Wyatt Darby is your Pro Tour Dominaria champion.
Don’t miss our recaps of Pro Tour Dominaria’s Day 1 and Day 2.
Darby piloted his mono-Red deck through a Top 8 full of other Red decks, defeating two BR Aggro decks played Thomas Hendriks in the quarters and Owen Turtenwald semis to reach the finals against Gonçalo Pinto…who was also on BR Aggro.
Darby won two quick matches, thanks in part to Pinto’s multiple mulligans. But Pinto came storming back, winning Games 3 and 4 to even the match at two games apiece. Pinto looked to be on the verge of victory in Game 5, as well, with two fliers—an Aethersphere Harvester and Thopter token—attacking for lethal. But Darby had topdecked an Abrade for the Harvester to go to 1 life and live another turn…allowing him to rip a Glorybringer and attack Pinto for lethal out of nowhere and win Pro Tour Dominaria.
The story of this Pro Tour Sunday was the continued dominance of Red in Standard on the back of Goblin Chainwhirler. Seven of the decks in the Top 8 were Red aggressive decks featuring the Chainwhirler, with two mono-Red decks and five mostly-Red decks splashing black for the likes of Scrapheap Scrounger, Cut // Ribbons, and some sideboard cards.
The success of aggressive Red strategies has come in spite of January’s banning of Ramunap Ruins, the land that catapulted six mono-Red decks into the Top 8 of Pro Tour Hour of Devastation less than a year ago. Many players point to the printing of cards like Hazoret and Ramunap Ruins, which are virtually impossible to interact with, powerful Planeswalkers like Chandra, Torch of Defiance, plus cards like Rampaging Ferocidon and Goblin Chainwhirler, which invalidate certain strategies all by themselves, as possible design mistakes by Wizards R&D that have pushed Red to the top of the dog pile in Standard. Two of those cards, Ramunap Ruins and Rampaging Ferocidon, have already been banned in Standard—so will Wizards end up having to take more action against a card like Goblin Chainwhirler, as well?
Either way, the Kaladesh block rotates out of Standard on October 5, 2018 with the release of Guilds of Ravnica, taking some of the key cards for these Red decks with it. Unless Core 2019, which will be released on July 13, 2018, changes the format dramatically, Standard looks to be a sea of powerful Red decks for at least four more months.
Subscribe!
The Magic Minute is the best way to quickly catch up on the day’s Magic: the Gathering news. Only have a few minutes to pay attention to MTG today? We’ve got you covered. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts
Find Us On Here, Too!
We have a YouTube channel and a SoundCloud feed. Check them out!
Links!
Read Wizards’ B&R announcement here.