just how much there was to be gained or lost by a few key card choices.

Those choices mattered for both players as control over combat dictated the pace of their games. Blocking, of course, was sometimes helpful to get Screaming Nemesis or Heartfire Hero into the fray, but was also fundamentally a losing prospect thanks to the many prowess triggers and the power of Monstrous Rage. That's the situation that led to Robb taking the third game in the match in what turned out to be the deciding game. After a flurry of removal from both players it was once again the Drakes that swooped in to save the day.

That left us with our finalists, Ken Yukuhiro and Ian Robb, heading into the finals of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY.

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