At the Pro Tour: New Jersey earlier this month, we saw the first Pro Tour Champion in Flesh and Blood history crowned, alongside the winners of our Calling and Battle Hardened events. However, across the weekend, there were also over 20 different side events, including Classic Constructed, Blitz, Ultimate Pit Fight (UPF), Team Blitz, Shapeshifter Sealed. We wanted to take a look back at two of these side events in particular, which highlighted the community spirit of casual play.
Commoner
Sunday's 12pm Commoner tournament saw over 140 players compete for a copy of the Welcome to Rathe World Guide: Vol. 1. Players were excited to get on board with this community-driven format, and the matches were fast-paced, with Chane and Briar among the most-played heroes at the event. The only player undefeated in the Swiss rounds was Matthew Foulkes, the UK National Champion, but the event was won by Pheano Black playing Briar, who made the finals of the Calling: Indianapolis earlier this year. Rumour has it that he spent more time playtesting for the Commoner event than he did practicing for the Pro Tour. The rest of the Top 8 for this event included three Chane players, two Ira, one Kassai, and one Bravo.
Ultimate Pit Fight
Later that day, the final UPF event for the weekend kicked off, and things heated up right from Round 1. Anthony Harden, who came second-place at the Cosplay Contest with his Kavdaen cosplay the previous day, brought his Taylor prize card to the event and kicked off his first turn of the game with a Coax a Commotion.
The next round saw all of the previous winners gathered together, and once they'd received their Go Bananas promo cards, the five heroes were revealed: Shiyana, Diamond Gemini; Kayo, Berserker Runt; Genis Wotchuneed; Rhinar; and Taylor.
While Taylor caught attention, it was Shiyana who dominated this game, beginning their first big turn by copying Kayo and playing a Command and Conquer, rolling a 6. The next turn, they once again copy Kayo, play a Crippling Crush, and roll a 6; then during the reaction step, play a red Pummel to push Crippling Crush for 26 damage. While the target, Rhinar, survived, he was immediately knocked out by the Genis player.
The following turn saw Shiyana copy Kayo for a third time, sticking close to the young Brute and using his ability to roll a 6 for Alpha Rampage, dealing 18 damage to the Genis Wotchuneed at the table and knocking him out of the game. Once the turn comes back around, Shiyana copied Kayo for the fourth and final time, playing their second Alpha Rampage and rolling a 5 to knock out the Kayo with his own abilities.
At this point in the game, Shiyana and Taylor were the only heroes remaining, left to a Shapeshifter vs Shapeshifter showdown. However, Anthony came prepared. As Kayo is knocked out of the game, he plays a red Ravenous Rabble, and when Shiyana blocked for three, he played two red Razor Reflexes to end the game.
For his efforts, Anthony won a Gold Cold Foil Silver Palms, his second prize card of the weekend.
Thank you to the 1,900 players who competed in one of our 22 side events at the Pro Tour! To the 420 players who competed in Blitz events, and 58 teams who joined Team Blitz; our 600 players joining Classic Constructed side events; the 86 Shapeshifters in Shapeshifter Sealed; the 311 players across our Commoner tournaments; the 417 who played games of Sealed; and the 39 players who duked it out in Ultimate Pit Fight.
Thank you for joining us for this landmark weekend, whether you visited the Artist Alley, entered the Cosplay Contest, competed at our side events, or just showed up to meet other members of the community and play some games around the hall. We look forward to seeing you in the Flesh and Blood again soon!
Thank you to the head judges of these events, Steven Zwanger and John Vorderbrueggen, who supplied their stories for this article, and for all of their hard work across the weekend.