Pro Tour Avacyn Restored

Pro Tour Avacyn Restored was the second and last Pro Tour of the 2012 season. The event had 379 competitors, and took place on 11–13 May 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. The formats were Innistrad Block Constructed and Booster draft, and was the first constructed premier event where Avacyn Restored was legal. The event was won by Canadian relative newcomer Alexander Hayne, who piloted an unusual Blue-White Miracles deck all the way from a 1–3 start to winning the Pro Tour, defeating Gaudenis Vidugiris in the final.
Despite taking place barely halfway through the 2012 calendar year, Pro Tour Avacyn Restored was the last event of the 2012 season. This was due to the season being a transitional period as pro seasons went from following the calendar year to starting halfway through one year and ending halfway during the next. As such, the 2012 season used the latter half of the 2011 season as well when it came to determining Pro Players Club levels, 2012 Players Championship and 2012 World Magic Cup invites, as well as the Rookie of the Year title, which was claimed by the winner of the event, Alexander Hayne. The Player of the Year title was in 2012 decided by the Players Championship, but the player who had the most Pro Points by the end of the 2012 season (Yuuya Watanabe) also won the event, meaning that the title would have gone to the same player regardless.
Pro Tour Avacyn Restored was also the first Pro Tour where a record of 4–4 was sufficient for advancement to the second day of competition. Previously, players needed 15 points (5–3) or better after the first eight rounds in order to stave off elimination.
==Day one==
The Constructed format of Pro Tour Avacyn Restored was Innistrad Block Constructed (consisting of the sets Innistrad, Dark Ascension, and Avacyn Restored). No premier events in the format had previously been played, but prior to the Pro Tour, two cards had been banned already: <c>Lingering Souls</c> and <c>Intangible Virtue</c>. With the otherwise popular Black-White tokens strategy gone, the most popular deck at the Pro Tour was by far Naya Midrange, nicknamed "Naya Angels and Wolves", claiming 27% of the metagame share. This deck featured <c>Restoration Angel</c>, <c>Huntmaster of the Fells</c>, as well as <c>Wolfir Silverheart</c>, a card many cited as being the best in the format. Other popular decks included RW Humans, the beatdown deck of the format, and Human Reanimator, using <c>Angel of Glory's Rise</c>. Team SCGBlack (later known as The Pantheon), with Jon Finkel, Jelger Wiegersma, Sam Black and other well-known players on their team, brought a Blue-Green deck splashing White built around creating and pumping hard-to-deal-with creatures such as <c>Geist of Saint Traft</c> and <c>Wolfir Avenger</c>. Pros who made a perfect 5–0 start in Block Constructed included Shōta Yasooka (Human Reanimator), Lukas Blohon (Jund), and Robert Jurkovic (Reanimator). Day one concluded with a triple Avacyn Restored Booster draft, and at the end of the day, the lone undefeated player was Poland's Tomek Pedrakowski, playing RUG Control in Constructed.
The top eight players after day one:
Rank	Player 	Points	Rank	Player 	Points
1 	Tomek Pedrakowski 	24 	5 	Shōta Yasooka 	21
2 	Joshua Cho 	21 	6 	Bryan Hawley 	21
3 	Gaudenis Vidugiris	21 	7 	Robert Jurkovic	21
4 	Paul Rietzl 	21 	8 	Kyle Stoll 	21
==Day two==
The second day of competition started with another Avacyn Restored Booster draft. Overnight leader Tomek Pedrakowski could not keep his position, going 1–2 in the draft and fell to 4th-place overall heading into the final Block Constructed portion of the event. In the lead was instead American-Lithuanian Gaudenis Vidugiris, who won pod 1 to advance to 10–1. Also winning was Jon Finkel, already with a Pro Tour top eight to his name in 2012; he won his draft pod to be 9–2. In a similar position was Sweden's Denniz Rachid. An unknown quantity coming into Pro Tour Dark Ascension, Rachid started PT Avacyn Restored 9–2 and in prime position to make a second top eight in as many events. As the last rounds came to a close, Vidugiris and Finkel were the first players to clinch a top eight berth, both playing SCGBlack's Blue-Green Geist deck. In the penultimate round, Pro Tour debutant Joshua Cho took out Vincent Lemoine to advance, Alexander Hayne beat Henry Romero, and Ken Yukuhiro defeated Bryan Hawley. Denniz Rachid secured his slot by dispatching Naoki Shimizu, but Shimizu would have another shot in the next round. Stanislav Cifka and Thomas Holzinger took a risky intentional draw; both were required to win their next match in order to reach the elimination rounds. Holzinger got paired down against Paul Rietzl in the last round, and due to Rietzl's excellent tiebreakers, it turned out to be a pretty clear win-and-in. Holzinger won the on-camera feature match 2–1 and moved on to Sunday play. Cifka was not so fortunate, and had to accept defeat in the face of Naoki Shimizu, who advanced to his second Pro Tour top eight, edging out Phil Summers and Tzu Ching Kuo on tiebreakers.
==Top 8==
Place	Player 	Deck 	Prize 	Pro Points	Comment
1 	Alexander Hayne 	Blue-White Miracles	$40,000	30 	
2 	Gaudenis Vidugiris	Blue-Green Geist 	$20,000	24 	Second Pro Tour Top 8
3 	Josh Cho 	Naya 	$12,500	22 	Pro Tour debut
4 	Ken Yukuhiro 	Human Reanimator 	$12,500	22 	
5 	Jon Finkel 	Blue-Green Geist 	$10,000	20 	Fourteenth Pro Tour Top 8
6 	Denniz Rachid 	Green-White Humans 	$10,000	20 	Second Pro Tour Top 8
7 	Thomas Holzinger 	Naya 	$10,000	20 	
8 	Naoki Shimizu 	Naya 	$10,000	20 	Second Pro Tour Top 8
==Trivia==
*Seven players managed a perfect 6–0 record in Booster draft: Gaudenis Vidugiris, Alexander Hayne, Tzu Ching Kuo, Yuuya Watanabe, Matt Nass, Matti-Jussi Lindholm, and James Rynkiewicz.
*The best Block Constructed record belonged to Shōta Yasooka, who managed a 9–0–1 run with his Human Reanimator deck. However, a poor Booster draft record meant he finished outside the top eight, in 14th-place.
*Pro Tour Avacyn Restored was Marshall Sutcliffe's first as a commentator.
*Professional players who debuted at Pro Tour Avacyn Restored includes Gregory Orange and Robin Dolar.
==External links==
*Pro Tour Avacyn Restored coverage
*Pro Tour Avacyn Restored final standings
*Top Block Constructed decklists
*Video coverage playlist
==References==
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