After three days of playing against the best players in the world, Jean-Emmanuel Depraz is your Magic the Gathering World Champion! After sneaking into day two with a record of 4-3, Depraz was able to solidify his spot in the top eight after going 6-1. Once in the top eight, he was able to battle through Greg Orange, Anthony Lee, and finally Kazune Kosaka to bring home the trophy!
To take down the Standard portion of the event, Depraz piloted Esper Legends, a deck that did not see as much play due to the rise of Esper Midrange. While the decks are similar, Esper Midrange has removed some of the legends in order to run cards like Virtue of Loyalty and Wedding Announcement in the mainboard to allow the deck to go wide when necessary.
You can also find the decklist here.
Depraz, however, was not tempted by the new additions to the deck and stayed true to the original Esper Legends build, which paid off in the finals, taking down Esper Midrange 3-0. At first, he seemed to have some trouble against Greg Orange, who was playing Bant Control in the quarterfinals. However, Depraz was able to perform a reverse sweep and go from a deficit of 0-2 to a 3-2 win.
I know many Magic The Gathering players have turned away from the Standard format, and for good reason. Standard has not been a supported format for several years, and the cost of putting together a Standard deck only to have the cards rotate out of Standard is not worth it.
However, in case you weren’t able to catch the World Championship this weekend on Twitch, William ‘Huey’ Jensen was interviewed about the updates to the Standard format. He revealed that not only was the Standard Showdown returning, but that the Store Championships occurring in 2024 would all be Standard events and that all RCQs from January through March will be in the Standard format, including a $75K that is occurring at MagicCon Chicago in February!
While this may not be enough for many players to take the plunge back into Standard, it is a good start for incentivizing newer players as well as competitive grinders to pick a standard deck up. Since many players still won’t even think about touching a Standard deck, the RCQ season for January through March may have lower popularity, and therefore yield higher chances of success.
You can read more about Wizard’s updates here!
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