Pro Tour Edge of Eternities wrapped last month with Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer's epic Goblin Charbelcher victory, with the final Pro Tour of the year before December's World Championship showcasing Modern at its finest. There, 300 of the best players in the world put Modern through its paces, battling it out with Belcher combos, reanimated Atraxas, and every line imaginable with Amulet Titan.

But that Pro Tour was only the first of two Top Finish-qualifying events this fortnight. The other was the Magic Online Champions Showcase from last weekend, and eight players who have demonstrated excellence across the Magic Online platform competed in Vintage Cube and Modern Constructed. Four players qualified from different Constructed formats: Alison Silva from Pauper, Guglielmo Lupi from Standard, Yuuki Ichikawa from Modern, and Adam Washburn-Moses from Legacy. Winners of Magic Online Opens and the Season 2 Leaderboard rounded out the field as Jessy Samek, Tom White, Alejandro Mora Romero, and 2022 World Champion Nathan Steuer took to the stage.

Obviously Steuer is the most-feared opponent of the bunch, but the entire group is filled with familiar names and faces for those who follow competitive online play closely. This was quite the imposing field to be matched up against, no matter who you were. The unique structure of the MOCS meant that two players could earn World Championship invitations, with the event being split between three rounds of Limited and three rounds of Constructed. This culminated in a Championship Round at the end should two different players win those pods.

The formats on display were just as imposing. There was the challenge of predicting which competitors would play with in Modern following the latest Pro Tour, but this Magic Online event had a twist; it featured one of the community's most cherished pastimes: Cube.

Vintage Cube, to be exact. Here, it was being played at the highest levels of Magic competition with World Championship invitations on the line. This was quite the sight for an event in 2025, more than three decades after many of Vintages Cube's premier cards were first printed.

It's no wonder that the competing in the MOCS is looked at as such an accomplishment; at Pro Tour Edge of Eternities, a number of players told me they considered an orange MOCS jacket to be among the most intimidating things they could see across the table.

"The MOCS is my favorite tournament in Magic," White said. "It's basically the highest stakes for online Magic condensed into two, three-round single-elimination events. I qualified for the MOCS by being in first place on the points leaderboard. I had a pretty incredible hot streak; I won a Sealed Super Qualifier, a Modern Super Qualifier, a Pioneer Qualifier, and a Legacy Qualifier, and I got Top 8 in a Standard Super Qualifier and a Top 4 in another Legacy Super Qualifier. As for crossover with paper Magic, I actually don't play in paper unless I qualify for the Pro Tour through the MOCS."

That's quite the winning streak—and that was just this season for White. His performance was more than enough to punch his ticket to the Season 2 MOCS Showcase and earn his way back to an event that has meant a lot to White through his Magic journey, and he appreciates the event's unique place in the ecosystem.

"My favorite part of the MOCS is that format experts get to compete, and the players of that format get to rally behind that player," White elaborated. "Each season we get two Sealed specialists and a representative from other formats."

White's streak of online-only events will soon come to an end—qualifying for this MOCS also earned players a spot at Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed. So we'll see you in Richmond, Tom! But not just in Richmond—White did much more than just qualify for this MOCS. The season leaderboard winner is headed to next year's World Championship after a perfect run through Vintage Cube, one that featured a mix of both the cube's oldest, most powerful, and some of its newest cards.

"The story of my tournament is winning the Vintage Cube portion of the MOCS. I am not a Vintage Cube specialist, but I was extremely fortunate to first-pick an Ancestral Recall and drafted a Jeskai Control deck with Balance and Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury," he recalled. "Since qualifying for the MOCS also gets you an invite to the next Pro Tour, we'll all be at Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed and I'm looking forward to seeing the other competitors there in person for the first time. Next year, I'll also be my first World Championship and I got there playing my favorite tournament, so it's extra special."

Ancestral Recall
Balance
Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury [2tggU0KFo0UoYxioU0GBMw]

⬇️ Linking my MOCS cube draft ⬇️

$7500 and first person in the world qualified for world champs 2026 pic.twitter.com/6RMK1ggPL6

— Tom White (@McWinSauce) October 12, 2025

One of the players that White is looking forward to meeting up with in Richmond is Guglielmo Lupi, also known as the other World Championship qualifier from the MOCS. Most importantly Lupi is also known as the champion of the MOCS, a title he earned after defeating White in a Championship match after the conclusion of the pods.

Lupi began playing Magic seriously in 2023, and his first breakthrough came earlier this year when he qualified for the Pro Tour via a Top 36 Regional Championship finish in Bologna. That's an impressive timeline for anyone, but especially for someone competing out of a small village near Florence. Online play offered Lupi the chance to level his game up quickly, and the passion he's brought on his path to the Pro Tour has also taken him extremely far in the online world of Magic.

"As a player I constantly try to build new decks or develop new takes on existing decks; I truly believe I am one of the players who pushes innovation the most in the competitive scene," he explained. "I qualified for the Pro Tour playing with a deck of my own invention, Azorius Omniscience in Standard, and it was ultimately banned a few months later.

"After the ban, I was left without a deck in a metagame heavily dominated by Izzet Vivi. I realized I couldn't realistically get better at the mirror match than players who were deeply invested in that deck. So, I decided to pivot and play an extremely anti-meta Dimir Midrange list instead. This choice paid off: I won the Standard Showcase after defeating five of six Izzet Vivi opponents.

"When it comes to preparation, I like getting reps with my RC testing group, Team Treccani. And a huge shoutout goes to Magic Online user "filpin," who helps me get in reps against top decks before any event."

The 24-year-old player has had a busy month; his mind was already in the MOCS before his flight home from the Pro Tour had even landed.

"I was fresh off Modern testing with Team Vents for the Pro Tour. The Pro Tour metagame was surprising for most of us, though our deck choice was solid and Mikko Airaksinen ended up in the Top 8. On my flight back home, I realized my understanding of the format was off; the most successful decks were heavily invested in free spells: Affinity's zero-cost artifacts, Force of Negation, Solitude, and more.

"I knew I wanted to play three to four copies of Vexing Bauble in my main deck, and the idea was that most MOCS competitors would play the decks that had recently found success in Atlanta. My prediction ended up being correct: the other seven players were split between Affinity and decks that used Solitude as their primary removal.

"I went through a list of decks that could play Bauble without being affected by it. After trying Energy and Eldrazi Ramp/Breach, I realized Broodscale was the best shell to maximize their use. Protecting the Lizard against the format's most popular removal (Solitude) is a huge upgrade for the deck. I had been very low on Broodscale all year because I found the Boros Energy matchup to be pretty unwinnable. However, the downfall of Boros Energy in Atlanta made me confident nobody would dare to play it at the MOCS."

Lupi's predictions were perfect—and he took full advantage that at the MOCS. He cruised through the Modern pod to meet White in the Championship Round. There, the online master acknowledged that Lupi had won the deck-building side of things. After a decisive third game in the finals, it was official: Lupi was MOCS champion.

"Winning the most important event on Magic Online feels incredible," he said. "As my player card showed on the broadcast, I play a lot! Getting recognized as one of the best players in the MTGO streets is extremely validating. It's especially rewarding because my entire path to this win was paved by me either playing a new deck (Azorius Omniscience) or a highly anti-meta version of an existing deck (Dimir Rats for the Standard Showcase, Vexing Bauble Broodscale for the MOCS). It feels great to do things my own way and still achieve success like this.

"This win and the qualification for Worlds is a major event. My hope is to start working with other successful players to level up my game even further. I would love to join one of the established big Pro teams for the full year, giving me an environment where I can grow and prepare for the 2026 World Championship. My plan for 2026 is to be more involved with the competitive scene than ever before!"

Looks like I'm the MOCS season 2 champion! https://t.co/dImVjKVxsg

— Zompatanfo (Guglielmo Lupi) (@zompatanfo) October 12, 2025