The last World Championship seat.
That was what was on the line for Arena Championship 6 when it kicked off with 32 players earlier this month. While there's been a lot of attention on the Pro Tour and some of its associated streaks—yes, I'm talking about Simon Nielsen—the online play paths have been extremely competitive this year as well. The Arena Championships have collected the best online talent in the game, and the field for the most recent event reflected that: none other than online legend Logan "Jaberwocki" Nettles headlined the stacked field.
With Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 now firmly in the rearview and all eyes looking ahead toward to Magic World Championship 30 at MagicCon: Las Vegas later this year, all that remained was to finalize the field of just over 100 players. Throughout the season, we've been slowly filling those seats and building out both the tournament competitors and their storylines. When Arena Championship 6 rolled around on July 13-14, almost all of those spots had been filled; this was the last chance any of these players would have to qualify for the once-in-a-lifetime event. The Top 8 was filled with a collection of decorated competitors:
- Simonas Gerve
- Logan Nettles
- Brandon Hersh
- Marcus Wosner
- Wouter Noordzij
- Koki Kondo
- Riku Kumagai
- Conor Hughes
Normally I would list what deck they were playing as well, but all you really need to know about Arena Championship 6's metagame is that it was... very energetic. Modern Horizons 3 hit the Historic metagame like an aggressive-but-somehow-also-grindy whirlwind of Boros Energy. Marcus Wosner and Conor Hughes broke through with Jeskai Lotus Field, but make no mistake, this was a showcase of what the Energy deck has to offer.
It was in that environment that Wouter Noordzij arrived as one of the 18 Boros Energy pilots, and the Limited specialist was busy navigating a busy time in his own life, with a new house and move complicating tournament prep. But the Utrecht native leaned on his team, Magic United, to arrive on his build of Boros Energy, plan for the mirror, and manage the whirlwind of Magic and moving.
"I want to thank Alex, Laurens, and Sebastiaan, who helped me prep in Historic and feeding me decklists to try. During testing it was pretty clear that the deck to beat was Boros Energy and I did not have time to find a strategy that could consistently beat it, so I decided to just go with the strongest deck, as did most of the competitors," Noordzij explained. "There were two versions of the deck going around, one with
A turn 3 win in Historic!
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) July 14, 2024
You can follow the rest of the Arena Championship 6 action live now at https://t.co/we35sjP14M! pic.twitter.com/HLZFLB8hX6
That play was a highlight, but it wasn't the high point for Noordzij. That would come shortly later, when he bested Wosner in a back-and-forth best-of-three-matches final. Dueling Suncleansers had removed energy from the equation, but Phlage escapes that particular lockdown.
And we have a winner! Wouter Noordzij wins Arena Championship 6 with Boros Energy! pic.twitter.com/bBZJG2f92I
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) July 14, 2024
This wasn't the outcome Wosner wanted, especially after battling uphill with Jeskai Lotus Field against a field of Boros Energy. But he could take some solace in the fact that he's headed to Las Vegas anyway. His strong season earned him an invitation based on accumulated match points.
And he'll be joined by fellow Arena Championship 6 (and soon-to-be Magic World Championship 30) competitor Noordzij.
He barely qualified for the event with accumulated points. With his testing time limited and leaning on his support network for a Historic deck, Noordzij spent most of his time preparing by drafting. This made it particularly frustrating when he dropped his first two rounds of the tournament in Draft.
"Going into this tournament I was absolutely not expecting to do this well," Noordzij admitted. "I think I am strongest in Limited, so I when I started the draft 0-2 and barely won the third match, I didn't feel like I was going to do well."
It's hard to imagine a more disastrous scenario than an 0-2 start in a short tournament, except maybe an 0-3 start. But with a win to get on the board in Round 3, the three-time Pro Tour competitor settled back in and found his footing. A key win over Sean Goddard in Day 1 cemented Noordzij's comeback, and from there he just could not lose. He beat Riku Kumagai and Logan Nettles in back-to-back rounds late in the tournament and then dropped only a single game in the Top 8 as he beat Koki Kondo, Conor Hughes and Marcus Wosner to claim the title.
"With all the messages I've received about the World Championship in Vegas and all of the messages from friends congratulating me, I've finally begun to realize what I've achieved," he reflected.
With Noordzij's win, the World Championship field is now set. On October 25, the most exclusive tournament field in the world will draft Duskmourn: House of Horror. With that, we will be on the way to finding the next Jean-Emmanuel Depraz (and it's always safe to assume that Depraz could be the next Depraz). Being crowned the world champion of Magic is something that is unlike winning any other event—it immortalized you and resonates in a way that nothing else can. Not to mention there's the matter of that million-dollar prize pool, including $100,000 to the winner.
Not a bad opportunity for a 39-year-old Magic hobbyist who ended up here because he really enjoys drafting on Arena.
"Winning this could not have come at a better time and it means we can do a lot more to make our new house our home," he reflected. "Playing at the World Championship has always been a dream, but not a dream I expected to reach this year at all."
The Road to the World Championship
Each week leading up to Magic World Championship 30, Frank Karsten and I are looking back at events and moments from past World Championships. It's been a fun and educational look back at early Magic history and some of the stories I remember watching from afar when I first learned about Magic.
Of those, few tournaments were more exciting than the 2012 Players Championship that saw an epic finish. Two players regularly referred to as the best to ever sleeve up sixty, Jon Finkel and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, made it to the Top 4 before Yuuya Watanabe and Shota Yasooka squared off in an all-Japan finals with one of the most famous World Championship decks in Magic history: Yasooka's Eternal Command deck featuring
This event also heralded in a new era of the World Championship. Previously, the qualification paths for the World Championship varied from Pro Tours, but the size of the field and general structure was much the same as the other major events on the calendar. That changed in 2012 with the shift to "small field" tournaments, bringing together only the best of the best in an ultra-exclusive invite list. The shift showed what the next decade or so of World Championships would look like, with each round of World Championship play coming against a Hall of Famer or Pro Tour winner.
That formed the second era of World Championships, with the change to the current format in recent years featuring larger but still exclusive qualification paths that incorporate all of Magic play both on and offline. And with players like Noordzij showing their prowess at playing the game in whatever format it comes in, the road to the World Championship is more diverse than ever.