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Allen Wu, Ben Hull, and Gregory Orange of Hotsauce Games won the 25th Anniversary Pro Tour (and $150,000) in dramatic fashion, defeating Team ChannelFireball’s Ben Stark, Martin Juza, and Josh Utter-Leyton in the finals.
Wu, Hull, and Orange’s victory also set the teams in the Team Series final. Going into the finals of PT25A, Team Hareruya Latin had already qualified for the Team Series final, with Team Ultimate Guard likely being their opponent. However, Team CFB could have book their place in the Team Series final, and knocking Team Ultimate Guard out, by winning PT25A. But CFB came up short, meaning Hareruya Latin and Ultimate Guard will face off in September.
Did Wizards Make a Huge Mistake with Nexus of Fate?
When Wizards announced that it would be making exclusive Buy-a-Box promo cards that would be Standard-legal, the Magic community was concerned that the policy could lead to disaster if one of those promos were to become a key part of a Standard deck.
While the first promo, Firesong and Sunspeaker, was weak enough to not cause any problems, it only took Wizards until the second exclusive Buy-a-Box promo to fall into the trap everyone saw coming. Nexus of Fate, the Buy-a-Box promo for Core 2019, was the key card to one of the most important decks in Standard at last weekend’s Pro Tour, Bant Turbo Fog. The deck was hailed by many pros as the best deck in the format, and reportedly had a 70%+ win rate, though admittedly from a small sample size.
As a result, Nexus of Fate has jumped to around $40 on TCGPlayer. Who knows how high that price could go as Standard shakes out post-Pro Tour. If the deck continues to put up the numbers it put up at PT25A, Nexus of Fate could become the next Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy—or worse, since it will likely have an even lower supply as it’s an exclusive promo.
Painting for Chandra, Torch of Defiance SDCC Promo Sells for $35,000
Terese Nielsen has been auctioning off her original paintings for this year’s San Diego Comic Con promos over the last month. First, she sold Liliana, Untouched by Death for $22,950, then last week she sold Nissa, Vital Force for $25,600.
But no one saw the crazy end to this weekend’s auction for Chandra, Torch of Defiance coming. Art auctions tend to have a flurry of activity at the beginning, a long lull, and then another flurry of activity as the auction closes. In that final phase of the auction, bidders nearly doubled the price in a few short hours, causing Chandra to soar above the previous paintings and sell for $35,000.
Odds and Ends
- Only one Asian player was invited to the World Championship in September.
- Stanislav Cifka, the winner of Pro Tour Return to Ravnica and recipient of a special invite to PT25A, won the Silver Showcase.
- A Mox Jet was opened during the Beta Draft at GenCon.
- PT25A was the first PT to allow proxies for cards that don’t have non-foil printings, and with the success of Nexus of Fate, plenty of players took advantage of the new rule.
Thanks for reading!
Your friendly neighborhood robot,
David McCoy (@dmccoy)
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