Gabriel Nassif Wins Week 10 of Fandom Legends’ $4k MTG Tournament Series

Hall of Famer Gabriel “yellowhat” Nassif won Week 10 of Fandom Legends’ $4k MTG Arena tournament series Thursday evening, defeating popular streamer Jeffrey “Sjow” Brusei.

Nassif played Simic Ramp, one of the mainstays of the current Standard metagame, which uses Nissa, Who Shakes the World to power out large X spells like Hydroid Krasis and Mass Manipulation. It is very similar to the Bant Ramp deck played by the previous week’s winner Paulo Vito Damo da Rosa, although Nassif eschewed the White spells in favor of a more stable Simic manabase. He was the only ramp player in an event dominated by Esper decks—seven of the 16 players brought either Esper Hero or Esper Control.

Nassif defeated 2015 SCG Player’s Champion Jim Davis on Izzet Phoenix in the quarterfinals, and Mythic Championship I winner Autumn Burchett on Esper Control in the semifinals. He met with Sjow, who was also on Esper Control, in the finals and came out victorious after a three-game set. Week 10 is Nassif’s second victory in a Fandom Legends tournament, having previously won Week 5.

Nassif joked in an earlier tweet that he hoped the “Modern brewing pays off tonight”, alluding to the fact that he had mainly been streaming the new Modern format and brewing with new cards from Modern Horizons rather than playing Standard.