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The Week That Was: Deck Building and Team Building

October 03, 2025
Corbin Hosler

Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer had a dilemma.

The Massachusetts native had spent much of his spare time leading up to Pro Tour Edge of Eternities at MagicCon: Atlanta taking care of one of the most important parts of Pro Tour prep that doesn't make the headlines: travel logistics.

"I was pretty busy with life stuff, and most of my Magic time was spent on the logistics of getting a great group of players together and housing them for a week," DeBenedetto-Plummer explained.

That's a herculean task, as any Pro Tour testing house veteran knows. But someone has to do more than break sideboard tech. Heading into the final Pro Tour of the season before World Championship 31, DeBenedetto-Plummer was on top of things. The lodging and testing experience for Team Serious Player Only was on point.

But the time spent on taxis and taco plans did leave DeBenedetto-Plummer with one small problem left to solve when he arrived in Atlanta last week as one of the 300 competitors who turned up to battle through Edge of Eternities Draft and Modern Constructed.

He didn't know what deck he was going to play in that format.

"I tested a lot of different decks when I had time, but my last few to choose from were, funnily enough, a Blue-White Control list that Paxti won a Magic Online Challenge with, Neoform, or Belcher," DeBenedetto-Plummer recalled. "On the morning when decklists were due, I was leaning toward playing Neoform, but I lost a few too many games in a row to Eldrazi Tron, which is one of the decks I would be trying to target with Neoform."

Neoform was out. So, would he play Azorius Control or Charbelcher (with special guest Tameshi, Reality Architect)?

"When I got to the testing house, my teammate, Lauri Törnström, was super high on Belcher and connived to try and get me to play it," DeBenedetto-Plummer elaborated. "He gave me a very in-depth breakdown on how to play each match and how to sideboard. Lauri put more work into the deck than me, so he gets a huge shoutout."

It's hard to argue with that. While DeBenedetto-Plummer was coordinating flight times, Törnström was learning the finer points of sideboarding with Tezzeret and Tameshi. He brought those insights to the testing team, and by the time the draft began on Day One, Törnström and DeBenedetto-Plummer had put the finishing touches on their masterpiece of a deck that, in some ways, goes back 22 years (to Goblin Charbelcher's printing) and, in other ways, traces its modern (and Modern) roots to a 5-0 deck that first found its way onto Magic Online through Belcher superfan Austin Deceder.

Goblin Charbelcher

Since then, the deck has gone through twists and turns of its own along with all of the Modern format since the release of Modern Horizons 3. Coming out on the other side, Belcher entered the Pro Tour as one of the top three decks to beat (along with Esper Goryo's and Boros Energy). Of course, the addition of Tameshi, Reality Architect from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty has opened entirely new lines of play—did you know that you can use Tameshi to loop Lotus Blooms from your graveyard to power out a huge Sea Gate Restoration?—and gave the deck a redundancy it's never had, and a credible way to tie the list together in Modern. More than once this weekend, Tameshi, Reality Architect joined Hydroelectric Specimen or Thundertrap Trainer in beating down after something like The Stone Brain taking out all copies of Goblin Charbelcher, and as silly as it may sound, those wins count just as much as the ones where you combo on turn four with double counterspell backup.

So DeBenedetto-Plummer made his choice, even if it came from a last-minute decision. Disaster or masterpiece. They say that's what Pro Tour dreams are made of, right?

4 Suppression Ray 4 Sea Gate Restoration 3 Flare of Denial 4 Whir of Invention 4 Fallaji Archaeologist 4 Disrupting Shoal 2 Force of Negation 4 Thundertrap Trainer 1 Strix Serenade 2 Stern Scolding 4 Lotus Bloom 4 Jwari Disruption 4 Goblin Charbelcher 4 Waterlogged Teachings 4 Hydroelectric Specimen 4 Sink into Stupor 4 Tameshi, Reality Architect 1 Stern Scolding 1 Force of Negation 2 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student 2 Flusterstorm 1 Island 4 Consign to Memory 2 Into the Flood Maw 1 Stock Up 1 Tezzeret the Seeker

Well, events like Pro Tour Edge of Eternities and tournament runs like DeBenedetto-Plummer's are why they say that's what Pro Tour dreams are made of. The wonder from Worchester had a run to remember. He had a dominant 8-1 record in Modern with Belcher to earn his spot in the Top 8 before Round 16, not even dropping a single game on Day Two as he did so.

His run through the Top 8 was no less impressive, as Sunday's matches turned into a true rarity: all six matches in the quarterfinals and semifinals went the full five games. That includes DeBenedetto-Plummer's free-spell frenzy against Noé Offman's Neoform list in the semifinals, and the grueling mirror match he played against Mikko Airaksinen in the semifinals.

As so, DeBenedetto-Plummer found himself somewhere he never expected to be despite the many strides he's taken in his Magic journey over the last few years, from winning a Modern Star City Games Open Series event to making a run all the way to the finals of the US Regional Championship earlier this year.

Who would DeBenedetto-Plummer find waiting for him in the finals of the Pro Tour, the last thing standing between him, a trophy, and Magic history?

None other than Magic Online end boss Paxti's Azorius Control deck—piloted by Paxti himself. Also known as Francisco Sánchez, this member of Team Pluto had weaved his own trail of terror through Modern, answering all challengers with a mix of classic removal, countermagic, and the new draw spell Consult the Star Charts.

We couldn't ask for a better Modern finals matchup than Belcher versus Orim's Chant and Isochron Scepter, and for the first time that day on the Sunday stage, the match went in straight sets as all of DeBenedetto-Plummer's work over the last several years paid off to make him the eleventh Modern Pro Tour champion in history.

"I spent the last few years grinding paper events after Covid, trying to get back to the Pro Tour, then something really clicked in how I prep for events around the Regional Championship in Dallas last year," he reflected. "I had good plans for every matchup; not just a sideboard plan, but a plan for how I want the games to go and what to do to make them go there.

"I made the Pro Tour that event on tiebreakers and tried to keep this level of readiness for very event I played after, and I was fortunate enough to queue for every Pro Tour this year."

When the season started, qualifying for every Pro Tour was DeBenedetto-Plummer's very reasonable goal. But what is his plan now?

"I'm not going to be happy with just one trophy, so I'm going to put even more time into prep for worlds and the next year's Pro Tours."

Oh, and Deceder? The Belcher builder with the artifact's activation cost tattooed on his arm?

He's got some fresh ink.

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