My Pro Tour Aetherdrift Experience
After playing my first Pro Tour in Chicago 2025, I’ve received the opportunity to write up an article for TwoMoons about my experience at the pinnacle of competitive Magic play. I’ve played Magic for a pretty long time. The first time I held Magic cards in my hands was some time around “Shards of Alara” release in 2008. My first competitive tournaments in Switzerland date back to 2016. In Stockholm 2018 I played my first “Grand Prix”. The combination of travelling and playing highly competitive Magic hooked me immediately.
How did I qualify for PT Chicago?
After COVID hit I took a longer break from Magic since “the Gathering” and the physical aspects were a huge part of what initially made the game appealing to me. When I heard of the return of the Pro Tour I put more time into the game again although I wasn’t at the same point in life as I was in 2019. I’ve finished my master’s degree, had a full time job and thus did not really feel like participating in the Regional Championship grind. The sound of “MagicCons” and its direct PT qualifying tournaments appealed to me though since they reminded me of the Grand Prix events I had played before COVID. I came close to qualifying to the Pro Tour at MagicCon Barcelona 2023 – losing my win and in and finishing 13th in the Limited Open 75k. One year later at MagicCon Amsterdam I got my revenge and won the Limited PTQ.
Preparation process
Pro Tour Aetherdrift was scheduled for February 21st in 2025, just 2 weeks after Prerelease. Decklist submission was due just 8 days after online release on Magic Arena and MTGO. I knew that if I wanted to have a shot at doing well at the PT I needed to collaborate with other competitors. Finding a testing team without knowing other competitors is no easy feat. Luckily a Swedish player named Per Ekstrom at Regional Championship Lille in November 2024 demolished me in a Side Event and went on to qualify for the same Pro Tour that weekend. We agreed to work together and I got invited to a Swedish testing discord. Our team got expanded by two more Scandinavian players who qualified through Arena Championship.
My preparation started in November with Magic Foundations release by just playing a lot of Standard and getting to know the ins and outs of the format before Aetherdrift release. I’ve had a lot of early success with the Dimir midrange strategy – making a deep run at the Arena Qualifier Weekend and winning an RCQ for RC Bologna in Basel in December. The metagame developed a lot since then. With Esper Pixie, Gruul Aggro and even Selesnya Tokens, new strategies emerged that stood up well against my beloved Dimir. Shortly before Aetherdrift release we were still far from a stable metagame which could prove to be a challenge when estimating the impact of the new set on Standard.
When Aetherdrift released online we mainly focused on the proven and known strategies of the old format since there did not appear to be any new broken cards that would spawn entirely new archetypes. We focused our early work on the Pixie archetype since it was already one of the strongest if not the strongest deck before Aetherdrift release and it got some new toys with Grim Bauble, Momentum Breaker and Spell Pierce. The deck was also adaptable to early metagame shifts happening the week before the PT. At the same time, it was scary for us that the deck had a big target on its back. All the teams would come prepared for it. If there existed a similarly strong strategy that is lesser known and expected by the other competitors, we would prefer that option over Pixie. We committed a lot of testing hours to an archetype that would become known at the PT as Jeskai Oculus. The idea of the deck compared to regular Azorius Oculus was to have a stronger Plan B against graveyard hate with Proft’s Eidetic Memory, Steamcore Scholar and FOMO while not giving up the potential of a broken turn 3 reanimated Abhorrent Oculus. We adapted the early lists before Aetherdrift release, dropped Spyglass Siren (did not add much to the overall strategy in our opinion) and added Opt for more consistency and card draw for Proft’s. In the end two of our members including myself landed on Jeskai Oculus, the other two committed to the fallback option of Esper Pixie since there were still some question marks and uncertainties about the Oculus deck. We expected it to be a rogue choice with a very low metagame share since there were almost no results on MTGO the weeks prior to the PT. Never would we have guessed that three other teams (Team CFB, Japanese team of which one member top 8’d and an Austrian Team called “Team Peace”) worked on the same deck. And all four teams landed on significantly different iterations of the archetype.
This prep pod draft must be the definition of “kitchen table” Magic.
Regarding Limited testing we quickly realized that Aetherdrift Limited was grindier than previous formats. Cards that grant you inevitability, board stall breakers and removal spells were valued more highly. At the same time, we wanted to make sure we got some physical draft reps in the day before the PT since pod drafts can change format dynamics quite a bit. We managed to organize a group of eight PT competitors in our small apartment in Chicago to do some classic “kitchen table” preparation drafts. As expected with stronger players, the good cards dry up even quicker and you often end up being forced to splash for another one or two colors which makes cards like Veloheart Bike or Starting Column even more desirable. There was also a threat of being “baited” into the best color Green early by strong commons and then having to abandon these picks by not seeing other good green cards in the draft. This led me to like the Esper Artifact and Grixis Speed/Discard space a lot going into the PT.
Pro Tour Chicago
I travelled to Chicago on Monday before the PT and we were greeted by -20 C˚ of utter coldness. Luckily Magic is played inside so I wasn’t bothered much by the harsh weather conditions. The last days before the PT were filled with testing and finetuning of our Oculus and Pixie lists. In the end I submitted our version of Jeskai Oculus, expecting a ton of Esper Pixie (fantastic matchup) and Red aggro (good matchup) in the field. Unfortunately, our worst matchup in Domain surged in popularity (over 15% of the field) at the cost of the bounce matchups (only roughly 20% instead of the 25-30% we expected) which dampered our expected performance for the Standard portion a bit.
Thursday evening before the PT the “player party” took place. Javier Dominguez was given his “Player of the year” trophy, there was a selection of Chicago food specialities and some players did their last preparation drafts for the PT. It felt a bit surreal to be in the same room with all those fantastic players I only knew from streaming platforms. I couldn’t help but feel some imposter syndrome – at the same time I was really looking forward to the next day when the long preparation phase finally culminates in day 1 of the PT.
Friday morning at 8:30AM we were in the PT players lounge, eagerly awaiting the start of the draft. Food and drinks were provided by WOTC once again while we daydreamed about ideal pack 1 pick 1’s to start the tournament.
Then finally draft pods were announced. I was assigned to Pod 12 – just glancing at that paper slip I knew that I was assigned to one of the toughest pods in the room. I was sitting between a mere four PT top 8 competitors in a row (including former player of the year Simon Nielsen). The draft itself was tough but I was very happy with how I piloted my seat. I firstpicked a Quag Feast over the stronger Thundering Broodwagon since I don’t like firstpicking gold cards, especially in this format. I had the option to get into Green in the first couple of picks for some strong commons (Stampeding Scurryfoot, Hazard of the Dunes etc.) but withstood the temptation picking Wreckage Wickerfolk and Mindspring Merfolk. That turned out to be a great call – I did not see any more green cards after pick 4. I ended up in the right deck for my seat, UB Speed. I got passed some relatively late black speed cards (Risen Necroregent, Streaking Oilgorger, Mutant Surveyors, Hour of Victory) during the draft which only really shine in the Grixis speed decks so that was my reward for being in the correct deck, otherwise the quality of cards passed was low and removal was scarce – expected when drafting with this calibre of players. I opened a Gonti as well in Pack 2 so I was pretty happy with my deck.
Unfortunately, the draft rounds did not play out great for me. Round 1 I lost a very close match against Karl Sarap where we almost went to time. The manabase of his 4-color nongreen deck was ambitious to say the least but it worked out against me having good removal and the better topend. Round 2 I beat Mingyang Chen on a solid looking Golgari deck, Necroregents carried those games. In the last draft round I was paired against Andrew Turriago on Gruul. Game 1 I won on the back of Gonti and Necroregent. Game 2 I mulliganed to 5 which I could not grind out of. In the final game he dropped a turn 3 Thunderous Velocipede that ran away with the game. Annoying, as I really wanted to finish the draft portion 2-1 and it seemed like my deck was strong enough to do that on average.
But now it was time to recoup and get ready for Constructed. In the first round of Constructed, out of all players I was paired against my testing partner Leo Finnveden on Esper Pixie who also 1-2’d the draft. My Oculus was really shy that round so the matchup was pretty close – a mulligan to 3 (!) from Leo’s side in game 3 ultimately decided the match in my favor. It sucks to essentially have a teamkill this early in the tournament. Round 5 I got paired against Shaun Henry on Domain, the nightmare matchup. I needed to get lucky to steal that match which I did not. Henry continued to make a very deep run in the tournament – so his deck choice definitely paid off. The next round I was matched up against Hernan Lobos on Bant Cage. While we felt fine against Selesnya Cage we have not faced the Bant version in our testing. The blue splash is for Mockingbird – a card that can be tutored by Brightglass Gearhulk and that is pretty strong against our Oculus. That flipped the matchup clearly in Hernan’s direction. Game 2 was very close but a topdecked Mockingbird and Split up the turn after sealed the match for him. That means I was 2-4 after six rounds, I needed to win the last two matches to get into day 2. I then got paired against Benjamin Nikolich on Esper Pixie which my deck felt great against in testing and round 4. The same was true in this round, I made quick work of him and got my chance of a win-and-in in the last round. My round 8 opponent Guillermo Loli was on Azorius Bunny – another matchup I’ve not much experience against with Jeskai Oculus. As the deck also runs 4 Mockingbirds and Rest in Peace in the sideboard I assumed once again that it was a rather tough matchup. I mulliganed in game 1 on the draw and kept a medium hand. Guillermo had a strong Curiosity draw which I could not compete with. Game 2 I was far behind, but we managed to get into an Oculus board stall. Case of the Crimson Pulse carried me to a comeback victory in that game as it allowed me to draw 3 cards and put 2+ counters from Profts on my creatures each turn. When game 3 started we had 7 minutes on the clock – with a draw we would both be out of the tournament so we made a gentleman’s agreement that the player unlikelier to win the game after extra turns (regarding board and hand knowledge) would concede the other player into day 2. After a strong start by myself (4/4 Steamcore Scholar turn 3 thanks to Proft’s) my opponent went Rest in Peace into kill my Steamcore and my hand was incredibly weak to Rest in Peace with 2 Oculus, 2 Reanimation Spells and lands. I definitely still had outs (Steamcore, Inti etc.) as my opponent was only on 4 life. But we agreed that he was likelier to win that game, so I conceded and was out with a 3-5 record.
My teammates Leo Finnveden (Esper Pixie) and Per Ekstrom (Jeskai Oculus) also narrowly missed Day 2 by going 3-5. Simon Greir (Esper Pixie) made Day 2 and qualified for the next Pro Tour in Vegas with a 10-6 record in his first Pro Tour, an amazing accomplishment by a very talented player. While I was disappointed with my result in the main event I still had a last chance to qualify for the next Pro Tour at the Sunday 2nd Chance Qualifier. You cannot go into that tournament with any expectations though since it’s single elimination over 6 rounds. Any stumble or unlucky match and you’re out. And that happened to me in Round 2, I mulliganed to 5 twice against strong draws from my opponent in a seemingly good matchup (Golgari Graveyard) for me and that was it. In the words of my teammate Leo “the stars have to align” in this type of elimination tournament mode. Luckily, they did align for Leo who went 6-0 with Esper Pixie which earned him an invite to PT Las Vegas as well. He also played amazingly all weekend long, so the invite is very much deserved. For myself, the early Round 2 exit means that my first Pro Tour is also my last Pro Tour – at least for now.
Afterthoughts
Looking back at my first Pro Tour experience it all feels a bit bittersweet. I did a lot of things right in my preparation and this tournament. At the same time my metagame expectation and the actual shares at the Pro Tour differed in a crucial way. Other Jeskai Oculus lists (esp. the one from the Japanese team) seemed a bit better tuned for the metagame. A lot of the games played were incredibly close and with perfect gameplay I might have won one or two additional games. But all of that is the reason why Magic is such an amazing game. The learning never stops and I feel like I became a much stronger player during the past couple of months. I am also incredibly thankful for this opportunity – it was a dream come true playing at the same tables with all those amazing players. After all my preparation I once again realized how much resources those players devote to this game we all love and it’s inspiring to see. I had nice interactions with them throughout the tournament. I hope to run it back some time in the future but at this point I’m happy with myself and my work even though the final result is not what I hoped for.
I want to thank the TwoMoons Community for equipping me with an incredible amount of cards so that I did not have to worry about card logistics for this tournament (a big advantage in a tournament so shortly after a new set release). I also want to thank my testing team, especially Per, Leo and Simon. I did not know any of these guys four months ago and we had an awesome time together. Stories like these are the reason why I love tournament Magic so much. I hope Simon and Leo continue to crush at PT Vegas.
Thanks for reading and until next time!
Testing Team united at Pro Tour Aetherdrift (left to right Ramon Wandeler, Per Ekstrom, Simon Greir, Leo Finnveden)