Every two weeks before the Pro Tour, there's a rush to rent a house that can host 12 to 20 people for a week at a time. A "Pro Tour testing house," as it's known, is the stuff of competitive Magic lore, and for good reason. These homes are not just a setting that helps teams master Limited, break open Constructed formats, or share cuisines from across cultures. They're where players' most lasting memories of competitive Magic are made.
But who says a testing house has to be limited to the Pro Tour?
"Over the last month and a half, we have been testing two days a week as a team, and the cherry on top was the boot camp we did at our captain's house last weekend," explained Douglas Bailey from Houston, Texas. "We played Magic, went over the metagame, and did sideboard mapping for 48 hours. A huge shout-out to Courtney, Alan [Hubbard]'s wife, as she made insane food for us like she always does. She even made homemade chocolate Frosties!"
Alan Hubbard, along with Bailey, Chris Kral, and more from Team Main Phase taking part in the bootcamp, went as deep into Modern as you can go as they prepared for the biggest non-Pro Tour Modern event on their calendar: the upcoming Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit™ event in Dallas, Texas.
It's an event that Bailey wouldn't miss. He's been playing Modern for more than a decade, and even before the weekend of
Of course, that's the beauty of the Spotlight Series. You can show up with no previous tournament experience, play Magic for two days, and you walk away with a seat at the next Pro Tour (and you just might play against your favorite player or content creator on the way). It's that allure that has drawn players to this style of event for decades, and that excitement just brought almost 600 players to an event in Brisbane, Australia that was won by Jefferson Lee.
"A Pro Tour invitation has been my white whale for these last two years, as I have devoted a lot of my life to getting it but have failed a lot," said Bailey, "It is my dream and I feel like I keep putting myself in good situations to get it done eventually. I feel like Modern is wide open after the bans and you can really play anything as long as you have the reps and are prepared to have interaction against the Eldrazi and fast creature decks.
"I love competitive Magic and I will always make the effort to go to events, especially when they are in a city that is within driving distance. I also made the Top 8 of the last major Modern event in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so I need to "protect the home turf," as they say. I've put in a lot of work, so hopefully I get to the Top 8."
Bailey gave a high-level overview of the Modern format that will be on display this weekend, which is on everyone's mind coming off of the Modern rounds of Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes . The metagame was relatively open ahead of Brisbane's Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit event, and that looks to be true for Dallas as well. In Brisbane, Izzet Prowess won the event in Lee's hands, in a Top 8 that also included the powerful Broodscale Combo deck, a breakout Azorius
🏆Congratulations to the winner of #SpotlightTheHobbit here in Brisbane: Jefferson Lee, who surged to victory with Izzet Prowess!🏆
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) August 30, 2026
Jefferson takes home $10,000 in addition to a Pro Tour invitation, as well as becoming a Spotlight Series champion. GGWP! pic.twitter.com/HkAgwkExbV
Team Main Phase is just one of a number of teams that are the midst of a quietly busy stretch of Magic testing and events. In addition to the pair of Spotlight Series events on opposite sides of the world, there's also a pair of Regional Championships approaching in the United States.
"Team Main Phase has a fairly organized preparation program leading into major tournaments. For this stretch, we've been working especially hard over the past three or four weeks in preparation for Dallas and the two Regional Championships," Hubbard added. "Modern is the best format to play, but it may also be the most difficult format to break open with a new deck or archetype. I love the sheer variety of strategies that are available and the fact that so many different deck choices are defensible at the competitive level.
"While that diversity is one of Modern's greatest strengths, mastery of a particular deck can give you a significant edge. My advice is to identify a well-positioned deck a few weeks before the event and commit to it. Learn the matchups, establish clear sideboard plans, and put in enough reps to uncover the nuanced lines the deck can offer."
Hubbard is one of several members of the squad to identify Esper Blink as one of the format's top decks, but all of them stressed just how wide open the format is. That's an opinion also espoused by Chandler West, an Atlanta native who will be headed to Dallas after spending the last six weeks prepping with his friends on Team Spellbomb, a squad originally based out of Atlanta but that has grown beyond that to include more Modern enthusiasts who are working together for the chance to qualify for the Pro Tour.
"I think it's awesome that the Spotlight Series awards Pro Tour invitations. For many competitive players, we practice and play all year but only get to play in a handful of tournaments that can lead to the Pro Tour," West explained. "It's great to have additional opportunities! I was motivated to play by the draw of a high-stakes Magic event that was a short flight away. Being on a holiday weekend and in same format as the Regional Championship a week later were nice benefits."
Team Main Phase isn't the only team rolling into town.
"I'd love to shout out everyone on Team High Roll. Every single member of that team is awesome. I've loved seeing the team grow over all these years, specifically Brendan Hsu, who helped plan all the team testing sessions and book the testing house," explained Nicholas St. Martin, who is making the short trip from Austin to Dallas for the tournament. "We have been having team testing sessions every weekend for the past month to prepare. I've also been making an effort to play as much as I can, including a few leagues every week plus Friday Night Magic when I can make it, as well as watching all of riedq7's VODs.
"I really just want to make Day Two of this event. I've only been able to go to a few of events of this level of event. I've lost or got a draw in every win-and-in match so far, but I know I have what it takes to get there if I keep trying. My goals are just to make Day Two, but knowing there's a shot at going all the way to the Pro Tour ups the excitement!"
Check out these sweet lists - at the end of Round 12, all three of them are doing exceptionally well:
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) August 30, 2026
Azorius Loki - Brandon Rashad - 11-1
Boros Land Destruction - Simon Gautherin - 10-2
Dimir Midrange - Chang Gu - 9-2-1
We'll keep an eye on them as we head towards the Top 8! pic.twitter.com/E3pCDyfk81
When talking to players about the Spotlight Series in Dallas, two themes kept returning to the forefront: the opportunity to qualify directly for the Pro Tour and the opportunity to play Modern. That was the perfect combination to hook Deanthony Davis, another Hunter Burton Memorial Open Top 8 player who made it to the finals of a DreamHack event in Atlanta and finished in the Top 20 of the Spotlight Series event in Indianapolis last year.
"I've been playing Magic competitively since 2022, and I've had multiple near-misses at a Pro Tour qualification," revealed Davis, who has put in work with Team Swampwalk. "It's the end goal for pretty much everyone who plays competitively, so finally accomplishing that would mean the world to me. It would also be an opportunity to take my game to a whole new level.
"I play Modern regularly, and it has been my favorite format since I started playing competitive Magic. When preparing for Modern, I think the most important thing is making sure you're playing the best deck for you and constructing it in a way that gives you a chance against the top five or so decks in the format. Modern is so open that you can play almost anything you want. The key is having a strong list and playing a deck that you're comfortable with and can make little to no mistakes with. I think the metagame is going to be very open, and if that's the case, I think Indomitable Creativity is a great choice. People tend to discredit the deck, and I think that's often a mistake."
"Play your deck and play it well" has been long-standing advice for achieving success in Modern since that first Pro Tour and its "Infinity Faeries" and combos that, to this day, are banned. The rationale is straightforward. There are so many decks and disparate strategies that very rarely does something post a high-enough win rate against a wide portion of the field to truly break away in a given tournament. In other words, you have no idea what you're going to face over fifteen rounds at a Spotlight Series event where no deck is more than 10% of the field. Instead of trying to pick out the perfect deck, you're better off just learning the ins and outs of your own deck (one Nadu-sized exception notwithstanding).
That leads to a prevalence of "pet decks" like Davis's Creativity, and Modern is the format where those wild ideas can become reality. This is the format where, years into its existence, Skred Red randomly debuted and made the Top 8 of a Grand Prix, just as Lantern Control would famously go on to do years later on its way to winning a Pro Tour.
That's what originally drew Sam Holcombe to Magic, and it's the reason why he's traveling this weekend from San Diego to Dallas to compete.
"I've been playing Modern for about eight or nine years, it was the thing that really got me into Magic. I play Modern at least once a week in person, and I feel very familiar with the format," explained Holcombe, who has also been working on something of a pet deck involving
"My goal for this tournament is to make the Top 8, and I think that if I make the Top 8, I will have a good shot at winning unless I play against Boros Ponza. For me, making a Pro Tour from the Spotlight Series would be super cool because it's reminiscent of the old Grand Prix events. I also like tournaments where you play to the end. At the Spotlight Series, you want to play for the Top 8. Once you're in the Top 8, you want to play to win the whole thing. It's a tournament, and I love that it's competitive the whole way through."
