Over the weekend, lots of Filipino players eagerly followed the coverage of Pro Tour Austin with the hopes of learning a lot more about the relatively new formats being born therein – the new Extended with Zendikar as well as how the pros drafted the new set. They also got an unexpected bonus – a Filipino-born player doing well enough and even taking sole possession of the lead deep into day two, only to fall short of becoming the first Pinoy to make it to the hallowed ranks of a Magic Pro Tour Top 8.

It took four straight losses – to eventual finalist Tsuyoshi Ikeda, Hall of Famer Raphael Levy, current Player of the Year leader Yuuya Watanabe and eventual champion Brian Kibler to stop Marcel Angelo Zafra from making local Magic history. And though he was listed as an entry from Canada, having moved there with his family some two to three years back, he still declared himself as proudly hailing from the Philippines.

Only one win in the last four rounds separated Zafra from immortality but perhaps, it just wasn’t meant to be.

I have some vague memories of Marcel as a big kid who I used to play against in some tournaments while he was still here. Though not particularly a strong player yet at the time, he clearly had passion for the game and wanted to constantly improve. Then I heard he moved to Canada through the forums here and started to make a name for himself there on the local PTQ circuit and eventually, their version of nationals.

The search for the first Filipino touring pro is still ongoing. I’m sure it would please the powers that be in Wizards for another Southeast Asian MTG player to break through just as Terry Soh of Malaysia did a while back [remember the Rakdos Auermage? Well, neither do I…] and maybe contest the Japanese dominance of the region. There are some Chinese, Singaporeans and Koreans who do well on occasion, but no one else in the region has broken through to a Pro Tour Top 8.

Having a local pro on the international Magic circuit to represent the Philippines involves more than just pride. It is also very aspirational, as it could push local players to strive even further so they could join the bandwagon. I call this the Carlos Romao phenomenon. Ever since the Brazilian spellslinger came from practically out of nowhere to become world champion in 2004 (as well as Argentina’s Diego Ostrovich making Top 8 the same year), the game has had a surge in popularity throughout Latin America, so much so that Romao's countryman Paolo Vitor Damo da Rosa is now one of the game’s fixtures and after the leading lights of the US, Japan, Germany, Italy and France, Brazil had one of the biggest pack of pro hopefuls in Austin, Texas – 17 in all.

Several of our top local players have made cameo appearances at past pro tours – Francis Profeta, Gerald Camangon, Nick Ortega among others and our current journeymen seem to be JT Porter and Richmond Tan. But there’s a HUUUUGE difference in merely qualifying for a PT and being a gravy-trainer, as someone who is Level 4 or higher (invites to all pro tours and three byes at all GPs seems to me the cutoff) can be called.

One has to remember that even the loftiest pros start out modestly. Some stories frequently involved friends getting into the game early on, forgetting about it and then rediscovering it once more later. There’s almost always a game store involved, possibly an FNM and pre-release success and then there is a spark that moves a player to feel he can be really good at this game.

So even while we laugh at some so-called “noob” for making awful decks and drafting bad cards which somehow affect our own drafts, remember that this guy, should he be given sufficient encouragement and allowed to improve, could one day be the first Filipino to be a fixture on the Magic Pro Tour.

Right, Marcel?