Let’s get one thing clear before I start—I have absolutely no authority to be ranking things whatsoever. But, in the spirit of setting some fires and stirring the pot, I’m going to do my best to give you my unofficial and incomplete rankings of the team’s headed into Saturday’s FacetoFaceGames.com Team Trios Open. This is an event I so dearly wish I could be playing in if I were in the country, and therefore I just need to contribute my at-a-distance hot takes.

Here we go:

1) Team ‘We’re Extremely Professional’- Paul Dean, Ben Rubin and Rich Hoaen

Well, this hardly seems fair. These three have got to be the odds-on favourite to take down the entire event, given that they makeup all of the Pro Tour Top 8s and Hall of Fame entries in the entire room (and most likely city). There is an outside chance for the rest of the field though.

See because there are three full formats involved in this event that means Gold Pro Paul Dean has three separate opportunities to jam as many copies of Nissa planeswalker cards into each deck as he can fit. I suggest a secret coup, possibly a confiscation coup of hopeful victors, show up with your Nissas—this may be your only chance.

2) Team Canadian PGO (their name not mine)- Omar Beldon, Tyler Nightingale and Edgar Maglhaes

Here’s an exclusive image from their Facebook page to start us off:

These three definitely have the results to take down the whole thing and Edgar and Omar have both been playing some solid Magic recently, while Tyler has been off umpiring baseball or something.

The key here is just how many rounds Beldon can last without getting into verbal fisticuffs with Tyler, if they can make it through the day the sky is the limits. Alternative name option: Team “my facial hair is good”

3) Team FaceToFace Toronto Leaderboard + 1- Chris Ha, Liam Kane and Ryan Myers

First it was Felix Tse then Chris Ha himself and now Liam Kane. There’s just something about Face to Face Games events that allows individual players to dominate and this team features two of those players. I have to be honest, I have no idea who Ryan Myers is, but he’s certainly picked his team well.

I’d expect Liam to always have Hazoret attacking on Turn 4 and this team to show up in the elimination rounds.

4) Team ‘Friends who actually like each other”- Andrew Gordon, Richard Welch and Nick Roberts

Ah, yes, real friendship. Like I said in my previous article about team Magic, there really is not replacement for a close team who communicates well, and given that these three are good friends I have high hopes for them on Saturday.

These guys are the type of team that are going to win the whole thing or die very early while having more fun than everyone. They could also be a front-runner for best bearded team.

Dark Horses

Above you see my four favourites for the event but I’ve got a couple more hunches I want the fans to keep an eye out for:

1) Team whatever team Quinn Gregg is on

Quinn is on an absolute tear as-of-late seemingly winning every event they register for. I’ve also heard that they won a Standard PPTQ a couple weeks back, proving to us that they can win with more than just Eldrazi Tron. At this point I’d believe it if you told me Quinn won the event with two pylons sitting beside them.

Quinn Gregg, Eldrazi Tron- Modern LCQ

[Deck]
[Creatures]
2 Endbringer
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Walking Ballista
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Dismember
1 Warping Wail
1 Basilisk Collar
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
2 Karn Liberated
2 All Is Dust
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Urzas Mine
4 Urzas Power Plant
4 Urzas Tower
2 Wastes
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Hangarback Walker
1 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Warping Wail
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

***NOTE: I’ve been informed that Quinn is at the StarCityGames Invitational and will not be attending the event, but with that said, I still wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow showed up and won anyway.

2) Team from Barrie

If there’s anything  I know is certain in life it’s that a team hailing from OMG Games in Barrie, Ontario will succeed at a F2F Open—likely with Primeval Titan in at least one of their decks. I’d look out for the Barrie bombers to be raining down Valakut triggers on the back of someone like Paul Switzer at this event.