This Week in Magic: Friday, April 18th

Posted on April 18, 2025

Andrew Baeckstrom Wins Spotlight Series Denver

And we have a champion! After a thrilling finals in which Andrew Baeckstrom drew every land in his deck in the second game... only to come back and win, the hometown hero defeated Jody Keith to win #SCGDenver and earn the title of champion of Magic Spotlight: Dragons!

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— Play Magic (@playmagic.com) April 14, 2025 at 1:02 AM

This past weekend saw Spotlight Series: Dragons take over Denver, Colorado as players arrived from all over to jam Tarkir: Dragonstorm Limited. With Pro Tour invites and major cash prizes on the line, over 1200 players attempted to go for the gold. In the end, Andrew Baeckstrom took the event down after two grueling days of intense Limited gameplay, starting with Sealed on day one and several rounds of Draft on day two. Congratulations on the victory, Andrew!

Additionally, this event saw a heavier emphasis on coverage of two of the game's biggest names: Reid Duke and Luis Scott-Vargas. Neither player ended up making day two, however the coverage of their matches was very much the talk of the town all over social media. Players loved it - to the surprise of few given the historical pedigree of "GP Reid Duke" in 2018 - and it could signal more of this style of coverage in the coming months.

Magic Online Experiences DDoS Attacks

We're aware of ongoing issues causing games to become stuck and some players to be forcefully logged out. Our team is actively working to mitigate a series of DDoS attacks and restore full service as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.
— Magic Online (@magiconline.bsky.social) April 15, 2025 at 11:06 AM

Over the weekend, popular MTG digital client Magic Online began experiencing some issues. This became most prevalent on Sunday when the entire server seemed to crash, resulting in several major events being taken down with players being reimbursed. While things seemed to settle, the issues eventually picked up once again with further problems coming about over the following days. On Tuesday, Daybreak Games revealed that these issues were caused by an ongoing series of DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. The team has been hard at work on solving this issue, though it remains to be seen exactly how or when these attacks will cease. Please be mindful of this as you play the game over the course of the coming weeks.

Acclaimed Video Game Blue Prince Has Incredible Magic Ties

Earlier this month, the indie mystery video game Blue Prince was released. With it came glowing reviews from outlets almost across the board, earning a Metacritic score in the low 90s (currently sitting at 93 at the time of writing). This puts it as not only the highest rated video game of the year thus far, but also one of the best reviewed games of all time. The game currently sits just outside of the top 100 best reviewed games on the website.

So why the focus on a mystery video game in an article of Magic: The Gathering? Many players were shocked to discover this past week that this critically acclaimed video game was funded largely by ad revenue from popular Magic website Mythic Spoiler. This site is well known as being a resource for people to go find the most recent Magic previews shortly after their reveal. A statement on the website revealed this fact, and several reviewers of the game noted the "drafting" mechanic was both a riff on a sort of architectural draft as well as the concept of drafting in Magic.

It's incredible to see such a beloved website in the Magic scene lead to such a monumental achievement in modern video gaming. You can find Blue Prince digitally on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X today and show your support if you'd like.

Decklist of the Week

Rakdos Reanimator | TDM Standard | slaxx, 1st Place MTGO Standard Showcase Qualifier

Creatures (20)
2 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
2 Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness
2 Valgavoth's Faithful
2 Valgavoth, Terror Eater
4 Fear of Missing Out
4 Overlord of the Balemurk
4 Tersa Lightshatter

Sorceries (6)
2 Duress
4 Zombify

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

This past Sunday saw several weekend events come to a screeching halt on Magic Online as the client experienced a severe crash. Thankfully, the major Standard Showcase Qualifier event managed to get back on track. While no official lists have been posted due to this crash, the players have been sharing their results on social media. Player slaxx, perhaps better known as Jesse Hampton, took down the event with this interesting Rakdos Reanimator build, taking advantage of the new Tersa Lightshatter card to put creatures into the graveyard for an easy cast later in the game.

Paige Smith

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