Seth Manfield has won the 2020 Magic: The Gathering Mythic Invitational with Sultai Midrange.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (25)
Manfield started off his Top 8 with a loss to Luis Salvatto, dropping him down into the lower bracket — meaning his path to the finals would require defeating five straight opponents, all playing different decks. While a daunting task, Manfield made it look easy — defeating Ken Yukihiro, David Steinberg, Grzegrorz Kowalski, Luis Salvatto in an epic rematch, before squaring off against fellow Magic Hall of Famer Gabriel Nassif.
Nassif, unlike Manfield, took a much different path to the finals — running the table in the upper bracket on Saturday, meaning he wouldn’t have to play again until the finals.
In the finals (best two-out-of-three matches), both legendary players traded blows, but a costly misplay from Nassif in Game 2 of their first match would set the tone for the rest of the series. After Manfield played a Heartless Act targeting an active Priest of the Forgotten Gods, Nassif opted to not sacrifice two creatures in response to kill Seth’s lone creature, a 6/6 Hydroid Krasis, instead allowing the Priest to die and leaving him with a battlefield of Cauldron Familiar, Midnight Reaper, and Mayhem Devil. Manfield was then able to follow up with a backbreaking Extinction Event that Nassif was never able to recover from.
In their second match, Manfield was able to dominate the battlefield off the back of Nissa, Who Shakes the World with additional help from timely spot removal, sweepers, and, once again, Hydroid Krasis. The combination proved to be too much for Nassif and Manfield went on to take the series 2-0, making him the 2020 Magic: The Gathering Mythic Invitational champion.
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