Utrecht Regional Qualifier Breakdown — Hextech Analytics

The broadcast opened Europe's first Unleashed Regional Qualifier by asking whether Diana would bathe Utrecht in moonlight, and the answer turned out to be the same answer Europe gave two months ago: Squirtle, on Azir, not losing. The Lille champion won Utrecht at 15-0-1, which makes him a back-to-back European champion, the second two-time winner in the game's history two weeks after Alanzq1 became the first, and the only player to win Regional Qualifiers in two different formats on the same legend. The desk said he broke the undefeated record along the way, and nobody watching his Swiss run seemed surprised.

15-0-1

Champion's record

59%

Master Yi players who reached Day 2

184 → 108

Yi players Day 1 to Day 2

2nd

Title for Squirtle

Squirtle

Azir, Emperor of the Sands

Utrecht Regional Qualifier champion

CalmOrder15-0-1

Riftbound Legend: Emperor of the Sands. Your Sand Soldiers have [Weaponmaster].
[1], [T]: Play a 2 [S] Sand Soldier unit token to your base. Use only if you've played an Equipment this turn.

Riftbound Unit: Azir, Sovereign. [Accelerate] (You may pay [1][C] as an additional cost to have me enter ready.)
When I attack, you may move any number of your token units to this battlefield.

The shape of the field

Utrecht drew roughly 2,000 players by the desk's count, and around 300 of them survived into Day 2 after nine players closed Day 1 at 8-0. The field they left behind told the story of a format still finding its shape: Diana drew 175 players for roughly 10% of the meta share, and the desk noted that Irelia, “the queen of riftbound,” had fallen to third place in popularity for the first time in the game's Western history. A demotion like that, this early in Unleashed, might tell us more about the new format than any single decklist does.

Battlefields sorted themselves into a clearer hierarchy than the legends did: Arena's Greatest led the way at 30% with Aspirant's Climb at 21%, and every other battlefield fought over what those two left behind.

Utrecht battlefield share

Arena's Greatest30%

Aspirant's Climb21%

The battlefield hierarchy

The Arena's Greatest

Led the way at 30% of the battlefield share.

Aspirant's Climb

Second at 21%, and every other battlefield fought over the rest.

Master Yi's absurd weekend

The defining number of Utrecht came from the Day 2 results. Of the 184 players who entered with Master Yi, 108 made Day 2, or 59%. The desk called that number “insane.” Popular decks usually send a smaller share of players through the cut because everyone prepares for them. Master Yi led the field and still broke through.

Numbers like that usually arrive with an asterisk, and maybe this one does too, but nothing over the weekend supplied it: the legend led the field in raw popularity, the room presumably knew exactly which deck it needed to beat, and 59% still reached Day 2. Whether the format lacks an answer to him or simply has not found one yet seems like the first question Unleashed will have to settle.

The desk saved its strangest observation for the final Swiss round, pointing at a Volibear, a Sett, and Squirtle's Azir among the locked top-cut decks, realizing those are “three decks without the Chaos Domain,” and asking on air when that had ever happened. The Volibear ultimately slipped back out of the cut in the last round, but the observation held: after a Spiritforged season where Chaos was in nearly every winning list, Europe's first Unleashed top table had exactly one Chaos-identity deck in its top three.

The Top 8

No Top 8 broadcast exists for Utrecht on the official channel, but the official standings do, and they read like nothing the West has produced before: eight different legends in eight seats, including the first Rek'Sai and the first Darius to reach a Western Regional Qualifier final table. The Swiss coverage adds the texture, with CTCG Collin K locking his second Top 8 on Sett, sealed with a round win over Atlanta champion Prismaticismism, and telling the desk it feels incredible to play his favorite legend at the highest level and beat “one of the goats” of the game doing it.

1st

Squirtle

AzirCalmOrder

2nd

Rednaxell

ViktorMindOrder

3rd

CTCG Collin K

SettBodyOrder

4th

Dhawally

DianaMindChaos

5th

MICE Ramekiano

Rek'SaiFuryOrder

6th

MICE DiamondHat

DariusFuryOrder

7th

Bakura

Master YiBodyCalm

8th

Prismaticismism

AnnieFuryChaos

The standings, one deck from the highest-placing player for each of 32 Legends, and every published list are in the official Utrecht's Top Decks article. That 32-deck selection is worth your time: it includes one deck for every Legend that showed up, the widest Legend spread a Western event has produced so far.

The Azir masterclass, again

The casters introduced him mid-tournament as “the Lille regional qualifier champion” who was, to nobody's surprise, again on the Azir deck, and called his stream game “an absolute masterclass” with basically no mistakes. The champion's own explanation, given in an interview while sitting at 11-0, is the closest thing this game has to a mission statement: sometimes you play well and lose and that is fine, but losing to your own bad play is different, because “that's something you need to work about because it's your fault, not variance or whatever.”

That's something you need to work about because it's your fault, not variance or whatever.
Squirtle, in an interview while sitting at 11-0

Azir surviving the rotation into Unleashed intact is its own story. The legend that was a punchline before Lille has now beaten two different metagames from the same Calm/Order identity, and at some point the format has to stop treating the emperor's results as a coincidence.

The list itself explains some of the calm: eleven different cards show up at the full three copies, running from Doran's Shield, Eye of the Herald, and Soul Sword through Brutalizer, B.F. Sword, Defy, En Garde, and Deathgrip, while only Scuttle Crab and Vi, Peacekeeper appear once each, all of it sitting on a 7/5 Calm/Order rune base. A deck this committed to its own plan seems like exactly what you would expect from a player whose stated enemy is his own misplays, and the full forty is below if you would rather judge the emperor yourself.

1st

Winning list · Squirtle's Azir, Emperor of the Sands

1st place · 15-0-1 · Second straight European title

Main deck (40 incl. chosen champion)

Riftbound Unit: Scuttle Crab. (Units with 0 [S] can conquer and hold.)
When you play me, draw 1.
[Deathknell][>] Choose an opponent. They reveal their hand. You can look at their facedown cards this turn. Gain 1 XP. (When I die, get the effects.) — Scuttle Crab

Riftbound Unit: Vi, Peacekeeper. [Ambush] (You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units.)
When I attack, [Stun] an enemy unit here. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.) — Vi, Peacekeeper

Riftbound Gear: Doran's Shield. [Equip] [C] ([C]: Attach this to a unit you control.) — Doran's Shield

Riftbound Gear: Soul Sword. [Equip] [C] ([C]: Attach this to a unit you control.) — Soul Sword

Riftbound Gear: Eye of the Herald. [Equip] [C] ([C]: Attach this to a unit you control.) — Eye of the Herald

Riftbound Gear: Brutalizer. [Equip] [C] ([C]: Attach this to a unit you control.) — Brutalizer

Riftbound Gear: B.F. Sword. [Equip] [C] ([C]: Attach this to a unit you control.) — B.F. Sword

Riftbound Spell: En Garde. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)
Give a friendly unit +1 [S] this turn, then an additional +1 [S] this turn if it is the only unit you control there. — En Garde

Riftbound Spell: Defy. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)
Counter a spell that costs no more than [4] and no more than [A]. — Defy

Riftbound Spell: Discipline. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)
Give a unit +2 [S] this turn. Draw 1. — Discipline

Riftbound Spell: Deathgrip. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)
Kill a friendly unit. If you do, give +[M] equal to its Might to another friendly unit this turn.
Draw 1. — Deathgrip

Riftbound Spell: Hidden Blade. [Hidden] (Hide now for [A] to react with later for [0].)
[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
Kill a unit at a battlefield. Its controller draws 2. — Hidden Blade

Riftbound Spell: Back Off. [Hidden] (Hide now for [A] to react with later for [0].)
[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
[Stun] a unit. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.)
If you played this from your hand, draw 1. — Back Off

Riftbound Spell: Guards!. [Hidden] (Hide now for [A] to react with later for [0].)
Play a 2 [S] Sand Soldier unit token. You may pay [C] to ready it. — Guards!

Riftbound Spell: Arise!. Play a 2 [M] Sand Soldier unit token for each Equipment you control. Then do this: Ready up to two of them. — Arise!

Runes (12)

Riftbound Rune: Order Rune. — Order Rune

Battlefields (3)

Riftbound Battlefield: Hall of Legends. When you conquer here, you may pay [1] to ready your legend. — Hall of Legends

Riftbound Battlefield: Seat of Power. When you conquer here, draw 1 for each other battlefield you or allies control. — Seat of Power

Riftbound Battlefield: Trifarian War Camp. Units here have +1 [S]. (This includes attackers.) — Trifarian War Camp

Sideboard (8)

Riftbound Unit: Disarming Rake. When you play me, you may kill a gear. — Disarming Rake

Riftbound Unit: Ashe, Focused. When you play me, choose an opponent. They reveal their hand. Choose a card revealed this way and banish it. When they hold, return it to their hand (even if I'm no longer on the board). — Ashe, Focused

Riftbound Spell: Charm. Move an enemy unit. — Charm

Riftbound Spell: Salvage. [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
You may kill up to one gear. Draw 1. — Salvage

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Notable decks from the Top 8

Rednaxell's Viktor (2nd)

The first Viktor at a Western final table since Bologna is a Mind/Order machine on a 5/7 rune split, and it wins long games in a way this format had mostly forgotten: three copies each of Stupefy, Cull the Weak, and Hidden Blade strip the opponent's plan while Honest Broker, Carrion Dredger, and Imperial Decree keep the resources flowing, with Xin Zhao, Vigilant holding the line and Thousand-Tailed Watcher closing. Every spell that removes a unit can answer a Master Yi or Diana turn, which reads like a player who knew exactly which two decks he had to beat and built backward from there.

2ndRednaxell's Viktor, Herald of the ArcaneView decklist

2nd place

Main deck (40 incl. chosen champion)

Riftbound Unit: Carrion Dredger. [Deathknell][>] Play a 1 [S] Bird unit token with [Deflect] to your base. (When I die, get the effect. Opponents must pay [A] to choose a [Deflect] unit with a spell or ability.) — Carrion Dredger

Riftbound Unit: Honest Broker. [Deathknell] — Play a Gold gear token exhausted. (When I die, get the effect.) — Honest Broker

Riftbound Unit: Card Sharp. When you play me, you and each opponent may play a Gold gear token exhausted. For each opponent who did, you play a Gold gear token exhausted. — Card Sharp

Riftbound Unit: Chakram Dancer. [Ambush] (You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units.)
When you play me, give your other units here [Shield] this turn. (+1 [S] while they're defenders.) — Chakram Dancer

Riftbound Unit: Xin Zhao, Vigilant. [Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.)
I enter ready if you have two or more other units in your base. — Xin Zhao, Vigilant

Riftbound Unit: Viktor, Leader. When another non-Recruit unit you control dies, play a 1 [S] Recruit unit token into your base. — Viktor, Leader

Riftbound Unit: Thousand-Tailed Watcher. [Accelerate] (You may pay [1][C] as an additional cost to have me enter ready.)
When you play me, give enemy units -3 [S] this turn, to a minimum of 1 [S]. — Thousand-Tailed Watcher

Riftbound Gear: Sprite Fountain. [Temporary] (Kill this at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring.)
When you play this, play a ready 3 [S] Sprite unit token with [Temporary] to your base.
[Deathknell][>] Repeat this gear's play effect. (When this dies, get the effect.) — Sprite Fountain

Riftbound Spell: Stupefy. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)
Give a unit -1 [S] this turn, to a minimum of 1 [S]. Draw 1. — Stupefy

Riftbound Spell: Bellows Breath. [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
[Repeat] [1][C] (You may pay the additional cost to repeat this spell's effect.)
Deal 1 to up to three units at the same location. — Bellows Breath

Riftbound Spell: Facebreaker. [Hidden] (Hide now for [A] to react with later for [0].)
[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
Stun a friendly unit and an enemy unit at the same battlefield. (They don't deal combat damage this turn.) — Facebreaker

Riftbound Spell: Shadow's Call. Choose a friendly unit without [Temporary]. Give it [Temporary]. Draw 2. (Kill it at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring.) — Shadow's Call

Riftbound Spell: Cull the Weak. Each player kills one of their units. — Cull the Weak

Riftbound Spell: Eclipse. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)
Give a unit -4 [S] this turn.
[Predict]. (Look at the top card of your Main Deck. You may recycle it.) — Eclipse

Riftbound Spell: Wages of Pain. [Hidden] (Hide now for [A] to react with later for [0].)
[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
Deal 3 to a unit at a battlefield. Play a Gold gear token exhausted. — Wages of Pain

Riftbound Spell: Imperial Decree. [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
When any unit takes damage this turn, kill it. — Imperial Decree

Runes (12)

Battlefields (3)

Riftbound Battlefield: Forbidding Waste. While a unit here is defending alone, it has -2 [S]. (It's alone if there are no other friendly units here.) — Forbidding Waste

Riftbound Battlefield: Rockfall Path. Units can't be played here. — Rockfall Path

Sideboard (8)

Riftbound Unit: Pickpocket. When you play me, you may kill a gear with Energy cost no more than [1]. If you do, play a Gold gear token exhausted. — Pickpocket

Riftbound Unit: Safety Inspector. You may spend 3 XP as an additional cost to play me.
When you play me, each player must kill one of their units. If you paid my additional cost, you don't kill a unit this way. — Safety Inspector

Riftbound Spell: Singularity. Deal 6 to each of up to two units. — Singularity

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MICE Ramekiano's Rek'Sai (5th)

The Rek'Sai that closed its Swiss on stream is the West's first, and the Fury/Order pairing on a 7/5 split is the interesting part, because Rek'Sai spent the Spiritforged season looked like an overlooked fast attack deck. This build hits with Blood Rush, Inferna, Noxus Hopeful, and Pyke, Dockside Butcher, then adds Honest Broker for resources and Cull the Weak to remove opposing units. The Viktor list uses the same two cards, and teammate MICE DiamondHat rode a nearly inverted 4/8 Fury/Order Darius to sixth right beside him. Two players from one team putting two Order-weighted Fury decks into the same Top 8 does not seem like a coincidence. Honest Broker plus Cull the Weak might be the most stealable idea in Utrecht.

The most stealable idea in Utrecht

Honest Broker

Keeps the resources flowing in both the Viktor and Rek'Sai lists.

Cull the Weak

The card paired with Honest Broker to remove opposing units in both Order-weighted decks.

5thMICE Ramekiano's Rek'Sai, Void BurrowerView decklist

5th place

Main deck (40 incl. chosen champion)

Riftbound Unit: Inferna. [Ambush] (You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units.)
[Assault 2] (+2 [S] while I'm an attacker.) — Inferna

Riftbound Unit: Daring Poro. [Assault] (+1 [S] while I'm an attacker.) — Daring Poro

Riftbound Unit: Pyke, Dockside Butcher. [Hidden] (Hide now for [A] to react with later for [0].)
[Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.)
You may pay [C] as an additional cost to play me.
When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, ready me and give me +2 [S] this turn. — Pyke, Dockside Butcher

Riftbound Unit: Rek'Sai, Breacher. [Accelerate] (You may pay [1][C] as an additional cost to have me enter ready.)
[Assault] (+1 [S] while I'm an attacker.)
Friendly units played from anywhere other than a player's hand have [Accelerate]. — Rek'Sai, Breacher

Riftbound Unit: Faithful Manufactor. When you play me, play a 1 [S] Recruit unit token here. — Faithful Manufactor

Riftbound Unit: Rengar, Pouncing. [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve, including to a battlefield you control.)
[Assault 2] (+2 [S] while I'm an attacker.)
I can be played to a battlefield you're attacking. — Rengar, Pouncing

Riftbound Unit: Noxus Hopeful. [Legion] — I cost [2] less. (Get the effect if you've played another card this turn.) — Noxus Hopeful

Riftbound Unit: Undertitan. When you play me, give your other units +2 [S] this turn.
As I'm revealed from your deck, [Add] [2]. — Undertitan

Riftbound Spell: Blood Rush. [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
[Repeat] [1] (You may pay the additional cost to repeat this spell's effect.)
Give a unit [Assault 2] this turn. (+2 [M] while it's an attacker.) — Blood Rush

Riftbound Spell: Void Rush. Reveal the top 2 cards of your Main Deck. You may banish one, then play it, reducing its cost by [2]. Draw any you didn't banish. — Void Rush

Runes (12)

Battlefields (3)

Riftbound Battlefield: The Candlelit Sanctum. When you conquer here, look at the top two cards of your Main Deck. You may recycle one or both of them. Put those you don't back in any order. — The Candlelit Sanctum

Sideboard (8)

Riftbound Unit: Vi, Destructive. [Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.)
Recycle 1 from your trash: Give me +1 [S] this turn. — Vi, Destructive

Riftbound Unit: Ferrous Forerunner. [Deathknell] — Play two 3 [S] Mech unit tokens to your base. (When I die, get the effect.) — Ferrous Forerunner

Riftbound Gear: Long Sword. [Quick-Draw] (This has [Reaction]. When you play it, attach it to a unit you control.)
[Equip] [C] ([C]: Attach this to a unit you control.) — Long Sword

Riftbound Spell: Falling Star. Deal 3 to a unit.
Deal 3 to a unit. — Falling Star

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What we learned

Master Yi walked into the most watched seat in the room and still sent 108 of 184 players to Day 2, or 59%. That breaks the old tournament rule of thumb that popularity puts a target on your back. The Day 1 and Day 2 results did not reveal a clean answer to him, though the top of the standings might have: the deck that won the event never dropped a game, and it was not Master Yi.

Chaos had the bad weekend the desk could not stop noticing. After a Spiritforged season where the domain sat in nearly every winning list, Europe's first Unleashed top table held exactly one Chaos-identity deck in its top three, and the casters were reduced to asking on air when that had ever happened. One event might be variance, and we might see the domain snap back when somebody finds the right deck build, but a fall that steep across a single format change is not a signal I am comfortable ignoring.

The spread underneath all of it might be the healthiest sign the West has produced so far: eight different legends filled eight Top 8 seats, Rek'Sai and Darius reached a Western final table for the first time, and the official roundup includes one deck from the highest-placing player for every Legend that showed up. Formats do not usually get wider while a 15-0-1 champion is marching through them, and Utrecht somehow managed both at once.

Looking ahead

Dhawally gave the interview of the weekend on the Alanzq1 rivalry, recalling that after losing to him, Alanzq1 told him “if we played 100 more games, we'd be 50/50,” and revealing that the two were, as far as he knew, on the same Diana list again in Utrecht. The Houston champion also said he brought a build he thinks is “better for the top tables,” which is the kind of sentence that tells you these players are now building for each other rather than for the field.

Dhawally backed the talk up with a fourth-place finish while Alanzq1 missed the cut entirely, so the scoreboard between them tilts again, and Hartford is only days away. Whether the next chapter is another final between Diana players or something neither of them has shown yet, we might not have to wait long to find out.

See you on the rift,
Shadow