Pro Tour Ixalan

Pro Tour Ixalan is the first Pro Tour of the 2017–18 season. It takes place on 3–5 November 2017 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States.

Format

Pro Tour Ixalan marked the first time since the 2011 World Championships that the event took place not 2-3 weeks after the release of a new set; instead, Ixalan had been available for purchase for five weeks as Pro Tour Ixalan took place. As a result, the Standard and Booster draft formats had both been well explored prior to the event, with William Jensen having won the 2017 World Championship with Temur Energy four weeks prior, and five Ixalan Limited Grand Prix events had taken place already.

Day one

An Ixalan Booster draft kicked the event off, with the featured players being former Player of the Year Brad Nelson and Yuki Matsumoto, who was coming into the event with a lifetime Booster draft win record of 76%. Nelson drafted a White-Black Vampires deck that the commentators thought ended up fine, especially considering the weak start to the draft; in the first pack, Nelson didn't get many good cards. Matsumoto drafted a Blue-Black Pirates deck favored by the commentators.

Trivia

• Pro Tour Ixalan was the first Pro Tour since Pro Tour New York not attended by Raphaël Lévy, who ended his streak of 91 consecutive Pro Tours played due to the birth of his first child.
• The event also saw the return of Luis Scott-Vargas to competitive play; after posting three Pro Tour top eights in 2015–16, Scott-Vargas had taken the 2016–17 Pro Tour Season off to do coverage.