If you’ve ever spent a Saturday afternoon shuffling cards in the back of a game store, you’ll like this one: on December 8, 2020, the Prêmio eSports Brasil, the country’s main esports award, chose a Magic: The Gathering player as Best Athlete of the Year. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, PVDDR, from Rio Grande do Sul, took the night’s top trophy and also that of Best Card Game Athlete.
The 2020 ceremony, the fourth in the award’s history, was held online because of the pandemic, hosted by Nyvi Estephan and Everaldo Marques. The Best Athlete title is contested among the winners of all categories, and PV beat champions from CS:GO, League of Legends, Free Fire, virtual football and other games. Until then, the award had gone to coldzera, of CS:GO, in 2017, nesk, of Rainbow Six, in 2018, and Nobru, of Free Fire, in 2019.
A career of almost two decades
PV’s history with competitive Magic is long. Born in Porto Alegre in 1987, he debuted in professional tournaments at the 2003 World Championship, in Berlin, at age 15. He drew attention in 2005, in the top 8 of Grand Prix Porto Alegre, and kept piling up results: he won Pro Tour San Juan in 2010 and, in 2012, entered the Magic Hall of Fame, the first player from South America to do so. He has 17 Pro Tour top 8 finishes, the second-highest mark of all time, and is the biggest prize-money winner in the history of professional Magic.
What crowned the season was the world title: in 2020, PV won the Magic World Championship for the 2019 season.
From the tables to the screen
A good part of the competitive Magic scene was already happening digitally, in Magic: The Gathering Arena. The full version came out for Windows in September 2019, and the macOS one in June 2020, both free on the official site. The mobile versions, which at the time still had no date, arrived in March 2021.
Where to buy
Source: Prêmio eSports Brasil.
Max Xavier
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