Half of his entire life.
That's how long 36-year-old Pete Ingram has been playing Magic, and it was the stat that stood out to the latest Regional Championship winner as he contemplated what it meant to win (another) major tournament title almost two decades since his first Pro Tour appearance. And in the days following a stunning victory at the RC in Baltimore, the Grand Prix Washington, DC, 2018 winner and one-time PT Top 8 competitor was feeling reflective of all that he's given, and received, from the game in that time.
"My first Pro Tour was in Kyoto in 2009, where I then went on to chain a bunch of Pro Tours," the Long Island native explained. "I took breaks here and there for school, work, and relationships, but I have been playing competitive Magic for the last 17 years, which is basically half my life. Now I have a full-time job and marriage plans, so I'm not playing as much Magic as I used to; I rely heavily on Magic Online to get reps in and learning things from my team."
As Magic has aged, so too has its playerbase at every level, from the Gen Con tables of the mid-'90s to the college dorms of the 2000s to the MagicFests of 2019. As many of the game's most fervent competitive players have aged, they've found that Magic is still there waiting on them when they come back, even if they never thought they would. That's not exactly the case for Ingram—he's been back at the grind since Regional Championships began several years ago—but as he marveled, Magic has remained part of his life through it all.
The team he mentioned helps, too. Team Scrapheap has become a household name in the North American scene, with players on the squad finding success at the regional and national level, and it's the team that Ingram credited with helping prepare him for the biggest tournament finish he's earned since a Top 8 at Players Tour Phoenix in 2020.
Since then, it was hit or miss for Ingram. When he returned to the Regional Championship circuit, he spent several events working through what he described as "rust" and later had a few Day Two runs fall just short of a return Pro Tour invite. But six months after first taking up with Team Scrapheap, Ingram is not just back to his old Grand Prix-winning self: he's reaching new heights.
Pete Ingram is your Regional Champion for the United States! Congratulations to the Broodscale Combo player for defeating Curtis Lam (who will also be headed to the World Championship) in the finals to win #SCGBaltimore! https://t.co/2kjS2LTK12
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) September 14, 2026
"I think it was a combination of online playtesting not translating well, being rusty, and honestly just starting to doubt my capabilities after a continued lack of success despite previous accomplishments," he admitted. "A shoutout to all of Team Scrapheap and my car buddies for the trip: Dan Jessup, Ben Friedman, and Jim Davis, and to Andrew Jessup for bailing last minute to graciously allow me to win the tournament."
Ingram was all smiles after the event, and for good reason. Not only did the victory send him back to the Pro Tour, but it also qualified him for the first Magic World Championship of his life. And it came at a truly massive, nearly 1,500-player event at SCG Baltimore. The Modern format on display is the most diverse in the game, and no deck comprised more than around 10% of the metagame. It was a worthy follow-up to the pair of Modern Magic Spotlight events that preceded it, and players who had watched Izzet Prowess win back-to-back events in Australia and the United States then locked in their final selections for Baltimore.
The Regional Championship in the United States is off and running! With Mono-Green Broodscale taking the top spot over Izzet Prowess this weekend, it's wide open in Modern! Tune in at: https://t.co/Hy5HTEcgQr! https://t.co/VRRdyFDdXl
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) September 12, 2026
As the tournament wore on, it became clear that we were not looking at a runback of the previous two weekends. While Prowess was ultimately a mediocre choice for the Regional Championship, the story of the tournament was undoubtedly the explosion of Mono-Green Basking Broodscale Combo. The deck has been kicking around for more than a year—Hunter Ovington won a Magic Spotlight Series with it last summer—but in recent weeks the deck has garnered even more attention and tuning as squads like Scrapheap prepared for the one-off Modern Regional Championship season. That was the backdrop under which Ingram and the team worked, and in the end many of them indeed chose to bring Mono-Green Broodscale to the event.
It was the best choice any of them made. Broodscale was the deck of the tournament and ultimately placed four copies into the Top 8, five into the top ten, and seven in the Top 16. It's the level of metagame dominance typically unheard of in Modern, but one that isn't shocking to anyone familiar with the growth and evolution of the
"Modern is an incredibly diverse format, and I wanted to do something proactive that had a lot of agency and play to it; Broodscale really fit perfectly," Ingram explained. "It is extremely powerful, and I think there are a lot of decision trees you can make when playing games based on what you're playing against. Having a plan for each matchup and knowing what you're supposed to do is important."
That's the common refrained echoed across Modern players, and as always remained true throughout thousands of Modern matches played across the globe over the last three weeks. And with the Regional Championship in the United States serving as the kickoff to the season along with the Regional Championship in China, there's plenty of Modern to come. In China, Yuchen Liu pulled off one of the most improbable Magic feats possible, and one that's probably unprecedented: he won his second Regional Championship in a row. While Ingram's win may not have been quite that dramatic, it's a path back to the Pro Tour that he's been working at for some time—and the Pro Tour dream is just as sweet the second time around.
"It's a pretty exciting accomplishment considering my last big one was Top 8 of Players Tour Phoenix six years ago," Ingram said. "This one means a lot to me though as I am so excited to get back to the Pro Tour again after such a long hiatus and am equally if not more excited to get to play Worlds for the first time in my Magic career. I'm going to be headed to SCG Hartford in a month or so and have my eyes set on trying to qualify for the Limited Championship on Sunday. Then I will take a bit of a break for the holidays, but I am eager to battle at the next Pro Tour and start testing!"
