Nick Odenheimer won Magic Spotlight: Foundations with Gruul Aggro at SCG CON Atlanta on Sunday.
Creatures (22)
- 4 Cacophony Scamp
- 2 Callous Sell-Sword
- 4 Questing Druid
- 4 Slickshot Show-Off
- 4 Heartfire Hero
- 4 Emberheart Challenger
Lands (20)
Spells (18)
Odenheimer showed that Leyline of Resonance isn’t just a busted card in best-of-one play by harnessing its duplication powers to become the first Spotlight Series winner in Magic: The Gathering history. The Tampa, Fla.-based player torched the Swiss, going 13-2 to enter the Top 8 as the No. 1 seed, to seize the advantage of being on the play in all elimination matches. The Top 8 consisted of three copies of Gruul Aggro and singleton copies of Dimir Enchantments, Domain Control, Temur Otters, Azorius Oculus, and Azorius Aggro.
In a Gruul Aggro mirror match, Odenheimer leveraged his Leyline to take a blistering first game against Steven Rorabaugh in the quarterfinals. His explosive pump spells proved too much in Game 3 to advance to the semis where Gray Payne, on Domain Control, awaited. Odenheimer was a heavy favorite in the match against the slower control deck, but Payne pushed him to the limit in a tight three-game set where Odenheimer had to fire off a flurry of spells and prowess triggers to deal exactly lethal damage the turn before he’d fall too far behind the Domain deck’s powerful top-end spells.
Scott McNamara, the No. 2 seed on Dimir Enchantments, carved through the other side of the bracket to illustrate how powerful the two-color version of the new hotness, Esper Pixie, truly was. With a cleaner mana base and more removal, McNamara was able to handle the pseudo-mirrors and combat aggressive decks with his take on the archetype.
Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (18)
In another three-game set, Odenheimer used the edge of going first to outpace McNamara’s removal and go wide thanks to Pawpatch Recruit’s offspring ability out of the sideboard. McNamara hung around, but Odenheimer wouldn’t be denied with plenty of creatures and extra +1+1 counters from Innkeeper’s Talent.
Odenheimer’s victory earned him $10,000, an invite to Pro Tour Chicago, and Standard for a year (which consists of a a Play Booster case of every Standard-legal Magic expansion released in 2025). All of the Top 8 players earned PT invites while the Top 64 took home cash prizes.
Dimir Midrange and Gruul Aggro were heavily represented in the metagame to no surprise, but decks like Golgari Midrange, Domain Control, and Mono-White Tokens were still quite popular. Esper Pixie, the breakout deck of the weekend, was the sixth-most played deck at the event and jumped up to No. 3 on Day 2. Green decks like Selesnya Tokens and other ramp strategies and creature-heavy beatdown decks started out strong, but fell off toward the end of the event.
View the Top 8 decklists from Magic Spotlight: Foundations. Check out final standings and all decklists from the event on the Melee.GG page.
