Pro Tour London, the 6th of its kind is now in the books. It has been one of the best weekends of my life, both as a player and lover of Flesh and Blood, and as a commentator of the game. You can find a more cosy wrap up of my own time at the Pro Tour weekend on another platform, but today we're looking at the final key results from the main event of the weekend.
After 9 rounds of Classic Constructed, and 6 rounds of Hunted Draft, the very best players in the world where whittled down to the Top 8 of Pro Tour London.
The Top 8 Bracket
The breakdown featured 3 dtd001-prism-awakener-of-sol-dusk-till-dawn-booster, 3 ast001-aurora-shooting-star-armory-deck-aurora-shooting-star-precon, and 2 mst025-enigma-ledger-of-ancestry-part-the-mistveil-booster.
It's no secret, as you can see on my meta guide article, that Aurora and Enigma are clearly the best decks in the format. With the presence of more "poppers" in more contemporary Aurora and Enigma lists, I'm personally very surprised to see the influx of Prism in this Top 8. The players do deserve those stellar finishes, and it made for deeply fascinating Top 8 gaming.
5th Place Decks
All three of the Prisms were knocked out in the Quarter Finals. Despite Andrew Cook, Léo Vézinet, and Kevin Murphy all playing the same hero, with the same core cards, some of the key differences are very interesting to note going into your own Prism deck building, so I'm going to highlight those below.
Of course all three lists are on the 7 usual Figment cards, as well as powerhouse fabled cards mon000-cf-great-library-of-solana-monarch-booster and dtd000-cf-light-of-sol-2-dusk-till-dawn-booster.
The interesting tech that these Prism decks are including are some numbers of dtd023-herald-of-tenacity-1-dusk-till-dawn-booster. The Dominate on this particular Phantasm attack is something that requires either a popper or an Equipment block, which outside of dtd211-cf-dyadic-carapace-dusk-till-dawn-booster or a low value fab252-gf-face-purgatory-premier-organized-play-rosetta-promo is a difficult feat for Aurora.
It's clear that Léo Vézinet's version of Prism is teched for facing Aurora. All three Herald of Tenacity, plus all three of defensive cards like mon063-soul-shield-2-monarch-booster, upr189-that-all-you-got-2-uprising-booster, and even hnt222-shelter-from-the-storm-1-the-hunted-booster and mst137-essence-of-ancestry-body-1-part-the-mistveil-booster (which are not present in either of the other Top 8 Prism lists), shows that his plan was to have a version of Prism that could deal with Aurora's aggression. On top of that Vézinet's deck seeks to be aggressive with all three copies of evr143-pierce-reality-3-everfest-booster to force through damage on those first attacks.
While all three Prism decks include fab026-cf-merciful-retribution-2-road-to-nationals-2021-promo, Vézinet's deck does not include either fab017-gf-vestige-of-sol-premier-organized-play-monarch-promo nor fab025-cf-parable-of-humility-2-road-to-nationals-2021-promo. Andrew Cook and Kevin Murphy are more dedicated to the hybrid plan of playing Auras as well as sending Phantasm attacks, while Vézinet's is strictly directed towards Phantasm. Cook and Murphy both include three of evr142-passing-mirage-3-everfest-booster to respect poppers and draw their opponent's ire.
After that, it's just interesting to see the minor differences between the three Prism lists. All of them are on some number of dtd018-herald-of-ravages-2-dusk-till-dawn-booster, but only Murphy is playing the Red version, as a 1 of. The lack of decision point of using Arcane Barrier against Prism is always a tough call, and this is just another split damage threat they need to respect.
One of the three Aurora players was also eliminated in the Quarters. This version looks to be very dedicated to the ast022-arc-lightning-2-armory-deck-aurora-shooting-star-precon ele065-flicker-wisp-2-tales-of-aria-booster combo by playing both dyn234-cf-crown-of-dominion-dynasty-booster and 1hv004-aether-ironweave-viserai-blitz-deck-precon. The aggressive overlap of increased arcane damage with only 0-for-4 Go Again attacks is what propelled Aurora to the top of the metagame.
3rd Place Decks
The other two remaining Aurora decks were knocked out at this stage, putting the Pro Tour Final to the Enigma mirror.
Shawn Dhaliwal's Aurora deck is identical to Michael Jaszczur's list, shown above. Instead, we can take a look at Paul van Gijssel's version of the deck.
With no Flickerwisp in sight, this version is dedicated to pure aggression. Pairing ros076-gone-in-a-flash-1-rosetta-booster with even more Instant cards like 1hp387-sigil-of-solace-1-history-pack-1-booster and lgs346-cf-vaporize-shock-2-armory-season-14-aurora-promo allows you to likely loop it for multiple attacks on the same combat chain.
The only head equipment in this version being is a strong showing that he's respecting the decks that may want to disrupt him, and other decks like Enigma that may want to go tall with a mon091-phantasmaclasm-1-monarch-booster or mst031-manifestation-of-miragai-3-part-the-mistveil-booster attack.
Another sign that Gijssel's list is teched to have game into Enigma and Prism is the three copies of out184-down-and-dirty-1-outsiders-booster. A popper that you can park in Arsenal is a very powerful effect to help in an otherwise tricky matchup.
The Final
As stated a little bit ago, the final was an Enigma mirror. Whoever won would guarantee getting Enigma 100 Living Legend points. The consequences of that is something we'll touch on in another article.
Despite it being an Enigma mirror against two seasoned players who have tested against each other a great deal, their decks were very different, and some of those differences came to a head during the Pro Tour Final.
On the face of it, Dieckmann's list is where the vast majority of Enigma decks are. The three copies of ros219-truce-3-rosetta-booster are a strong turn 0 play, or even late game play, that also doubles as a Blue Block 3.
fng005-blade-beckoner-gauntlets-the-hunted-blitz-deck-fang-precon has been showing up on and off in Illusionist arm equipment slots since The Hunted's release. Arms have been their weaker spot, so having something that can reliably cover a breakpoint while then being able to block a weapon attack in the matchups it matters is a welcome thing.
Pablo Pintor, the first ever two time Pro Tour Champion, was able to take down the entire event with this version of Enigma. With no Essence of Ancestry: Body to shore up the Aurora matchup, confident in his ability to attack down with more Auras like eng010-waxing-specter-1-enigma-blitz-deck-precon/ and making their attacks inefficient with fab229-gf-stonewall-gauntlet-premier-organized-play-part-the-mistveil-promo.
Both finalist decks play the pair of 1hk006-mage-master-boots-kano-blitz-deck-precon and mst131-10000-year-reunion-1-part-the-mistveil-booster. This pressure of a 10 power attack on top of whatever other Ward is on board is a phenomenal mirror breaker. During the final match, both players had a copy of "10K Reunion" on the board, and leveraged them to the best of their ability.
It was the continued pressure of well consistent attacks and a lucky popper that won Pablo Pintor the title in the final game.
These decks, and these three heroes have redefined the meta. Look to this article for what we expect to happen to the future of the metagame given Enigma's win in Pro Tour London and Calling London.
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