361 players, a full weekend in Cáceres, and a control deck at the end of it.
Roberto Merino won the VII Spanish Premodern Nationals (VII Nacional Español de Premodern) on Sunday, November 8, with BW Control. He beat Antonio Navas and his Landstill in the final.
With 361 players, it’s the biggest Premodern tournament we know of. The previous record we had was Lobstercon 2026, with 317 players in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The event was run by the Dados Fuera game store and the Premodern Extremadura community at the Gran Hotel Don Manuel, and it’s on our events calendar.
Top 8 results
| Place | Deck | Player |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BW Control | Roberto Merino |
| 2 | Landstill | Antonio Navas |
| 3-4 | Oath Ponza | Daniel Ortuño |
| 3-4 | Cradle Control | Juan Vilar |
| 5-8 | Pit Rack | Pedro J. Hernández |
| 5-8 | Money Ball | Juan Manuel Lillo |
| 5-8 | Terrageddon | Toni Ramis |
| 5-8 | Stasis | Andrés Ramón Martínez |
The rest of the Top 16
These eight players made the Top 16 and lost in the round of 16.
| Place | Deck | Player |
|---|---|---|
| 9-16 | Stiflenought | Joao R. |
| 9-16 | Clerics | José María Toledo |
| 9-16 | Goblins | Guido Julian |
| 9-16 | Replenish | Luís Neves |
| 9-16 | Gro-A-Tog | Guillem Salvador |
| 9-16 | Iggy Pop | Daniel Moreno |
| 9-16 | Elves | Pablo Suarez |
| 9-16 | Stasis | Rafael Ayllón |
The bracket
The Top 16 was seeded by Swiss standings: 1st played 16th, 2nd played 15th, and so on. The player in bold moved on.
Roberto Merino’s path to the title: Guido Julian (Goblins) in the round of 16, Pedro J. Hernández (Pit Rack) in the quarterfinals, Juan Vilar (Cradle Control) in the semifinals and Antonio Navas (Landstill) in the final.
What stood out
Eight different decks in the Top 8. Not one archetype repeated. Across the whole Top 16 there were 15 different archetypes: only Stasis showed up twice. For a 361-player field, that’s about as spread out as a Top 8 gets.
BW Control is not a deck you’d have bet on. In October it had 11 top finishes out of 609 in our paper metagame report, 1.8% of them, and it’s 15th on our tier list. It just won the largest Premodern event we know of.
Landstill keeps winning in Spain. It won ten paper events in October, tied for the most, including the 189-player Eurofest side event in Valencia. At Nationals, Antonio Navas made the Top 16 as the 15th seed and still reached the final.
Control on both sides of the final. Three of the final four were control decks: BW Control, Landstill and Cradle Control. Oath Ponza was the only one that wasn’t.
Friday: the Welcome Tournament
The weekend started on Friday, November 6, with the Welcome Tournament (Torneo de Bienvenida), which drew 294 players. According to the results published on tcdecks, Joao Sena won it with Stiflenought, and Niklas Scholten finished second with Gro-A-Tog.
| Place | Deck | Player |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stiflenought | Joao Sena |
| 2 | Gro-A-Tog | Niklas Scholten |
| 3-4 | Enchantress | SMolero |
| 3-4 | Cradle Control | Pol Wah Masramon Tse |
| 5-8 | Goblins | Jacinto Ribas |
| 5-8 | Enchantress | Daniel Gutierrez Viñas |
| 5-8 | Terrageddon | Daniel Santos |
| 5-8 | Parallax Replenish | Jesús Vicente Sánchez Bartolomé |
The Top 16 had three Enchantress, three Goblins and three Landstill decks. All 16 decklists are on the tournament page.
Sunday: the Marathon
Sunday also had the Marathon (Torneo Maratón), the side event that closed the weekend, with 277 players. Karn’s Academy streamed it too. We’ll add the winner and the Top 8 when the organisers publish them.
Decklists
The Top 8 decklists haven’t been published yet. As soon as the organisers share them, we’ll add them here and to the event page. Until then, you can look at recent lists for each deck in our decklists archive.
By the numbers
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Players at Nationals | 361 |
| Players at the Friday Welcome Tournament | 294 |
| Players at the Sunday Marathon | 277 |
| Different decks in the Top 8 | 8 |
| Different archetypes in the Top 16 | 15, only Stasis twice |
| Champion | Roberto Merino, BW Control |
| Runner-up | Antonio Navas, Landstill |
Congratulations to Roberto Merino, the Spanish Premodern champion, and to everyone who made the trip to Cáceres. Thanks to Dados Fuera and Premodern Extremadura for running the biggest Premodern weekend on record, and to Karn’s Academy for streaming all three days.
Event organized by Dados Fuera and Premodern Extremadura. Top 8, semifinals, final and attendance from the official stream by Karn’s Academy; champion, runner-up, decks, Top 16 and round of 16 confirmed by Premodern MTGO.