The lights of the Las Vegas strip are bright. The only thing brighter might be the lights on the final table at the Magic World Championship XXVIII. In just a little over a week—during Magic 30 from October 28-30—two men will sit down under that singular spotlight and battle it out for the title of World Champion.
Anyone who has played in a World Championship finals will tell you that it changes your career. It will be the culmination of a season's worth of work, and of course the years that came before that to bring their Magic game to the pinnacle of the sport. They will have bested a field filled with the best-of-the-best, with just one more match left to play. They'll have battled through Pro Tour Hall of Famers, through intricate Draft rounds and grueling Standard matches that reward the very top tier of mastery in the format, and through a Top 4 featuring more of the same—plus probably a few Pro Tour winners or former World Champions along the way. They'll go through the intense media session that follows advancing to Sunday play, through the poses and interviews and photos and reshoots, and they'll have allowed themselves at least a few minutes to sift through the deluge of social media congratulations sent their way.
When it's all over, one player will win the match and the title, and their life will change on the spot. They'll join the most exclusive club in Magic Pro Tour history, as the crowd cheers and their friends and teammates mob them on the spot. Forever after they'll be known as a Magic World Champion, with all that comes with it—which in recent years has included Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa seeing his face staring back at him when he got on a bus back home in Brazil. They'll be carried off the scene in a blaze of glory, and those bright lights will dim as the World Championship finals gives way to the World Champion and all the attention will be on them.
But there will still be another World Championship finalist sitting there.
"Playing in the World Championship match is a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Reid Duke explained bluntly, "and it's really hard to ask for a once-in-a-lifetime experience twice."
That's the rub when it comes to professional Magic: even the best players in the history of the game—and Duke certainly qualifies as that with six Top Finishes in his storied Hall of Fame career—may not ever win the biggest tournaments, should they ever get the chance at all. Such opportunities are rare for even the best in the game, and all of that was racing through Duke's mind as the spotlights moved away from him in the second-place seat at the 2013 World Championship that Shahar Shenhar won.
"It's a tough feeling to describe in the moment, but it definitely wasn't happiness on just playing in the finals," Duke reflected. "I knew right then and there that you have to be so fortunate to even get one opportunity to play in the finals of the World Championship. The fact that I was there and lost—there's really only one way to vindicate that experience. But it's asking a lot to come back and win."
It's a lot, but it's not impossible. Javier Dominguez famously won the World Championship in 2018 just a year after coming up short against William "Huey" Jensen. Now Duke is among of handful of competitors at Magic World Championship XXVIII who are attempting to pull the same feat and turn a second-place finish into a victory.
For Duke, it's not too much to say that the World Championship is everything.
"I've had a great career, more than a decade now of playing Magic," he explained. "I've been a good player, I've accumulated results, I've made my footprint on the game and I've been recognized for that—but I've never won a Pro Tour or a World Championship. Being able to say I was the best and beat the best players in the world when they were trying their hardest—that's the highest achievement at the highest level. It's unfinished work. That's what I'm playing for."
Losing a big match is almost always a painful event; losing a World Championship final brings a sting that's even tougher to remove. After Duke lost in 2013, he's been back to the World Championship several times—but he's never been back to the finals, and he's had several seasons come up just short of returning to the World Championship stage. It's nothing that ever leaves him.
"A few years ago Marshall Sutcliffe invited me to watch the World Championship finals match with him, but watching it back wasn't an especially painful part of history now—I relive it every day of my life without having to watch it," Duke intoned matter-of-factly. "But this event does feel special. I've had a few disappointments in my career lately, culminating on barely missing out on [the World Championship] the last two times.
"I have to say it's also pretty special that my cousin Logan is competing in [the World Championship] with me. We started playing Magic together in 1995 and now we're playing [in the World Championship] together all these years later."
Hard to believe, but it's Duke's first time back in the World Championship stage since 2018. He'll be joined by another player who shares his exact pain—and one who knows what's it like to live with missed opportunities.
"I have a post-it note on my desk that says 'REMEMBER CAPTURED BY THE CONSULATE TRIGGER!' that I put there after losing a PTQ semifinal back in Kaladesh Limited," admitted Jean Emmanuel Depraz. "The big mistakes I make in Magic tend to haunt me. I could put up another note after an upper bracket match to Javier at Mythic Championship V in 2019 that I still remember… those were matches that stung."
But one match that doesn't haunt Depraz is his World Championship finals loss to Yuta Takahashi last season—even as he gears up to run it back in Vegas.
"Losing the final to Yuta? I have no close to regrets about that match," he said. "I don't see it as a failure of some kind. Sure, I didn't play that match perfectly, but I feel like I couldn't do much more. It was a very special match, but not necessarily because of the stakes. Unlike my previous match against Yuta in the Top 8 where I felt the usual pressure, I entered the finals totally relieved and wanting to play a good match of Magic above all else. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the best part is that from Yuta's emotes it felt like he enjoyed it too!"
Depraz's attitude is a contrast to Duke's, but a fitting one considering he's tasted both victory and runner-up finishes over the prolific three-year stretch of Magic he's played. He won the World Magic Cup in 2018 and has posted three second-place in the years since. When you talk about Magic players at the top of their game who just can't quite bring home a trophy, Depraz comes to mind—he's widely recognized as one of the best in the game right now but hasn't seen it all come together quite yet.
"There's something really satisfying in thinking that I qualified for [the World Championship] three years in a row, and honestly any finish will make me feel good about this season," he explained. "Qualifying for the World Championship is always a big milestone. I don't think playing in the finals changed me in any way, but it did change how the people around me perceived me—I get the 'vice world champion' title a lot, which both feels good and a little annoying because of the 'vice' stapled onto it. However, it's not the first time I've surprised myself with a finish and at this point, I just take it as what it is: proof that I played well enough and got lucky enough that day. I'm the same person as before—but I'd love to win for a lot of reasons, chief among them being on a Magic card!"
Both Duke and Depraz are heading into this year's World Championship with a renewed focus in Draft, a format that hasn't been a part of many major tournaments over the last few years. It's an opportunity for players to distinguished themselves from the field and the largely recognized Constructed decks that will be played, and both pros know how important it can be. Depraz is considered to be a Limited specialist and he's hoping for at least a 2-1 Limited finish to cement that, while Duke is having fun with the preparation process.
"It's the first time I've gotten to play competitive Limited in a long time, and that's one of my greatest joys in Magic," explained Duke, who is testing with fellow competitors Logan Nettles, Jan Merkel and Zhi Yimin. "It's really fun to sink your teeth deep into a Limited format, so I'd consider it a side quest to do well in the Draft portion."
Draft is also a focus for Magic legend Shota Yasooka, the Hall of Famer who has won everything there is to win in Magic, save for an individual World Championship. But while Duke and Depraz look back on their finals match as a unique moment, for Yasooka—the 2006 Player of the Year who has played more high-stakes matches than anyone else in the field—it's just another round.
"No one knows what would have happened if I had won, but I treated it like any other match," he explained. "And while I would be happy to win the World Championship, I'm not treating it like it's anything special."
Three paragons of Magic, three different approaches to Magic World Championship XXVIII. And it all begins at 9 a.m. PT on Friday, October 28, live from Magic 30 at twitch.tv/magic.
