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The Week That Was: Tales from Two Weeks in Europe

August 14, 2026
Corbin Hosler

They say there's nothing like a team event for bringing Magic players out for a weekend, and I can report that their enthusiasm doesn't end when the event wraps and the Gauntlets are raised. With the recent combo of MagicCon: Amsterdam and Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes followed by Magic Spotlight: Marvel Super Heroes in Brussels, it seemed to those following along that half of the competitive Magic community stayed in Europe after the Pro Tour ended and traversed the continent for a week before playing in the Spotlight Series.

And that would be just about right. It was the opportunity of a lifetime: two premier events separated only by a week, a train ride, nice weather in Europe, and an excuse for all to make a few stops across the continent on their way to the tournament. This recalled some of the best competitive Magic stories from years past. I talk to Pro Tour players all the time, and rarely has a two-week run ever been this well-received. Traveling the world and playing the game—that's the Pro Tour dream that hooked them all once upon a Tarmogoyf.

So, when I asked players who attended both events to share their stories, the response was predictably overwhelming. From Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes's champion, Yuuki Ichikawa, to Magic Spotlight: Marvel Super Heroes's trio of winners, Jasper Grimmer, Thoralf Severin, and Oliver Rausch, the two-week tour of Europe stands as perhaps the highlight of their year on the competitive Magic circuit.

"This was my first time traveling to Brussels and my first team event, and I was dead set from the beginning on doing both trips," explained Masaya Hoshino, a Japanese native who is attending medical school in Italy, led the Constructed testing for Team Worldly Counsel at the Pro Tour, and filled in as an on-air interpreter when Ichikawa won the Pro Tour. That culmination to a whirlwind weekend at the Pro Tour was just the first exciting Sunday for Hoshino. "We did a testing house before the Pro Tour, and after the Pro Tour we did a mini testing house in Rome with Lee Shi Tian, Marco Del Pivo, and Christian Calcano, among others. We talked to each other over games of Sealed, hung out, and practiced together. We enjoyed the moment.



"What I will remember most is 100,000% the testing house. It was so much fun, the weather, the location, the trampoline, the barn next to us, Mengu coming over to help, and all of these players from different countries joining the testing house and sharing their cultures, snacks, and experiences. I remember it so vividly. We were outside in this beautiful garden playing Magic under the sun or filming funny skits for sponsors. When we'd lose, we'd just lay back and bounce on the trampoline. It was irreplaceable for me."



Sam Pardee has done it all in competitive Magic, from winning Pro Tour titles to dominating team events with regularity alongside Matt Nass and Jacob Wilson in the Grand Prix heyday. He circled this weekend on his calendar as soon as he could after the 2026 competitive play schedule was released, and it lived up to the wait.

"To me, these experiences define the Pro Tour," he said. "This is probably the fifth or so time that I've had the opportunity to spend extra time at a place post-Pro Tour when it's been at a cool international destination, and it's something that I'll cherish. When the Magic Spotlight: Marvel Super Heroes events were announced, Matt and I knew that we were going to play both together. We managed to coax Jacob Wilson out of retirement to play in Las Vegas, and we knew that we wanted to play one with Carolyn as well. This was the most natural setup for us.

"In Amsterdam, we did a ton of awesome stuff. We went to one of the greatest escape rooms any of us has ever done, we went on an amazing food tour, and on our final day in Amsterdam, we spent the day at the theme park. A highlight of the week between was how many cool Magic folks we got to hang out with. Michael Debenedetto-Plummer, Paul Cheon, Nam Dang, Matej Zatlkaj, Dana and Adam Fischer, and Brent Vos over the course of the week. It was very fun just walking around Amsterdam after the convention and randomly encountering other players who had stayed. It felt like we had infiltrated the city in some small way. If you're at all on the fence about adding time post-MagicCon for one of these week-long trips and you're able to, do it! You only get so many opportunities in your life to experience these awesome cities, and there's no group better than other Magic players to do it with."

And it was a heck of a way to spend a birthday.

"My dad and I had the whole week planned full of activities," said Dana Fischer. "First, we went to Germany since I had never been, then we met up with friends for a day and a half at Efteling amusement park. To cap it off, the Thursday before the Spotlight Series was my sixteenth birthday, so I celebrated it with dinner and a bunch of friends in Brussels!

"For the Spotlight Series, I teamed up with my friends and fellow young Magic players Charlie Fisman and Evan Higgins, who I knew from multiple Magic events. It came together since I wanted to team up with friends who were also young players who would be in Europe at the time. It was a ton of fun and getting to do it so far away made for some great memories."

Of course, the road between the two events was not quite smooth sailing for everyone. But you'll never have a great story of traveling the world on a Magic whim if you don't take Pardee's advice, something Australian Regional Champion Simon Linabury took to heart.

"Originally, I was lined up to play with a couple of friends from Australia who were also part of my Pro Tour testing crew. Unfortunately, this fell through two weeks before the tournament and I needed to find a new team," he explained. "Thanks to the power of the internet, I was able to connect with two players in the United States, Mark Jacobson and Edward Bontkowski, who I hadn't met before and were hoping to attend. We connected over Discord, had a chat about strategy, and got to know each other briefly over a call. It was really interesting to meet my teammates in person only 30 minutes before building decks together."

Linabury found himself on an impressive squad, and despite having never worked together, they finished Friday with a 5-2-1 record, narrowly missing Day Two. But on a trip like this one, the tournament finish at the end was always just a bonus.

"Team Limited is my favorite format. The last time I got a chance to play it, my team took down the whole tournament at Grand Prix Sydney 2017, so I was keen to do whatever I could to attend both events. It was a little bit shaky when my team fell through at the last minute, but I was lucky to get such a great team together," Linabury said. "I had an amazing week traveling Europe. It's a massive flight, with 32 hours travel time including layovers, so you have to make the most of traveling to Europe from Australia. After the Pro Tour, I took a detour to explore Düsseldorf for a few days before going to Brussels, experiencing museums and traditional cuisine in both. Then I spent a week in Greece after the tournament.

"It was an amazing experience overall. Getting to meet new friends from around the world is the best thing about playing competitive Magic. It was my first time attending a MagicCon, and I was blown away by how big it was and just how much was going on. Getting to explore new cultures and eat amazing food was another big perk. It was a very cool experience overall."

And it had been years in the making.

"What made this trip especially meaningful to me was the opportunity to finally visit Amsterdam, both the city itself and its museums," explained Thiago Souza. "Last year, I had planned to attend Magic Spotlight: Modern in Utrecht. I had booked accommodations, scheduled my vacation, and organized the entire trip. However, a few weeks before I was supposed to leave, my dog, Jake, took a turn for the worse with his cancer, and I decided to cancel everything so I could stay with him. It was the best decision I could have made. I had to give up a trip that had already been planned, but today I know I would make the exact same choice all over again.

"When MagicCon: Amsterdam was announced alongside the Spotlight Series event in Brussels, I felt as though I had been given a second chance. It almost felt like a gift from the universe after the choices I had made the previous year. I immediately went back to the plans I had made for that trip and started over. That's why this trip ended up meaning so much more to me than simply attending two Magic events. It was also a way of finally making a plan come true that I had been forced to leave behind."

Something not to be lost in these great locations is that the Magic being played across gardens and bar tops and train tables is all in service of a goal that very much mattered to over 1,500 competitors at the Spotlight Series. They all wanted to win or secure a Top 4 berth at Europe's first premier Team Sealed event in seven years. No other format engenders as much pride as Team Limited, and as Linabury alluded to, these events hold a special place in the pantheon of Magic events, dating back to legendary teams from decades ago—a number who came out of retirement for this weekend.

And they ran headlong into three of the most consistently excellent players in the world right now.

"Our squad for the event was Joseph Puglisi Clark, Zevin Faust, and Quinn Tonole, three founding members of Team Scrapheap!" Puglisi Clark explained. "Quinn, Zevin, and I have been playing Magic together for years. They were two of the first people I connected with when we decided to take competing seriously, and we created Team Scrapheap to push each other to new heights. I was originally not going to play Brussels after a disappointing near-miss 6th-place finish in Vegas alongside two other Scrapheapers, Corey Burkhart and my brother John, but Zevin and Quinn were looking to extend the trip to Brussels after Amsterdam and I couldn't pass up the chance to play trios with some of my closest friends and two stone-cold Limited masters.

"Team Limited is the best way to play Magic. It's just so much fun. You get the rush of winning your match when the whole team is counting on you to clutch up and the relief of losing your match but having your teammates win theirs."

With his Vegas finish on his mind, Puglisi Clark made sure to get in last-minute Magic practice before the Spotlight Series while enjoying the moments along the way.

"Between Amsterdam and Brussels, I went sightseeing with a bunch of other members of Team Handshake," he explained. "Arne, Stefan, Tristan, David Inglis, and I went to Antwerp, Bruges, and finally Brussels. We would wake up in the morning, have a coffee, build, rebuild, and rebuild a sealed pool, then go out and explore all day.

"At one point we went to a climbing adventure park that ended up being a great team-bonding exercise. They had ziplines and arial obstacles, all suspended way up in the canopy of this huge forest. Arne and I got some terrible advice from Zevin, so we went up onto the highest, hardest course. We climbed the first couple ladders. Then we climbed another couple of ladders. Then we climbed another couple of ladders. Then we climbed another couple ladders. Eventually we were standing on this little four-by-four platform at the very top of this huge tree and the platform was swaying back and forth in the wind. I'm pretty scared of heights, but there was nowhere to go but forward. I joked that this was good mental training for keeping one-landers in Modern! Pushing past my fear ended up being exhilarating and it was a great team-bonding experience."

Whether it was the precarious position or the practice pods, it all worked out for Puglisi Clark's team.

"The best moment for me was in Round 13. I was 100% locked in on my game and was absolutely focused on giving it my total concentration. We play a long, crazy game where I finally squeak out the win with The Sentry, Golden Guardian, one of my favorite cards in the set and always a source of drama one way or another when he hits play. I attacked for lethal and let out the breath I'd been holding in," he recalled. "Zevin reached over, patted me on the back, and said, 'Congratulations.' I thought he was just talking about the close game, not realizing he had won his match, and this made us 12-0, locked our spot in the Top 4, and requalified me for the Pro Tour! Those kinds of moments, like sharing a group hug with your friends who flew halfway around the world to compete alongside you and succeeding with them at beating world champions and some of the best players in the world along the way, those are the moments that make it all worth it. I'll remember sharing that moment with my friends forever."

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