The beautiful city of Brisbane, Australia, was host to Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit™ last week, where a huge Modern tournament offered $50,000 in prizes as well as eight invitations to the Pro Tour. In addition to this opportunity for competitive players to test their mettle, there were also plenty of things for Magic fans of all kinds: a Limited Championship Qualifier, a huge Command Zone, artists, vendors, content creators, and many special events. In the main event, however, Jefferson Lee piloted Izzet Prowess across two grueling days to win the tournament and claim the Black Lotus-themed trophy!
Lee played a no-nonsense version of the top deck in the tournament, and his simple and straightforward approach to attacking Modern paid enormous dividends. Finishing with a stellar 12-2-1 record in the Swiss rounds, Lee dispatched overnight leader Brendan Cooper's Gruul Broodscale deck and Brandon Rashad's Sweet Azorius Loki deck in the Top 8. That brought him to a match against Chris Miller and Esper Blink in the finals. The finals were a very close affair, but a perfectly timed
The weekend's Top 8 was a good reflection of the current state of Modern. We saw a variety of decks, most with a powerful and proactive plan, all poised to seize the tiny edges that make or break your success in Modern. Additionally, no two decks in the Top 8 were the same, representing the deck diversity in the format. Even when broad macro-archetypes, like Broodscale and Affinity, had multiple decks make it into the Top 8, they were built quite differently.
It's also very cool to see innovative lists have such huge success at a high level. Azorius Loki puts together a four-card combo involving
Modern can be a difficult format for new cards to break into, and there are some archetypes that have been around for a decade or more that are still as powerful as ever. All the same, recent sets have introduced new elements to the format, including the aforementioned
Outside of the main event, Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit had so much to offer. There was a gigantic range of side events, like Chaos Sealed, Two-Headed Giant, on-demand drafts, and a Limited Championship Qualifier. That was in addition to all the Commander events and the Command Zone, where people could jam games to their heart's content. Local and international artists were in attendance, some of Australia's favorite content creators were there, and there was even a themed mini-golf course!
If you'd like to come along to an event like this, you're in luck! The Spotlight Series is headed across the globe. Next up is an event in Dallas, Texas, while Hartford, Connecticut, and Beijing, China, are hosting Magic Spotlight: Fracture events in October. See you there!
