After 15 rounds of high-level Magic: The Gathering competition spanning Draft, Standard, and Explorer; four players remain and will battle it out to determine the 2022 Magic World Champion.
Held alongside the Magic 30 convention, this year’s World Championship is the culmination of the past year of organized play and will usher in a new era of competitive Magic with the return of Pro Tours.
Day two was focused on Explorer with players vying for their position in the top four. 10 match wins would lock in a spot in the top four and the logjam at nine wins would have to be sorted out with tiebreakers should it come down to that. The top four players in the 2022 Magic World Championship are:
- Eli Kassis
- Jakub Toth
- Karl Sarap
- Nathan Steuer
Kassis, Toth, and Sarap hit that golden ten wins mark automatically qualifying for the top four. Steuer ended his day with nine wins, but made it into the top four off the back of tiebreakers and was surely helped by his stellar day one run.
Steuer was subject to one of the biggest emotional rollercoasters of the tournament, going through the lows and highs that make competitive Magic intriguing. After losing to Kassis in the final round, Steuer was crushed, yet moments later he was announced the final member of the top four and was moving on to Sunday.
Reigning champion Yuta Takahashi had a middling day one before a stellar run on day two to finish sixth. Jim Davis was another top performer, finishing fifth off the back of an all-around solid tournament performance.
Takahashi was a victim to Sarap in the final round win-and-in, run over by Sarap’s quick Temur Transmogrify list. A pair of clunky draws, including a mulligan to five, led to the reigning champ being defeated by Sarap and a legion of Titan of Industry.
Steuer’s loss against Kassis in the final round provided one of the most interesting pieces of tech in the tournament. Four copies of Leyline of Combustion lie within Kassis’ Mono-Blue Spirits sideboard. With no way to actually cast the card, this anti-sacrifice tech can only come in by being in the opening hand.
If it does stick on the battlefield, it can act as a silver bullet against Rakdos Sacrifice. It did exactly that against Steuer, punishing him for nearly every play and putting him in an impossible situation to navigate through. Kassis with the sneaky tech secured the win and a tournament-best 11-3 record through two days.
The finals of the Magic World Championship begin on Oct. 30 at 12:20pm CT on the Magic Twitch channel.
Published: Oct 29, 2022 08:50 pm