Alexander von Stange always wanted to travel the world. The Virginia native yearned to see the world from a young age, but the faraway sights were nothing more than images on a screen. From Europe to South America to Asia and Australia, von Stange was always on the lookout for an opportunity to visit those locales.
As he grew up,picking up Magic along the way, he always harbored the desire to revisit those childhood dreams.After all, the Pro Tour's unofficial motto for many years was "play the game, see the world." And while the Pro Tour dream itself never took von Stange overseas, it did follow him there – and after winning the Champions Cup Final (the Regional Championship for Japan and South Korea), Strange is one of a pair of Regional Championship winners who secured their invitation to the World Championship.
Congratulations to Alexander von Stange! 🏆
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) June 25, 2023
After crossing the ocean and moving to South Korea, he emerged victorious at the Regional Championship for Japan and South Korea, playing Mono-Green Devotion.
See you at the Pro Tour and the World Championship, @AVS54356! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/vOiJuvekJY
"I've wanted to live abroad while I'm young and don't have a family yet," he explained. "When I could, the first thing I tried was to teach with a program in Japan, but I ended up missing the sponsor requirement by 24 hours – but it worked out because they needed people for my current job in South Korea!"
Thus began the adventure of von Stange's life. And like it had since he first picked the game up as a kid, Magic followed him. He would play the game and see the world, after all.
"Magic has been great because it has helped me meet people regardless of where I was or where I was going, I knew I would have that international connection. I already had some Twitter friends who were Korean, and I was able to talk to them about the decision!"
I can attest to Alexander's experience. I've been playing Magic for about 15 years now, and these days I can confidently strut into any gaming store feeling confident I'll be able to slide into a conversation about Magic, or a conversation about Merfolk, or make a conversation about Magic into a conversation about Merfolk... The point is, I've been there. Magic is a universal language, and I mean that literally – you'd be surprised how much communication you can have about Magic cards while not sharing very many common words at all.
My own first international trip came back in 2011. I had recently graduated college and was just getting going with this card game I had picked up between classes. I was discovering the field of content creation and I was excited to take a trip to England to surprise my partner who was studying overseas at the time. Fun, but scary – especially when my surprise was almost ruined when I nearly ran headlong into my partner's class on the street shortly after landing.
That's a story for another time, but the point is this: while I was planning the trip, I made sure it included time for a visit to a local gaming store. I'll never forget that fellow Magic Twitter enthusiast (and now senior brand manager) Dan Barrett took time to meet a random American at the train station and guide me to the store for a draft of Magic 2012 in London, a place that had existed only in news articles and video games for me. Now it was the place I made new friends at Friday night booster draft, just like back home.
That's the kind of acceptance von Stange is talking about. Thanks to that kind of welcome in South Korea, he was able to pick right back up where he left off with Magic. From Virginia to Seoul, the people were what kept Strange invested.
"That was what stood out the most, how welcoming the community was," he recalled. "When I first arrived in Richmond, I showed up to a Regional Championship Qualifier and someone came up to me and asked how I was doing, if I was new to the area, etc. It just made me immediately feel like I was part of the space. That became my good friend Clayton Strickland. When I moved to Korea, a similar thing happened. I got invited to the local store (Jay's Hobby), people offered to loan me cards and help me test. Despite a language barrier, everyone is incredibly kind and welcoming toward a total stranger."
No one just shows up and wins a big Magic tournament, no matter how much we may exaggerate the improvisational skills of some of the world's best gamers. There's always a story, a friend who tested late into the night, a team that worked over a format or prepared the squad for Limited (unless you're Shota Yasooka, anyway), and von Stange's story is a great example of that. And while the Regional Championships may be, well, regional, the Magic community is not. And thanks to his local community – both of them – Alexander von Stange is headed to the Magic World Championship XXIX.
Going to do a larger post later but... I just won the Japan RC! Unbelievable mix of emotions.
— Alex von Stange (@AVS54356) June 25, 2023
Thought I was dead for top 18, then just kept lucking out. pic.twitter.com/pCGTaWd0V5
"I picked up Mono-Green because it had been crushing for so long," von Stange explained. "Most people were reluctant to play it because they thought it was fairly straightforward, but I think that's a big edge in my favor when you get to higher skill level tournaments – I can't rely on play-diffing people like you can at FNM. I'm lucky to have a good group of friends who talked about Pioneer with me constantly and pushed me to get better."
The field von Stange topped in Japan was 200+ players strong, featuring a stacked Top 8. Noriyuki Mori, Hisamichi Yoshigoe, and Rei Sato all entered the elimination bracket with previous Top Finish experience, and von Stange had to battle through Mori's Abzan Greasefang list in the semifinals. From there, he persevered in a tight final against Tomoaki Ogasawara's Enigmatic Fires to win the title. You can find all the best-performing decklists and standout builds in Frank Karsten's Metagame Mentor column but I'll say I'm particularly interested in the Boros Convoke deck Rei Sato took to the Top 8 – it broke out in Pioneer in just this Regional Championship cycle, and it was one of the best-performing decks of the weekend. As we moved toward Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings and the Modern format it brings to Barcelona, the convoke deck and the rest of Pioneer are going to go into hibernation for a few months, and this cycle is ending with things in a very intriguing place.
Speaking of aggressive decks, while von Stange was going over the top with
What's wild is that both the Convoke and Humans decks have the same strategy of playing early white creatures, then attacking for a lot of damage in the first three or four turns. However, the two decks get there in entirely different fashions.
We came into this Regional Championship cycle with a Pioneer format that had been pretty well-explored with Pro Tour Phyrexia. But the addition of March of the Machine threw things uprooted the format shortly thereafter, and it appears we're leaving this Pioneer season with more options than ever before – you can find success with
What a weekend! I won the Australia/NZ RC and qualified for myself for my first PT in Barcelona and the World Championship in Las Vegas!! I'll be joining my teammate @mtgzen who worked with me on this 75. Unreal to be apart of this team❤️@visser_tyler pic.twitter.com/BtAuZcnX8U
— Ben Kemp (@GoodFriendMTG) June 26, 2023
Looking Ahead
While Strange and Kemp have the World Championship to look forward to later this year, there's first the matter of the quickly approaching Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings, which kicks off at MagicCon: Barcelona on July 28-30 (and as of a few days ago the event now includes a $75,000 Limited Open!).
There's a few seats at the Pro Tour left to fill, and a pair of Regional Championships to award them. The third cycle of the season will wrap up with regional events for Brazil and South America, and then all eyes toward back to Europe as teams begin to arrive for the first Modern Pro Tour in years!