By Blake Rasmussen
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Blake is the content manager for DailyMTG.com, making him the one you should email if you have thoughts on the website, good or less good (or not good). He's a longtime coverage reporter and hasn't turned down a game of Magic in any format ever.
As part of my preparation for Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar, I tend to comb through our coverage archives for information that could be relevant to the upcoming Pro Tour. Often times that leads me to previous Pro Tours that featured some facet of the latest set—like the last multicolor block or the last time we held a Pro Tour in the same city . . .
Or that one time Luis Scott-Vargas had a perfect record in the Swiss portion of a Pro Tour.
Pro Tour San Diego in 2010 was what we probably now would have called Pro Tour Worldwake. The latest set was Worldwake, from our first trip through Zendikar, and the format was Standard and Zendikar/Worldwake Draft. The headline was that Simon Görtzen—he of the Magic coverage team—won a Pro Tour in his first Pro Tour Top 8.
But the real story, the one that still adorns LSV's bio on ChannelFireball.com, is that he was the first player ever to have a perfect run through 16 rounds of the Swiss portion of a Pro Tour with no draws (Ryan Fuller previously went 14-0 at Pro Tour Tokyo in 2001), intentionally or otherwise. LSV's 16-0 was a historic run that's certainly worth revisiting as we head back to the plane on which he accomplished it.
His deck was certainly not something many people would associate with a man who loves his seven-drops, especially in a format that allowed you to play the full four of both Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic:
Luis Scott-Vargas—Pro Tour San Diego Top 8
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To be fair to the rest of the tournament, the Swords and Batterskull that would make Stoneforge Mystic what it became were not yet in Standard, and Jace was still held back by Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Bolt, Blightning, and Jund in general.
So, instead, LSV attacked people to death with Wild Nacatls.
The deck was called "Boss Naya" after its creator, Tom "The Boss" Ross, and it was truly a beast. So much so that Luis kept winning well after he had locked up his spot in the Top 8.
But, as we said earlier, this story ends with Simon Görtzen hoisting the trophy—and for LSV, the run also ended with Görtzen.
In the semifinals of the Top 8, LSV won the first game of the best-of-five match, but was out removaled, overpowered, and outgunned by Görtzen, ending what could have been the first-ever perfect Pro Tour.
You can read the full match between Scott-Vargas and Görtzen here.
And this weekend you can watch Scott-Vargas battle on Zendikar once more at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar!