The Magic World Championship 31 finals dawned on Bellevue, Washington. Two days and sixteen rounds brought Seth Manfield—who was looking to become Magic's third two-time World Champion in history—and Akira Shibata, a Regional Championship qualifier on an incredible run into the biggest match of his career.
Shibata made the finals of Japan's Regional Championship in May, and that catapulted him to Pro Tour Edge of Eternities, where the first-time Pro Tour competitor made the most of it. He opened the Day One draft with a perfect 3-0 record, and parlayed that into a Top 40 overall finish. His Regional Championship finalist finish also sent him to the World Championship with momentum that he did relinquish, going an excellent 5-2 on Day Two and defeating Player of the Year hopeful Toni Portolan in a dramatic Round 14 win-and-in.
For Manfield, it was a Finals match that almost never was. He opened the World Championship with a disappointing 0-2 start, the kind of draft that can end a Top 8 run before it ever begins. But this Pro Tour Hall of Fame member has been playing competitive Magic for more than two decades now; he won the World Championship a decade ago, in 2015, to go along with trophies from Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor in 2024, the 2020 Mythic Invitational, and Pro Tour Ixalan in 2017. From that 0-2 start we went on a straight victory march to earn an early Swiss rounds exit to the Top 8 at 10-2.
The Lessons archetype they were both playing? By far the biggest breakout deck of the weekend. Utilizing the many new lessons from Magic: The Gathering® | Avatar: The Last Airbender™ along with powerful enablers like
The Games
The first game demonstrated the basic formula that would be followed for the rest of the match: players spent the first several turns building out their own boards with
And in what would become a theme, that player was Manfield. He was able squeak out a small advantage early due to Talent advantage, and even though both players largely mirrored each other's moves from that point on, the mana and tempo advantage gave Manfield just enough room to take the first game of the set.
The second game went at the same pace, with both players deliberately sequencing their plays as they set up for what they know could be a long, grindy game. While Shibata deployed an early
One mana:
Two mana:
Three mana:
Artist's Talent
Monument to Endurance
That's the recipe that Team TCGplayer built their Izzet Lessons deck around, and once again the pantheon of accomplished players seem to have broken open a format. Izzet Lessons was already a successful archetype in this tournament, but the team's particular build was even more dominant than that, posting a win rate well over 60% throughout the event. And that recipe continued to serve Manfield well in the finals, as once again he performed simple but powerful game options: cast a spell, get an extra advantage from the trio of permanents that defined the non-Lessons part of the deck.
And once again, it was a winning formula.
Two games without sideboard down, two victories for Manfield. One more in the postboard games and we would have our third two-time Magic World Champion.
But it wouldn't come easy. Unlike the first two games, neither player had a nonland permanent still in play by the fourth turn of this one as countermagic became relevant. That slowed things down as players traded spells early, until Manfield decided to get the action rolling with an
He turned to his deck... and found nothing helpful. What did he find was a smile, as he extended his hand and congratulated Seth Manfield on becoming the World Champion, again.
Congratulations to Seth Manfield, winner of Magic World Championship 31!
