The F2F Tour rolled into Gatineau from May 15-17 for Tour Weekend Ottawa, taking over the Palais des Congrès for three days of Magic across every corner of the game. The Standard Regional Championship headlined the slate, but the room was just as much for the Commander tables, the draft pods, the artist signings, and the players dropping in for a Chaos Sealed with friends. Whether you came chasing a Pro Tour or World Championship invite or just to spend the weekend playing the game with your community, the schedule kept the room moving from open to close.
Artists Zara Alfonso, Nino Vecia, Adam Volker, and Kim Sokol joined the room throughout the weekend, signing for players between rounds. Content creators Finding a Fourth, MtgM4NCN1, Pongified cEDH, and Approach of the Second Game were also on site, capturing the action and the community around it.
Standard Regional Championship
The Standard RC drew 306 players to Gatineau, with 12 Regional Championship invites, 2 World Championship Invites and finalist Trophies on the line. The Top 8 settled into four archetypes: three copies of Izzet Prowess, two each of Mardu Discard and Azorius Fliers, and a four-color control deck rounding out the field. Aggro, tempo, midrange, and control all made the cut, but it was Mardu Discard that closed out the weekend.
Standard RC Top 8
- Dawson Courson – Mardu Discard
- Noah Michaud – Azorius Fliers
- Ryan Primdahl – Izzet Prowess
- Gavin Bennett – W-U-B-R Control
- Alexandre MacIsaac – Izzet Prowess
- Michael Ma – Azorius Fliers
- Bennett Rasmussen – Izzet Prowess
- William Niwinski – Mardu Discard
Browse the full Top 8 decklists or check the complete final standings.
Standard RC Winner: Dawson Courson (Mardu Discard)
Dawson Courson took down the Standard Regional Championship, navigating the field of 306 players to hoist the trophy with Mardu Discard. As he put it after Round 1, “our deck is very good,” a sentiment that held up across the rest of the weekend. Dawson credited Edgar Magalhaes for helping refine the manabase and sideboard in the days leading up to the event.
We caught up with him after the win to talk about where this victory ranks for him, how he landed on the deck, and what advice he has for players chasing their first RC trophy.
Where does this past weekend’s Regional Championship victory rank for you? Compared to winning the Super Qualifier in Niagara, your past F2F Top 8s, and that high-stakes feature match against Ben Stark at the Pro Tour, where does holding up this specific trophy land on your personal achievement list?
This was definitely a defining moment for me. I had been on a bit of a rough streak after falling off the Pro Tour in February, missing Day 2 of the RC and then missing Day 2 of the Spotlight. So this win definitely felt like a bit of a reminder that I am relatively capable.
Not sure I can properly compare them because the tournaments are just so vastly different. The match against Ben for example sticks out more as surreal for me because I was sitting at that table, on the stage, that I had so many times before seen on coverage. I also played pretty bad in that match so I try to block it from my memory.
I think this RC win probably takes the cake as my biggest accomplishment, mostly because I love trophies (I am but a sentimental man.) The love I received after winning is the part I won’t forget though. Winning is great but if I can be a bit cringe; having friends invested in my success means way more.
Let’s talk about the deck choice. You took down the whole room with Mardu Discard. What made you lock into that specific archetype for Ottawa, and was there a specific moment or matchup during the weekend where you realized the deck was perfectly positioned to go all the way?
Funny enough, Mardu was a bit of a late breaking thing. I was a bit behind on testing due to busy work schedules so I had somewhat committed my limited time to tuning spellementals. But then I saw the Mardu deck at the London Spotlight event and thought it seemed cool so I gave it a try.
Instantly I could tell it was a powerful deck; just needed some refining. Especially in the manabase and sideboard. But I don’t have the brain for manabase refining, luckily Edgar Magalhaes had also shown interest in the deck, so I leaned on him for that sort of thing.
I remember after round 1 going up to Edgar and saying “our deck is very good” (with a few more expletives.) It was because while my landfall opponent had a really good start; I essentially ignored it and dealt them somewhere in the realm of 16 damage on turn 4. That was the moment that I realized “wow, I am doing something powerful.”
The Canadian competitive scene is notoriously tough. Winning an RC is a grueling marathon. For players out there looking to make the leap from grinding local qualifiers to actually hoisting a Regional Championship trophy like you just did, what’s the biggest piece of advice you’d give them?
“Talk less, listen more. Kill your ego.”
There’s a plethora of players who really focus on wanting to be perceived as good at magic rather than be good at magic; this is a truth I had to come to before I started seeing improvement. Learn from everything. Listen to those who are better than you, and those who are worse than you. Once you stop worrying about anything other than improving, learning and being better than you were at the last event, everything gets easier.
Another big thing is mental composure. It’s not as easy to learn as it is something you adapt to over time with more events played. Too many times I watch players lose 2 rounds in a row and their mental state is shattered while they are still alive for top 8 or whatever. I’ve watched friends go from 1-2 to pro tour invite. Don’t forget that.
One final thing, prize splitting is for the weak…but that’s more a personal thing.
Mardu Discard – Dawson Courson (1st)
Enchantments (4)
Limited Championship Qualifier
Sunday’s Secrets of Strixhaven Sealed Limited Championship Qualifier sent its two pod winners to the 2027 Limited Championship and awarded RC invites to the Top 32. One of the LTQ winners was Kevin Anctil, who, by his own admission, hadn’t read a single card from Secrets of Strixhaven before sitting down to register his Sealed pool.
We asked him how he managed to navigate the format cold and still come out on top.
On building the Sealed pool:
I tried to keep it simple and not overcomplicate things. Ever since the play booster era, the power of a set is very often in the uncommons and rares. Given that, you often have to run all the removals in your colors to remove said rares.
To make sure I had enough time to build the pool, I quickly identified which color pairs had the removals and the pool was thankfully easy enough to build around 1 synergy. Definitely got lucky there. I think it was probably misbuilt by 2-3 cards.
On the Sealed gameplay:
During the gameplay portion of the Sealed, having good limited fundamentals helped a lot. I didn’t know what kind of combat tricks existed in the set so I mostly tried to dumb down the games into races, which my lifegain deck was great at.
On the draft portion:
For the draft portion I have to give credit to my friend Ulysse, who is one of the best limited player in Quebec. He had played the set beforehand and he gave me a quick rundown on about 3 different archetypes I could try and force.
I also took the time between drawing the last round and the start of the draft to look at the winrate of every cards on 17lands.com. I also think having a lot of experience of professional level drafts, which are timed, helped me a lot there.
Around the Room
Beyond the main events, the room had a different feel depending on where you wandered. Sunday morning’s Legacy Champs for Duals brought out the eternal crowd, with actual dual lands on the line for the Top 4, the kind of prize that gets people to dust off old decks. The Commander tables stayed busy all weekend across CEDH pods, Pre-Con Commander, and Saturday’s Grand Melee, where 24 players sat down for one massive free-for-all. For players who just wanted to crack packs with a friend, 2HG Sealed ran in a handful of different flavours throughout the weekend.
What’s Next
The Tour heads to Hamilton on June 6th for the next stop. Whether you’re chasing an RC invite, settling in at a Commander pod, or just spending the day playing the game with your community, we’ll see you there.
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites.