"Step one of winning a Magic tournament is to get a good night's rest before playing the Magic tournament."
It's one of the most common pieces of Magic advice ever given, being more widespread than "don't play 41 cards in your Limited deck."
It sounds easy enough, in theory. But nerves have been known to keep players up far past a reasonable bedtime, as has the allure of playing "just one more game" on Magic Online. I remember the night before my first major event Top 8, when my friends and Iplayed into the wee hours of the night, grinding Merfolk against Zoo. Making the Top 8 was a joyful experience, but my mind was mush by the time we made it to 11:00 p.m. the next night. The moral of the story? Get your rest.
But what do you do when the tournament itself is the reason you can't sleep?
If you're Keisuke Sato, you win the whole thing.
We have a winner!
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) December 16, 2024
Keisuke Sato defeated Mikko Airaksinen in three close games of Standard to earn the trophy and title at #ArenaChampionship7, along with some personal redemption after losing in the finals of a previous Arena Championship.
Congrats, @nano3151! pic.twitter.com/IqRxbJ8GXb
"I was fighting sleepiness throughout the competition," he admitted. "But I did my best, and I think I was able to give a good performance."
Sato's good performance led to him winning Arena Championship 7 this past weekend.
The Arena Championship is the ultimate competition for MTG Arena players, offering them a direct path to the World Championship. The stepped qualifier process gives players a chance to qualify not just for bigger and bigger MTG Arena events—and the cash prizes that go with them—but for the biggest Magic tournament of them all, all from the comfort of their home.
Sato did just that, dominating Arena Championship 7 from his home in Niigata, Japan to win the final major tournament of 2024. It was the culimination of a years-long chase for the Pro Tour competitor. He'll be heading back to his third career World Championship after an undefeated Day 2 run at Arena Championship 7, dropping just a single game in the Top 8 on his way to a victory. To Sato, that victory felt like a redemption. But more on that later.
Playing high-stakes matches from home on MTG Arena is one of the program's greatest strengths—Sato is a veteran of the platform and the Arena Championship itself—but the global nature of the event can make scheduling a bit tricky. That's a lot of time zones. For Sato, that meant that the final match ended early on a Monday morning; commuters were beginning to head into work as Sato completed his, beating Mikko Airaksinen's Dimir Midrange in two decisive games to earn the trophy and the $30,000 first-place prize.
"It was a little bit stressful," he (understatedly) admitted in the moments after winning. "My experience playing here before helped."
Clad in his Los Angeles Dodgers jersey, Sato did his best Freddie Freeman impersonation and played through the night. Piloting the Standard-defining Gruul Aggro deck, Sato hit it out of the park just like the Dodgers.
Like all good comeback stories, Sato did it with his back against the wall. It wasn't quite a 5-0 Yankees lead, but a sluggish 3-2 start to the Arena Championship was still quite the hill to climb for the 35-year-old. But scale it he did, grinding out two clutch games against Golgari Midrange in the final round of Day 1 to stay alive for Day 2's single-elimination competition.
After dropping a match to Dimir Midrange, that would be the matchup awaiting Sato in the Top 16. But Sato defeated Simon Greir in two straight games and did the same against Asdren Alexander's Simic Terror in the quarterfinals. He'd keep that streak going, defeating Leo Finnveden and Mikko Airaksinen's dual Dimir decks in the final two matches.
"I was aiming for a better result than the last time I participated in the Arena Championship. In other words, my ultimate goal was to win," Sato said. "However, I knew that the level of the competition was high, so my first goal was to finish in the Top 16 and win the right to participate in the Pro Tour. From there, I tried to play calmly, step by step. I relaxed and didn't have high expectations because it is difficult to win a tournament. I was confident, though."
It helps that Sato had been here before, not just in the previous Arena Championship but also the Challenger Gauntlet in 2021, where he needed to win three matches in a row to qualify for the World Championship. Sato did the same thing then that he did this weekend: pull out a spectacular win against a stacked field.
"I narrowed down my deck choice to Gruul Aggro rather early on. While it is an aggro deck, I think it has a lot of ways to gain advantage over the whole game," Sato explained. "I was convinced it would be one of the strongest decks in Standard, as it has remained at the top of the leaderboards as the environment has become more and more understood and people know it is coming.
"I also tested Golgari Midrange because I like that style of deck, but I gave up on it after the Qualifier Weekend. We thought Golgari Midrange had a slight advantage over Mono-Red Aggro, but it didn't have a good matchup against Dimir. In the metagame breakdown, Dimir was the most common deck, so if we'd chosen Golgari, it would have been tough. I honestly didn't expect so much Dimir."
"Gruul often has a good matchup with Dimir, and the Dimir decks I matched up with on Day 2 had a tailwind working against them. They were built with an eye on the mirror and had fewer copies of
Sato won the way he wanted to, and in doing so achieved the kind of redemption arc improbable that legends are made of. When those stories emerge, they come from some of the game's greatest players, including reigning world champ Javier Dominguez. Sato is in good company: the company of champions.
"Winning is a really special feeling in the sense that I was able to achieve what I missed last time. It's also a big moment in my career because I have never won an online tournament of this level," Sato said. "I'd like to thank all the people who supported me, and my teammates who helped me practice. I don't know exactly why I'm doing so well, but I think I am playing with confidence and joy, and that's pointing me in the right direction."
What's next up for Sato? Well, I imagine the first thing he did after winning the Arena Championship was enjoy a well-deserved sleep. But now it's full steam ahead for the prolific streamer, who's eyes are already on Pro Tour Aetherdrift.
"I am very happy to be able to participate not only in the Pro Tours, but also in World Championship 31," he said. "Hopefully I will be able to play well on that stage; I think Limited will be the big challenge for me and I will be actively working on it!"