Day 2 of Pro Tour Marvel Super Heroes, Magic: The Gathering's $500,000 Modern showdown at MagicCon: Amsterdam, wrapped its Swiss rounds Saturday night, and the leaderboard looks nothing like it did Friday night.
The Swiss rounds are done and the Top 8 is locked in. Eduardo Sajgalik finished on top of the field at 43 points, with Bernardo Torres right behind at 42. Alex Rohan, Ken Yukuhiro, and Lorenzo Gruppi came through at 39 apiece, Timo Bertram (Day 1's 7-0-1 man) grabbed the sixth seat at 37, and Mattia Oneto and Yuuki Ichikawa squeaked into the last two chairs at 36, where tiebreakers left Nick Talbot and Alex Kans agonizingly on the outside at the same score.
Friday's headliner went the other way. Martin Juza was the only player to finish Day 1 at a perfect 8-0, and Saturday was brutal: a string of losses knocked him all the way out of contention, and he finished outside the cut entirely. That's Modern for you!
The Day 2 cut trimmed 362 starters down to 220, everybody playing the same daily split: three rounds of Marvel Super Heroes booster draft into five rounds of Modern. The prize pool is $500,000 with every competitor guaranteed at least $500, and the tournament caps the Marvel-packed July I broke down in my event preview. One Limited lesson from Friday, courtesy of the coverage team: white was the color to be in, and the winners read the open lane instead of forcing favorites.
On the Modern side, the metagame came in split down the middle: "Boros Energy" and "Izzet Affinity" tied for the top share with 46 pilots each, 12.7% of the field apiece, according to the official metagame breakdown. "Broodscale Combo" checked in just behind at 42 players, "Eldrazi Tron" brought 35, "Esper Goryo's" 33, and "Amulet Titan" and "Izzet Prowess" 25 each, while the "Ruby Storm" deck you're about to hear more about fielded 16.
As for the new cards themselves? They're earning their Modern slots. "Hex Magic", a two-mana red sorcery that exiles your hand, draws you that many cards, and can splice onto other Arcane spells, is the most-played new card in the building: 63 copies across the field, every one of them maindeck, mostly as a three- or four-of in "Ruby Storm". "Avengers Disassembled" adds 23 more copies powering a "Boros Land Destruction" build, and "Superior Spider-Man" turned up in Jody Keith's "Living End" list, which went 4-1 through Friday's Modern rounds.
The singles market is moving right along with the coverage cameras, the same way it did when the "Doom Prevails" Commander deck sent a $1.80 "Doctor Octopus" soaring 400% earlier this month.
As of Saturday, TCGplayer's market data puts "Hex Magic" around $1.90 near-mint, up from $0.33 at pre-release, a 280% climb in three weeks, with foils pushing past $8. "Namor the Sub-Mariner" has jumped 267% to $11.73 on the strength of a mono-blue Merfolk list stacking up Magic Online results. And the big one: MTGStocks has "Iron Man, Modern Marvel" north of $56 after opening the month around $30.
That Iron Man move is a different animal. The card sees basically zero play in this tournament: it lives in the set's Welcome decks, which are delayed in both the US and Europe, so short supply is doing the pushing.
Tomorrow turns back the clock: the elimination rounds are ALL draft. Eight players cracking Marvel Super Heroes boosters with the title on the line. A Pro Tour hasn't decided its champion in a draft since Nagoya in 2011, fifteen years ago. Full standings and the Sunday stream schedule are up at magic.gg.
The stakes stretch past Amsterdam, too. Wizards has an August 10th ban checkpoint on the calendar, and this weekend is the loudest data point yet on whether the Marvel cards keep their Modern homes. Sixty-three maindeck copies of a $2 uncommon is exactly the kind of number that ends up in that conversation.
And the crossover calendar doesn't let up from here: the Star Trek set lands November 13th, William Shatner autographs and all!
Are you sticking around for Sunday's all-draft Top 8? Do you have any of these cards that are spiking?
Sound off in the comments below!
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