Pro Tour Theros
| Pro Tour Theros | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | 11–13 October 2013 | |||
| Location |
 Dublin, Ireland | |||
| Attendance | 428 | |||
| Format | Standard and Booster draft | |||
| Prize pool | $250,000 | |||
| Winner |
 Jérémy Dezani | |||
| ||||
Pro Tour Theros was the first Pro Tour of the 2013–14 season. The event had 428 competitors, and took place on 11–13 October 2013 in Dublin, Ireland. The formats were Standard and Theros Booster draft, and was the first constructed premier event where Theros was legal. In a top eight featuring Magic luminaries such as Paul Rietzl, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Kamiel Cornelissen, Sam Black, and Makihito Mihara, the two Frenchmen in their first Pro Tour top eight, teammates Pierre Dagen and Jérémy Dezani ended up battling each other in the final. Dezani, playing Mono-blue Devotion, took the title.
The 2013 class of the Hall of Fame was inducted at Pro Tour Theros. These were Luis Scott-Vargas, William Jensen, and Ben Stark.
Day one
The featured player during the first triple Theros Booster draft was newly inducted Hall of Famer Ben Stark. Stark piloted the Blue-Red deck he had drafted to a 2–1 finish, losing in the second round to Pierre Dagen, who posted a 3–0 result at the featured draft pod. Other 3–0 drafters included Luis Scott-Vargas, Jon Finkel, Olle Råde, Frank Karsten, Antoine Ruel, Patrick Chapin, and reigning Pro Tour champion Craig Wescoe. Following were five rounds of Standard. Known quantities included various White-Blue Control decks with Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and Red-Green decks built around cards like Stormbreath Dragon and Domri Rade. Team ChannelFireball showed up with a Red Devotion deck built around Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, while several other teams had brought a previously unseen Mono-Blue Devotion deck created to take advantage of Thassa, God of Storms. Makihito Mihara made waves with a Red-Green Ramp deck centered around the aforementioned Nykthos comboing with Voyaging Satyr. At the end of the first day, two familiar players, Sam Black and Paul Rietzl, sat atop the standings with unblemished 8–0 records. Black played Mono-Blue Devotion, while Rietzl ran a White-Black Midrange deck with cards such as Obzedat, Ghost Council and Blood Baron of Vizkopa.
The top eight players after day one:
| Rank | Player | Points | Rank | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Paul Rietzl
|
24 | 5 |  Lukas Tajik
|
21 |
| 2 | Sam Black
|
22 | 6 |  Lukas Jaklovsky
|
21 |
| 3 | Jérémy Dezani
|
21 | 7 | Jon Finkel
|
21 |
| 4 |  Makihito Mihara
|
21 | 8 |  David Caplan
|
21 |
Day two
The second Theros draft featured overnight leader Paul Rietzl; he drafted a Red-Green deck to a 1–2 record, conceding the first place in the tournament to four players tied at 10–1: Makihito Mihara, Jérémy Dezani, Sam Black, and Pro Tour debutant Raymond Perez, Jr. Jon Finkel, at 7–1, was on his way to his fifteenth Pro Tour top eight, but a 0–3 result in the second draft pod thwarted this. Finkel ended up going 4–1 in the last Standard portion to finish 26th. The Pantheon compatriot Kai Budde came close to his eleventh top eight, but lost in round 14 to Patrick Chapin, and ultimately finished 17th. Chapin finished 9th. Guillaume Wafo-Tapa started the tournament 1–2, but did not lose a match after this, and intentionally drew twice in the last two rounds to advance to the top eight in third place. Dutch Hall of Famer Kamiel Cornelissen made it to his first Pro Tour top eight since the 2004 World Championships; Cornelissen had not drafted Theros before the event, and his Standard deck was a Mono-Red Devotion deck that Frank Karsten had built for him at the Theros prerelease.[1]
Top 8
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||||||
| 1 | Jérémy Dezani | 3 | |||||||||||
| 8 | Kamiel Cornelissen | 0 | |||||||||||
| 1 | Jérémy Dezani | 3 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Makihito Mihara | 0 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Makihito Mihara | 3 | |||||||||||
| 5 | Paul Rietzl | 2 | |||||||||||
| 1 | Jérémy Dezani | 3 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Pierre Dagen | 1 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Guillaume Wafo-Tapa | 1 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Pierre Dagen | 3 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Pierre Dagen | 3 | |||||||||||
| 2 | Sam Black | 2 | |||||||||||
| 2 | Sam Black | 3 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Kentaro Yamamoto | 1 | |||||||||||
Pro Tour Theros featured a very experienced top eight, with Hall of Famer and now six-time Sunday competitor Kamiel Cornelissen, as well as Makihito Mihara, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, and Paul Rietzl, all of them class of 2014 Hall of Fame hopefuls; this was also Mihara's second straight top eight, having already finished third at Pro Tour Dragon's Maze. Additionally, Sam Black and Kentaro Yamamoto both made their second final day appearance. Yamamoto brought an innovative Mono-Black Devotion deck featuring Pack Rat; an evolution of this deck would eventually emerge as the top deck in the format, but he lost 3–1 to Black in the quarterfinals. However, it was the two less experienced players, friends and teammates Jérémy Dezani and Pierre Dagen, who ended up facing each other in the final. Dezani beat Dagen 3–1, and took the Pro Tour title.
| Place | Player | Deck | Prize | Pro Points | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jérémy Dezani
|
Mono-Blue Devotion | $40,000 | 30 | |
| 2 | Pierre Dagen
|
Mono-Blue Devotion | $20,000 | 24 | |
| 3 | Sam Black
|
Mono-Blue Devotion | $12,500 | 22 | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 4 | Makihito Mihara
|
Red-Green Ramp | $12,500 | 22 | Fifth Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 5 | Guillaume Wafo-Tapa
|
Esper Control | $10,000 | 20 | Fifth Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 6 | Paul Rietzl
|
White-Black Midrange | $10,000 | 20 | Fourth Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 7 | Kentaro Yamamoto
|
Mono-Black Devotion | $10,000 | 20 | Second Pro Tour Top 8 |
| 8 |  Kamiel Cornelissen
|
Mono-Red Devotion | $10,000 | 20 | Sixth Pro Tour Top 8 |
Trivia
- Chris Pikula, after having barely missed being inducted into the Hall of Fame as a member of the 2013 class, received an invitation to Pro Tour Theros. He ended up finishing 11–5, but only the top 25 would have earned 10 Pro Points and an invitation to the next Pro Tour - only one player on 11-5 would make it in on tiebreaks (Pikula finished 33rd).
- Eight players finished 6–0 in draft: Sam Black, Makihito Mihara, Raymond Perez, Jr., David Ochoa, Eric Phillipps, Marcello Mazzarino, Frank Karsten, and Ben Friedman.
- Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, playing Esper Control, posted the best Standard record in the Swiss portion of the event, with eight wins and two intentional draws.
- Four additional players finished 8–1–1 in Standard: Paul Rietzl, Kentaro Yamamoto, Kamiel Cornelissen, and Shaun McLaren.
External links
- Pro Tour Theros Coverage
- Pro Tour Theros final standings
- Top Standard decklists
- Video coverage playlist
References
- ↑ Mike Rosenberg (2013-10-13). "QUARTERFINALS: HIDDEN BEHIND THE NIGHTVEIL". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2016-05-18.