Pro Tour Eldritch Moon
Pro Tour Eldritch Moon is the fourth and final Pro Tour of the 2015–16 Pro Tour season. It takes place on 5–7 August 2016 in Sydney, Australia. It is the first Pro Tour event taking place in Australia since the 2002 World Championships, also held in Sydney. With 302 competitors, it is the smallest Pro Tour since the 2005 World Championships in Yokohama, which had 287 players.
Visa issues
A month prior to the Pro Tour taking place, players were informed that they would need travel visas for temporary work in order to be admitted to the country, rather than the assumed tourist visa. Due to the cost (approximately $200) and the complicated process of filling out the 73-question document, Wizards allowed players who wished it to defer their invitations to future Pro Tours instead. As such, a few qualified players opted not to travel to the event.
Changes to the last two rounds of Swiss
Rounds 15 and 16 of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon are paired semi-randomly based on incentives for each player. Players whose goal is a top eight berth at the event will be more likely to get paired against each other; the same is true for players hunting Pro Players Club levels, Worlds or World Magic Cup slots, or invitations to the next Pro Tour. The purpose of this change is to prevent concessions that happen as a result of players with mis-matched incentives being paired against each other.[1]
Day one
An Eldritch Moon-Shadows over Innistrad Booster draft kicked off the event, with newly crowned Grand Prix player of the year Brian Braun-Duin being the main featured player; Kentaro Yamamoto was the secondary feature. Braun-Duin's Blue-Black Zombie deck containing Gisa and Geralf succeeded at taking him to a 3–0 record, while Yamamoto had to settle for a 1–2 result with his Blue-Red deck. Other famous players who started 3–0 included Olivier Ruel, Luis Scott-Vargas, winner of the previous Pro Tour Steve Rubin, and both players just revealed to have been voted into the Hall of Fame: Owen Turtenwald and Yuuya Watanabe.
In Standard, many expected the Bant Collected Company decks that had dominated the format previous to the release of Eldritch Moon to remain dominant; and indeed, Bant Company was the largest archetype on day one, occupying 19.2% of the format.[2] Luis Scott-Vargas was among the players who opted for Bant Company, and piloted it to a 7–1 finish to end the day. However, breakout decks were various Green decks utilizing Emrakul, the Promised End. Green-Black Delirium was the most popular of these, and players like Steve Rubin and Pascal Maynard were running the deck to success. Reid Duke of The Pantheon played Red-Green Ramp with the big Eldrazi, while teammate Owen Turtenwald opted for Temur Emerge, and was rewarded with a perfect 8–0 record.
The top eight players after day one:
| Rank | Player | Points | Rank | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Template:Flagicon USA Owen Turtenwald | 24 | 5 | Template:Flagicon JPN Yuuya Watanabe | 21 |
| 2 | Template:Flagicon USA Brian Braun-Duin | 21 | 6 | Template:Flagicon ESP Antonio Del Moral Leon | 21 |
| 3 | Template:Flagicon USA Reid Duke | 21 | 7 | Template:Flagicon CAN David Schnayer | 21 |
| 4 | Template:Flagicon USA Luis Scott-Vargas | 21 | 8 | Template:Flagicon CAN Jacob Wilson | 21 |
Day two
In a featured draft pod including both Hall of Fame elects and numerous other celebrated players, Owen Turtenwald and Luis Scott-Vargas were featured. Turtenwald drafted White-Blue while Scott-Vargas ended up Red-Green; both players went 2–1. Reid Duke won the pod with Black-Green, and tied Turtenwald for first place in the tournament at 10–1 going into the final Standard rounds. Turtenwald won round 12 to advance to 11–1, and if he won any of the remaining four matches, he'd make the top eight and thus win the Player of the Year race thanks to Seth Manfield not having a great tournament. He lost the first three and was down a game against Daniel Cathro in the final round, but came back to win the match, advanced to the top eight and became Player of the Year. Reid Duke and Luis Scott-Vargas both secured Sunday appearances with two rounds to spare; as did Sam Pardee, who thus would make his final day debut. Scott-Vargas became only the third player to have finished in the top eight of three straight Pro Tours; the last time this had been done was in 1998 (by Jon Finkel).
Top 8
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||||||
| 1 | Sam Pardee | 3 | |||||||||||
| 8 | Andrew Brown | 1 | |||||||||||
| 1 | Sam Pardee | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Lukas Blohon | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Lukas Blohon | 3 | |||||||||||
| 5 | Ken Yukuhiro | 2 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Yuta Takahashi | 1 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Owen Turtenwald | 3 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Owen Turtenwald | ||||||||||||
| 2 | Luis Scott-Vargas | ||||||||||||
| 2 | Luis Scott-Vargas | 3 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Reid Duke | 0 | |||||||||||
| Place | Player | Deck | Prize | Pro Points | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $40,000 | 30 | |||
| 2 | $20,000 | 26 | |||
| 3 | $12,500 | 22 | |||
| 4 | $12,500 | 22 | |||
| 5 | Template:Flagicon USA Yuuta Takahashi | Bant Company | $10,000 | 18 | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 6 | Template:Flagicon JPN Ken Yukuhiro | Red-Green Ramp | $10,000 | 18 | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 7 | Template:Flagicon USA Reid Duke | Red-Green Delirium Ramp | $10,000 | 18 | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 8 | Template:Flagicon ARG Andrew Brown | Temur Emerge | $10,000 | 18 | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
Trivia
- For various reasons, among others the visa issue, many players did not attend Pro Tour Eldritch Moon despite being qualified. Among these were:
- Brian Kibler, who had previously attended every Pro Tour since PT Honolulu 2009;
- Tom Martell, who had previously attended every Pro Tour since PT San Juan 2010;
- Patrick Chapin, who had previously attended every Pro Tour since PT Philadelphia 2011.