What's the most iconic Magic: The Gathering card in existence?

Much to my chagrin, it's not in fact Silvergill Adept or any other Merfolk (although Lord of Atlantis must at least be an honorable mention). No, there's no mystery here. There's exactly one card that even your grandma has heard of.

Black Lotus.

No question, it's the original blossom that bloomed a juggernaut, of course, and nothing will come close. For the last 32 years, whenever Black Lotus is mentioned, attention is piqued, whether you're a veteran of the game or someone who's only heard it mentioned in passing.

It's also what's sending Simon Linabury to the World Championship—in a way.

"There was a win-a-Black Lotus event for the Australian seven-point Highlander format run by MTG Bazaar last year, so I started learning that format," Linabury explained. "It feels like playing Vintage Cube Constructed. It's an absolute blast to play, and there are some amazing tournaments. Ever since playing in the Black Lotus event, I've been playing as much Magic as I can, which led me to Standard and the Regional Championship."

Not your everyday RC champion origin story, is it?

🎉Congratulations to Simon Linabury, the winner of the ANZ Super Series Final in Sydney, Australia!🎉

Simon defeated valiant runner-up Ryan Jonns Lewis in a Mono-Green Landfall mirror, and will represent the ANZ region at the next World Championship. GGWP Simon! pic.twitter.com/4qRgBBA9po

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) March 15, 2026

I've written a hundred times that Magic is many things to many people. And while usually that serves to encompass both Pro Tour players and Commander FNMs, we can't forget that there are as many Magic "formats" out there as there are creative people engaging with the game. Whether it's Standard or Legacy or No Banned List Modern or Australian seven-point Highlander with a full-on Black Lotus on the line, Magic continues to give players reasons to gather.

At the ANZ Super Series Final in Sydney, Australia, earlier this month—the Regional Championship for the Australia and New Zealand region—it was Linabury who was on the top of the format. It's been a whirlwind few months since that Black Lotus at the Highlander tournament caught his eye, and in that time, he's been frantically working to make up for time lost.

"I took a break from Magic during COVID, and I've only recently returned to competitive play," Linabury explained. "I've played a few Pro Tours, with my most recent being in 2019, and I've managed to make Day Two at each Pro Tour I've played, but I'm keen to keep improving and land a stronger finish. I dipped my toes back in the water and played at the first Australian RC in 2022 but only fully came back to Magic midway through last year. This was my first time playing for a Pro Tour invitation in years, so I'm blown away by the result."

A straight shot to the World Championship is certainly running ahead of schedule, but it should come as no shock; between previous Pro Tour experience and an active Magic Online Vintage Cube habit, Linabury's fundamentals were already rock solid. Combine time spent with probably the best testing crew in the region, Team Bus Stop, and you have a recipe for a Pro Tour player, Nationals Top 8 member, and Grand Prix winner to quickly find himself playing again for a spot on the Pro Tour.

"I want to give a special shoutout to our team captain Jim Wilks for his talent with the game and his generosity with his time in the lead-up to the tournament; the team has been bringing me back up to speed on the format," Linabury said. "I am primarily a Limited player and most of my engagement with Magic over the last few years has been through Vintage Cube. I think this has been a great way to improve at Magic and has made it a lot easier for me to see weird interactions or lines in games."

Snap back to Sydney, where Linabury showcased just that over eleven perfect rounds of Magic—he didn't take a single loss in the tournament, and in fact dropped just a single game in a dominant Top 8 run with Mono-Green Landfall. He picked up victories over Samuel Maher's Temur Prowess in the quarterfinals and Elspeth McGillivray's Izzet Lessons in the semis before then dispatching Ryan Jonns Lewis in a Mono-Green mirror.

Linabury's victory was an exclamation point for the Mono-Green Landfall deck that has exploded in popularity over the last six weeks. It's racked up multiple premier event victories—including John Puglisi Clark's win with it at Magic Spotlight: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the beginning of March—and through its mix of explosiveness and inevitability has only grown stronger despite the rise of several new challengers, including Mono-White Momo, Friendly Flier decks, and the renewed wave of Izzet Prowess decks unleashing Stormchaser's Talent onto the field. Heading into the Regional Championship, no one on the team knew for certain what the best deck for the churning metagame was that weekend, but Linabury knew he wanted to have a definitive plan.

"I wanted to play a proactive deck that could perform well in a diverse metagame, and across nine rounds in the Swiss I played against seven different decks," he revealed. "The format is wide open at the moment, and given the increased card pool in Standard there are a lot of highly synergistic decks and packages popping up and making multiple decks viable. The eleven players from our team were on six different decks in the tournament—myself and Jim Wilks were the only players from my team who played Mono-Green at the tournament, and we worked closely on the list together."

Wilks is himself a Regional Champion, having won the same tournament in 2024, and to prep for the RC, the duo went into the lab.

"As we were expecting a wider metagame, we decided to run Sapling Nursery, which had been cut from some recent builds," Linabury elaborated. "We noticed a new tech piece, Webstrike Elite, had popped up in Venom1's Challenge-winning deck. This card was key to a lot of the build and sideboard plans. It's a powerful bridge piece and allows the deck to survive to nursery turns against Momo Drum and Izzet Prowess decks while providing a way to play more main-deck artifact and enchantment disruption. And in matchups, where it's bad, you have an opportunity to cycle it away. Overall, I was very happy with the list for the weekend."

With his win, the 34-year-old now finds himself back on the Pro Tour, a place where he's three-for-three on advancing to Day Two. And it's not just the Pro Tour that Linabury can put onto his calendar: it's Magic World Championship 32 as well—and his aspirations don't end there.

"I'm thrilled with the win and can't believe I get to play in the World Championship later this year," Linabury reflected. "I'm going to try my best to keep improving as much as I can to try and have a strong finish at Worlds.

"I am also primarily a Limited player, so I will take every opportunity I can to try and qualify for the Limited Championship next year."