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The Week That Was: Kaya Gregg Silences the Competition in Canada

October 09, 2026
Corbin Hosler

High-level Magic is, in many ways, defined by big streaks. We measure by Top 8 appearances, but to approach a Top Finish like that you must first go on a major run of match wins. In some cases—perhaps most famously Luis Scott-Vargas's 16-0 run in the Swiss rounds at Pro Tour San Diego in 2010—we've seen truly historic feats of single-tournament dominance that boggle even the sharpest minds who understand that winning even 60% of your matches at the Pro Tour level is extraordinarily different. Beyond just single-event mastery, there are the even more unlikely scenarios that have nonetheless played out over the last decade, such as Nathan Steuer's record book-redefining run to five titles and Simon Nielsen's five Top Finishes in six events.

Those are the terms in which we're used to talking about impressive Magic winning streaks. And for almost three and a half decades, that's served us pretty well—but it doesn't do justice to what Kaya Gregg accomplished at the Regional Championship for Canada hosted in Ottawa last weekend.

That's 31-3 in games completed. A 91% winning percentage, for those of us who aren't as gifted at the math as the people's professor. In fact, Kaya Gregg didn't drop her first game until Round 9, the final match of the day. She, of course, won the third game, finished Day One undefeated, and in the end dropped only a single match on her way to the Regional Championship title for Canada, gaining a Pro Tour and World Championship invite along with it.

And, yes, you did that math right. If one of the three game losses came in Round 9, and the other two in a Round 10 loss to Will Shayne's Mono-Green Broodscale, then she must not have dropped another game in the entire tournament? That's right—the loss early on Day Two was the only blip in the entire tournament, and Kaya Gregg's Top 8 sweep came against Cristopher Currie's Izzet Affinity, Max Dore's Ruby Storm, and in a fitting rematch against Shayne's Mono-Green Broodscale.

That's the power of a great control deck—and a pilot who has been building to this moment for years.

"I played in the Zendikar Rising Championship online, but I've never played in a tabletop Pro Tour before. I've been at every Regional Championship I could go to in Canda without traveling too far, but after Calgary last year I was considering quitting competitive Magic because I felt like I had prepared so well and had really disappointing results," Gregg recalled. "I took four months off. But then my friend January Adams made the finals of the Regional Championship in Vancouver at the start of this year, and it made me really want to get there myself. So I started playing again."

Working alongside Adams, her roommate (and generous tournament ride sharer) April Farren, and the rest of her group of connected Magic friends-turned-testing-team Faerie Miscreants, Gregg went back into the lab.

And like many who have found that their best Magic moments can paradoxically come after they've stopped stressing about success—there's a kernel of wisdom buried in the Ondřej Stráský-style "I was going to retire after this tournament so I didn't feel any pressure—and oops I won!" genre of stories—Gregg's return to Magic after the break brought with it a new level to her game.

That was made evident at the last Regional Championship back in May. There, piloting Dimir Excruciator, Gregg had a scintillating start to the tournament. She didn't drop a single match in the early going and pushed her record all the way out to 7-0 before taking her first loss. Unfortunately, that run petered out for Gregg, and while the 9-5 finish (good for Top 32) was by most metrics a success, Gregg couldn't shake the feeling that her best chance at something more may have slipped by.

But the process, and the team, were sound—and come the next Regional Championship, Gregg was ready to roll with a teched-out build of Azorius Control featuring seven copies spread between Silence and Orim's Chant, as well as a token Isochron Scepter to imprint one of them under to time-lock the game to 2008.

"I was not feeling terribly confident, but after seeing some Challenge results with these seven-Silence builds, I tried a league with it and felt better with it than I had the other versions," Gregg explained. "I locked in and hoped it would work, and it did. Once I reached the point of being 7-0 again, I wanted to not have the same thing happen: to start 7-0, lose the last two rounds, and start Day Two with a loss. But I won my Round 8, and I was like, 'Well, that's it.'

"It's all so different when you're having a good tournament, versus being the last undefeated and leading the tournament; it's not something I've ever really experienced before, with all the coverage and photos and everything, even doing well in other tournaments."

1 Thundering Falls 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Silence 1 Otawara, Soaring City 4 Flooded Strand 3 Arid Mesa 1 Monumental Henge 2 Hallowed Fountain 1 Floodfarm Verge 4 Orim's Chant 1 Consign to Memory 2 Consult the Star Charts 1 Force of Negation 2 Island 1 Isochron Scepter 4 Teferi, Time Raveler 1 March of Otherworldly Light 1 Spell Snare 1 Polluted Delta 1 Mystic Gate 4 Narset, Parter of Veils 2 Meticulous Archive 2 Prismatic Ending 3 Day's Undoing 2 Sink into Stupor 4 Solitude 2 Plains 3 Wrath of the Skies 1 Supreme Verdict 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium 1 Surgical Extraction 2 High Noon 1 Ashiok, Dream Render 4 Mystical Dispute 3 Consign to Memory 1 Beza, the Bounding Spring 1 Supreme Verdict 1 Spell Snare 1 Kaheera, the Orphanguard Kaheera, the Orphanguard

To say that Gregg is exhilarated at the prospect of a paper Pro Tour is to put it lightly. While she's technically a Pro Tour veteran—the series of Set Championships during the online years count in the tally—her trip to the next Pro Tour is going to feel like a first. A first—and a reward that Gregg has earned and aims to make the most of.

"It will be a much different experience compared to the Championship I played in; I played Round 1 in my pajamas and I don't think I can do that at the Pro Tour," Gregg deadpanned. "This is something I've wanted for a long time, and wanted a lot. After a bunch of bad results, I thought I wasn't going to get there. I still don't feel like it's real to me yet."

That's not so uncommon; nothing can prepare you for the moment you sit for your first professional draft and Wizards of the Coast comes over the intercom to welcome you to Day One of the Pro Tour. So, what's next for the most recent Regional Championship winner?

"A trip to the passport office!" Gregg explained. "The goal was definitely to get to the Pro Tour, but I would love to keep playing more of them. That's what I'll be working to do."

With that, the Regional Championship season rolls on—and all eyes now turn to Regional Championship events this weekend in North America and Central America!

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