"Quinn Tonole and the Magebane Lizards."

That's the name I made up while watching the masters of Mono-Red at work, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. It sounds like something a band you might see from the KEXP Secret Lair drops. That's fitting, because Tonole and the rest of his crew certainly rocked Hartford last weekend, where they put on quite the show. Their audience was filled with looks of abject despair on the faces of opponents who pick up Magebane Lizard to read it.

Let me back up a little bit. May 17–18 was the fourth weekend of Regional Championships this cycle, with twin events taking place in Asia and the United States. Players battled in Standard Constructed for their spots at the Pro Tour and Magic World Championship 31. For the more than 900 players who turned up in Hartford, it looked a lot like the first US Regional Championship of the cycle, which was held in Minneapolis and won by Casey Miller on Jeskai Control.

The elephant in the room was the pile of Monk tokens provided by Cori-Steel Cutter, the best card in the best deck in the format: Izzet Prowess. This aggressive deck has taken over the format since the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and players across the world have been working their way through the changes in the metagame since the RC cycle began last month. In that time, we've seen the rise of Prowess, new archetypes to combat it like Jeskai Control, and the resurgence of previously popular strategies like Dimir Midrange and Mono-Red Aggro. Over the course of major events in Japan, Europe, the United States, and more, we've seen the format shift around Izzet Prowess as players adapt and push back.

All of that resulted in a Hartford tournament field that Tonole and the rest of his testing squad, Team Scrapheap, felt was ripe for the picking—especially thanks to a trick they had up their sleeves for this weekend.

"I knew I had one of the best Mono-Red Aggro lists going into the RC in Minneapolis, and I thought of a pretty substantial upgrade to the list while at that event that would make it even better positioned in the Prowess-dominated metagame," Tonole explained. "A functional draw with a Magebane Lizard is almost unbeatable by Prowess."

A flash of Magic inspiration had hit him. Two weeks later, Tonole and crew were off and running with their newly tuned Mono-Red lists. While Tonole flamed out of the Regional Championship on Day One, his friend and teammate Percy Fang did not. In fact, the Las Vegas native dropped just a single match on Day One of the Regional Championship in Connecticut, eventually earning his way into the Top 8 on tiebreakers as the eighth and lowest seed.

But all it takes is a chip and a chair, and a deck that beats Prowess. That's what Fang had, and two grueling days of Magic later, he'd won a trophy, a title, and a World Championship invite. Not bad for someone who up until recently wasn't playing Magic at all.

"I took a while off, so I didn't even have the cards for the tournament," Fang said with a grin in the moments after he dispatched Chris Botelho's Azorius Control deck in the finals. "I've been working to get caught back up. My first tournament back was the MTG Arena Qualifier Weekend a few months ago where I played Quinn's Mono-Red list from the World Championship."

And how did that first event back work out for Fang? Well, it was a start, as you might expect. What you probably didn't expect—Fang certainly didn't—was for that famously difficult qualifier tournament to turn into a step back and a qualification for Arena Championship 8. And what no one saw coming? Fang's run to the finals of that tournament, playing—you guessed it—Mono-Red Aggro.

Fang didn't know Tonole well at the time, but already the Mono-Red master had made Fang's transition back to competitive player both smoother and more successful than he could have hoped. It was natural for Fang to try and connect, which he did ahead of the Regional Championship cycle—and did it ever work out.

From the eighth seed to the top spot! Congratulations to Percy Fang, who defeated Chris Botelho in the finals of the Regional Championship at @SCGCON Hartford to claim the title!

Fang brought Mono-Red because he liked its Prowess matchup, and the choice paid off with a trophy! pic.twitter.com/DTiF6YVEw7

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) May 18, 2025

Tonole spoke highly of his friend, saying that "Percy's strengths as a player are his creativity and his risk-taking, which are good skills to have in Magic generally but become exceptionally helpful when playing Mono-Red; he knows when he needs to go for it with Monstrous Rage into possible removal, or cast creatures in a possible Wrath. He knows when he had the leeway to play it slower and play around those cards. He has a very good handle on what is happening in the game, and he uses this to come up with creative lines when he's behind and make sure he plays around everything possible when he's ahead," Tonole marveled of Fang's play.

"After basically every round, we would talk about a certain spot in his match and I would say, 'I would do this.' Sometimes he would respond, 'even though the opponent might have this card?' and then I would have to reconsider. I was unsurprised to hear that he won the Top 8."

Arena Championship 8. Regional Championship Hartford. Two major events, two impressive finishes for Fang. And what did he credit most for his success? You guessed it again: Magebane Lizard—and Tonole.

If that's where this story ended, it would be an incredible weekend for the group, a team triumph that resulted in some hardware everyone felt like they had at least some hand in, and a nice dinner to celebrate. But this tale doesn't stop there, because Tonole didn't stop playing when he fell out of contention at the Regional Championship.

"I decided to play in the Standard event because I was sure I could do well but also because I didn't bring any other cards besides the 75 cards that I played. I thought it would be a waste to travel to Hartford and not play in the event," Tonole explained. "I'm very comfortable playing Mono-Red Mice because I've been playing it since Worlds. When I'm able to adjust it to make it favorable into the expected metagame, it gives me additional confidence."

That brings us back to Magebane Lizard, an unassuming two-drop that quietly filled a massive hole in Mono-Red.

"I started with two copies in the deck and quickly went up to three. Then, a couple of days before the tournament, the group I was working with thought Prowess would be around 35% of the field, so I went up to the full four copies," he recalled. "But playing a four-of sideboard card in the main deck is only possible because Magebane Lizard isn't an embarrassing card in non-Prowess matchups. It being a 1/4 creature means it dodges Lightning Helix and Nowhere to Run. It being a Lizard lets you give it haste with Rockface Village and trigger Hired Claw when the Hired Claw itself is unable to attack. Even if none of these come up in a game, Magebane Lizard will still deal 2 or 3 damage when they cast removal on your other creatures.

"Team Scrapheap made an Orzhov Demons deck that I tried, which ended up being a decent choice for the weekend, but none of them were enthusiastic about playing Mono-Red. So, I made the list with Percy and Max Medeiros in a group brought together by Dylan Nollen. Both groups knew that whatever deck we played needed to have a favorable matchup against Prowess, otherwise the deck was a nonstarter. For Mono-Red, we knew this meant playing Magebane Lizards in the main deck, and we realized that once the Prowess matchup was good, the majority of the other matchups in the field were already favorable for the Mice shell, so we didn't have to do too much other work except for finding the best sideboard slots to replace the Magebane Lizards that were now in the main deck."

And those Lizards were just as good for Tonole as they had been for Fang on the opposite side of the convention center hall. Just a few hours after Fang tilted the Regional Championship trophy to the sky, Tonole did the same. Two huge events, two huge victories, and two champions from one team of Mono-Red devotees who weren't scared to think outside the box and take risks—and to take the Magebane Lizards out of the sideboard.

Quinn Tonole is your $10K Standard RCQ winner at SCG CON Hartford, putting up an impressive 11-1 record with Mono-Red Aggro! 🔥#SCGHartford

Become a champion at the next one!👇https://t.co/d8Cg8rBT1N pic.twitter.com/SInUnnwafu

— Star City Games (@StarCityGames) May 19, 2025