Paul Rietzl:

Magic player of all time, Kai Budde, âDo you think it is possible to be a successful pro while also living a ânormal lifeâ (work, school, fun), or is the necessary dedication and all the traveling too much?â His response was sage: âWith a normal job with actual 8-to-5 office hours, I don't see it. There's just too much traveling involved. Maybe if you do absolutely nothing else and burn your vacation for all events and your boss is an understanding guy, you could pull it off. But that sounds way too stressful to me.â Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa recently asked the greatestplayer of all time, Kai Budde, âDo you think it is possible to be a successful pro while also living a ânormal lifeâ (work, school, fun), or is the necessary dedication and all the traveling too much?â His response was sage: âWith a normal job with actual 8-to-5 office hours, I don't see it. There's just too much traveling involved. Maybe if you do absolutely nothing else and burn your vacation for all events and your boss is an understanding guy, you could pull it off. But that sounds way too stressful to me.â Welcome to my life.

Itâs a question that everyone has to face at some point: balancing fun with responsibility. Youth is often idealized in part because it is a time when the things that must be done are relatively minor. In childhood, one hopes that enjoyment is abundant. As the years progress, the weight of what needs to happen forces out what one wants to do.

Games let us hold reclaim that wonder for a few hours. They offer a chance to put everything else on hold. For the duration of play, the scale tips back to where enjoyment is all that matters.

Play is the best form of time travel.

Four Nights in Paris

Five years ago, everything was changing.

Magic was coming off the first of its âMost Successful Years Everâ with the conclusion of Zendikar. The growth was the impetus to examine the professional circuit and the best way to embrace the new players.

The game had returned to a beloved plane in Scars of Mirrodin, and Mirrodin Besieged signaled an ominous future. Standard was teetering on the edge of something big. The previous Player of the Year had yet to be determined.

And unknown to the masses, a future Hall of Famer was considering the best way to make a graceful exit from the game he loved.

Magic with thousands of players? Grab your cards and make plans to attend Magic Weekendâ âAre you ready to experience nonstopwith thousands of players? Grab your cards and make plans to attendWeekendâ Source)

Helene Bergeot, Director of Global Organized Play:

âA while ago, we shifted our focus from running tournaments to deliver events that feel like festivals instead, and we started with Grand Prix and Pro Tour. The idea behind this shift is driven by our overarching goal to deliver great and memorable experiences to Magic fans. At the end of the day, only one player will win a given Pro Tour or a given Grand Prix, and thereâs not much we (Wizards of the Coast) can do (nor should!) to impact the performance of a player. However, there is a lot we can do to influence the quality of their experience and make sure they have the time of their life, regardless of the way they perform in the tournament. Additionally, these events are a great opportunity for attendees to share their passion with other fans and socialize, and this is as aspect of the game we want to develop more and more at high-level events. The name âMagic Weekendâ was an attempt to communicate this to players, by emphasizing the social aspect of the event as opposed to focus solely on the tournament.â

Luis Scott-Vargas, Hall of Famer, Pro Tour Berlin Champion:

Magic Weekend] sounded pretty cool, though it was going to be a busy weekend. As a competitor, I liked the "backup" plan of playing the GP if the PT didn't go well, and having the GP be the same Limited format meant no additional prep was needed. As a commentator, it sounds like a very long weekend.â â[Weekend] sounded pretty cool, though it was going to be a busy weekend. As a competitor, I liked the "backup" plan of playing the GP if the PT didn't go well, and having the GP be the same Limited format meant no additional prep was needed. As a commentator, it sounds like a very long weekend.â

By winning the World Championship three months prior, Guillaume Matignon had pulled himself into a tie for the Player of the Year title with Brad Nelson. The first, and thus far only, time there has been a dead heat for the title, needed a suitable stage to play out. Magic Weekend was the perfect platform.

Magic Weekend Paris in a best-of-seven match featuring Constructed and Limited formats for the honor of joining such luminaries as Kai Budde, Jon Finkel, Gabriel Nassif, and Kenji Tsumura as the Pro Tour Player of the Year.â âBrad Nelson and Guillaume Matignon will battle atWeekend Paris in a best-of-seven match featuring Constructed and Limited formats for the honor of joining such luminaries as Kai Budde, Jon Finkel, Gabriel Nassif, and Kenji Tsumura as the Pro Tour Player of the Year.â Source)

Pro Tours are the mile markers of Magicâs history. Having one host the first ever Player of the Year playoff would make for an excellent roadside attraction. Add to the scene a Grand Prix in one of the great cities of the world, and you have all the makings of a Magic amusement park.

Brian David-Marshall, Pro Tour Historian:

âThroughout all my time either doing text coverage or Feature Match commentary I was pulling for a Player of the Year showdown. We had come close a couple of times as the Player of the Year race wound down and it was really a dream scenario for someone who loves Magic. It was highly elusive bonus Magic played at the very highest level of the game. When everything fell into place for Guillaume to end the previous Pro Tour season in a tie with Brad I was over the moon with excitement about it. I still have my Inkwell Looter tee-shirt and my Justin Treadway stickers to commemorate it.â

Image courtesy of Inkwell Looter

Better Than All

One key to the playoff and the Pro Tour was the new Standard format. Leading up to Paris, there had not been a standalone event that featured the now ubiquitous format. The now defunct National Championships mixed Draft with Standard in a format that now resembles an average Pro Tour. But Nationals used a different card pool with Shards of Alara block as opposed to the yet to be released Scars of Mirrodin. The World Championships had Draft, Standard, and Extended components. The Pro Tour directly before Paris, Amsterdam, also used the now defunct Extended format.

Standard was by no means unexplored, but this was the first event to explicitly focus on the format with access to Mirrodin Besieged. Why does this matter?

Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

Already a year old at this point, Jace was about to experience his first chance at a Pro Tour without natural check Bloodbraid Elf. While Jace, the Mind Sculptor was a key element of many decks during Nationals and had a prominent role in the U/B Control that Matignon had used to secure his World Championship, Paris would be a chance for Jace to shine even brighter. It just so happened this tournament saw Jace find his first sidekick of choice: Stoneforge Mystic.

Patrick Chapin, Hall of Famer, Pro Tour Journey into Nyx Champion:

âValakut has been the deck to beat or one of the decks to beat for quite some time. After gaining Green Sun's Zenith and Slagstorm , it was sure to continue to be the most popular strategy, but I didn't actually think that the likely new additions would make it that much better against the new generation of decks. Rather, I thought the new additions would initially make it better against old decks and worse against new decks until clever Valakut players figured out how to tune their lists to beat the new decks (such as using Lightning Bolt and Acidic Slime instead of garbage like Thrun and Koth out of their boards).â

âBrian Kibler showed off five cards that were going to take his Caw Go list, last seen at the World Championships in Chiba, from strong metagame deck to the format-defining deck for this chapter of Standard. With a grin wider than normalâif that is at all possibleâKibler fanned a playset of Stoneforge Mystic s and one Sword of Feast and Famine . That was the first time we heard about anyone playing the card, but it would become a common tandem of cards on the top tables through the weekend.â

The power of the combination is obvious in hindsight. Use Jace to see more cards and then Stoneforge Mystic to suit up any threat with an appropriately dangerous piece of Equipment. Throw Squadron Hawk into the mix, and now Jaceâs âdrawbackâ of putting cards back on top is now a steady stream of card advantage.

A Champion Returns

Paul Rietzl, Hall of Famer, Pro Tour Amsterdam Champion:

Entering this fray was Paul Rietzl. Rietzl had recently hoisted the Pro Tour trophy from a win in the Extended event in Amsterdam. Paul took down the tournament with a Steppe Lynxâfueled beatdown deck. Amsterdam was Rietzlâs second Pro Tour Top 8, but he had made a name for himself on the East Coast of the United States. Growing up in Boston Reitzl was able to work with the luminaries of Your Move Games where his strong play earned him the nickname Little Darwin after the Hall of Famer Darwin Kastle.

Magic player. "There were so many great players when I was younger. The Your Move Games guys like Darwin Kastle, Rob Dougherty, Dave Humphrys, Justin Gary, Chad Ellis, to name a few. There was a guy Danny Mandel, who had a short Pro Tour stint, and Chris Manning was another who had a huge influence. These were the big names in my area when I was starting to get competitive, and things wouldn't have been the same without them. The thing about playing back then was that when a little kid qualified for a Pro Tour, YMG took you in no matter what. If you won a PTQ at the store, you got to work with and test with YMG. So when I won my first PTQ, they gave me the deck, basically, and let me test with them. I got to see how they prepared for things as a team. I don't know if I could pick out a mentor, or anything, but simply the fact that I had all of this around me helped mold things. If I'd been born anywhere other than Boston, I don't think I would have become a goodplayer. I give complete credit to my network. They have made me what I am today.â

Even for a player with Paulâs pedigree, a Pro Tour is incredibly hard to win.

The mental grind and physical toll are real. There is an intensity to winning that only love of the game can overcome. There is a significant amount of skill required to succeed once, but to do so twice is more than doubly impressive. To make it to the elimination rounds in consecutive events would be downright amazing.

Rietzl approached this Pro Tour with a somewhat cavalier attitude. A lack of preparation led him to rely on familiarity. A familiar creature materialized on his shoulder, grinning all the way.

Standard at the Pro Tour turned out to be about three cards: the aforementioned Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Stoneforge Mystic, and Squadron Hawk. Four decks in the Top 8 ran two of these while three more ran all of them. The only holdout was Patrick Chapin who only was running Jace.

âCaw-Blade is a fundamentally solid strategy that will continue to perform well despite being aimed for. It's resilient full of good cards and has two of the three best cards in the format in it (Jace and Stoneforge Mystic but not Primeval Titan ).â

LSV:

âThis was the first event where we really prioritized meeting early (in San Diego, actually, before flying to Paris), and the first event where I feel that we really crushed it. Our deck and our results were absurd, and we felt very rewarded for the work we put in. This tournament really solidified us AS a team, and made us realize that we should treat ourselves as such. I don't have anything I would have done differently; things went about as well as they could have.â

Caw-Blade was the result of Team ChannelFireball rethinking how teams worked. The deck placed Ben Stark and Tom Martell in the Top 8, with Stark taking home the trophy. Eric Froehlich and Owen Turtenwald finished in the Top 16 with Luis Scott-Vargas, who lost the last round to Paul Rietzl.

Nate Price, Coverage Reporter and Community Manager:

ââAs soon as I heard them call my name for a feature match, I knew it couldn't be good,â Luis Scott-Vargas said as he moped into the arena, but he brightened as he saw his opponent for the round. âIf I had to battle somebody, at least it's someone I like,â he announced, as he reached to shake Paul Rietzl's hand. Only one of them could make the Top 8, and both of them knew it.â

The Swiss rounds ended on Friday. With a Top 8 in place, the Pro Tour took a back seat to the Mirrodin Besieged/Scars of Mirrodin Ssealed Grand Prix. A now quaint 2,179 players came to play in Paris, and they set the then-record for the most players ever at a Limited event.

âMeanwhile there was still the matter of a 2,200-person Grand Prix to be settled. While most of the other players in the Top 8 of the Pro Tour chose to take a day off from Magic, Paul Rietzlâfacing what he deemed to be an unwinnable matchup in the quarterfinals decided to play and see if he could not get some sort of hedge against his looming ouster in the round of eight.â

Tim Willoughby, Coverage Reporter:

âWhen Paul Rietzl came to Paris, he came to game. Game he did. On Thursday, he played 8 rounds at the Pro Tour, going 6â1â1. On Friday, he secured his Top 8 position, going 6â2. Knowing that he was in the Top 8, he could have had a little rest on Saturday, in preparation for a hectic Top 8. Instead he enrolled in the GP, where after his three byes, he posted a 6â1 record.â

âSaturday morning rolled around, and it was Grand Prix time! Of course, I had no intention of actually playing, but Scott Larabee made it clear that in order to collect my Level 7 appearance fee, I would actually have to register and build a Sealed deck, at which point I'd be listed as finishing in the event. My plan was to concede to the first friend I was paired against and drop from the event to test my quarterfinals matchup with Patrick (Chapin). I never even sleeved my deck.â

David Sutcliffe, Coverage Reporter:

âHaving played his way into the Pro Tour Top 8 on Friday, Rietzl carried right on and tore it up in the Grand Prix on Saturday, finishing with a 9â1 record, just behind Kai Budde in the blue portion of the Grand Prix. That gave him a dilemma for the next morning as he had to be in two places at once. Fortunately, Rietzl had a solution. Having play-tested his Pro Tour quarterfinal matchup against Chapinâs deck, he had branded it âunwinnableâ anyway. Given that he predicted a swift Pro Tour demise, Rietzl would draft for the Grand Prix then race away to the Pro Tour feature match area where Pat Chapin had promised, âIâll try to beat you quicklyâ. It was a win-win situation for Rietzlâif he won the quarterfinal, then he would drop from the Grand Prix, but if he lost, he could come back and would be 9â2 and still able to play for a place in the Top 8.â

Rietzl:

âAs you may know by now, that never happened. I went 9â1 with a fairly busted B/G infect deck topped off with a Massacre Wurm and was faced with the very real prospect of having two premier events in a single day. Many people came up to me and asked me what in the heck I was doing. âPlaying Magic,â I replied. âWhat am I supposed to be doing?â âAs we arrived at the site, Kai again expressed bewilderment at my presence in the GP, but I explained that since my matchup with Patrick was so poor, it made sense to give myself a backup plan.â

Bergeot:

âWe identified this possibility as a risk and had adjusted the tournament structure accordinglyâthe Grand Prix ran on Saturday and Sunday as traditionally, but the Pro Tour took a day off on Saturday to avoid the conflict with the Grand Prix. Additionally, we started the Top 8 of the Pro Tour later than usual on Sunday (midday from what I recall) to further mitigate this potential conflict.â

âWhile quarterfinal opponent Paul Rietzl spent the lion's share of his Saturday Grand Prixing, I relaxed a bit did some railbirding, went shopping with my good friend Liz (Nassif's GF), and tested my matchup against Paul. It looked good but not great as careful and informed play on his part brought the matchup much closer to 60% than what it looked like in Swiss. Rietzl had tested the matchup as well and knew that it was a rough one for him (though he believed it closer to 67%). His plan was to play out our match take a loss in the GP then go back to that event and try to win that one. Easy game I guess.â

Bergeot:

âSo, we were prepared to this eventuality. When it turned out that Paul Rietzl would be in that position, we slowed down some of the rounds to let him the chance to finish playing in the GP round before going back to the PT and vice versa.â

While all this was going on, Brad Nelson managed to defeat Guillaume Matignon and become Player of the Year. That story dominated the narrative leading up to Paris but as Saturday turned to Sunday, and new novel was being written. Paul Rietzl was doing something no one had seen.

And he was loving every minute of it.

Balancing Act

âSunday started earlier for Paul Rietzl than the other players in the Top 8 as he had an 8:00 A.M. date with a Draft table for day two of the GP. His plan was top draft, register his deck, take a Round 1 loss, lose to Patrick Chapin, and then resume his Grand Prix.â

âI opened a Phyrexian Crusader and forced a mediocre infect deck, quickly registering and handing in a decklist to a judge while, âPAUL RIETZL, Please report to the Pro Tour Feature Match area,â blasted over the public address system. I sprinted across the hall where the Innovator awaited and set to sleeving up my deck. Simultaneously, some lucky soul moved to 10â1 in the Grand Prix, handily defeating my empty chair.â

âA funny thing happened on the way to the Feature Match arena, though, and Rietzl swept past Chapin in three games through a combination of solid draws and excellent reads. He managed to get it done just in time, too, as pairings for Round 2 of the Grand Prix went up moments after swinging in for the win.â

âThere was not much I could do Game 1, as my draw just didn't match up well to his, and he played very tight. Game 2, I was easily beating him and ended up again in a situation where I was so far ahead that I didn't see how I could lose. Rietzl, on the other hand, is a champion and looked for how to give himself the 1% chance to actually get out of the game. He needed to draw very well for several turns for me to make a few minor mistakes and for me to draw terribly, but he found the line, and I made enough mistakes while drawing poorly enough for him to turn the tables.â

Rietzl:

âI literally left my creatures and lands strewn on the table as I dashed back across the hall, where pairings were being posted for Round 12 of the Grand Prix. With a few hours before the Semis of the Pro Tour, I saw no reason yet to drop, even if I would eventually have to take another match loss. I split the next two rounds of Grand Prix Paris to move to 10â3 and readied for another Draft.â

Willoughby:

âThis led to what might be the most ridiculous Sunday of play that has ever occurred at the Pro Tour. Rietzl was at the venue at 8:00 A.M., to draft in the GP. He built his deck and then scurried to the Pro Tour area to play his quarterfinals. In his quick 3â0 against Patrick Chapin, he did take a match loss in the Grand Prix. With the first Draft deck, he then went 1â1 and drafted a second time. He notched up one more win before he came to the semifinals.â

Bergeot:

âTo be honest, it was completely insane to see him playing nonstop and constantly switching gear between the Pro Tour and the Grand Prix. As far as Iâm concerned, I build a whole new level of respect for Paul since there are not so many players who would be able to display such a mental dexterity.â

BDM:

Magic.â âI was kind of amazed that it happened. There is usually a level of cautiousness of the part of the Wizards event staff to err on the side of cautionâand rightfully soâand this could have easily become a No Fun League moment. Instead, they let the excitement of the moment drive things forward, and it became another remarkable part of a remarkable weekend of.â

âAs Game 2 was getting underway, I got some good news. Rather than taking a match loss for failing to show up to the Grand Prix, they were bringing the Grand Prix to me! I quickly won another match with my beast of a R/G deck to take my GP record to 12â3 and returned to defeat Vincent (Lemoine). After the semis ended, they again brought my GP match into the PT feature match area. This time, I'd have to face Marijn Lybaert. I had time to run quickly to the bathroom and receive a few good luck wishes along the way before loading up my iPod and pacing around the feature match area, waiting for my chance at history.â

âTh[en], he played with a Grand Prix match between games, then yet another Grand Prix match after he had won the semis. To cap it all off, there was the Pro Tour final against Ben Stark.â

If our story was turned into a movie, this is when the music builds to a crescendo. Everyone is rooting for the hero and now their greatest, most daunting task is at hand. The audience is transfixed, and our protagonist overcomes incredible odds to earn a victory.

But no one in those stories ever had to deal with the unstoppable force of Caw-Blade.

LSV:

âBecause of Caw-Blade, I feel that this was one of the more memorable PTs, as the deck led to the first Standard bannings in years.â

âRietzl was on the play in this one. As tends to be his custom, he took his time about mulligan decisions, and he ultimately chose to send his seven back. The six didn't look too sharp either. It was a perturbed Rietzl who looked at his five-card hand, nodded, and kept. Rietzl was still on just two lands, though, while Stark was up to 4. He had little in the way of offence, unable to break through the stream of 1/1 fliers from Stark. Rietzl started casting hawks of his own, but behind on land, he could not mount much of an offence. Stark showed a Day of Judgment, further slowing the pace of the game. Each player knew that the longer the game went on, the more Stark was favored, but Rietzl didn't seem to have the tools to force anything through. Rietzl looked to the crowd standing near the feature match arena and saw a crowd of Ben's friends. "That is a very bad sign," he remarked. Jace started fatesealing, and Paul knew it was over. He didn't need to wait to see what he drew when the card stayed on top. Ben cast another Baneslayer Angel, and Rietzl extended his hand. Ben Stark defeats Paul Rietzl 3â1 to become the Pro Tour Paris Champion! âI've been dreaming about this since I was fourteen," said Ben, suddenly struck by what he had achieved. "Congratulations," Paul replied. "You deserve it.ââ

âIn total in all this time, ignoring byes and his match loss for being busy with a Pro Tour match, Paul posted a record of 24â6â1 on the weekend. That is a 77% win percentage on 31 rounds of play in four days. When I spoke to him after receiving his trophy, he seemed tired, a little bemused, but happy. The loss in the finals still stung a little, but he was still chipper about filling in forms to handle the money he would receive for finishing 24th in the Grand Prix.â

Paul Rietzl finished second in the Pro Tour. He ended the Grand Prix with twelve wins against three losses. One of those losses was when he failed to show up for his first Draft match because he was facing off against Patrick Chapin in the quarterfinals of the Pro Tour.

If the timing had been a little better, Paul may have made the elimination rounds of both events.

LSV:

âIt was a cool weekend. Between the team doing well, BenS winning the PT, myself, Owen (Turtenwald), and Efro (Eric Froehlich) barely missing Top 8, and Paul Rietzl attempting to double-queue the PT and GP, there was a lot going on. I just wish Paul could have played the GP without getting a match loss, as him Top 8ing both events would have been incredibleâ

Magic than me this weekend." âFlying home, I'll be happy. I came to play and I don't think anyone has played morethan me this weekend."

Clean Up

Aaron Forsythe, Director of R&D:

âThe Standard metagame is stagnant and unhealthy at the moment, and has been for months. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is appearing in winning deck lists an alarming percentage of the time, with Stoneforge Mystic appearing almost as often. For reference, 88% of the decks in Day 2 of Grand Prix Singapore contained multiple copies of Jace, and almost 70% of the Day 2 decks contained Stoneforge Mystic . The numbers from Pro Tour Qualifiers and independent large events like the StarCityGames.com Open Series look very similar. We haven't seen cards dominate the field like this, possibly ever. Even in the heyday of Affinity (the last deck to require such drastic measures in Standard), we weren't seeing anything like this level of homogeneity. When you realize that both cards, besides being dominant in Standard, are top tier in Constructed formats of all sizes up to and including Legacy (and even Vintage for Jace), it becomes harder and harder to argue that the cards are anything but flat-out too powerful.â

Bergeot:

âMy first takeaway was that experimenting is the best way to learn! On paper, combining a Grand Prix and a Pro Tour seemed to be like the best thing ever; we were thinking that each event would become better because of the proximity of the other one. Instead, itâs quite the opposite that happened. Both events ended up competing, not only logistically, and also from a narrative standpoint. It created some confusion, and players did not know anymore what to pay attention to! As an example, I remember my excitement when I realized that Kai Budde was in the Top 8 of the Grand Prix. However, there was so much happening on site that it was completely lost and most people on site were not even aware of this performance. I also had the opportunity to discuss with a number of players participating in the Grand Prix (it helps that French is my native language!), and it turned out that the fact there was a Pro Tour at the same time was not adding (at all!) to their excitement. They were there for participating in Grand Prix, period. And overall, the event was truly overwhelming because of the number of moving parts and sheer amount of concurrent activities. I felt that the overall quality of the event suffered from the overabundance of events.â

LSV:

âHaving played the event, I found that the GP part wasn't as notable as I thought. It took some attention away from the PT, while also being less important than a normal GP because of the PT overshadowing it. I don't think I'd repeat this experiment, and it hasn't been repeated since.â

Bergeot:

âIt was really a turning point; I realized that trying to do too much is often detrimental to the quality of execution of every component. Better to run separately a Grand Prix and a Pro Tour and have perfect execution for each. This realization triggered the decision to stop running side events at Pro Tour (focus became our motto) and find alternative ways to deliver a great experience for the attendees. It also encouraged us to continue innovating and take some calculated risksâultimately, Modern Masters Weekend was made possible because of Magic Weekend. We will keep going in this direction, refine our programs, and experiment, as a way to offer a better and better experience to Magic players!â

Rietzl:

Magic, specifically drafting. Finally, with three PT Top 8s at the time, the possibility of one day being inducted into the Pro Tour Hall of Fame did enter my mind. It seemed like a longshot, but it's a lot easier to keep plugging along and try to spike another tournament than it is to quit for a few years and try to come back again.â âThere wasn't one specific thing that made me kind of rededicate myself. Actually, there were probably four major factors. The first was the formation of the Pantheon (this was before sponsorship by SCG or CFB or anyone). Feeling like I'd actually have a shot to be prepared for the tournaments made it a lot easier to get onto their airplanes and leave home. The second was being Platinum in the Pro Players Club. Even for some tournaments, I may not have been my best; I felt compelled to attend by the equity of platinum. The third was the set Innistrad. Like many people, Innistrad reinvigorated my love for, specifically drafting. Finally, with three PT Top 8s at the time, the possibility of one day being inducted into the Pro Tour Hall of Fame did enter my mind. It seemed like a longshot, but it's a lot easier to keep plugging along and try to spike another tournament than it is to quit for a few years and try to come back again.â

Jason Lemahieu, Level 5 Judge:

âI got to see some important moments at a recent Grand Prix Minneapolis involving Paul that I think speak highly of his character and sportsmanship, both of which occurred on Day 2. I saw Paul go to time in one of his matches against a player I didnât recognize. Paul had a completely dominating board presence, and his Courser of Kruphix revealed even more answers on top of his library. His opponent had no cards in hand and effectively no chance of winning. Paul calmly and politely explained the situation, something along the lines of: âIâm just going to put my hand on the table here so you can take a look at it. A drawâs no good for either of us, and I think youâd agree both that I played at a reasonable pace all match and that Iâd clearly win this match if it went to its natural conclusion. Would you be willing to concede?â The opponent declined (and please understand Iâm not trying to get into the ethics of the situation here). Paul didnât push him. Paul didnât get upset. Paul simply said, âOK.â They filled out the match slip, and Paul wished his opponent good luck in the later rounds. Two rounds later, Paul again went to time, only this time, the situation was reversed. Paul was the one up against the ropes, and it was clear that, if the match played out with more time, he would not win. Clearly, a professional player is looking for all the points, and all the highest finishes he can get. And especially after what just happened two rounds earlier, Paul couldâve easily been tilted by his opponentâs lack of concession and used it to (try to) justify not conceding here as well. But Paul didnât do any of those things. Paul conceded. Itâs rare to get to see someone on both sides of the situation so closely together, and was a relief to see Paul behave incredibly sporting both times.â

Rietzl:

Magicâfriends and competition. I'm not interested in acclaim or feeling clever or anything like that. I want to give myself a chance to win a World Championship before I hang it up. That said, to fit Magic into my life, I make sure the time I DO spend on Magic is used preparing myself for tournaments. That means lots of format-relevant practice and (sadly) very little Cube. As long as I'm Platinum, I will still find a way to attend all the Pro Tours. But I'm very particular about the Grand Prix I attendâno connecting flights, nothing over three hours away, nothing that will cause me to miss work. I'm past the part of my life where I can go to everything and take redeye flights. And I never attend a tournament that can't contribute to my goal of winning Worlds. âI think of the quote from the last The Matrix movie. There are levels of survival I am willing to accept. I work hard to keep my priorities straight. My family is first, my job is second, and my hobbies are dead last. I've figured out at this point what I want fromâfriends and competition. I'm not interested in acclaim or feeling clever or anything like that. I want to give myself a chance to win a World Championship before I hang it up. That said, to fitinto my life, I make sure the time I DO spend onis used preparing myself for tournaments. That means lots of format-relevant practice and (sadly) very little Cube. As long as I'm Platinum, I will still find a way to attend all the Pro Tours. But I'm very particular about the Grand Prix I attendâno connecting flights, nothing over three hours away, nothing that will cause me to miss work. I'm past the part of my life where I can go to everything and take redeye flights. And I never attend a tournament that can't contribute to my goal of winning Worlds. How highly the deeply enfranchised (read: old) players prioritize Magic is really the only obstacle to their continued success. Certainly if children or a career cause people to completely forgo preparationâsure, those players will fade away. But Magic has a built-in mechanism to mitigate the deleterious effect of aging. Namely, it significantly rewards experience. Pattern recognition goes a long way. It was a wild weekend for me. I showed up the day before the event, copied a decklist from an SCG Open. I'd never drafted the new set. But man was I relaxed. I had absolutely no pressure because I had no expectations. So I never thought big picture. It was just shuffle, make a good mulligan decision, play my Steppe Lynx, curve out perfectly, mana screw this guy, open a perfect Sealed deck, etc.â

Paul Rietzl has certainly found the winning pattern. Since his finals appearance in Paris, this is his resume:

2 Grand Prix Wins (1 team)

2 Grand Prix finals (1 team)

6 Grand Prix Top 8s

1 Pro Tour Top 8

1 World Championship Top 4

Despite the steps back from the game, Paul Rietzl is a player at the height of his powers. He is also enjoying the game in a way few others can. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the class of 2014.

Magic Weekend in Parisâlooking back now, it is so easy to see how things could have gone wrong, and yet, it all went so right. It was an event pulled directly from the mind of a young gamer prompted with the question, âWhat is the biggest, craziest weekend of Magic you can imagine?â

And in the intervening years, Paris has been dwarfed. Grand Prix routinely outpace the 2,179 players in the Grand Prix. The most recent Modern Masters weekend event in Las Vegas was prepared for nearly ten times that number of players.

In hindsight, Paris wasnât about the buildup, but rather, the aftermath. Caw-Blade broke Standard and had to be banned. ChannelFireball established themselves as a dominant force on Tour. Later that year, Matignon would face a suspension for his role in the New Phyrexia leak. Grand Prix continue to grow, becoming the centers of play that we know today.

But the afterimage of the event is Paul Rietzl, running from match to match, from Constructed to Limited.

It was four days in Paris that heralded the changes to come.

Magic has grown and will continue to grow because of joy. Because players everywhere dream of success at the highest level, and while few can achieve that, many more can relate with the absolute pleasure of playing good games.

Because as soon as anyone scoops up his or her cards in defeat, the thing he or she canât wait to do is shuffle up for the next game. Playing Magic is fun.

If we are to be envious of Paul, it should not be because of his skill or accolades, but because he got to play more Magic than anyone else that weekend.

Rietzl:

Magic. Stay loose, try my best, let it go at the end of the day and go grab a beer.â âThe Pro Tour and the Grand Prix just blended together. You know how sometimes you are drafting with your friends and all of a sudden it's 2:00 A.M., 4:00 A.M., wait, is that the sun? That was my four days in Parisâjust a whirlwind. I'm lucky that experience happened to me when I was 25 and before I was elected to the Hall of Fame. I didn't have time to get bogged down in the history of what was happening. I was too busy having a blast. I guess, on some level, that's always been my approach to. Stay loose, try my best, let it go at the end of the day and go grab a beer.â

Special thanks to Helene Bergeot, Brian David-Marshall, Paul Rietzl, and Luis Scott-Vargas for their cooperation.