Pro Tour March of the Machine
| Pro Tour March of the Machine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | May 5–7, 2023 | |||
| Location |
 Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | |||
| Attendance | 252 | |||
| Format | Standard and Booster draft | |||
| Prize pool | $500,000 | |||
| Winner |
Nathan Steuer | |||
| ||||
Pro Tour March of the Machine was the second Pro Tour of the 2022–23 season. It took place on May 5-7 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Pro Tour March of the Machine was the second event labeled a Pro Tour after the label was discontinued in 2018. Some commentators would go in to call this Pro Tour in coverage "Pro Tour Handshake", after the team that would dominate, due to their excellent read of the meta, deck choice, and top-shelf team members making up four players of the eventual top 8.
Standard
Players and Wizards of the Coast recognized that the standard format was not healthy before the Pro Tour, so much so, that new bans were instated afterward, partially based on the dominance of Rakdos Midrange in the meta. In addition to the high costs, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Reckoner Bankbuster, Invoke Despair and Chandra, Hope's Beacon were efficient to the point of unsurmountable. At the Pro Tour, different flavors of this basic shell dominated the meta from Rakdos Reanimator, Rakdos Breach, Grixis Midrange, Grixis Reanimator, and Orzhov Midrange. The reanimator decks used Etali, Primal Conqueror and Atraxa, Grand Unifier as top-end targets, both coming from the eponymous March of the Machine set. Breach decks substituted reanimator spells with Breach the Multiverse.
The other notable deck choices were the aggressive Esper Legends, Domain Control, Five-Color Ramp, Mono-White Midrange, and Jeskai Control.
Day One
Featured drafters: Reid Duke
Popular content creator Jim Davis would become the lone undefeated player of the day after defeating Brazilian newcomer Pedro Perrini. Despite Jim Davis's success, it did seem that Channel Fireball misread their matchups, and were weaker than Rakdos Midrange across the board. Additionally, Esper Legends also seemed poorly set up in the meta. Remarkably, four of the seven players on 7-1 were from Team Handshake, with their brew of Rakdos Midrange.
The top eight players after day one:
| Rank | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim Davis
|
24 |
| 2 |  Pedro Perrini
|
21 |
| 3 |  Javier Dominguez
|
21 |
| 4 |  Charalampos Kikidis
|
21 |
| 5 |  Simon Nielsen
|
21 |
| 6 |  Fabian Klein
|
21 |
| 7 |  Karl Sarap
|
21 |
| 8 | Nathan Steuer
|
21 |
Day Two
Featured drafters: Nathan Steuer
Day Two was Team Handshake's day. In quick succession, Javier Dominguez, Karl Sarap, Simon Nielsen, and Nathan Steuer would earn the requisite 36 points to lock up the top 8. Dominguez defeated Steuer early in the day to lock up his slot, shortly after Steuer and Sarap took a controversial intentional draw instead of playing in round 11. Eventually, this draw proved irrelevant, but commentators thought it was disadvantageous to both their chances: Steuer needed to win his last match to qualify.
Reid Duke and Yuuki Ichikawa would lose win-and-in games in the final round to David Olsen and streamer Cain Rianhard. Willy Edel would reach 34 points, landing in the top 16, in addition to Pedro Perrini. Jim Davis, possibly on account of catching COVID-19, would go an abysmal 1-7 on day two from his stellar 8-0, to barely requalify for Pro Tour Lord of the Rings. Notable 6-0 drafters included Luis Scott-Vargas, who finished 10-6, and Shota Yasooka, who finished 9-7.
Top 8
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||||||
| 1 | Javier Dominguez | 1 | |||||||||||
| 8 | David Olsen | 3 | |||||||||||
| 8 | David Olsen | 1 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Nathan Steuer | 3 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Nathan Steuer | 3 | |||||||||||
| 5 | Yiwen Chen | 1 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Nathan Steuer | 3 | |||||||||||
| 2 | Cain Rianhard | 0 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Simon Nielsen | 2 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Autumn Burchett | 3 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Autumn Burchett | 2 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Cain Rianhard | 3 | |||||||||||
| 2 | Karl Sarap | 2 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Cain Rianhard | 3 | |||||||||||
Despite the top four seeds entirely occupied by Team Handshake, only one member, Steuer, progressed past the quarter-finals, defeating Yiwen Chen. He would then fall to David Olsen, equipped with a Five-Color Ramp deck, finally meeting Cain Rianhard in the finals.
Cain Rianhard, a popular Twitch streamer, was in their first Pro Tour, and themselves was showing their pure ability. Against Mythic Championship Cleveland 2019 winner Autumn Burchett, Rianhard slogged through five excellent games.
In the finals, Nathan Steuer's skill at the game was abundantly clear; in the gritty match between Midrange and Reanimator, most of the edges were gained by playing around threats in the opponent's deck and making judgments on near-uniform probabilities. This would be Steuer's third finish in a row: after Top 8-ing Pro Tour Phyrexia and winning 2022 World Championship. This level of domination drew many comparisons to Luis Scott-Vargas's run in 2016 and Kai Budde. Notably, winning was Steuer's fourth invitation to the 2023 World Championship, after qualifying in the aforementioned events and a MOCS showcase.
| Place | Player | Prize | Pro Points | Decks | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nathan Steuer
|
$50,000 | 40 | Rakdos Midrange | Back-to-Back-to-Back Top Finishes |
| 2 | Cain Rianhard | $30,000 | 39 | Rakdos Reanimator | First Pro Tour |
| 3 |  Autumn Burchett
|
$15,000 | 39 | Orzhov Midrange | |
| 4 |  David Olsen
|
$15,000 | 39 | Orzhov Midrange | |
| 5 | Javier Dominguez
|
$10,000 | 45 | Rakdos Midrange | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 6 | Karl Sarap
|
$10,000 | 43 | Rakdos Midrange | |
| 7 | Simon Nielsen
|
$10,000 | 42 | Rakdos Midrange | |
| 8 |  Yiwen Chen
|
$10,000 | 39 | Azorius Soldiers | Seventh Pro Tour Top 8 |