Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica

Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica
Date	November 9–11
Location	Template:Flagicon Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Attendance	510
Format	Standard and Booster draft
Prize pool	$250,000
Previous Pro Tour: 25th Anniversary Next Pro Tour: ''Pro Tour Cleveland 2019''

Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica is the first Pro Tour of the 2018–19 season. It took place on November 9–11 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is the last Pro Tour to be tied to a specific set release. With 510 attendees, it was not only larger than Pro Tour Paris 2011 at 483 players - the previous largest individual Pro Tour - but also larger than the Pro Tour 25th Anniversary, which was a team event with 495 players.

2017-18 Player of the Year Playoff

Before Day 1 of the main event, a best of seven games playoff is held between Seth Manfield and Luis Salvatto, to decide the 2017-18 season's Player of the Year title: Both players tied 81 points in last season.

The format is modified format based on Standard. Both players has to build 4 Standard decks without sideboard, which their four decks must not include more than eight copies of any given card (other than basic land). Before each game starts, both players choose one of the available decks to play against each other. They can take a free mulligan in each game. Whenever a player wins a game, the deck that the winning player using would be unavailable in the rest of the match. The player who win with all four decks wins the playoff.

Player	Matchups
Template:Flagicon Seth Manfield	Mono-Blue Tempo	Mono-Red Aggro	Boros Weenie	Izzet Drakes	Boros Weenie	Mono-Red Aggro
Template:Flagicon Luis Salvatto	Mono-Blue Tempo	Mono-Blue Tempo	Jeskai Control	Mono-Red Aggro	White Weenie	White Weenie

Notably, all the decks chosen were part of the Jeskai color trio; despite the strength of the Golgari deck, the unsideboarded games meant the midrange decks are unfavored. For the slower decks, Salvatto chose the anti-creature Jeskai control deck, while Manfield chose the combo-esque Izzet Phoenix deck.

Both players opened with the mono-Blue tempo deck, which benefited from the mulligan rules allowing players to search for Curious Obsession. Seth Manfield took the first game in the mirror, and Salvatto attempted to run back the blue deck on the play, which Manfield met with one of Blue's worse matchups in mono-Red. However, the curve-topping Experimental Frenzy failed to deliver a stream of card advantage, with Salvatto taking the second game with two hits of a Tempest Djinn.

Both players swapped out for the third game, with Salvatto's Deafening Clarion in Jeskai Control devastating the Boros Weenie deck. Manfield hit another string of bad luck with his Izzet Phoenix deck, hitting 10 of 19 lands, but took the second win thanks to Heroic Reinforcements. In the final game, Manfield's removal-heavy Red draw, normally good against Mono-White, was overpowered by double History of Benalia.

Standard

With Kaladesh and the Gods of Amonkhet rotating, many players expressed over the advent of a new format. The spectre of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria loomed over Standard, but the lack of Hallowed Fountain caused Settle the Wreckage and Cleansing Nova to be inconsistent and resulted in different color bases. Mono-Red powered by Risk Factor and Experimental Frenzy were powerful, but having lost Scrapheap Scrounger and three powerful top-end cards, the deck was combatable with conventional removal and minor lifegain, most notably Wildgrowth Walker.

Golgari Midrange was pinned as one of the more powerful new decks, but the GPs at Lille and New Jersey demonstrated that if the field wanted to fight it, it could - Jeskai Control, Izzet Phoenix, Mono-Blue Tempo and aggressive white decks with Tocatli Honor Guard were favored against Golgari, as the deck began gearing up for the mirror. As such, the Standard metagame was expected to be very much about who correctly predicts the moving target coming in. Other decks played a smaller part in the early weeks included Blue-Black control with Teferi, Grixis decks focused on Nicol Bolas, The Ravager, Selesnya token strategies, and rotation holdover Steel Leaf Stompy.

Day One

Featured drafters: Ben Stark (Izzet), Luis Salvatto

Standard: Golgari held the largest metagame share, but unlike top decks in the previous two years of standard, the proportion was only 22%. The White Weenie with red splash featured in the Player of the Year race was a popular newcomer in the circuit, while Izzet Phoenix, Selesnya tokens, and Jeskai control remained major players. Blue-black-based control decks (Dimir, Grixis, Esper) solidified, while a large smattering of other decks populated the diverse metagame.

The top eight players after day one:

Rank	Player	Points
1	Template:Flagicon Tay Jun Hao	24
2	Template:Flagicon Jeremy Dezani	24
3	Template:Flagicon Wilson Mok	21
4	Template:Flagicon Mark Jacobson	21
5	Template:Flagicon Nathan Eager	21
6	Template:Flagicon Romolo Disconzi	21
7	Template:Flagicon Andrew Elenbogen	21
8	Template:Flagicon Alejandro Olea Garcia	21

Top 8

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Decks	Comments
1	Andrew Elenbogen	$50,000	30	Mostly-White Aggro
2	Luis Scott-Vargas	$20,000	28	Mostly-White Aggro	Ninth Pro Tour Top 8
3	Tay Jun Hao	$15,000	24	Reinforcements White Aggro
4	Jeremy Dezani	$12,500	22	Boros Aggro	Second Pro Tour Top 8
5	Wilson Mok	$10,000	20	Jeskai Control
6	Michael Bernat	$9,000	18	Mostly-White Aggro
7	Kasper Nielsen	$7,500	17	Reinforcements White Aggro
8	Yuuya Watanabe	$6,000	16	Izzet Drakes	Fifth Pro Tour Top 8

Worlds leaderboard

Draft Master

Shuhei Nakamura, Mike Sigrist, Mike Chen, Adriano Moscanto, Michael Bernat

Trivia

• Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica was the first PT Craig Wescoe missed since Pro Tour Kyoto 2009, ending a streak of 36 Pro Tours attended. Also absent was Joel Larsson, who broke his 28-event attendance streak to play an Artifact tournament.