Player Analysis: PVDDR

PVDDR winning worlds

source: tech tudo

PVDDR has been one of the top MTG professional players of all time. He has made the Hall of Fame at a young age and won several major tournaments. PVDDR is a strong pick for your MTG Fantasy League team, but the question is how valuable is the player. This analysis will recap PVDDR's history, look at his recent finishes and deck choices, and use that data to predict the future of this professional Magic player.

PVDDR's History

PVDDR started playing professional Magic in 2003, placing 55th at Worlds. Since then, he has had several finishes in the top eight of major tournaments. Paulo reached the MTG Hall of Fame in 2012. Furthermore, in 2020, Paulo won the MTG World Championship. PVDDR has a rich history of tournament wins. Below are some statistics of the professional player's 18-year career.

  • 1 Worlds win
  • 3 Worlds top 8's
  • 2 Pro Tour wins
  • 12 Pro Tour top 8's
  • 2 Grand Prix wins
  • 19 Grand Prix top 8's
  • $897,035 of winnings

Recent Finish: First Strixhaven League Weekend

This tournament occurred on April 11th and April 12th of this year. PVDDR ended up with a record of six wins and six losses.

In the Standard part of the tournament, PVDDR piloted the Sultai Ultimatum control deck. With that deck, he achieved three wins and three losses. His losses were to Temur Adventures, Dimir Rogues, and Cycling. The first two make sense, as aggressive decks tend to outpace control decks more often than not. Thus, in a more diverse meta like a championship, PVDDR piloting this complicated deck will likely provide better results.

In Historic, PVDDR also had a record of three wins and three losses piloting Orzhov (Black-White) Auras. This is more of an aggressive deck that focuses on auras (a type of enchantment) and synergies with certain creatures. PVDDR lost against Bant Midrange for all three of his losses. It appears that it is a bad matchup for PVDDR's deck. Again, with a larger sample size, as is found in a championship, PVDDR is likely to play less against those kinds of decks.

One interesting fact from this League Weekend was that PVDDR played against the same MPL player three times, Ondrej Stráský. PVDDR lost all three of the games against Ondrej. This makes me wonder if it was less on deck choices and more on skills of the players, though time will tell in the upcoming Strixhaven Championship.

Future Analysis

While PVDDR's last League Weekend was not great, he still has a great performance for this overall season. PVDDR is currently third place in the MPL, putting him in an advantageous spot in the league. Looking at the Strixhaven League Weekend, it seems that PVDDR had a bit of a rough time with matchups. While his deck choices are good in the overall metas for their formats, he got a little unlucky with the pairings. In a larger tournament like the upcoming Strixhaven Championship, PVDDR looks a lot more compelling as a pickup. Overall, we still think highly of this renowned Magic player and recommend you seek that player in your MTG Fantasy league.