Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa wins World Championship XXVI: recap and decklists

The World Championship XXVI took place this weekend, from February 14 to February 16, 2020, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Let's go to the summary of what happened in the three days of the championship!

All decklists and players can be seen here.

The 16 league players can also be seen below:

With a metagame composed mainly of 4 decks:

Summary

Day 1

The new structure of the World Championship made day 1 divide the 16 players into two groups of eight for three rounds of draft and then organized the players into two new groups (winner and elimination) for three rounds of Standard.

Eliminated in day 1

Matias Leveratto with Temur

Andrea Mengucci with Mono Red

Javier Dominguez with Jeskai

Ondrej Stráský with Azorius

Advanced to Play-in

Gabriel Nassif with Jeskai

Raphaël Lévy with Jeskai

Chris Kvartek with Temur

Autumn Burchett with Temur

Sebastián Pozzo with Monored

Jean-Emmanuel Depraz with Temur

Thoralf Severin with Azorius

Piotr Grogowski with Jund Aristocats

Went direct to Top 8

Márcio Carvalho with Jeskai

Eli Loveman with Mono-Red

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa with Azorius

Seth Manfield with Mono Red

Best play

Thoralf Severin won a spot for Play-in a game he had apparently lost.

Ondrej draw the entire deck and could not attack with Dream Trawler, but had lethal damage with his tokens. When attacking with the tokens, Thoralf cast a spell and countered it with Absorb, gaining 3 life and not dying for the tokens. On the way back, Ondrej would have to draw a card and he would lose the game, so he decided to concede.

DAY 2

PLAY-IN

TOP 8

Top 8 players:

Márcio Carvalho with Jeskai

Eli Loveman with Mono-Red

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa with Azorius

Seth Manfield with Mono Red

Sebastián Pozzo with Monored

Autumn Burchett with Temur

Gabriel Nassif with Jeskai

Jean-Emmanuel Depraz with Temur

The Top 8 was divided into two groups: who passed directly and who passed to it by Play-in. Who passed directly had to play less games and had the right to lose at least one match.

DAY 3

TOP 4

In the end, 4 players wen to Day 3. The top 4 took a photo of themself in the beach of Honolulu, where the tournament was happening:

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa with Azorius

Márcio Carvalho with Jeskai

Gabriel Nassif with Jeskai

Seth Manfield with Mono Red

Final

The final was decided by Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa with Azorius Control against Márcio Carvalho with Jeskai Fires. Portugual against Brazil. The decklists can be seen bellow:

The final consisted of 4 games of Best of 3.

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa won the first best of 3. Narset, Parter of Veils played a significant role in both games, preventing Márcio from drawing more cards and maintaining an aggressive board against Paulo. Márcio went through many problems in Arena that players are used to: draw 4 lands in a row even after putting two lands in the bottom of his library with Scry 2. Teferi, Time Raveler by Paulo Vitor did a great job on the field, returning several times Fires of invention to Márcio's hand.

The second best of 3 was won by Márcio Carvalho. The sideboard worked and Teferi, Time Raveler was the big card, concentrating Paulo Vitor's entire focus on removing it while Márcio made his board.

The third best of 3 was an incredible game for Márcio Carvalho who won 2-1. The match was very grind, with Márcio trying until the end to recover and find a breach in Paulo Vitor's defenses. We had two incredible situations in this match, Márcio needs to draw an untapped land to win the match at that moment; but draw 5 cards and didn't find:

Soon after, Paulo Vitor bluffed that he had a Aether Gust in his hand, which meant that Márcio did not make the play that would give him the win at the time:

The fourth match didn't work for Márcio Carvalho, finally Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa shone and won his deserved World Championship! The card Archon of Sun's Grace made an army of tokens with lifelink putting Paulo far ahead in the match.

The big problem was the hand kept by Márcio Carvalho that guaranteed Paulo Vitor's victory:

Márcio did not draw a Mountain and was unable to play many spells in the game, which started to discard to hand size.

Congrats Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa!

PRIZES

The winner Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa took home US$ 300,000, while Márcio Carvalho, the second place, received US$ 150,000; Seth Manfield, third place, US$ 100,000 and fourth place, Gabriel Nassif, US$ 75,000. The remaining players received US $ 62,500 (fifth and six places), US$ 50,000 (seventh and eighth), US$ 25,000 (ninth to 12th) and US$ 12,500 from 13th to 16th.