As the Top 8 players at the South America Magic Series Regional Championship gathered, things began to set in for the competitors who had outlasted the rest of the 132-player strong field to make it to this moment: the quarterfinals match was the real win-and-in: the top four finishers would advance to the Pro Tour.

This is what the last four months had been building toward, and of course all of these aspirants had been chasing this opportunity for a very long time. Eight rounds of Standard play had yielded six different archetypes in the quarterfinals (a testament to a Standard format full of surprises that has received praise from many of the players I've talked to), and the atmosphere was tense as the contenders shuffled up for a showdown in Santiago, Chile.

Guillermo Sulimovich was nervous, but nervously confident. He had prepared well for this opportunity—his team from Uruguay had worked with former Player of the Year Luis Salvatto leading up to the tournament—and Sulimovich's own prep included several victories over high-profile players in online events. His Selesnya Toxic deck had excelled all weekend, putting up a perfect record in the swiss rounds to enter Sunday's Top 8 as the second seed. He needed Skrelv, Defector Mite to show up one more time.

He looked across the room that suddenly seemed much smaller than yesterday, and shared a quick acknowledgement and good luck with one of the players down the table. Francisco Benitez nodded back, intent on preparing mentally for his match against Marco Gaete. Benitez had taken the field by storm with his Domain Control deck that a month ago was barely a format afterthought (Remember what I said about Standard continuing to surprise?) but he would now have to go through the dangerous Mono-White Midrange and its devastating suite of planeswalkers.

They were competitors, but not really, and least not yet—situated on opposite sides of the bracket, any matchup would be delayed until the finals. So as the Top 8 began play, the testing partners and teammates took some time to appreciate where they were: playing for the chance to live out their dreams of earning a place at the Pro Tour.

All in all, it was a very long way from playing Magic on the floor together when they were kids.

The South America Magic Series Regional Championship Top 8.

"The most beautiful part of the weekend was sharing this experience with Francisco," Sulimovich reflected. "We played together when we were young, and then we met again to prepare for and play this tournament."

It's rare for two players from the same group to make the same Top 8 at a tournament as prestigious as the Regional Championship, but that's exactly what Sulimovich and Benitez had done. It's even more rare when one of them is fresh back to competitive Magic ("creatures in front of lands" is a lesson that was learned the hard way), but here they were.

And then they did one better—both won their matches and qualified for the Pro Tour.

"I still can't believe what I lived this weekend, and after I qualified I realized how much it meant to me," Sulimovich marveled. "The days before the tournament I had trouble sleeping and I wasn't hungry, but everything just disappeared after I played Ajani, Sleeper Agent, pumped the Bloated Contaminator and qualified for the Pro Tour."

"I'm excited to travel to Minneapolis with Francisco. He's been an incredible player since he was young—he qualified for the Pro Tour at 17—and since he's returned just this season he's played in one RCQ and qualified for the Regional Championship. He played one Regional Championship and qualified for the Pro Tour and the World Championship. Undoubtedly the most fun of the tournament was watching Francisco play."

Catch that part about the World Championship? That's because Benitez and his meta call of Domain Control just kept winning. He defeated Cristian Oyaneder in the semifinals and then avenged Sulimovich's semifinals loss by sweeping Luis Gutierrez in the finals to win the entire Regional Championship.

Congratulations to Francisco Benítez, who won South America's Regional Championship with Domain Control! See you at the Pro Tour! https://t.co/sMQnrcmuoK

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) April 2, 2023

It doesn't get any better than that. Next up for the duo is Pro Tour March of the Machine taking place at MagicCon: Minneapolis May 5-7, an adventure that's been a long time coming for Benitez, who qualified years ago but was unable to make the trip due to visa issues. Now he's looking forward to making the most of the opportunity, alongside the teammate who helped him find his place in the game again.

Even if he still needs a visual reminder of how to lay out his board (note courtesy of a camera-familiar Salvatto).

Benitez's victory comes as the Standard Regional Championship season winds down. With a handful of Championship events behind us but a very large field tournament looming at the end of the schedule this weekend: Dreamhack in San Diego, California (you can find coverage here), Standard refuses to be figured out. Goodstuff Grixis Midrange began the season as the unquestioned best deck, but it's underperformed in recent weeks as decks like Mono-White Midrange, Atraxa Reanimator, Selesnya Toxic and now Domain Control break out in a big way.

I'd recommend checking out Frank's column for more details on how it all shakes out (small spoiler: Lay Down Arms is really good), and what it might mean for the Pro Tour, which is now less than a month away. With March of the Machine almost fully revealed, we're about three weeks away from when teams including Sulimovich and Benitez will hole up in draft houses to furiously try and break it and then put it all back together just in time for the deck submission deadline.

The developments out of Santiago are certainly something for Dreamhack competitors to consider as they make their own last-minute adjustments for the high-stakes field that kicks off on Saturday. But for the longtime friends out of Uruguay, it's a little more straightforward: their Pro Tour testing begins today.

And they will be ready to compete when they get there—at least that's the impression they left on friend and fellow Regional Championship competitor Gustavo Fischer, who recalled when Benitez (referred to by his nickname "Tomate," originating from "tomáte con calma," or "take it easy") found out about the return of the Pro Tour over an asado barbeque and found his competitive spirit rekindled on the spot.

"Tomate had two huge advantages over the rest of the field: he really knows how to perform under pressure and was a lot calmer than his opponents, hence his nickname, and he had a well thought-up sideboard plan that he drove half the Uruguayan and Argentinean teams crazy building but paid off immensely, especially after thoroughly testing the Top 8 matchups with the Argentinean pros. His decision to play four Lay Down Arms came in clutch against Toxic—I was an early victim of his myself," Fischer explained. "Guillermo is a software engineer by trade, and he was very analytical in his preparation and tested several different sideboard configurations. He came up with Ajani, Sleeper Agent as a sideboard plan against Mono-White, and that was the card that clinched his Pro Tour invite."

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Looking Ahead

It's been an extremely active stretch of competitive Magic—while we've been busy covering the Regional Championship circuit, there's plenty more happening. For instance, while South America was qualifying a contingent for the Pro Tour, on the other side of the globe there was a massive 1,000-plus player Modern tournament in Prague, where the Legacy Magic Showdown brought together the best from across the continent for a celebratory show (more on that in a few weeks, I promise!)

For now, all eyes turn to Dreamhack in San Diego, where we get one last, long look at Standard under the rule of Phyrexia: All Will Be One. From my perspective, this has been one of the most dynamic Standard formats in years—it's not very often we see this much movement in metagame shares this deep into the season—and the addition of March of the Machine means that Minneapolis is going to be madness, in the best possible way.