Marco Del Pivo went to Magic World Championship 30 with a simple goal: play in Day Two. After two years of Pro Tour play rocketed him to a Top Finish at Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings, he was looking to take his next steps at Magic's highest level.
To put it mildly, things did not go according to plan at the event. An unsanctimonious 2-5 start meant an early exit and a whole lot of what-ifs floating around for the talented Italian. So, when a victory in Ghent at the Regional Championship early in the 2024 season gave Del Pivo another shot at the World Championship field, he set a simple(r) goal: do better than last time.
That sounds easy enough. But nothing is easy at the World Championship. It's the pinnacle of Magic competition and a relatively small field of competitors who are all at the top of their game. Del Pivo—who is qualified for Pro Tour Aetherdrift at MagicCon: Chicago later this week—went to work on parts of his game that weren't in between the Magic lines, so to speak. That meant an honest evaluation of what part of his mindset could improve, something spoken of rarely but critically important over the highs and lows of a three-day tournament.
"That's been something that's helped me on the Pro Tour, to learn not to focus on the result or look at how many events I've done well in previously. With a healthy mentality, I can completely focus," he explained of the lessons learned from that season. "Ultimately, I just hope to continue playing well, and it will be what it will be."
Those kinds of level-up moments can do more for the longevity of a Pro Tour career than a big finish right out of the gate. Many a Magic tournament has been won by someone not quite ready for the changes it brings, not just in the field but in how that player sees themself. It's easy to watch the Simon Nielsens of the world crush Pro Tour after Pro Tour and assume that it's preternatural talent—and in a few cases, it is—but the truth is that long-term success at the Pro Tour level is a result of good practice rather than good pairings.
That's the lesson that many of the tour's players are familiar with, now almost three years back into tabletop Pro Tour play. Spiking a big Pro Tour finish is only possible if you're consistently playing on the Pro Tour.
And that also means that the next Simon Nielsen may well be right under our nose. I'll remind you that Nielsen was once known as "Sleep-In Simon" and was narrowly missing victories before it ever came together for his memorable 2023 to 2024 Pro Tour run. So, as we head to Chicago for the start of a new Pro Tour season and all the possibilities that brings with it, breakout players from the last year are putting it all together with the wisdom only Pro Tour experience can bring.
In the case of Adam Edelson—who lived out a childhood dream last year when he qualified for the Pro Tour through MTG Arena and then exploded onto the scene with a Top 8 at Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor—it was the rest of the season that was the most instructive. He navigated through several difficult metagames to post a Top 16 and Top 100 finish at the next two Pro Tours. Putting out consistent Pro Tour finishes is what keeps one from becoming a one-hit wonder, and for Edelson, it has meant a renewed focus on the process that has brought him here.
"I think learning from the best players by reading and watching their content, playing online, rewatching your own games, and dissecting what matters in them is very important," he explained. "I am a big proponent of muscle memory when it comes to Magic; I need a certain number of repetitions with a deck to visualize the different lines of play and make choices based on how the games will play out."
Long the online grinder, Edelson quickly realized that preparing for Pro Tour-quality competition is not the same as prepping for the next Modern Challenge on Magic Online. The best Magic players in the world spend a lot of time talking about "understanding" a format, which means not just becoming proficient with a deck but understanding the pillars on which the matches hinge. Everyone at the Pro Tour has a good decklist; not everyone knows how to get the most out of it.
"I improved a lot when I changed my focus from trying to play a bunch of different events online to focusing on and practicing for a single event. This really let me come up with good plans for what my opponents were doing, to understand the weaknesses to the strategy I was using, and how to counteract that in some ways. There's so much data available online in recent years, and that is a great resource to supplement your thought process."
If his 2024 season was a dream—the 29-year-old treated traveling to Amsterdam for Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 as a "see the world" kind of event with his partner—Edelson is hoping to make it last a bit longer. He's got qualifications to the first two Pro Tours of the season, he's helping to helm Team Rampant Growth Heavy Play, and he already has a big target circled around one event at the end of the season.
"I started last year qualified for the first Pro Tour of the year, which was in my hometown. I got there through Arena Championship 5. It was amazing to qualify for two of the most prestigious events in one go," he recalled. "But Worlds was my white whale. It's an event I had only dreamed of playing in. I tested with a new crew of amazing folks, and while the event didn't go great for myself coming up one win short of Day Two, we had a good number of players deep in contention in Day Two, including an amazing 9th-place finish for Lucas Duchow. And my own 2024 didn't finish without a bang: seemingly full circle, I was able to qualify for Arena Championship 8, which gives me another avenue to qualify for the World Championship again."
Another picture of consistency on the Pro Tour in 2024? Sean Goddard, a 27-year-old who put up two Top 32 performances at the Pro Tour, along with a Top 8 at Pro Tour Thunder Junction. It was a string of performances so strong that it actually had Goddard in the running for the Player of the Year title up through the World Championship, though Javier Dominguez ultimately won that title along with Magic World Championship 30.
Goddard is no stranger to the level of competition at this point—he finished 9th at his first Pro Tour-level event five years ago, and the Beekeeper is a feared name online—but he did credit his successful 2024 season to lessons he's learned in that time.
"I think my main improvements in the past couple of years have been in Constructed, particularly in deck selection," he explained. "A lot of this has come from working with others and improving testing processes. In 2023, I made some very dodgy deck choices, but in 2024, I registered three decks—Lotus Field, Temur Lands, and Bant Nadu—that I was very happy with."
Goddard's consistency extends beyond wins and losses. The mental consistency that top players regularly identify as the most important trait to develop? Goddard has been through it all, in a short amount of time, from the highs of Top 8 successes to the lows of missing out on a win-and-in at Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings, twice.
"I finished 9th at my very first PT, so maybe some of that mindset change already happened; I feel pretty comfortable with the level of competition," Goddard said. "It's also important to maintain perspective and not get overconfident, and it helps that I'm on a team with people who made Top 8 more Pro Tours than I've played in!"
That squad is Team Cosmos Heavy Play, which formed several months ago in preparation for Pro Tour Aetherdrift, and Goddard is just one of their many strong players.
I am in Chicago testing for PT Aetherdrift!
— Sean Goddard (@_SeanGoddard_) February 14, 2025
The weather is cold, but I have deep dish pizza to warm me up, as well as this very nice team hoodie from @HeavyPlayLLC @CosmosMTG pic.twitter.com/1iDxW5WT21
I'm only scratching the surface of the numerous players poised for a huge 2025 season. With Regional Championships across the world leveling up every cycle, the Pro Tour field of 2025 is likely the toughest it's been in years. Whether it's any of these players or another standout like Masahide Moriyama—who has been a driving force of Japanese teams over the last few years—the lights of Chicago couldn't be brighter.
Who will step into that spotlight? What decks will emerge as format standouts? We'll find out when Pro Tour Aetherdrift kicks off Friday, February 21, over on the official Magic: The Gathering YouTube channel, twitch.tv/magic, and live at MagicCon: Chicago.