Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa
This past weekend, sixteen of the best Magic: The Gathering players met in Honolulu, Hawaii for World Championship XXVI. The tournament featured two formats: Theros Beyond Death Standard and Draft.
After three days of intense competition, it was Star City Games’ own Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa (PVDDR) who dominated the field and finally added the last missing achievement to his unprecedented Magic career – a World Championship victory.
The Top 8
World Championship XXVI followed a double elimination format, where those in the Upper bracket could lose a match in the Top 8, but not be eliminated right away.
Coming into the Top 8, PVDDR was the sole Azorius Control player, and was looking at a remaining field of three Mono-Red Aggro, two Jeskai Fires, and two Temur Reclamation.
Creatures (2)
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (15)
Spells (37)
In the first round of the Top 8, PVDDR was matched against fellow Magic Hall of Famer Seth Manfield (Mono-Red Aggro). In Game 1, Manfield opted to keep a very slow hand, giving PVDDR time to win on the back of a resolved Dream Trawler. In Game 2, Manfield once again was unable to put out enough pressure, and an Archon of Sun’s Grace was enough to close out the match.
The Semifinals
The semifinals pitted PVDDR against MPL Member Mario Carvalho (Jeskai Fires) – a matchup that would prove difficult for the Fires of Invention deck.
Carvalho was able to sneak out a victory in Game 1; resolving a Teferi, Time Raveler, followed by a Kenrith, the Returned King to push for the last few points of damage.
In Game 2, PVDDR sideboarded away from his counterspell-heavy plan, in favor of more pro-active spells – eventually winning with Archon of Sun’s Grace which generated too many Pegasus tokens for Carvalho to handle.
In the final game, Archon of Sun’s Grace once again proved to be too strong, and a battlefield of Pegasus tokens pushed the life totals back in PVDDR’s favor.
The Grand Finals
In an interesting turn of events, the Finals featured a rematch between PVDDR and Marcio Carvalho. After losing to PVDDR in the Semifinal round, because Carvalho began in the Upper bracket, the loss dropped him to the Lower bracket rather than being eliminated. Carvalho went on to win each of his Lower bracket matches, and eventually found himself in the finals.
The way the Grand Finals were structured, PVDDR only needed to win two, Best-of-Three matches to claim victory, while Carvalho required three.
The first match found Carvalho unable to resolve a Teferi, Time Raveler, and subsequently unable to apply enough pressure, leading to a quick victory for PVDDR.
In both Matches 2 and 3, Carvalho’s sideboard proved to be his greatest ally; utilizing cards like Tithe Taker and Legion Warboss to disrupt PVDDR’s game plan. After a string of good draws, Carvalho found himself tied with PVDDR, only needing one last match win take home the trophy.
Similar to the previous games, PVDDR managed to take Game 1 of Match 4, controlling the battlefield long enough to stabilize with Archon of Sun’s Grace and slew of Pegasus tokens. In Game 2, Carvalho’s opening hand contained both of the pieces he needed to win – Tithe Taker and Legion Warboss. The only issue was the hand contained no Red or White mana sources.
With his back against the wall, Carvalho felt pressured to keep the hand, hoping to draw into additional sources of mana. Unfortunately, neither source was drawn and he conceded, making Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa the Magic: The Gathering World Champion!
Read the original article from Wizards of the Coast.