Anyone remember the Grand Prix super-weekends?

Probably not many of you, but here's a refresher. You see, a Grand Prix was a tournament where anyone could wander in off the street, register a ham sandwich of a deck, and take their shot at qualifying for the Pro Tour. There was no convention badge to buy and no prerequisite tournament to win to make it there. Just an entry fee, two days of Magic, and a few hundred (or thousand) of your closest friends in the fandom battling it out for their share of the prize pool and an invitation to the most prestigious Magic tournament of them all.

If that sounds similar to the Magic Spotlight Series, it should. The spiritual successor brought the open competitive style of event back to tabletop Magic in 2025, and the 2026 schedule is packed with more of the Spotlight weekends. Each come with their own special prize—Hunter Ovington won Magic Spotlight: Secret Lair last year and helped to design a Secret Lair drop, while the winners of Magic Spotlight: Spider-Man took home an Infinity Gauntlet winner's trophy.

That's enough to get you caught up. So, what was a Grand Prix super-weekend? It was when Grand Prix events happened across the globe on the same weekend, offering up competitive Magic tournaments in multiple corners of the world. Heck, I remember one weekend where we coordinated streams across three different continents, keeping a continuous presence of live Magic all weekend long while I fought with the internet connection in Mexico City. Cover the game, see the world, and fight convention center Wi-Fi wherever the journey takes you.

That brings me to last weekend, where a pair of Magic Spotlight events taking place in Europe and the United States was very reminiscent of those halcyon Grand Prix days. Because with Simon Nielson winning Magic Spotlight: The Avatar in Lyon, France, and Kye Nelson winning Magic Spotlight: The Avatar in Atlanta, Georgia, a few hours later, it felt like a throwback weekend in all the best ways possible. Wake up in the morning, put on some high-level Magic, and keep it running all weekend long to sneak in a few minutes of watching when you can.

Simon Nielsen is your Magic Spotlight: The Avatar CHAMPION! 🎉

Out of 746 Standard players in Lyon, Simon stands all the way at the top with his Simic Ouroboroid!#SpotlightTheAvatar pic.twitter.com/EIdtFUUfU8

— Magic tournaments by Fanfinity (@fanfinity_mtg) January 11, 2026

Kye Nelson, a huge Avatar fan, dominated Magic Spotlight: The Avatar with a sweet Bant Airbending deck! 🌪️

Congrats, Kye! 🏆#SpotlightTheAvatar #SCGATLANTA

Join us at an event near you! 👇https://t.co/d8Cg8rBT1N pic.twitter.com/yxGjQVKBq1

— Star City Games (@StarCityGames) January 12, 2026

Oh, and did I mention that we had our first slate of qualifying events for the 2027 Magic Limited Championship?

Congratulations to the first four players to qualify for the 2027 Magic Limited Championship! 🎉

✅ Louis Grensing
✅ Noah Bacine
✅ Arià Paco
✅ Dominic Ulke

After seven rounds of Sealed and three rounds of Draft, they proved their mastery of Limited and punched their tickets. pic.twitter.com/JO7KrxuwFX

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) January 11, 2026

Like I said—it was a busy weekend of Magic. And viewers of both live streams were treated to a showcase of Standard's finest in the first major Standard event post-World Championship and Izzet Lessons breakout, with Nelson rolling to victory with a newly refined Bant Airbending list, while Nielsen won with the explosive Simic Ouroboroid deck in France—neither player piloted Izzet Lessons, which turned in a strong win rate but was largely in line with the rest of the top decks. You can find all of the details on the evolving Standard metagame in Frank Karsten's Metagame Mentor article here.

While the victors both had copies of Badgermole Cub in their decks and defeated Izzet Lessons in the finals (Nielsen beat Lorenzo Gruppi; Nelson defeated Oliver Tamajko), the similarities ended there. And to the point about viewers having a chance to take it all in from two tournaments taking place 4,593 miles (or 7,392 kilometers) apart—give or take a few miles and convention center staircases—we were treated to two very different winners with very different stories.

Nielsen is, of course, one of the very best players to ever sleeve up 60 cards. His six career Top Finishes place him in the Top 25 for Top Finishes, and his incredible run of achieving five of them consecutively in a thirteen-month period was beyond unprecedented. He is a fixture in the wider Magic world, a friendly face of the game, and is just as likely to make the Top 8 of a tournament as he is to commentate it on stream. His enthusiasm is infectious and was on full display in a rambunctious winner's interview after earning the trophy and a fresh ticket to the Pro Tour.

At the same time, he's a champion who has been working on a singular challenge that very few Magic players know about: keeping the same intensity after hoisting a trophy. It's beguiled many Pro Tour winners over the years. For Nielsen, the trick has been shrinking every tournament—every round—down to a familiar mantra for the sports fans: one game at a time.

"I've been trying to shake off the mental issues I've had over the past year and tried to play the game as if there's only the next round. There's only one more round, every round," he explained. "I keep showing up for the match until someone hands me a trophy and says I'm not allowed to play Magic anymore."

I'm so proud of how I played 🥹 https://t.co/lvzRsOcJP2

— Simon Nielsen (@MrChecklistcard) January 12, 2026

On the other side of the globe, a champion of a different kind was emerging. Kye Nelson is not one of the most accomplished Magic players to ever sit down for a Pro Tour draft, though he did qualify for Pro Tour Magic 2015. It was the peak of an impressive competitive career, but these days Nelson is more likely to be found drafting the latest set on MTG Arena than chasing down Regional Championship Qualifiers.

Still, he followed the developments coming out of the World Championship last month with a keen eye, and with the upcoming Spotlight Series event just a few hours away, the Birmingham native began plotting a comeback.

"I typically do not play a lot of Standard, but with the new set release as well as the metagame changing after the most recent ban announcement, Standard caught my interest," Nelson explained. "The format has really changed after the most recent bans, and it really opened the door for several new decks to show up. I think the meta has been constantly evolving, and having multiple viable decks in a format makes for a much more fun experience. With that being said, the power level is extremely high. Decks are doing very powerful things as early as turn three, and you really need to have a plan to stop them, or do something more powerful than them. I saw some initial shells of the Bant Airbending combo deck and started trying different things until I found something that finally felt solid."

From there, Nelson went into the lab. He scoured the web for the latest lists or possible inclusions, tested countless games with anything he could think of, and eventually scoured deep enough to find ... the Web. Interdimensional Web Watch, that is.

"I noticed [Bant Airbending] wasn't really getting played anymore, and I knew that it was capable of doing some pretty crazy things. Other decks were also starting to take the dedicated hate pieces like Torpor Orb out of their sideboards, so I started trying different versions of the deck and tested several unique card choices. I eventually tried Interdimensional Web Watch, and it fit in perfectly for what the deck was missing. Most of my preparation was on the MTG Arena ladder, which I know is not the best representation of a Spotlight Series meta, but it was performing exceptionally well. I knew that the deck had a really strong chance to do well, especially with the rise of the other non-interactive Badgermole Cub decks and the removal of a lot of Torpor orbs from most decks' sideboards.

Interdimensional Web Watch [7CMrg2mJ1RF4POnMYRUfB3]

"I would like to give a shoutout to the Worlds teams for their initial lists as well as the streamer Meowodic. These creators made the starting point for my initial lists and were excellent at displaying the power level of what the deck is capable of."

The work paid off, and for someone who said they don't consider themselves a brewer, Nelson now has his ingenuity rewarded with a repeat trip back to the Pro Tour—and he's just as excited as Nielsen, even if his winning interview featured a lot less jumping around. Given that he's a devoted Limited player already—his Pro Tour debut came from winning a Sealed qualifier—Nelson has suddenly found himself with a well-rounded resume as the 33-year-old looks toward a second apperance on the Pro Tour.

"Playing my first Pro Tour was a fantastic, yet humbling, experience, but I look forward to competing at that level again. I ultimately stepped away from competitive magic in 2015 to focus on college; last weekend was my second competitive event in the past ten years," he reflected. "This win is definitely my best placement in a major Magic tournament ever. My goal going into this event was to beat my previous best finish of a 10-5 record, but I managed to far exceed that goal. Getting another shot to compete on the Pro Tour means a lot, and I look forward to that opportunity.

"This event changes a lot. I plan to attend more Spotlight Series events this year. Hopefully, I can continue to do well. My goals this year are to make a Day Two at the Pro Tour and to make the Top 8 of another Spotlight Series event."

Congratulations to Kye Nelson, winner of Magic Spotlight: The Avatar!

Nelson played Bant Airbending, saying "it's just secretly OP." It paid off, as Nelson swept through a field of some of Standard's best decks on his way to his first Spotlight win.

Congratulations Kye! pic.twitter.com/PBdteqZEBH

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) January 12, 2026