MTG Hall of Famer disqualified from $ 500,000 Mythic championship for tagged cards

Yuuya Watanabe (Japan), Professional Player and Hall of Fame Member of Magic: The Gathering, was disqualified from the Mythic Championship II: London. The tournament's judges' team pronounced the penalty after spotting unusual marks on the Watanabe Bridge sleeves.

Official statement of Wizards of the Coast:

"During a check of the deck at the 15th round in the Mythic Championship II, the judge's team identified a problem with the Yuuya Watanabe Bridge, where the handles of its Urza power plants were marked in a specific way. Three Urza mines and one Urza tower had different markings, and three Urza towers and one Urza mine also had different markings. No other card in the deck or the buffet had any of these marks. The judge's staff determined that the likelihood of this happening by accident was almost non-existent and excluded Watanabe from the event.

According to representatives of Wizards of the Coast, the MPL will investigate this offense. "

These are not just random cards Watanabe allegedly chose to score. The Urzatron deck relies on the trio of terrains (mine, tower and power plant) to generate large amounts of mana, to deceive the curve and to place heavy threats on the tempo of their opponents. Knowing the exact terrain that will follow will be the most valuable information that an Urzatron player can get.

If the Magic Pro League (MPL) board proves Watanabe's guilt, it will jeopardize one of the most illustrious careers in MTG's professional career. Watanabe is a 2012 world champion, voted player of the year 2009 and inaugurated in the MTG Hall of Fame category in 2016 alongside Owen Turtenwald. He is also one of the 32 players invited to the Magic Pro League – a position that has directly invited him to participate in all major MTG events of the circuit, worth $ 10 million.

Naturally, fans and professionals have appealed to Twitter to comment on the incident.