Pro Tour Paris in 2011 was a Magical weekend – almost quite literally, as it was not just the Pro Tour going on, but a Grand Prix as well! But that wasn’t all – the Player of the Year race between Brad Nelson and Guillame Matignon had come down to a tie, and the playoff was slated to be at this event. In the end, however, it wasn’t even the hype going into this event that would go down in the record books – the events itself were historic. Kai Budde notches yet another Grand Prix Top 8 but it’s okay if you didn’t remember that. The emergence of a little deck that could (Caw-Blade) and Paul Rietzl’s memorable juggling of both a Pro Tour Top 8 and a Grand Prix Day 2 have gone down in Magic history. Alex Ullman recounts this epic weekend on GatheringMagic.com.
Five years ago, everything was changing.
Magic was coming off the first of its “Most Successful Years Ever” 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.