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The Week That Was: To Brisbane, Dallas, and Beyond

September 11, 2026
Corbin Hosler

It's been a fortnight of Modern. With the latest Magic release in full swing, Dragons flying all around, and a pair of Spotlight Series events taking place on opposite sides of the world, the last month has truly done justice to the hype players had for Magic: The Gathering® | The Hobbit™.

Things came full circle with Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit events in Brisbane and Dallas, where Modern showed up as the featured format. Following on the heels of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes, where we saw a lot of Modern outside of the Top 8, there were plenty of questions surrounding the shaken-up format. Several cards had recently been unbanned, and the metagame had substantially shifted since Pro Tour Edge of Eternities in 2025. That meant that the pair of Spotlight Series events would give the widest insight into the new metagame, setting the stakes high for anyone who thought they might have an edge with their deck.

The results of that were fascinating, if nonintuitive. Izzet Prowess took home the trophy at both events but didn't post a 50% win rate across the full field. Meanwhile, the next five decks in the metagame share had win rates over 50%. That's a riddle to be sorted out in the coming weeks and months, and to get a head start I highly recommend checking out Frank Karsten's article this week on this very subject—he's got the complete breakdown on the top decks in all of Modern.

As for the players piloting those Izzet decks to victory? Though the events couldn't have come further apart geographically, Jefferson Lee and Roy Varney share quite a bit in common beyond their deck of choice to dealing 20 to opponents on turn three. Both are dads in their late 30s and early 40s, started playing Magic decades ago, and more or less wrote off their Pro Tour dreams to settle down and raise families—until now.

The call of the Spotlight Series is that the Pro Tour is never more than one weekend of Magic away, and while neither of our winners can commit to the full-time local, regional, or international grind of chasing every opportunity to qualify for the Pro Tour, they could get away for a weekend with friends to take their shot and see what came of their Cori-Steel Cutters. And after two weeks and two immaculate Top 8 runs later, Lee and Varney share something else in common: They're heading to the Pro Tour.

"This is my first Spotlight Series event. The last big event I played was Grand Prix Brisbane in 2019," Sydney resident Lee explained. "The past few Regional Championships did not turn out well for me. Especially the last one, where I ended up 0-2. Modern is a format I watched a lot of streamers like Yungdingo, Mengu, and Ethanbird play, but I did not invest in playing it myself in until the Spotlight Series event in Brisbane was announced. I started practicing on Magic Online and played my first paper tournament the first week of August."

Like I said, the Spotlight Series funnel to the Pro Tour is tempting, especially for a Pro Tour veteran like Lee. The Philippines native qualified for his first Pro Tour almost a decade ago. After taking years off to focus on his kids, Lee casually returned to the Pro Tour grind a couple of years ago, to little success. Before the Spotlight Series in Brisbane, a 5-3 record had been his best recent finish so far.

But things came together from the beginning in Brisbane. Lee rattled off a sweet 5-0 start to the event—dropping just two games along the way—and ultimately cruised to a personal best of 7-2 after nine rounds of competition on Day One.

He was only warming up, it turns out. Lee's Day Two run was the stuff of Australian Magic lore. He went a perfect 8-0 in Sunday matches, including a harrowing Top 8 through Brendan Cooper, Brandon Rashad, and Chris Miller in the final rounds. But none of them could stop Lee, who is now qualified for the Pro Tour and looking at the upcoming Regional Championship with visions of a World Championship qualification dancing in his head.

"This is the best finish of my Magic career so far, and hopefully not the last," said Lee. "It means the world to me having to celebrate it with my friends on stage. More than the trophy and prize money, it is the compilation of people approaching me through Day Two and saying that they believe in me. I'm also able to show people that being a dad, being in their 40s, is not a hindrance in following your dreams."


Half a world away, 38-year-old Austin native Roy Varney was fully in his dad era. Varney, who came to the event in an especially thematic shirt, is an old veteran of the Grand Prix and regional circuit who traded decklists for diapers and never looked back.

"I started playing Magic in 2002 when I was a freshman in high school in Fredericksburg, Texas, and some of my friends in marching band picked up Magic. I picked up an Ivory Doom Theme Deck that focused on white-black Clerics, and I was hooked," Varney recalled. "It wasn't long before I was looking up tournament reports. The deck that I chose to build was Upheaval-Tog. I took this deck to a Pro Tour Qualifier in Dallas in 2003 and was thoroughly destroyed in three straight mirror matches. I had no idea what was going on, but my determination remained steadfast.

"Eventually in 2012, one of my college roommates brought his old box of Magic cards from his hometown to our house. All four of us that were living there dug through the box and tried to build decks from it. Suddenly, the itch and interest in Magic had returned. To my delight, Star City Games was not only still running, but they were also streaming tournaments. This was my pathway back into Magic. In 2015, I played my first-ever Grand Prix in Dallas, which I was lucky enough to rally from 1-2 to go 7-2 and make Day Two. In 2016, I started to take competing more seriously and began participating in larger events. In my second Grand Prix in Houston, I finished 12-3 in 22nd place. Ever since then, I've been trying to make the Pro Tour, and despite coming close many times, I had never been able to convert. After so many misses and life changes over the years, I had essentially given up on the dream of ever making the Pro Tour."

But though life twisted and turned in the intervening years, Varney stayed connected to Magic. Between Modern Cube and Vintage Cube queues on Magic Online, he never really got away from Magic. Even the Izzet Prowess deck he went on to win with in Brisbane was familiar to him—it's the archetype that he took to his first big online finish in 2021.

"My preparation for the Spotlight Series began in early July," he explained. "I played around with a bunch of different Modern decks as I awaited the Pro Tour to reshape the metagame in the wake of the Phlage and Lotus Field bans. I had been doing well with Boros Energy, but after the ban, I really struggled to find a deck that I was in love with. About a month before the event, Devoted Druid started popping up online. After going 23-8 with Devoted Druid in Magic Online Leagues, I was confident I had found the deck I was going to play.

"But about a week before the tournament, Prowess had a monumental showing in a Challenge, putting six pilots into the Top 8. The 2nd-place copy was a version playing four copies of Boomerang Basics and four copies of Stormchaser's Talent, which is an idea I had tried several months prior, but I hated the Talents. But it did remind me of an idea I had to try a version with less Talents and main deck Tormod's Crypts. In my previous testing, Boomerang Basics had been really good even when just bouncing a copy of Mishra's Bauble. I fired up the queues and had a nice run of 18-2 with two trophies. I asked friends between two Discord groups what I should play, and the consensus was Prowess, so I decided to lock it in."

4 Dragon's Rage Channeler 4 Monastery Swiftspear 2 Slickshot Show-Off 4 Boomerang Basics 4 Preordain 2 Expressive Iteration 4 Lava Dart 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Mutagenic Growth 4 Cori-Steel Cutter 4 Mishra's Bauble 2 Tormod's Crypt 2 Stormchaser's Talent 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Steam Vents 3 Arid Mesa 3 Scalding Tarn 2 Mountain 1 Fiery Islet 1 Thundering Falls 4 Consign to Memory 3 Unholy Heat 2 Meltdown 2 Obsidian Charmaw 2 Spell Pierce 2 Spell Snare

Like Lee, Varney started the event 5-0 before picking up a loss. And also like Lee, Varney went through an absolute gauntlet in the Top 8, defeating three superstars in a row: Sean Goddard, Mark Jacobson (avenging a Saturday loss), and Liam Kane in the finals of the tournament.

"This is by far the biggest Magic accomplishment of my life. It's tough to put into words what it means to finally break through and make the Pro Tour after so many years of dreaming about it," Varney reflected. "Regardless of how well I do in Detroit, this will always stand out in my life as an incredible highlight. I've always had a competitive fire in my heart, and to see this become a reality is just incredible. I couldn't have gotten here without all the friends I've made throughout the years who have always believed in me and pushed me to improve.

"I have to shout out my wife, Stefanie, and my daughter. Every day I feel like I've won a trophy because they are in my life. I really can't begin to name everyone that I'd like to, but in particular, I'd like to shout out Travis Brown, Will Ho, Ian Plantz, Brendan Hsu, everyone in the ATX Discords, and Team High Roll. Friendships are really what make this game so special, and without them I would never have come close to this accomplishment."

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