It's been a few months since the last batch of Regional Championships wrapped up, and this past weekend Brazil kicked off a fresh set of tournaments with the City Class Games Showdown, Brazil's Regional Championship. Over 200 players from across Brazil gathered in São Paulo to compete, a significant increase from the 140 who battled for the title back in May.

It was the culmination of months of qualifying events, and six invitations to the Pro Tour, one invitation to the World Championship at MagicCon Vegas, and the title of Brazil's Regional Champion were all on the line. After eight rounds of Pioneer followed by a Top 8 playoff, 28-year-old Vinícius Karam from Porto Alegre claimed the title and the trophy piloting Azorius Control.

Congratulations to Vinícius Karam, winner of the City Class Games Showdown!

Karam defeated Jonathan Lobo Melamed, who won Brazil's last Regional Championship this past May, in the finals. The Pro Tour that Karam qualified for will be his third – he qualified in 2014 and in 2018, when he made the Top 8 of Grand Prix São Paulo. Karam played Azorius Control at the RC because he felt that the recent Pioneer bans brought the format's power level in line with the deck. It was the right choice for him for the event and led him to the trophy, a spot at the Pro Tour, and an invite to the World Championship!

Vinícius Karam and Jonathan Lobo Melamed play in the finals.

Congratulations to the Top 8

At the end of eight Swiss rounds of Pioneer, eight players advanced to the Top 8. They included William Bossaneli Araujo, who has now made the Top 8 of four consecutive Regional Championships, a feat unmatched by anyone else, and Jonathan Lobo Melamed, who appeared in back-to-back finals in the last two events.

Players in the Top 8 earned their invites for this RC by finishing well in the last RC, via City Class Games superqualifiers, and by competing in qualifiers at their local game stores. The decks they played reflected the wide net that players are casting in Pioneer, with no one deck significantly ahead of any others.

After this summer's changes to the RC system, this Regional Championship awarded six invites to the Pro Tour, up from the original four. You can see the decklists of the six Pro Tour qualifying players here.

Pioneer Shifts Again

At the end of August, Amalia Benavides Aguirre and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord were banned in Pioneer, a move that both stifled the Amalia Combo and ended the short reign of terror of the Rakdos Vampires deck that used Sorin to put an early Vein Ripper onto the battlefield. With those two popular archetypes gone, different flavors of Rakdos and Jund leapt into the breach, many of them relying on the still-powerful Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

Duskmourn is new on the scene, and it's already making a splash in Pioneer, with Overlord of the Balemurk boosting Abzan Greasefang decks and Overlord of the Mistmoors appearing in new archetype Boros Control. High Noon, which arrived with Thunder Junction, has also become a card around which several archetypes are developing.

Congratulations again to this weekend's players on a great tournament of terrific and hard-fought matches and excellent competition. Catch the next City Class Games Showdown during the next Regional Championship cycle!

Find out more about how you can qualify for the Regional Championship and the Pro Tour by visiting here to find out more from your regional organizer!