MODERN

Pro Tour The Lord of The Rings: Top 8 Results and Games

August 3, 2023
Riley

On the 28th of July, streamed live on Twitch, was The Lord of The Rings Pro Tour in Barcelona, Spain. The top 8 for this tournament saw 3 decks playing Mono-Green Tron (Javier Dominguez, Christian Calcano, and Simon Nielsen), 3 decks playing Temur Rhinos (Marco Del Pivo, Kai Budde, and Stefano Vinci), 1 Amulet Titan deck (Dominic Harvey), and 1 Rakdos Scam deck (Jake Beardsley).

Firstly, this tournament really showed the power from the newest The Lord of The Rings set. With most decks main boarding powerful (and some pricey) cards such as Orcish Bowmasters, Delighted Halfling, The One Ring, Lórien Revealed. All the top 8 decks have at least one of these cards within the deck. I've talked to a lot of other fellow Modern players about this set, how busted The One Ring is, how Orcish Bowmasters is such a good answer to it. The obvious highlight is most definitely The One Ring, with the ability to give you a whole extra turn if you are a turn away from death. This is obviously reflected in its price but with The Lord of The Rings bundle still available on shelves at your LGS, it isn't inaccessible (I definitely didn't buy a gift bundle and 3 bundles to get my playset for Amulet Titan...).

The winner for this tournament if you hadn't heard already was Jake Beardsley! He reported during the event that he was quite apprehensive going into top 8, as he believed a lot of the players who were playing Mono-Green Tron did so in anticipation of seeing a lot of Rakdos Scam during the tournament. However, despite being the only Rakdos Scam deck in top 8 against 3 Mono-Green Tron decks, Jake persevered! He went 3-2 in his final match to win the event against Christian Calcano, who was on (surprise!) Mono-Green Tron.

For me, the highlight of the final match was in game 4. Jake had already won 2 games, with Christian only with 1 win. The game was long, tedious, and thrilling! Towards the end, Christian is on 5 life and Jake is on 12. Jake proceeds to lower him down to 2 with a Lightning Bolt. Jake has down outstandingly considering his two lands on board, 1 copy of Kroxa in hand, and a Grief who just got killed by a Walking Ballista. Jake then fetches and shocks, down to 9, to cast the Kroxa. And the only reason this isn't killing Christian is because he decided to not play his Chromatic Star last turn. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, knowing what both players had in hand, seeing Christian in the previous turn deciding whether to cast the Chromatic Star or not. Ultimately, the decision to not cast is what saved him, causing him to win next turn.

Some of the games at this event, especially game 4 of the finals, will be going down in history. As an Amulet Titan player myself, I was so excited to see this deck in the top 8! I've just started to read Dominic Harvey's 'All About Amulet Titan' manifesto (link at the end of article) and am very excited to learn more about the deck I love.

Big congratulations to all the players who competed, it was amazing to watch this event and see such talented players who have worked and practiced so hard to get where they are.