2022–23 Pro Tour Season

The **2022–23 Pro Tour season** is the twenty-eighth Pro Tour season for *Magic: The Gathering*. The first Qualifier Play-In event on MTG Arena happened on May 21, 2022. The first round of Regional Championship Qualifiers started on July 2, 2022. The first Regional Championships took place in November 2022. The first Pro Tour was featured in February 2023. The season ended with the 2023 World Championship.

## Description

In May 2021, the Magic Esports website announced a return to in-person tabletop play post COVID-19 for this season. Although digital play was considered to be a lasting element of Organized Play, it is supposed to be only part of the equation going forward. As a result, the 2022–23 Players Tour Season doesn't feature either the MPL or the Rivals League.

According to Wizards of the Coast, Organized Play is not explicitly designed anymore to support competitive *Magic* as a career path. Guaranteed salaries and appearance fees are abandoned. However, it was announced that there still would be Grand Prix, PTQ, and Pro Tour – like events. The company's focus will be the amount of play and the prize money, and less focus on the lifestyle or it being economically self-sustaining. The idea was to focus on bottom-up growth from the LGS level vs a top-down approach (MPL), thus opening competitive play to more players.

### Premier Play

Premier Play for *Magic: The Gathering* was a concept introduced in March, 2022. It signified a return to tabletop, while the concept of Magic esports was abandoned. Premier Play represents the four highest levels of Organized Play, a competitive road towards the World Championship.

Everyone with any level of experience can try their hand at this qualification path. Local qualifiers are open to everyone (subject to eligibility requirements), and you advance to the next level by winning matches of *Magic*. As yet, there is no place in Premier Play for the return of Grand Prix.

#### Tabletop

There are four levels of tabletop play, culminating in the World Championship.

* Regional Championship Qualifiers — largely held at the WPN store level and are organized by regional tournament organizers.
* Regional Championships — big events in (inter)national regions. Run by the same groups that organize the local qualifiers.
* Pro Tours — Three times a year, qualifiers from the Regional Championships will gather to compete for their share of $500,000 in prizes and invites to the World Championship. Hosted by Wizards of the Coast
* World Championship — Around 128 players will compete for their share of $1,000,000.

#### Digital play

Additionally, players are also able to qualify through digital play. Events on both platforms feed tabletop events at nearly every level, including the World Championship.

* Magic: The Gathering Arena Qualifier Weekends continue. Access is provided by:
	+ Ranked Play
	+ Qualifier Play-In events
* Qualifier Weekends in turn provide access to Arena Championships
* Magic: The Gathering Online Showcase (MOCS) events continue and feed the World Championship directly.

### Tournaments

There are three Pro Tours with $500,000 in prizes this season. To seed the 2022–23 season only, Wizards of the Coast awards bonus invitations. These bonus invites seek to aid in the start-up of the new system by better populating the Pro Tour and trying to achieve the target number of roughly 300 competitors per Pro Tour. All 2023 Pro Tour participants receive the Secret Lair Prize card Jace, The Mind Sculptor.

Each Pro Tour event is preceded by Regional Championships.

Arena Championship marks the pinnacle of competition within MTG Arena. They happen three times per year, just like the Pro Tours. Each Championship features 32 top players, determined by four months' worth of competitive ladder play and events on MTG Arena. They compete for a $200,000 prize pool. Each of the three winners and three runners-up of Arena Championships will also earn a seat at the 2023 World Championship. Top8s are counted as a Top Finish.

#### Arena Championship 1

September 24–25, 2022 (Alchemy Top 8, *Dominaria United* draft secondary)

Fourteen players from the leaderboard joined the Qualifier Weekend players with 7 wins, for a total of 32 competitors. Amongst the competitors were League members Shota Yasooka, Sam Rolph, Keisuke Sato, Zachary Kiihne, alongside other accomplished players such as Michael Bonde, Pascal Vieren, Elias Watsfeldt, and content creator Jared "ProJared" Knabenbauer. There is a $200,000 prize pool. The winner and finalist of Arena Championship 1 will be invited to the 2023 World Championship.

The incentives of the previous format towards shards continued with Domain, and Black's dominance led to Esper remaining a top archetype with 8 pilots. *Alchemy Horizons: Baldur's Gate* meant that the structural pieces of Shambling Ghast and Deadly Dispute in Monoblack and Rakdos remained, and one of the other stranger results is that Esper Party Aggro remained despite *Zendikar Rising* rotating. All decks with more than one pilot were partially black.

Rakdos Sacrifice posted the best deck record, with its pilots going a combined 19-5 in Alchemy, and also made up 3 of the Top 4. Yasooka made the requisite 6 wins early after losing the Draft finals and continued to an undefeated Alchemy record, and Ivan Duris did the same after his 1-2 Draft. Pascal Vieren made his sixth win in round 7, losing rounds 8 and 9 to the two leaders. Eldar Tagi-Zade made it in round 8 by defeating Keisuke Sato, who himself won in round 9 against Holger Althues. The other four matches were Sam Rolph over Masanori Hattori, Michael Bonde over Alex Saltzman, and Takuma Fujiyama over Augusto Aguirre Gracia.

#### Regional Championships 1

The Regional Championships of November-December 2022 awarded invites to Pro Tour Philadelphia and the 2023 World Championship. The format was Pioneer.

**Date:** 18–20 November 2022
 1.  Matthew Saypoff
2.  Ken Takahama

**Date:** 18–20 November 2022
 1.  Miguel Castro
2.  Théau Méry

**Date:** 18–20 November 2022
 1.  Pedro Mocelin
2.  Jorgemi Sant'Anna

**Date:** 25–27 November 2022
 1.  Christian Trudel
2.  Jordan Tebby

**Date:** 25–27 November 2022
 1.  Anthony Lee
2.  David Mines

**Date:** 25–27 November 2022
 1.  Michael Martin Go
2.  Chye Hwee Heng

**Date:** 26–27 November 2022
 1.  Rei Hirayama
2.  Kyosuke Kyogoku

**Date:** 2–4 December 2022
 1.  Alejandro Sepúlveda
2.  Julian Prado

**Date:** 2–4 December 2022
 1.  Jim Tim Lee
2.  Tzujui Huang

**Date:** 10-11 December 2022
 1.  Joseph Karani
2.  Michael Knie

**Date:** 16–18 December 2022
 1.  Brandon Ortiz
2.  Alonso Miljares

**Date:** 24 December 2022
 1.  Jiao Hongchen (Beijing)
2.  Jian Tao Mo (Shenzhen)

#### Pro Tour *Phyrexia*

*Main article: Pro Tour Phyrexia*
The first Pro Tour took place on February 17–19, 2023, at Philadelphia MagicCon, USA (*Phyrexia: All Will Be One* Draft and Pioneer). The minimum guaranteed prize was $1000.

The field consisted of 218 players.
Bonus invitations went to:

* The 32 players from the 2022 World Championship
* All players who had finished 9–6 or better in the New Capenna Championship
* Extra players at each Regional Championship (additional invites varied by region, but each region had approximately 50% or more bonus invitations)

The Pioneer metagame did not vary significantly from the Regional Championships, with the fast land reprints improving some of the more popular decks in Rakdos and Gruul. Gruul Vehicles also picked up another impactful three-drop in Migloz, Maze Crusher. Overall, eight decks had more than 5% representation and the top 10 registered decks accounted for only 80% of the field, with Rakdos Midrange at 15% and Mono-Green Devotion at 14% being the top two.

Coverage started after 11 am after the draft was finished, with the recorded draft following Luis Scott-Vargas on a table with Willy Edel, Autumn Burchett, and Eli Loveman. Edel lost in the finals to Josh Cheng, while Scott-Vargas's near-monogreen deck went 1-2. After three rounds of draft and five rounds of constructed, Benton Madsen () with Green-White Auras was the only undefeated player. Other frontrunners, with only one loss, were David Inglis, Tristan Wylde-LaRue, Shota Yasooka, Takumi Matsuura, Gabriel Nassif, and Chris Ferber.

Over day 2, Madsen's record faltered, putting him behind Yasooka, with records of 1-2 and 3-0 respectively. Yasooka joined two other players, Riki Kamo, and Michael Belfatto, with 6-0 in draft. Consequently, Yasooka locked his spot early in round 13, with the next entrants coming in round 15: Reid Duke defeating Nassif, Matsuura defeating Márcio Carvalho, and Madsen defeating Chye Hwee Heng. The remaining four slots were in the final round: Nathan Steuer defeating Carvalho, Nassif defeating Dan Krishoff, Ferber defeating Inglis, and Derrick Davis defeating Socrates Rozakeas. Notably, only Yasooka was piloting any of the top three archetypes in the Top 8.

Top 8

In the finals, Reid Duke defeated Benton Madsen, nailing his first Pro Tour Championship.

#### Arena Championship 2

March 18-19 2023 (ONE Draft and Historic).

Eighteen leaderboard players joined the thirteen qualified players for the second Arena Championship. Amongst those qualified were former League players Luca Magni, Ondřej Stráský, Matti Kuisma, Yuta Takahashi, Noriyuki Mori, Jan-Moritz Merkel, accomplished players Elias Watsfeldt (making a consecutive appearance), Yuuki Ichikawa, Simon Nielsen, Stefan Schutz and streamer Vincent "Deathsie" Ngo. One player was not able to attend, resulting in a 31-person tournament.

Historic has not been in the spotlight for months, with rebalances and Anthologies reshaping the format in the meantime. Unholy Heat and Cauldron Familiar being nerfed pushed Phoenix and Food decks down; the printing of various conditional but cheap card-advantage spells in Jund alongside Tarmogoyf, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push and Seasoned Pyromancer resulted in the classic Modern Jund framework, making it the top submitted deck with seven pilots. Following behind were new-ish and old combo decks of Atraxa, Grand Unifier reanimator and Kethis, the Hidden Hand with five each. Explorer, Pioneer, and Standard mainstay of Rakdos Midrange brought five pilots. Matti Kuisma was the last undefeated player on day 1, trailed by Jan-Moritz Merkel and Simon Nielsen.

Unlike many previous events, there was no cutoff for this nine-round event. Kuisma's 6-0 was enough to guarantee his spot, and indeed only lost in the last round to Alexey Paulot. Round 7 locked Merkel, Wizards player Hiroshi Onizuka was locked in Round 8, and the rest found places in round 9: Strasky over Takahashi, Ichikawa over Nielsen, Paulot winning against Kuisma, and Jeff Lin over Karl Stelzner; curiously, the 5-1 into 5-4 Nielsen lost at second tiebreakers to Stelzner, who was the last player in.

#### Regional Championships 2

The Regional Championships of March 4–April 9, 2023, awarded invites to Pro Tour Minneapolis and the 2023 World Championship. The format was Standard.

**Date:** 4-5 March 2023
 1.  John Daroen Sahagun
2.  Nonthakorn Kositaporn

**Date:** 4-5 March 2023
 1.  Rei Sato
2.  Kenji Sego

**Date:** 4-5 March 2023
 1.  Zen Takahashi
2.  Ben Tudman

**Date:** 11-12 March 2023
 1.  Michael Rohrböck
2.  Thoralf Severin

**Date:** 11-12 March 2023
 1.  William La Hay
2.  Michael van Vaals

**Date:** 11-12 March 2023
 1.  Adriano Melo
2.  William Casatti

**Date:** 11-12 March 2023
 1.  Cheng Han Lin
2.  Huang Yung-Ming

**Date:** 18-19 March 2023
 1.  Jesús Adán
2.  Christian Zuniga

**Date:** 25-26 March 2023
 1.  Philippe Gareau
2.  Omar Beldon

**Date:** 25-26 March 2023
 1.  Yiren Jiang
2.  Bin Jia

**Date:** 1-2 April 2023
 1.  Francisco Benítez
2.  Luis Gutierrez

**Date:** 8-9 April 2023
 1.  Joshua Willis
2.  Isaac Sears

#### Pro Tour *March of the Machine*

*Main article: Pro Tour March of the Machine*
May 5-7, 2023, at Minneapolis MagicCon, USA. (*March of the Machine* draft and Standard)

The field consisted of 252 players.
Bonus invitations went to:

* Players who finished 9–7 at Pro Tour Philadelphia
* Extra players at each Regional Championship

Prior to *March of the Machine*, Standard had a rotating metagame of Mono-White Midrange, Esper Legends, and BRx midrange, with the interesting wrinkle of variable non-basic land hate. However, the release of Lithomantic Barrage and Glistening Deluge devastated the White threats, resulting in the return to the Black-Red Midrange shell, with variants making up 53% of the field and four of the five top archetypes. Esper Legends was the remaining holdout. Blue was the most popular tertiary color for these decks, and Reanimator sub-strategies made up about 20% of the field.

Coverage started with reigning champion Reid Duke's draft, a heavy-black with white deck that only brought a win in the third round. Nonthakorn Kositaporn took the pod with a many-colored green deck over Autumn Burchett's red-white deck. Jim Davis took the undefeated slot overnight.

Davis's lead gave way to a horrendous Day 2, 0-3 in Draft and 1-4 in Standard. An unusual decision to draw between teammates Karl Sarap and Nathan Steuer in round 11 was given some attention, given the number of unintentional draws in the pool. Both players are part of Team Handshake, who put in the first three players: Javier Dominguez in round 14, Sarap and Simon Nielsen in round 15. The remaining five players qualified in round 16: Burchett over Andre Judd, David Olsen over Duke, Yiwen Chen over Daniel Goetschel, Cain Rianhard over Yuuki Ichikawa, and Steuer over Brendon Johnson. This would be Steuer's third consecutive Top Finish and third redundant Worlds invitation, and also his second tournament win in a season, something not seen in decades.

#### Arena Championship 3

May 27-28, 2023 (*March of the Machine* draft and Standard)

Notable invitees include Johnny Guttman, Michael Jacob, Seth Manfield, Nathan Steuer, Ondřej Stráský, Kenta Harane, Riku Kumagai, Yoshihiko Ikawa and Austin Bursavich. The qualifying bracket continues to shrink with only nine players attaining full invitations; all players with 5 total Day 2 wins and some with 4 qualified from the leaderboard. Rakdos Midrange was expected to be the top dog, but the Pro Tour gave some direction to play against it, though Fable of the Mirror-Breaker still dominated as a card. Zurgo and Ojutai-powered Jeskai midrange was a new contender, Atraxa Ramp kept its presence, and the dormant Selesnya Enchantments with Hallowed Haunting made a reappearance. Manfield defeated the only 5-0 Noham Maubert with Enchantments, resulting in a four-way tie with Bursavich and Luciano Pellegrino. The other Enchantments player, Antonio Abreu, followed closely in 5th place.

From the four 5-1s, Bursavich won two and was granted the 9th round bye with 8 wins. Manfield unfortunately suffered a three-match loss streak to end at 10th. Strasky, Pelligrino, Maubert and Tim Schaufurt all reached the necessary 6 wins in round 8, which let them all qualify despite Strasky and Schaufurt losing to Pelligrino and Maubert in round 9. Rounding out the Top 8 were Benjamin Broadstone over Jeff Lin, Shota Kuze over Manfield, and Abreu over Jose Neves.

#### Regional Championships 3

The Regional Championships of June 3–July 2, 2023 award invites to Pro Tour Barcelona and the 2023 World Championship. The format was Pioneer.

**Date:** 3-4 June, 2023
 1.  Bradley Schlesinger
2.  Matt Foreman

**Date:** 3-4 June, 2023
 1.  Archie Peralta
2.  Josue Escalante

**Date:** 3-4 June, 2023
 1.  Weng Heng Soh
2.  Kelvin Hoon

**Date:** 3-4 June, 2023
 1.  Jianwei Liang
2.  Chan Sze Hang

**Date:** 3-4 June, 2023
 1.  Théo Jacques-Griffin
2.  Patrick Wu

**Date:** June 10-11, 2023
 1.  Federico Vuono
2.  Przemyslaw Olszewski

**Date:** June 10-11, 2023
 1.  Hungyi Yu
2.  Shang Feng Lee

**Date:** June 17-18, 2023
 1.  Robert Anderson
2.  Robert Smith

**Date:** June 24-25, 2023
 1.  Alexander von Stange
2.  Tomoaki Ogasawara

**Date:** June 24-25, 2023
 1.  Ben Kemp
2.  Willow Moon

**Date:** July 1-2, 2023
 1.  Marcelo Rodrigues Cavalcante
2.  Matheus Ponciano

**Date:** July 1-2, 2023
 1.  Martin Dominguez
2.  Matias Leveratto

#### Pro Tour *The Lord of the Rings*

*Main article: Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings*
July 28-30, 2023 at MagicCon Barcelona, Spain (*The Lord of the Rings* draft and Modern). All participants receive an alternate art Gandalf the White Play Promo.

The field consisted of 268 players. Bonus invitations went to:

* Players who finished 9–7 at Pro Tour Minneapolis
* Extra players at each Regional Championship

Modern had not seen a large field tournament since Mythic Championship IV Barcelona in 2019, where Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis reigned and was banned, and in the meantime *Modern Horizons 2* upended the format once again. The only glimpses into the metagame were from the Magic Online Championship Series, eight decks at a time. The pitch Evoke cycle proved to be the greatest influence from *Modern Horizons 2*, powering the Rakdos Evoke deck using tricks like Undying Evil, combo-ing with Risen Reef in the Omnath, Locus of Creation deck, and giving the Crashing Footfalls Cascade deck efficient uncascadable interaction. These three decks made up 40% of the metagame. The One Ring, fittingly for the Pro Tour's namesake, made a huge impact on the metagame alongside Orcish Bowmasters, the former punishing big hitters like Murktide Regent and Archon of Cruelty, while the latter sniped down previous menace of the format Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and most of the creature base of Colossus Hammer decks. The decks powered by these targeted cards, once frontrunners, fell to 3% representation each. Winner of the last Modern Pro Tour Mono-Green Tron held steady at 9%, Golgari Yawgmoth trailed at 7%, and surprise archetype Dimir Control came in at 6% instead of perennial Azorius control. Team Handshake kept their reputation up, with Steuer posting 6-2 and the match for undefeated Day 1 being Nielsen defeating Kiihne. All three were on Mono-Green Tron.

Simon Nielson didn't slow down on Saturday as he started strong and coasted out to a perfect 12-0 record. With more than 256 players, the cutoff was at 13 wins. He would not win another match that day but did still comfortably advance to the Top 8 shortly after Team Handshake teammate Javier Dominguez did. With 12 wins being sufficient in the end, he drew with Jake Beardsley, after his opponent Marco Del Pivo gained his 12th win against him in round 15. For round 16, Del Pivo conceded to Christian Calcano, Stefano Vinci defeats Marco Vassallo, and Kai Budde defeats Sean Goddard; however, the last win-and-in of Alexander Hayne against Kazune Kosaka bogged down into a draw, letting ostensible 9th-place Dominic Harvey into the Top 8.

Most of the matchups in the Top 8 were expected to be polarised, with Rhinos losing to Tron and Tron losing to Amulet Titan. However, Rakdos Evoke was not seen to be favored against Rhinos, Tron or Amulet, but despite this Pro Tour debutant and birthday celebrant Jake Beardsley took down the tournament. This would be the first time in 16 years that a debutant won their Pro Tour.

#### $75,000 Limited Open Barcelona

The Limited Open of July 28-30, 2023, at Barcelona MagicCon, Spain was an open competitive event with a prize pool of $75,000, as well as (at least) eight invites to Pro Tour Chicago 2024.

#### $100,000 Limited Open Las Vegas

The Limited Open of September 22-24, 2023, at Las Vegas MagicCon, USA was a competitive event with a prize pool of $100,000, as well as (at least) eight invites to Pro Tour Chicago 2024.

### 2023 World Championship

September 22-24, 2023, at Las Vegas MagicCon, USA

*Main article: 2023 World Championship*

## References

1. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (May 13, 2021). "Esports: Transistions And Getting Back To The Gathering". Magic.gg.
2. ↑ The new ORGANIZED PLAY announcement and how it affects competitive players (Video). *Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa*. YouTube (May 14, 2021).
3. ↑ Magic Esports (May 13, 2021). "OP will not be explicitly designed to support competitive Magic as a career path.". Twitter.
4. ↑ Magic Esports (May 13, 2021). "Competitive Magic is not going away.". Twitter.
5. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (March 31, 2022). "Return of the Pro Tour, Your Path to Playing Magic at the Highest Level". Magic.gg.
6. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 21, 2022). "MTG Arena Premier Play in 2022". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
7. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 21, 2022). "MTG Arena Premier Play in 2022 FAQ". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
8. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 21, 2022). "Magic Online Paths to the Pro Tour". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
9. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (March 31, 2022). "Return of the Pro Tour: Details". Magic.gg.
10. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (November 10, 2022). "Play *magic* Now With *The Brothers' War*". Magicthegathering.com.
11. ↑ Meghan Wolff (November 23, 2022). "Matthew Saypoff Wins US Regional Title at Dremhack Atlanta". Magic.gg.
12. ↑ Frank Karsten (November 2022). "Miguel Castro Crowned EMEA Regional Champion at LEC Sofia". Magic.gg.
13. ↑ Meghan Wolff (November 22, 2022). "Brazil's Pedro Mocelin Wins Regional Title at City Class Showdown". Magic.gg.
14. ↑ Meghan Wolff (January 7, 2023). "Regional Champions Crowned at MTG China Open". Magic.gg.
15. ↑ Corbin Hosler (February 18, 2023). "Pro Tour Phyrexia Day One Highlights". Magic.gg.
16. ↑ Corbin Hosler (February 19, 2023). "Pro Tour Phyrexia Day Two Highlights". Magic.gg.
17. ↑ Corbin Hosler (February 19, 2023). "Pro Tour Phyrexia Top 8 Highlights". Magic.gg.
18. ↑ Corbin Hosler (February 20, 2023). "Pro Tour Phyrexia Finals". Magic.gg.