Team competition in Magic: team Pro Tours, testing teams and the Team Series
Magic: The Gathering is usually remembered as a one-on-one game, but teams have shaped competitive play for most of its history. Sometimes the team was written into the tournament format itself, with three players sitting side by side. At other times, teams were informal testing groups that prepared together and then competed as individuals. This page traces both kinds, from the first team Pro Tour in 1999 to the official Pro Tour Team Series, which ended in 2019.
Team Pro Tours, 1999–2007
From 1999 to 2006, at least one Pro Tour each season was a team event, according to the MTG Wiki's overview of notable Pro Tour trios. Most used Team Rochester, a draft format played by three-person teams. Later events tried team Block Constructed and Two-Headed Giant. The list of Pro Tour events on Wikipedia records these team winners:
| Date | Location | Format | Winning team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 1999 | Washington, D.C. | Team Rochester | Rob Dougherty, Dave Humpherys, Darwin Kastle |
| Sep–Oct 2000 | New York | Team Rochester | Scott Johns, Mike Turian, Gary Wise |
| Sep 2001 | New York | Team Rochester | Kai Budde, Dirk Baberowski, Marco Blume |
| Sep 2002 | Boston | Team Rochester | Kai Budde, Dirk Baberowski, Marco Blume |
| Sep 2003 | Boston | Team Rochester | Brock Parker, Matt Linde, William Jensen |
| Jul 2004 | Seattle | Team Rochester | Kamiel Cornelissen, Jelger Wiegersma, Jeroen Remie |
| Mar 2005 | Atlanta | Team Rochester | Gabriel Tsang, David Rood, Gabriel Nassif |
| Jun 2006 | Charleston | Team Block Constructed | Tomohiro Kaji, Shouta Yasooka, Tomoharu Saitou |
| Jun–Jul 2007 | San Diego | Two-Headed Giant Booster Draft | Chris Lachmann, Jacob Van Lunen |
Named trios of the early era
Early teams usually had names, and a few became part of the game's folklore. The MTG Wiki lists several:
- The Phoenix Foundation (Kai Budde, Dirk Baberowski, Marco Blume) is the only team to win more than one team Pro Tour: New York 2001 and Boston 2002.
- Car Acrobatic Team (Aaron Forsythe, Andrew Cuneo, Andrew Johnson) lost the final of PT New York 2000 to Potato Nation, its only match loss of the event. It then lost the 2001 New York semifinal to the Phoenix Foundation. It was the first team to reach the Top 8 at more than one team Pro Tour.
- Team Antarctica (Jon Finkel and the brothers Steven and Dan O'Mahoney-Schwartz) finished third at Washington, D.C. in 1999, the first team Pro Tour. The three reunited for PT Charleston in 2006.
- Illuminati (Zvi Mowshowitz, Justin Gary, Alex Shvartsman) finished third at PT New York 2001 and later won Grand Prix Pittsburgh 2003.
Testing teams: the team behind the individual
After the regular team Pro Tours ended, team play continued in a looser form. Players formed testing groups, often backed by a store or website, shared decklists and draft practice, and then entered as individuals. By 2013, these groups had become a prominent part of Pro Tour coverage.
Sam Black's report from Pro Tour Theros (October 2013) describes "Team StarCityGames.com." Its members included Brad Nelson, Matt Sperling, Kai Budde, Gabriel Nassif, Patrick Chapin, Paul Rietzl, Reid Duke, William Jensen, Owen Turtenwald and Jon Finkel. Hipsters of the Coast reported that three members of the French squad Team Revolution, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Pierre Dagen and Jérémy Dezani, reached that event's Top 8. Josh Utter-Leyton, the 2012–13 Player of the Year, is described on Wikipedia as an original member of Team ChannelFireball. For more on this era, see the 2013 roster explainer, Pro Tour Theros and Pro Tour Dragon's Maze.
Team Grand Prix and the Peach Garden Oath
From 2013 to 2018, team formats appeared mainly at Grand Prix. The best-known trio of that period was the Peach Garden Oath: Reid Duke, William Jensen and Owen Turtenwald. The trio formed in 2013 as part of the larger group The Pantheon. It won Grand Prix Portland 2014 and Grand Prix Cleveland 2017 and reached the top three at several other team Grand Prix. In the 2013–14 season, its members finished second, third and fourth in the Player of the Year race.
The Pro Tour Team Series, 2016–2019
Wizards of the Coast announced an official team competition on August 2, 2016. Teams had six players, including a captain. Each team's score came from its best members' Pro Points across the season's Pro Tours. The series soft-launched in 2016–17 and became a full series in 2017–18, when the purse exceeded $200,000. The top two teams met in a playoff at the World Championship.
| Season | Team | Members |
|---|---|---|
| 2016–17 | Musashi | Kentaro Yamamoto, Yuuya Watanabe, Ken Yukuhiro, Yuuki Ichikawa, Teruya Kakumae, Shōta Yasooka |
| 2017–18 | Ultimate Guard | Reid Duke, Owen Turtenwald, William Jensen, Jon Finkel, Andrew Cuneo, Paul Rietzl |
| 2018–19 | Hareruya Sword | Kelvin Chew, Jérémy Dezani, Javier Dominguez, Grzegorz Kowalski, Andrea Mengucci, Lee Shi Tian |
The Pro Tour 25th Anniversary event in Minneapolis (August 2018) used Team Trios Constructed and was won by Allen Wu, Ben Hull and Gregory Orange. The Team Series ended in 2019, when Wizards moved to the Magic Pro League and Mythic Championships. According to the MTG Wiki, no team events have been scheduled since the Pro Tour returned in 2023.