Yuchen Liu Wins a Second Straight Regional Championship in a Feat Magic.gg Calls Unprecedented
The China Open Hangzhou champion went 7–0 in the Swiss with Esper Goryo's Vengeance, then swept and ground his way through a Top 8 he had drawn into.
Two Regional Championships were decided on the same weekend earlier this month, on opposite sides of the world, and the more historic result came out of China: Yuchen Liu won China Open Hangzhou, taking his second consecutive Regional Championship title.
The date is stated rather than inferred. Magic.gg's Metagame Mentor column carries Liu's winning decklist tagged with the event name MTG China Open: Hangzhou and the event date September 12, 2026 — a Saturday. Magic.gg's recap of the double weekend, published Monday, September 14, 2026, calls Liu's second straight title "an unprecedented feat" and says he was "making history."
We are quoting that characterization rather than restating it as a record of our own, and it is worth being exact about whose characterization it is: the recap is a bylined column by Corbin Hosler on magic.gg, Wizards' own site, not a corporate statement — and it does not spell out the full history behind the claim.
A perfect Swiss, then a draw into the Top 8
Liu's run, in magic.gg's account: he went 7–0 before drawing into the Top 8 — clinching his slot with an intentional draw rather than playing the final round out.
Once in the elimination rounds he swept Zihao Wang, then won three-game sets against Yiren Jiang and, in the final, Steven Li's Izzet Prowess to take the title. The recap's summary of the whole run: he "didn't drop a match on his [way] to the Top 8."
The win gives Liu four Regional Championship Top 8 appearances, alongside three overall Top Finishes at the international level, per the same recap.
The deck: Esper Goryo's Vengeance
Liu's list was an Esper build of the Goryo's Vengeance archetype — what magic.gg calls "the Atraxa, Grand Unifier-reanimating machine."
The engine is a single card's text doing a lot of work. Goryo's Vengeance is a {1}{B} Instant — Arcane, and its full text runs:
"Return target legendary creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. That creature gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
Splice onto Arcane {2}{B}"
Atraxa, Grand Unifier is a mythic from Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and — critically for this interaction — legendary, which is what makes her a legal target. Because her card advantage comes from an enters-the-battlefield trigger — reveal the top ten cards of your library and take one of each card type — a one-turn reanimation still cashes it in before the exile clause takes her away at end of turn.
Magic.gg's read on why it held up across a diverse field: the deck "clearly had both the resiliency and power to operate in an open field," excelling at "harassing and disrupting an opponent's game plan while also setting up for its own powerful lategame — which of course comes as early as turn three."
The same weekend, the other side of the world
Liu's win came on the same weekend Pete Ingram took the United States Regional Championship in Baltimore, piloting what magic.gg called the breakout deck of that tournament — Mono-Green Basking Broodscale combo — and beating Curtis Lam in the final. Both were Modern-format Regional Championships feeding this season's Pro Tour and World Championship qualification cycle. We covered Ingram's win when it was announced.
The two events drew "nearly 2,000 total players (around 1,500 in the United States and over 400 in China)," per the recap. In the United States there were 32 Pro Tour invitations on the line; China offered berths to each member of the Top 8.
Where the results are published — and one name that does not match
Magic.gg's recap links to a Top 8 decklist page for China Open Hangzhou, but that link currently returns a 404, as does the equivalent link for the Baltimore Top 32. We checked both on September 24, 2026 rather than passing them along unverified. Magic.gg's main decklists index is live, and the Hangzhou lists may reappear there.
The standings, though, are published — on a separate page the recap does not link to: MTG China Open: Hangzhou September 2026 Final Standings, bylined Wizards of the Coast, September 14. It gives the Top 8 as Yuchen Liu, Zeyuan Li, Jinlin Li, Yiren Jiang, Xiaoqi Qin, Zihao Wang, HongXuan Chen and Luoyao Gong. Liu took $5,000 and all eight earned invitations to Pro Tour Nauctis; Liu also picked up his World Championship 33 berth.
One discrepancy we are not going to resolve on Wizards' behalf: magic.gg's recap and its Metagame Mentor column both name Liu's finals opponent Steven Li, while the official standings list the runner-up as Zeyuan Li. Reading the bracket, those are the same seat — but the same name is written two ways on two Wizards pages, and Wizards has not reconciled them, so we are giving you both rather than picking one.
Filed by the Harlequins Market newsroom.