The Regional Championship season has begun. Last weekend, at three events across the globe, almost 2,000 total players separated by 9,000 miles kicked off the first three Regional Championships of the 2025 season in earnest. With events in Prague, Ottawa, and São Paulo, the Regional Championships for Europe, Canada, and Brazil set the ball rolling on what is going to be a very busy year of Magic.
The season actually began with the Magic Spotlight Series at the beginning of the month, where a massive field descended upon Atlanta for one of the largest Magic tournaments in recent memory. That event set the stage for the sprint that was last weekend, when savvy viewers were able to fill basically their entire weekend with Magic if they wanted, bouncing between streams in different time zones.
There are a dozen or so Regional Championships every cycle, and this one actually runs up to Pro Tour Aetherdrift at MagicCon: Chicago February 21–23. While the Windy City will play host to the ever-shifting gale that is a vibrant Standard format, the Regional Championships are featuring a format undergoing some mighty large changes of its own: Modern.
Alex Rohan and Temur Underworld Breach in Europe. Simon Piché and Boros Energy in Canada. And finally, Pedro Perrini and Eldrazi Ramp in Brazil. Those three decks look to be the decks to beat—and you should check out Frank Karsten's article for the complete metagame details and win rates—and are the three decks that the rest of the world will now have at the top of their sideboard plans. It also means the field for the rest of the year begins to fill out, as dozens of Pro Tour invites went out last weekend along with a handful of seats to the end-of-season Magic World Championship.
Congratulations to Temur Breach master @AlexRohanmtg for clinching the trophy at the Ultimate Guard European Magic Series - Regional Championship in Prague! 🏆
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) January 26, 2025
See you at Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY and at Magic World Championship 31! 🎉 https://t.co/1pwFGg57oC
In short, it was a huge weekend for Magic enthusiasts, not to mention a massive moment for our Regional Champions. But for Alex Rohan, who put on an absolute combo clinic with Temur Breach en route to winning the Regional Championship title in Prague? It almost didn't happen at all.
"I qualified by accident! I came in 2nd place in a Legacy Showcase Qualifier for the Magic Online Champions Series, losing my win-and-in to the MOCS to Karl Sarap. Since Karl was already qualified, the invite passed down and qualified me for the Regional Championship in Prague," Rohan explained. "Otherwise, I would have skipped to focus on exams!"
Such are the choices of the 20-year-old Magic grinder whose rapid improvement and tantalizing taste of success unlocked a world (championship) of possibilities. The London native burst onto the competitive scene in bold fashion, though it was somewhat obscured by the fact that his debut was at a pandemic-era online event. It wasn't exactly the Pro Tour debut the then 16-year-old had dreamed of.
But that didn't stop Rohan from making the most of it. He finished in 10th place at that event, narrowly missing out on the Top 8 but proving to himself and the rest of the Magic world that this was someone to keep an eye on.
Four years later, Rohan's potential has developed a series of promising finishes. He qualified for two more Pro Tours—posting a winning record at both—and made it into five previous Regional Championships highlighted by a Top 36 finish. The breakthrough hadn't come, but as he balanced schoolwork, social life, and Magic Online queues, Rohan's skills stayed sharp. Then came another near miss in the MOCS qualifier, and an unexpected Regional Championship opportunity arrived.
A lot of things had to break a certain way for Rohan to even be part of the almost 1,000-player field, but that's the beauty of the shared paths across the broader Magic ecosystem: perform consistently enough and you'll find yourself with enough opportunities to keep the train rolling. For Rohan, he rolled into Prague with an Underworld Breach deck that he described as "broken" and rolled out with a title, trophy, and the joy of sharing it with his friends that he narrowly missed out before.
"I had no expectations going in; I don't really like to set targets. My only goal was to play my best Magic, and I mostly did that," Rohan said. "Going into the event, I felt the deck was broken and also felt that I was piloting it to a very good level. I felt like I totally understood the deck and the role in every matchup; I was winning internal testing matches from both sides and was crushing every set I had Breach in hand. During the event, once I played a Round 13 feature match, I felt very good about the event. I was playing much better than my opponents and I felt totally relaxed. I fancied my chances, and I locked Top 8."
That's the kind of confidence that only comes from someone who has truly put in the work and knows where things stand. Rohan has only been playing high-level tournaments for a few years, but he's crammed a large number of high-stakes matches into that time, and he's come out on the wrong side more than once. That helped him harness a detached air of calm as he surgically peeled off eight straight victories on Day Two to complete a championship run that saw him post an otherworldly 31-9 record in games played on the weekend.
"I prepared with the Worldly Counsel Regional Championship group as usual. I've worked with Worldly Counsel since its creation at Pro Tour March of the Machine. I normally help the RC group even when I'm not qualified," Rohan explained. "Big shoutout to Myra for leading the group and doing an excellent job. I was locked on Breach from the beginning; it felt like I was playing a different format than my opponents.
"The deck is extremely powerful, of course, and has a really strong combo plan in game one. However, the strength of the deck is in how hard it is to attack. Even if you shut off the combo plan, you need to fight the Tamiyo value plan. And if you shut that off, you need to beat the Saga plan, too. I really love combo decks that reward developing the right sideboard plans and pivots."
I've often said that the next great Pro Tour run will come from the Regional Championship circuit, where numbers of extremely talented players are just waiting for the right opportunity to come along to kickstart the next famous run. That's because the Regional Championship circuit is more than just a collection of one-off, large-field tournaments. It's a reflection of the next generation of players like Rohan who watched Nathan Steuer or Simon Nielsen's legendary streaks. And Rohan is looking forward to more.
"I didn't really process it until I was trying to get some sleep the night after the event. I realized that I won eight straight matches, which seems insane," Rohan reflected. "It's nice to win, but I try to stay grounded. I've always had high confidence in my abilities. I think I've been playing at a pretty elite level online for the past year or so, and my mental game has gotten a lot better.
"This is nice for my career; I have a result to match the level of play I've been exhibiting online. It's nice that people understand what European Champion means even outside of Magic! My goal is to win the World Championship, and qualifying for it is the first step toward that! The win changes how people perceive or respect me, but for me, nothing has changed. I still have the same faith in my abilities as before. Going into this tournament, I knew I could win, and I think that's why I did!"
I won 😀 https://t.co/UY8X6yQtR2
— Alex Rohan (@AlexRohanmtg) January 26, 2025