mtg pro tour history

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An Oral History of the First Pro Tour

In early 1996, Magic: The Gathering was just under three years old, but Organized Play was just taking its first wobbly steps. There had been a couple of World Championships, a US Nationals, and scattered local tournaments offering collections of the Power Nine and complete sets of Legends as prizes. Homelands had just come out, and there was this new format called Type 2 that was scuffling along behind a format in which you could Fork an Ancestral Recall , eat all your Moxen, and then Berserk your gigantic Atog .

Still, we were having fun even if nobody knew quite where it was all going—until an ad appeared in the pages of The Duelist for something called "The Magic: The Gathering Black Lotus Pro Tour." It was billed as a professional tournament with bigger cash prizes than anyone had ever seen for playing a game.

That event took place 20 years ago this February, and it had a profound effect on what we thought of as tournament Magic . Today, Wizards of the Coast gives away millions of dollars every year to an elite cadre of the game's best players through Grand Prix, Pro Tours, and the Pro Players Club, but back then, a tournament with a $12,000 first prize was unprecedented. I interviewed a handful of people who were at that event in an attempt to capture the oral history of the tournament.

Joining me to share their memories from that event are:

• Richard Garfield, the inventor of Magic: The Gathering .
• Skaff Elias, one of the original Magic playtesters and the first Magic Brand Manager. He pushed the idea of Magic as an intellectual sport.
• Mark Rosewater, the current Magic Head Designer, who has discussed his role at the Pro Tour on two podcasts. Those can be found here and here .
• Elaine Chase, the current Senior Director of Global Brand Strategy and Marketing for Magic: The Gathering . Before her long journey at Wizards, she was a competitor at the event.
• Charlie Catino, who, along with Skaff, was one of the first people to playtest Magic . In his role as an R&D Director, he has been responsible for Duel Masters for the past fifteen years.
• Jon Finkel is a Pro Tour Hall of Famer who has been playing at the highest level throughout the 20 years of the Pro Tour.
• Graham Tatomer, a Santa Barbara winemaker who won the Junior Division of that first Pro Tour.
• Michael Loconto, a Worchester social worker who defeated Bertrand Lestree in the finals of the first Pro Tour to become the very first Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Champion.

Before the Black Lotus Pro Tour

Skaff : I came to be involved with Magic sheerly through pure luck. Richard Garfield was a fellow grad student in the math department at Penn. He had us all play games with him, and one of the games was this little thing he was working on for Wizards called "Magic." I think I was the third person to play it. And basically I have been playing it ever since.

Graham : It just turned out that Santa Barbara was kind of a hot spot for the game right when it came out. For Limited Edition (Alpha) and Limited Edition (Beta) we got an unusually high amount of players and actual cards. I was really drawn in by the fact that you got to make your own deck and that there were a lot of different avenues to take. There was this competitive factor to it that I liked as well. I was fifteen or sixteen years old when I got involved—around the release of Unlimited Edition . I was at the tail end of high school, where it felt like I didn't have that much to actually do. There was plenty of time to build decks and play against each other in local tournaments.

Elaine : Before the first Pro Tour, I was pretty active in the New York competitive scene. Gray Matter Conventions ran $1,000 tournaments at the time, and I played in those. I played in all sorts of communities in New York City, New Jersey, Upstate New York.... Magic at that time was a huge part of my life, and I would spend multiple days a week at multiple locations playing the game.

Charlie : I was one of the original playtesters for Richard Garfield's game. I basically played Magic before anyone else played Magic . I had a lot of experience and obviously, like all the players later on, when I first got into Magic I immediately realized what an awesome game it was and how much fun I had playing it. I just loved it so much and I dove incredibly deeply into it.

Michael : A lot of us played at SMK Collectibles in Hudson, Massachusetts. I remember buying Antiquities booster packs; that was the set that was out when we started to play. I'm sure everybody has a story about running to the store and hoping that there would be packs there. Unfortunately it wasn't Unlimited . We used to run a lot of tournaments for the store. Jim Lemire and I would be the judges. At the time, other than New York, the place to be was Hudson, Massachusetts.

Mark : I got hired by Wizards of the Coast in October 1995. I learned shortly afterwards from Skaff Elias that he was starting up a Pro Tour. Because I had been working freelance for Wizards, I wasn't allowed to play in tournaments. I told Skaff that I wanted to be involved, and he made me the liaison to R&D.

Jon : I was living in England when Magic came out. I was either fifteen or sixteen years old and I went to this local game store called Fun and Games. I walked in there and people were playing Dungeons & Dragons and other games, but the very first day people were playing Magic and it looked interesting. I asked about it and was pretty much instantly hooked. I moved back to the United States in New Jersey during the summer of '95 and started going to game stores and playing in some local tournaments. I thought I was pretty good—like every brash seventeen-year-old does—but I probably didn't play enough lands.

Richard : Obviously Magic was super-successful, but it was still in this turbulent non-stabilized state. I very much believed in this idea that if you took a game seriously that would help all levels of the game. The example that was used was that of basketball. The existence of the NBA didn't make it so that everybody's games are all super serious and exclude people who didn't participate in the NBA.

Balance | Art by Mark Poole

The Birth of the Pro Tour

Skaff : I was in R&D and at some point they needed a Brand Manager for the product, so I became the Brand and Business Manager for Magic —not too long before the Pro Tour. Part of the brand and marketing plan we came up with was to turn Magic into an intellectual sport. We felt that was really important for the long-term health of Magic .

Richard : When Ice Age came out, there were early posts analyzing the set, and they said there were only two good cards in the set. This is an unbelievably bad result for someone who's been working on the set for years and years. You look at that you just think, "This is ridiculous," with putting all this time, and in the end there were two cards that are of interest to people because they wanted to play with all these old, powerful cards. If we were in the business of selling cards to people, we were going to run out of cards sooner than we wanted. But if we were in the business of selling environments, we could make a new environment whenever we want. That's basically where the game was before the Pro Tour came around.

Mark : Skaff and I worked really closely together trying to get the event off the ground. Remember, in the early days there was nothing to model after. It was like the Wild West. Every tournament was run radically different.

Skaff : Golf and tennis were the two key examples for us that we were following. We talked to a lot of people at various sports marketing agencies and we decided that the best course of action was to start holding high-dollar tournaments and create stars out of the top people by having significant payouts. I understand the first Pro Tour wasn't necessarily that, but it was the first step towards that.

Mark : We wanted to name the Pro Tour, and one of the first things we came up with was "The Black Lotus Pro Tour." We sent out postcards announcing it, and we later learned that the lotus had connotations in some foreign markets that were not good. It is symbolic of drug trafficking in Asia, for example. We were just calling it the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour internally, and eventually that stuck.

Richard : The main thing was that there were a lot of design issues. As far as designing the way the tournament would work at the time—payouts, what would happen if people took too long playing, and so on—that was hard work, but it was minor compared to politically getting the company on board with it. Because if it [didn't] have the support of the company and a unified vision coming from them, then it wasn't going to work.

I remember a board meeting in those days with people talking about how to get in touch with what the players wanted. I suggested we could hire the players, and most of the people at the board meeting laughed. It just showed such a huge lack of respect for the people buying the product. All this political stuff had to be overcome. For me, this was the [most pressing] of the difficulties we faced.

The Phone Lines Are Open

Mark : We invited everybody that we could think of who were good players, including using rankings for the first time ever. We invited the top 25 or top 50 or whatever. Then we needed to fill out the rest of the tournament and we had no other means to do it. So the way you got into the first Pro Tour was by calling in.

Graham : I don't even think there were qualifiers for it. Whoever called first just got in. It filled up in a couple hours if I remember correctly. It was the same for the Juniors Division, but it just never filled up. Sam Beavers was actually the guy my parents called to ask, "Hey, if we fly our son out to New York, does he have a chance to win this thing?" He told them I definitely had a chance and they said, "Let's do it." After that first Pro Tour it was never like that again—you actually had to qualify for things, there was no sign-up sheet.

Skaff : We weren't really that connected to the players at the time, because everything was so casual. For the first Pro Tour, it was really difficult to jump-start everything. That was the hardest part. We basically had no contact information for the vast majority of good players. We knew we had limited slots and it was a call-in. We used as much information as we could, but in the end we had to have a call-in.

Elaine : It was first come, first serve, and at the time I had really well-trained fingers because that's how you got concert tickets—by calling into Ticketmaster. There was a lot of redialing on the phone when you got a busy signal. I would just hit redial...redial...redial. I actually got through, and my fiancé—now husband—also wanted to play. I asked if I could sign us both up and they said I had to hang up and dial again. Fortunately I got us both in. It was in New York City, I was in New York; there was no way I was gonna miss it. I was really excited to participate.

Mark : I remember I had friends, such as Mark Chalice, who desperately wanted to get in and they couldn't get through. They would call me and I just told them to keep trying, keep trying.

Michael : I remember all my friends trying to get in. I remember that I got through once and then the person on the other end hung up on me. And then it was busy...busy...busy. And then somehow—God bless—I got through on the phone lines. The rest is history I guess. Literally. It's amazing that that's how they did the first one.

Apocalypse Chime | Art by Mark Poole

A New Standard for Deck Construction

While it was still pretty common for tournaments to be held using what would now be considered Vintage as the default format, the format for that first Pro Tour was a modified version of Standard—or, as it was known at the time, Type 2. For this tournament, players build their decks including at least five cards from each set that was legal in the format: Fourth Edition , Chronicles , Ice Age , Fallen Empires , and Homelands .

Mark : The whole point of the Pro Tour is that it's a marketing vehicle. We want to be aspirational, but we were also trying to get them to focus on what the latest sets were going to be. Obviously right now Pro Tours are named after the new set that's just come out. Our problem was that the latest set to come out right before that first Pro Tour was Homelands ....

Elaine : I can't even remember what all the sets were except that Homelands was one of them. It was the biggest pain ever. I mean, which Homelands cards were I going to force in? Do you actually build a deck with the Homelands cards in it, or do you just try and stick them in the sideboard? It was one of the things that made Autumn Willow stand out for that tournament. I built White Weenie and I put Aysen Highway in the sideboard. That was my big tech. If I played against another White Weenie player, I could drop it and swing for the kill. I guess I was trying to make "Plainswalkers" a thing before I even worked here.

Skaff : The idea at the time was that we wanted people to have to rethink deck construction. We wanted deck construction and what teams/individuals would be thinking about to be a little bit off the normal. It was pretty close to Type 2, so we wanted to promote Type 2 with this added skill twist to it.

Jon : I don't think Alliances was out yet, because as soon as I saw Thawing Glaciers I thought it was the best card ever and I definitely would've played that. I remember that Homelands and Fallen Empires were the really hard ones there. Fallen Empires had Hymn to Tourach , Order of the Ebon Hand , and Order of Leitbur . I ended up playing a blue-white Millstone deck, but I played Serra Angel s, Blinking Spirit s, and two Order of Leitbur s. Homelands had Serrated Arrows and then the terrible tri-lands.

Charlie : We really wanted to encourage diversity and make sure that all sets were represented. We wanted the environment to be interesting and a little different. We wanted to make sure no sets felt bad to the players.

Michael : I remember trying to get Homelands cards in there—that was a hard one. Looking back now, I can see why people rip my deck. People don't know what it was like back then. They just know 60 cards, but back then it was different. I knew a kid who played 100-card decks competitively. Hallowed Ground was one of the cards I wasn't sold on; it was just in there because it needed to be.

Mark : Anyone who's ever heard me talk about this knows that [ Homelands ] is the weakest set—on every level—that we've ever made. It was not a particularly strong set-design-wise, was not a very powerful set development-wise. It was just a very kind of "eh" set. But that was the set that was out and we needed to focus on it. We wanted people to play with Homelands cards, but how do we make that happen other than maybe a Serrated Arrows here or there? We came up with a format that made you play with five cards from every set that was legal in Type 2.

Upstairs/Downstairs

In the early days of the Pro Tour, the field was broken up into two divisions: Seniors and Juniors. The Junior Division was held on an entirely different floor of the building that housed that first tournament. While the Seniors were cutting to a Top 16, the Juniors cut to a Top 8. Also all the prize money for Juniors was paid out in the form of college scholarships.

Skaff : I know this sounds almost quaint now, but at the time it was very controversial to put money on tournaments. You could put all sorts of other prizes, but you very rarely saw straight cash payouts. We wanted to not get on the bad side of parents, and it felt like that could happen if we put cash on the Juniors. So the prizes for the Juniors at the first Pro Tour weren't cash, they were scholarships. For the whole Junior tour they were managed as scholarships. There was a bit of marketing there, and we wanted the right emphasis for kids. We wanted to encourage kids to go to college.

Graham : I almost didn't go to college, because I already knew I wanted to work in the wine industry and I had a fair amount of experience. It was because I had that $12,000 scholarship—which essentially paid for all my tuition and books—that I was able to go to community college in Santa Barbara and then UCSB. It's pretty incredible that it worked out that way. It was really awesome.

Richard : Wow, that's cool!

Skaff : Honestly that makes me feel so good. That is exactly what we wanted to happen. We were all nerds growing up and we felt bad that people with hand-eye coordination and muscles could get scholarships. There are just not the amount of academic scholarships that there are for sports. We really wanted people to be able to take their hobby—which is essentially what you do with baseball or basketball—and have that equivalent for intellectual sports. We wanted more respect for intellectual pursuits.

Merchant Scroll | Art by Liz Danforth

Getting Ready

Graham : It's not hard to see in general what the most powerful cards are. It's unusual that something totally out of the blue comes along, but I guess the deck I brought—Necropotence—was pretty out of the blue. The way that came about was there was this one guy—I don't know his name, we just called him Frenchy—and Joel Unger had this unbelievable respect for him as a deck builder. He was the first person messing around with Necropotence . I got the deck from Joel, who had just gotten it from Frenchy and was testing it at our local tournaments.

Michael : At the time, Necro decks were just not a thing around here. We weren't really prepared for that situation that much—thank God I ducked a couple of those. After the first tour, the Necro deck just busted out all over the place.

Jon : I just played a lot of Magic . There were a couple of stores I went to, especially Hero's Outpost in North Plainfield, which was the most local store. I went to Outer Realms in Linden, which was the store where the best people played. People like Eric Phillipps, David Bachman, Andy Longo, and Aaron Kline—who did well at that first Pro Tour—all went there.

Elaine : [My husband] Kierin was my playtesting partner, and for the most part it was just the two of us building a bunch of different decks and playing them against each other, just like we would for any of the Gray Matter events we went to. There wasn't this huge playtesting regimen like there is now; it was just "Hey there's a tournament with wonky deck restrictions, let's see what we can build."

Skaff : That first Pro Tour was insane. You don't want to just put an event on and then have no one hear about it. It was really supposed to drive excitement through the whole Magic community. You don't even do it to begin with unless you have that strategy in place so that you can leverage the value. Then if you are going to have press there, you want to make it look good. We had real budget constraints, but we wanted a good site. We wanted it to be in NY because that was the center of the Magic community. Without much money, we made it look really good. For a little random game company just coming it out, we made it look astounding. Maybe it is rose-colored glasses, but it was really impressive.

Jon : That first Pro Tour was very much a media event with very high production values. Now the Pro Tour is really designed to be viewed online, but then we had this huge gala event. That site was beautiful, although it couldn't hold very many people.

Skaff : When a player went there, we wanted them to feel like it was a respectable event. We wanted them to say "Hey! This is kind of cool. This is real." Because those players go out and tell their friends about it. That was the seed of the original Magic Pro Tour community. We wanted them to feel some confidence that we would be around.

Elaine : The funny thing about the first Pro Tour is that I didn't even think there would be a second one. They had done a big Ice Age Prerelease and the Homelands event in New York called "The Gathering 1," and there was no The Gathering 2. They were just all these different types of events that were doing all these different things. At the time, my take on it was that it was the new marketing flavor of the month and that they were going to keep trying things and move on and do something else.

Charlie : It's hard to put people in the mindset where we were back then. We had a lot of passion for Magic , we had a lot of great ideas for Magic , we just didn't have much experience. We were trying to learn from all these things that happened and trying to improve, but when you do something for the first time you're gonna try a lot of stuff that nowadays maybe you wouldn't do. The important thing is to learn from it. A lot of the early starts for the judge programs and forming tournament environments came from all the decisions that went into that tournament.

Skaff : Even things like registration don't sound hard, but if you don't think about it you are going to screw it up. The registration, how everything is calculated, scheduling the number of rounds and the tournament structure. We studied every tournament format known to man. Before, when it was casual, it really didn't matter—but now that there was money on it, people were going to game the system at every opportunity. We had to think about how we would manipulate this, how we would screw the system over so that we could win money by figuring out loopholes in the system. All of the tournaments that were run after that were completely different than they were before it.

Mark : When Magic first came out, Richard Garfield's vision for the game was one of discovery. Richard didn't want information put out, he wanted people to discover Magic cards in the wild. So for the first year or year and a half, people were super secretive about what was in a deck. I covered Worlds in 1995 and I wasn't allowed to list the decks. I did play-by-play, and I showed what was in their hands, but we didn't tell you their whole decks. At this tournament not only were we going to tell you, but we were going to print [commemorative copies of] the decks so you could buy them—you could play them. That was a very different approach from how we handled Magic in the past.

Richard : By the time we were doing the Pro Tour, I had completely given up on that idea already. I think it [lasted] a year maybe where it was a real part of the game, and I took immense satisfaction when lists would come out in magazines or online that were incomplete or incorrect because people had to do all the research on their own. My memory is, which again could be fuzzy, that after about a year it was clear that the idea of people discovering things in that way was impossible and they wanted to get the answer. I had given up on [my previous vision].

In the beginning, the way I imagined Magic being played was with people buying one deck, having some fun, and then maybe buying another deck. Then maybe mixing and matching them. I didn't anticipate people buying more than four or five decks. If everyone in your group only bought four to five, there was going to be this process of exploration. That play group of eight people wouldn't even see all the cards, they're not even gonna all be there. It was pretty clear, pretty early, that this is not how it was going to go down. And I embraced that reality.

Jon : It wasn't the way it is now where everybody knows everything all the time.

Skaff : We had these sports marketing people from the beginning telling us we were crazy if we didn't make it all single-elimination, but we were confident that we wanted Swiss for two reasons. One, it is more skill-testing. It gives people more play. You don't want to drive six hours in that snowstorm and lose in the first round. So we knew we wanted Swiss, but you have this strong pressure of wanting single-elimination. Single-elimination is very easy for people to understand. It is crystal clear and every game is exciting and nail-biting. We wanted a combo of those two...so we just did it. We are sort of proud of that format. It has become the standard for Magic stuff, but you see it in other places too now.

Necropotence | Art by Mark Tedin

A Snow-Covered Island

Perhaps running a tent-pole marketing event in the middle of the winter in New York City was not the best idea.

Mark : Skaff had it in his mind that it had to be in New York City. He also really wanted the Pro Tour to start in February, but he never seemed to piece together that it snows in February in New York City.

Jon : It was the blizzard of '96—how could you forget the blizzard of '96? I probably drove in—at the time I lived really close to the Holland Tunnel. My car was this old Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback that was definitely not optimized for winter driving. I'd drive the car to PTQs and $1,000 tournaments all over the place, and there must have been a 20% chance that I got into an accident, but somehow I always came out on the right side of it. I min-crashed with it.

Elaine : There had already been two huge blizzards, including the blizzard that dumped two feet of snow in New York. Then the Pro Tour happens and there's this third blizzard with another ten-plus inches. We nearly didn't make it to the city, our car was slipping and sliding all over the place. Once we got there, all of Manhattan was closed. Try to picture Manhattan with no cars, with nobody going anywhere; it was the most insane thing ever.

Richard : I used to attend the MIT puzzle hunt, and it was always held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day—or as we who did the hunt used to call it, the coldest day of the year. This idea of having a large group of people get together in terrible weather and play games indoors was something I had lived through several times, and I thought maybe in some ways that was how it ought to be.

Michael : Oh my God, the weather! I remember being scared, I can tell you that. Jim Allen and I, we rented a van or something; he was driving and I was up front with him. Everyone else was either sleeping or passed out and I remember try to get one of my other friends to stay awake. I said, "I don't want to die."

Graham : I am from Southern California and New York was covered in snow. I had never been to New York City. I was just so wowed by the city, seeing everything so tall and covered in snow. I was just going with the flow, you know? I don't remember anything out of the ordinary other than it being very cold.

Charlie : The reason I remember that is because I didn't bring a winter coat. I wasn't thinking along those lines. I remember walking back one of those nights from the tournament site to the hotel with Skaff Elias, who also didn't bring a winter coat, and never wearing anything other than shorts. The snow is coming down like crazy and we were there without jackets, wearing tennis shoes.

Skaff : And I was out there on the roof of the Puck Building in my shorts, trying to fix stuff, with baling wire trying to hang signs and banners. It was obviously a disaster. We had talked about it before and asked "What if this happens?" but we were pretty adamant that it had to be in NY for a number of reasons. Number one was that it was a lot easier for international travel, and we wanted to make sure we had people from other countries there. The Magic community there was so strong and so many people could drive to it. It was by far the best city for the first Pro Tour.

Michael : Jim Allen was driving crazy. It was like a bat out of hell. It looked like the Millennium Falcon with the lights in the snow going by the windshield, and I was legit scared we were going to go off the road or something. My friend Jim would just maniacally laugh. I couldn't tell if he was really insane or just teasing me. To this day I don't know.

Mark : I grew up in the Snow Belt, where you really needed a foot and a half of snow for a real shot at a snow day. When I shot the video, I tried to do an introduction outside the building. It was so windy, with so much snow, that we did eight takes on it before we gave up. It was so snowy that we delayed the start of Day One. It was supposed to start at like 9 or 10 a.m. and we delayed until the afternoon.

Skaff : You never know...once your boss gives you approval to do stuff, you gotta do it because the rug could be yanked out from under you at the next turn. We didn't really have options. We knew that the weather could be a factor and we kept altering things—how late registration was, when the rounds would start. We did everything we could to bend things to accommodate people. It was nerve-wracking but—and maybe it was false optimism—I never thought things would be ruined. I am from the Northeast. I have driven stupidly in snowstorms a lot, so I thought, "Get there, suck it up, put some scrapes on the side of your car. That's what guard rails are for."

In the Eye of the Storm

Elaine : There was this party the night before for the people who were able to make it. There were people passing around pseudo-fancy appetizers, but everyone was starving because nobody could get anything to eat. They actually ordered a bunch of pizzas for us, which was really awesome. The pizzas would come out and people would just devour them.

Michael : The first night we got there...we were partying pretty hard. I'll never forget this, though: Richard Garfield, who at the time was kind of a big deal, was there and I had never met him. We were all practicing in the hallways of the hotel and I'd had a few too many drinks. I went up to him and I said, "Hey Richard! I'm Michael Loconto and I'm gonna see you Sunday when I win this thing!"

And then after it was all said and done and I'm standing there with him, he was shaking his head saying, "I can't believe you actually won." We used to have a really good time when we played.

Mark : We wanted to make sure that it was a spectacle. The night before, there was a party where we had food and drinks for the players. We even had to make sure all the players actually came; I had to get on the phone with the players and make sure they knew that this was going to be a big deal for Magic .

Elaine : Later that night, we went back to the hotel and we were watching Letterman. It was hilarious because nobody could get in or out of the city and Letterman taped in front of a live audience. He has the camera guy turn around to show the audience and there were like five people in the audience for Letterman. Then they went to check out the standby line and there were like twelve people on the standby line. He lets them all in and they don't even fill up the first row. Kierin and I just looked at each other and said "Holy crap! We should've gone to Letterman!"

Stormbind | Art by NéNé Thomas & Phillip Mosness

Pairings Are Up

Graham : There were a lot of little kids there. It felt like maybe there were fifteen of us that were actually competing in the tournament. It was just unfair that a twelve-year-old had to play a seventeen-year-old, you know? The fact that I had a Necropotence deck and I was given that playing field? My entire match would be done in ten or twelve minutes.

I do remember judges laughing when I played Demonic Consultation for the first time. I was like "Okay, laugh all you want." They certainly weren't laughing at the end. I remember an incredible number of fast matches. I remember losing to this guy who played Karma [in his main deck]. That was my only loss. I had to have a judge question if that was seriously in his [main] deck and the judge said it was.

Charlie : Not only was I the head judge for the Juniors, I was also the tournament organizer. I had note cards and I had pencils with erasers. I knew ahead of time how to do pairings — I played chess tournaments and I knew how a tournament should be run. I just got the note cards out, put all the 1-0s in a pile, put all the 0-1s in a pile, and paired them for Round 2. I kept track of all the results on the notecards. I took the pile of notecards back to my hotel room after dinner and spent quite a bit of time calculating—by hand—all the players' tiebreakers. I used that to determine the order that everybody finished in. Obviously I had to double-check that because it was an important thing. Not only did I calculate the tiebreakers, but I double-checked all my math. I had to calculate this for all 120-something competitors.

Elaine : I do remember that there was a big delay at the beginning of Round 1 because they were scouring the room and looking under tables and things to make sure there weren't any cheating implements. You could only go into the room with your deck and tournament materials—you couldn't bring anything else in with you. They had an enforced coat and backpack check that they didn't tell anybody they were going to have, and they were charging people money for it. At the time, we were poor Magic players and nobody wanted to pay the couple bucks to have them check our stuff. We complained loudly enough until they said we didn't have to pay...although I'm not sure if they just made that a special case for us or if they did it for everybody.

Skaff : Once the tournament started, I don't remember very much. I had been called up to the Juniors several times. Finkel was crying, and I had to take care of that.

Jon : Ten minutes after I won my first round, there were three cards sitting on our table. I had been Jester's Capped in Game 2 and our match went to three games. The judge asked me if they were my cards. I said they were, and I got a game loss for Game 3. I had won the match—those cards could've been there for any number of reasons. I threw what could charitably be called a tantrum. It definitely involved crying—I'm glad there was no video. That's actually how I met Skaff, I was demanding my money back and stuff. They calmed me down, but I still think that game loss was kinda [unfair].

Charlie : I remember being a little worried about making the rules call, but fortunately I was given Beth Moursand, who was really good at the rules. That helped a little bit for my concerns. I don't remember there being anything that extreme though.

Mark : There are so many things about how a Pro Tour is run that you take for granted now. For example, I'm the creator of Feature Matches—and that didn't even happen until the second Pro Tour. And there it was me putting up a list of tables with matches you might want to go see. It wasn't until the third Pro Tour that we created a special area where you could go as a spectator. For the first Pro Tour, spectators could just walk around and watch any match they wanted.

Elaine : I did horribly and lost very quickly. As soon as both Kierin and I were out of Top 16 contention, we went to get lunch. We went up to Brian David-Marshall and he told us to stay, because even if we weren't gonna make the cut, there were still going to be invites given out—I don't remember if it was Top 32 or Top 64—to the next tour in LA. And I remember saying specifically "Yeah right! Like they're going to do another one of these! Do you want us to bring you back anything?" So we dropped and of course I spent the next two years of my life trying to get back on the Pro Tour.

Jon : I won my next five rounds and then I was playing against Ross Sclafani; the winner was going to be in the Top 8. The tiebreaker was game win percentage and I suggested to Ross that we should say whoever wins won the match 2-0. He called the judge and the judge said we couldn't do that. Now, of course, you know that now—but then? You had no idea. I ended up losing, but I made the Top 8 anyway and lost in the quarters.

Demonic Consultation | Art by Rob Alexander

After a day of Swiss play and a laborious evening of tiebreaker calculations, the Top 16 for the Seniors and the Top 8 for the Juniors came back to play on Sunday. Bertrand Lestree and Michael Loconto were the last two Seniors playing at the end of their bracket, while Graham Tatomer faced off against Aaron Kline.

Graham : I played the final match against a White Weenie deck played by Aaron Kline. That was a really tough match, and I topdecked a couple times to save my [bacon]. I remember topdecking a Nevinyrral's Disk to win. That was gnarly.

They told us to play slow and explain everything. I was always a very fast Magic player. I felt like if I played too slow I might lose my natural instinct for the game. I remember at one point they announced that Aaron had won the match. We didn't really communicate when it happened. I was gonna kill him the next turn, but he had Karma out. I had a Zuran Orb and could sacrifice my lands to gain life. I looked at him and he said "Yeah I get it." I just swept up all my cards and so did he. They just thought he had won. I would have died to Karma if I didn't sacrifice any lands, but I could just sacrifice all my lands—it didn't matter—[and] I was about to kill him.

At any Pro Tour after that, you would've had to be very specific about what you were doing—about every step. Aaron was nice enough to say "Yes, you're totally not gonna die to Karma while you have the Zuran Orb out." I think about that moment a lot. I should've been more professional, but I was a kid. It was just this minute of confusion where all the people thought that he won. He would've won the tournament with that game, but we went the full five games.

Michael : My deck used Millstone s to run people out of cards. It was mainly defensive with lots of board wipes: Wrath of God , Swords to Plowshares (thank God for Swords), and Balance . You had Blinking Spirit s and Mishra's Factories to block all their stuff. I was just trying to make the games last as long as I could and hopefully run [my opponents] out of cards.

I remember at the end it was gonna be a best-of-seven match for the finals and the deck just took way too long. I don't think they ever expected that kind of thing. They brought me and Bertrand in after—I think I lost the first game and won the second game—and said it was super late and they didn't rent the venue for long enough. They needed to have a winner. They said we could just split the money and play one game for the title. That's how it went.

Graham : Oh my God! Is that what happened—they went from best-of-seven to best-of-three? Ours was nothing like that, we finished all five games! They even made a comment about it in the video. "These Juniors don't hold back, they're playing really fast." I think Aaron also had a tendency to be a really fast player. I think he was a regular White Weenie player and that's not like playing a control deck. I think that was the slowest that both Aaron and I each played those decks, but you could only go so slow with those. It's time to play Hypnotic Specter and get things done.

Charlie : I remember finishing our tournament and coming down and being asked to sub in for one of the judges because they needed a break—the final was just going so long. The other thing that I remember is a friend of mine and some other judges going to grab dinner. They went to a place kind of far away, someplace they had to wait a while. When they eventually came back, they had no idea that the match would still be going.

Mark : They both understood that this was the first Pro Tour and they both wanted to be the guy that won it. On top of that—people don't remember this—but Bertrand Lestree played in the World Championship and lost to Zak Dolan in the finals. On paper Bertrand was supposed to win that match, but Zak won that one. He did not want to become the guy who also lost in the finals of the first-ever Pro Tour. He was going to take his time. They were playing slow, slow decks to start with, and they just didn't want to make any mistakes. Originally we were gonna play best-of-seven, but then after five hours we decided it was gonna be best-of-three.

Michael : It was the final game and he had a Whirling Dervish that was just wrecking me. I'm not sure, but I think I made a mistake—maybe something with my Mishra—I had to topdeck a Swords to Plowshares and I had already used a few in that game. [Man], did I get lucky. I was holding one Plains in my hand—I had no lands. I just held that one Plains and laughed. I had to draw that Swords right there. He probably lost his mind after that.

We ended up becoming really good friends after that; he was a real character. He was like Shawn "Hammer" Regnier. He would always dig and say stuff and try to get inside your head, but after I won we really hit it off. We would always hang out after a Pro Tour. I remember asking him for his autograph. He wrote, "[Expletive deleted] Swords!" and then he signed it "Bertrand." I still have that. That, I'll never get rid of.

Swords to Plowshares | Art by Kaja Foglio

Summer Is Coming

Before that Pro Tour, the card Necropotence was not regarded as a tournament-viable card by the vast majority of the tournament goers.

Mark : Necropotence got a one-star rating in Inquest magazine. What was interesting about the tournament was Graham Tatomer obviously wins with the Necro deck and Leon Lindbeck makes the Top 8 with it—a really early version of the deck. It wasn't until that summer that that deck really took off.

Richard : I don't remember if we knew exactly how powerful that card was, but I knew it didn't surprise me. My design philosophy in those days was that if you didn't make a few banned cards, you weren't being aggressive enough. You had to be taking chances. My philosophy was give the players lots of interesting tools and let them play with those tools. My philosophy of discovery regarding the cards had gone by the wayside, but the discovery of combinations was very much a part of the game. Players are constantly finding new ways to combine cards in the game that we didn't anticipate.

Michael : I definitely dodged a few bullets that day in the pairings.

Graham : You were so powerful with that deck and you could really demoralize your opponent. I tried to use psychology as far as putting pressure on the opponent, and that deck really worked out for that—it forces people to makes mistakes or give up too early.

Closing Thoughts

Richard : The experience of going to events, where people were excited to meet me, have me sign cards, and play with me, was not new. I'd been doing that for a few years—but the tenor here was changing, because this was the first time that I felt like the players were starting to become really good and were taking the game really seriously. On the surface this was very much like all those previous meetings, but I felt like something had changed. Before the Pro Tour I could go in any card shop and beat most of the players with an all-commons deck. It was ridiculous. Then the Pro Tour came around and I couldn't walk into a card shop and beat everybody with an all-commons deck anymore.

Graham : It was incredible, obviously. My dad was with me and he was just thrilled. He's kind of a nerd himself. He would rather be the smartest one instead of the strongest one. For his son to win was kind of a big deal. Joel Unger was there, and it was great to have him there. It was incredible. They were also happy for me. When I got back to Santa Barbara, most of the people hadn't even heard yet. We weren't all that connected yet with texting and the internet. But everyone was thrilled when they found out that I won. It was pretty positive.

Skaff : The Pro Tour is probably the thing I am most proud of out of everything I have ever worked on. It is such a standard part of the game. I don't think people understand how important it is to the success of the game, because they have never lived in a world without it.

Mark : What the first Pro Tour really did was establish standards of how to run a tournament. The funny thing is that first tournament...we got a lot wrong. We learned a lot along the way, but it was a giant leap from what came before.

Jon : I think that if you look at the first Pro Tour and you hold up the Juniors against the Seniors and look at lifetime Pro Points, it has to be a blowout for the Juniors—an absolute blowout. Darwin was probably the best player who played in the Seniors. The Juniors had me, Steve O'Mahoney-Schwartz, Bob Maher, and Brian Kibler.

Elaine : For me, the Black Lotus Pro Tour really was a turning point in terms of the scale and scope that Magic had in the gaming universe—and in my universe.

Charlie : Twenty years ago, we were just formulating all of this: what a tournament should be like, what formats should be like, what's fun about Magic —all that kind of stuff. I definitely felt like we accomplished a lot. We learned so much from that very first event, it gave us so much to think about how we could make the next event better.

Michael : Years and years later, somebody came up to me and told me I was in a magazine again. They showed me and I was like "Wow." I showed my mom and she ended up calling out to Wizards asking them if they still had the cover painting [of me and Bertrand]. Wizards was super cool and they put it in a frame and sent it out to her. It is hanging next to the uncut sheet of my deck.

Mark : There are also some stories I could tell you that probably shouldn't be printed, so if you want to shut that recorder off—

Illustration by Cassie Murphy

The surprising history of the Magic Pro Tour

The pro tour has hardly changed since 1996, though circumstances have..

Internet Culture

Posted on Apr 5, 2016   Updated on May 27, 2021, 12:00 am CDT

The following is an excerpt from A Brief History of Magic Cards , a new book exploring the real-life, human history of Magic cards, currently being funded on Kickstarter . (Rewards include a print and tote of the fantasy map below above, drawn by Seattle artist Cassie Murphy .)

According to old-school Wizards of the Coast employee John Tynes, author of the magnificent Minotaur article (on the early history of Wizards—and that of its signature intellectual property, Magic cards), CEO Peter Adkison “had a vision for a new kind of company, a company that could change the corporate world forever.” He would do this by empowering nerds, elevating their hobbies from the basement to the convention center—where they would stand as equals next to the outside world’s idea of success. It was in this spirit that Wizards started the Magic Pro Tour (PT).

The Pro Tour was—and still is—a tournament where the best players fly in from all over the world to duel with recently released cards, crown a champion, and hand out cash prizes. Today the PT is an institution, with established roads to qualification, long-standing cliques, and modest stipends for frequent competitors. It has outlasted any competition of its kind, and is unlikely to ever change much. In the 90s, though, the PT was as limitless as Magic itself. It could have been anything.

The first Magic Pro Tour was held from Feb. 16-18, 1996, in New York City. There had never been anything like it. Entry was first-come, first-serve. Organization was shambolic but eventually effective. A snowstorm delayed the start of the event by four hours. The player who was supposed to win, did not.

It was a massive success. Hundreds of Quixotes attended, eager to tilt together. More importantly, thousands more watched, or read about it later: on the Internet, or in the same magazines that covered (and priced) the cards my allowance would only let me dream of buying.

On the day of PT New York, Magic finally ascended beyond Richard Garfield’s original vision. It loomed so wonderfully above the skyline of gaming, a paunchy giant on a lean nag, that it lived and would live through its sheer vitality. It stood for everything that was gentle, forlorn, pure, unselfish, and gallant. The parody had become a paragon. Adkison had, for a spell, brought his fantasy world into being.

Wizards capitalized on the PT’s success very well, by selling facsimiles of the top eight decks and releasing a video of the event. The Pro Tour has hardly changed since then, though circumstances have. Next to esports in the mid-2010s, the Pro Tour is small, with Dota ’s $10 million-plus prize pool dwarfing its purse of $250,000; but in 1996, the same sum made the PT both well-endowed and mind-blowingly cool. There was even a junior division, which would turn into the Junior Super Series—helping the degenerate scamps of the WotC flagship put themselves through college. After PT New York, Wizards put on PT Los Angeles, then PT Columbus, then the World Championships, in Seattle. The competitors were real characters. Thunderstruck, I watched them with admiration and envy.

The parody had become a paragon. 

I cannot overstate the importance of the advent of the Pro Tour and its counterpart, Friday Night Magic (FNM). At FNM, lesser mages could spend an evening playing tournament Magic against similarly inexperienced players, in a relaxed atmosphere. Each FNM is like a mini-convention, selling swag and fostering community. Once the players got good enough, they could “level up” to more competitive tournaments, like Grand Prix (GPs—the closest thing Magic has to its own big conventions) and Pro Tour Qualifiers (PTQs). A victory in the latter earned a berth in the PT itself, which before poker and esports was the pinnacle of competitive gaming.

By connecting FNM with the PT “tournament of tournaments,” Wizards made it possible for Magic players to live out a fantasy of fantasies. When the PT was well-established, a few years later, Adkison declared Wizards had “created a lifestyle opportunity for a young generation of Magic players, fresh out of school, to be professionals.” The reality of professional Magic , a decade before esports, was a big part of Wizards’ marketing strategy: Thanks to the “new kid of company,” you could make a living playing a card game. Once again, Adkison had worked his Magic : The Pro Tour might not have “changed the corporate world forever,” but it changed gaming—and gaming culture—indelibly.

Today Magic competes with Dota , and a dozen other big games, for market share, power, and prestige. But the PT and FNM, and all the tournament types between them, still make Magic what it is: a fun way to spend time with people, in person. The draw of Magic cards in the era of Dota and League of Legends is the friends you make, in the tournament hall or around the kitchen table.

Wizards had started out as a handful of friends in Peter Adkison’s basement; after the success of the PT and the set Mirage , it climbed skyward, like a tech firm lifted by angels. Now most of its efforts would center around not promoting Magic , but on profiting off of it—by making more games of its kind.

From 1996 to 2000, Wizards went from 150 to 950 employees, hiring anyone who wanted a job. The company generated many clones: Netrunner , a cyberpunk-themed CCG; BattleTech , a CCG whose cards were walking battle-tanks (gum sold separately); Xena: Warrior Princess , which needs no explanation; and MLB Showdown , a callback to Garfield’s original vision of a card game that was both playable and collectible. At this time, Wizards also bought out TSR, the creators of Dungeons & Dragons . It was thought that the indiscriminate acquisition of licenses was the only way to keep the high of Magic ’s early days alive. But the Knights of the Kitchen Table—my friends and I—scorned the proliferation of ersatz Magic s, because we thought they threatened the game we loved.

Though the above games could not rival Magic in quality and popularity, we didn’t know how right we were. Wizards released Pokémon cards in 1998, and the Knights didn’t want to play Magic with me anymore.

With Magic , the Pro Tour, and WotC in general, Brave Sir Adkison had realized a fantasy, starting from scratch a fiefdom in accordance with his noblest instincts and dearest narratives. But making a new world would not be enough to change this one. Fantasy would yield to reality. In 1999, Wizards sold out, and the tragic- Magic cultural contradictions began to take form.

It took a lot of gold for Hasbro—the acquirers—to sway the gallant Sir Adkison: $325 million. Yet it was an offer the noble don couldn’t refuse, not with his faithful company of riders also set to cash out. So they did what any knight-errants would do—left the court to the courtiers, and rode off to their next adventure under the sun. Crowds at Origins, GenCon, BlizzCon, PAX, greeted Garfield and Adkison with cries of adulation, as they do to this very day. The founders’ fame has made them the people closest to living out Don Quixote’s dream, but it was fortune that freed them from “the corporate world.” In the Hasbro sale, Sir Adkison made some $80 million. Sir Richard Garfield got $100 million. Other founding members, like Lady Veep Lisa Stevens, also did OK.

Each Friday Night Magic is like a mini-convention, selling swag and fostering community. 

Back at WotC headquarters, in Renton, a drab suburb at the foot of Seattle, the work of making Magic continued under a foreign flag. For the first 15 months, Hasbro seemed to be a benevolent despot—which is what most nerds, fans of sword and sorcery, crave. Pokémon swelled the royal coffers, and Magic tournament play made an appearance on ESPN2. Wizards operated its businesses with continuity and autonomy: the buyout agreement gave them great freedom, so long as the money kept flowing.

Then, in May 2000, Pokémon tanked. It was a chain reaction: The fewer people that played, the fewer people played. Not that many people, only 9 percent of collectors, had ever played Pokémon in the first place. By overvaluing collectors, Wizards had neglected game design and thwarted their chance at capitalizing on a huge franchise. But Magic ’s original business model, “combining the play of card games with the collectibility of baseball cards,” let it once again carry the day. (When MTGOX.com switched from the Magic: the Gathering Online eXchange to a Bitcoin exchange website, it signed its own death warrant. Cryptocurrency fans and beanie-baby collectors, take note!)

On a personal level, Pokémon ’s fall was great: Magic reasserted itself above a passing fad, and the Knights reconvened around the Square Table. At a corporate level, it was a catastrophe, the dot-com bubble bursting in miniature. Hasbro, which has always governed Wizards remotely (from Rhode Island) and has never really understood its fiefdom at the foot of Seattle, blamed Wizards for the losses. The overlords sold off electronic and movie rights by the franchiseful, fired 280 skilled artisans, and restructured the fief’s finances around five brands: Dungeons & Dragons , MLB Showdown , Pokémon , Harry Potter , and Magic .

Have you ever heard of Harry Potter TCG ? Me neither.

At the same time, some of the kingdom’s finest work moldered and decayed. A game called Legend of the Five Rings , reputed to be on Magic ’s level, was no longer supported: The brand wasn’t big enough. So Legend died off, a victim of Hasbro’s neglect, indifference, and failure of imagination. So much for benevolent despotism.

Hasbro was, in fact, cutting costs in all other divisions. The days of fanciful extravagances, like “ Magic camp,” where kids would gather around the University of Washington and the Wizards flagship store to binge on Magic for a week, were numbered. Wizards Retail, which operated the flagship and other outlets, was always a small and separate company, sometimes losing out on supply to larger card peddlers: the troubled relationship of Wizards with Wizards. I remember the smaller Wizards store, in Northgate Mall, shutting down, and thinking nothing of it—I was in the know; I went to Floyd’s shop now.

But the writing was on the wall. With the nosedive of Pokémon , Wizards’ prodigal childhood was over. The only things that would be spared would have to be profitable, in the narrowest sense. The first casualty was the flagship.

Have you ever heard of  Harry Potter TCG ? Me neither.

Wizards was making little money from the flagship, and spending a lot. The things that made it a gamer’s dream— BattleTech sims; the big Minotaur statue; the extravagant waste of space downstairs that was a community center for gamers—made it a CEO’s nightmare. Even the for-profit stuff was ineptly executed or hopelessly dated: For example, half of the basement was ringed in horseshoes of computers, which you could rent at exorbitant rates. A friend’s dad once bought us a half-hour of StarCraft ; we got to play the beginning of a game. Home high-speed Internet was becoming popular—DSL was my 2000 Christmas present—and soon the horseshoe would serve no purpose.

The lighting in the whole basement, community center and computer lab, was abysmal; Wizards had spent five figures installing a light fixture around the computers, but had taken it down after employees had suffered eye injuries. It was like a joke about nerds in Plato’s cave, and Hasbro was, then as now, as humorless as Quixote himself.

In 2001, with Brave Sir Adkison long-gone into the sunset, Hasbro shuttered the flagship. John Tynes’ Salon article details the grisly process, including the death by hacking of the minotaur above the dungeon entrance, which will forever be a symbol of my lost childhood. Thoughts of the store still fill me with nostalgia. Though it had the fragility of any fiction, it did embody Peter Adkison’s fantasy of “making Wizards a new kind of company,” and its demise was the first time I thought the greatest game ever made was anything other than perfect.

Corporate culture soldiered on. The flagship was replaced by Tower Records and is currently an Urban Outfitters.

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The End of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour

The numbers, the significance, the history—it's all finally been scrambled.

By Jeff Cunningham | @WJC83 | Published 2/7/2023 | 21 min read

A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win. The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up be an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevents him from ever truly competing.

-David Sirlin, Playing to Win

The final Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour took place in Richmond, Virginia on November 2019, almost 25 years after the first one was held in the middle of a blizzard in New York City in 1996. Technically, Pro Tours had already been rebranded as Mythic Championships, and technically they'll continue as Players Tours—but the original competitive structure that defined them has finally been sufficiently changed to represent the end of an era.

Pro Tours were invitation-only tournaments of about 300-500 players which, after two or three days of Swiss matchplay, broke into a Top 8. They happened every few months, and while not always the absolute pinnacle of organized play, became the yardstick against which competitive aspirations and achievements were measured. The gold standard of induction criteria for Magic's Hall of Fame, for example, throughout a flurry of changes in other areas of organized play, remained number of Pro Tour Top 8s—with five meaning a player was a lock, and three or four meaning they were in the conversation. The Pro Tour's large difficult field, coupled with Magic's inherent variance, meant that making a Top 8 involved extremes of both skill and luck—it was Magic's longstanding competitive threshold that, once attained, could never be taken away.

Now, the upper tier of competitive play has been effectively divided between small tournaments—comprised of the ultra-elite and low-mobility Magic Pro League, the lesser Rivals League, and some hand-picked streamers and personalities—and larger tournaments—Players Tours—occurring simultaneously in multiple regions. The numbers, the significance, the history—it's all finally been scrambled.

The Pro Tour was crafted by Magic's first brand manager, Skaff Elias. At the time, Magic's inner circle was anxious about stabilizing the game's runaway success, fearing that it was following the trajectory of a passing fad rather than a perennial classic—more Beanie Babies than Monopoly.

The issue had been latent since the beginning. Richard Garfield has said that the epiphany that spawned Magic—and with it the entire trading card game genre—was that players didn't need to have the same game pieces . They could start with different distributions and trade amongst themselves to refine their lot. At the same time, however, as this visionary aspect of acquisition and trade was expanding gameplay beyond the box, and making Magic compulsively playable and buyable, it was beginning to threaten the longevity and profitability of the game itself.

The general problem, as Skaff saw it, was that with expansions being continuously released, players would eventually grow tired of endless acquisition. More immediately, a collector class had emerged that not only stockpiled the most powerful cards and drove up their prices, but dominated those players who wouldn't pay for them. And so the original game was turning into a largely monetary "meta-game," in danger of becoming known as a pay-to-win gimmick.

Skaff's solution was to establish an ongoing series of high-profile tournaments with big cash prizes at the top—an aspirational peak that would allow players to rationalize continuous spending. At the same time, the tournaments would limit the available card pool, reducing the influence someone's collection had on their ability to compete. In short, the function of the Pro Tour was to make gameplay central, limiting and regulating the investment needed to play to win.

In March 2019, I played in Pro Tour London. I'd played in 33 Pro Tours before, with one Top 8, but this was my first one in 12 years. The previous December, I'd made Top 4 at Grand Prix Vancouver to qualify .

I'd told myself then that I'd show up at my best for what was most likely my last ticket to the big game. It's not that I doubt my competitiveness, it's that, as an adult, investing in succeeding at the game doesn't make sense. Achieving consistent qualification requires dead-eyed determination in playing tournament after tournament where anything less than a top finish against similarly prepared players doesn't matter. After a decade of more-or-less casual involvement, I'd made my critical hit, and I wasn't expecting it to happen again.

Over the years, I'd helped other players prepare for the Pro Tour, often to good effect. I've developed tenets to help them evade common pitfalls—ways of tuning up their play, avoiding reactive decisions, and choosing a deck suited to their aptitudes. By the time I arrived, though, I'd fallen into old habits. I hadn't gotten a coach of my own, I hadn't improved my physical conditioning, and despite no shortage of games played my own deck selection process remained nitty, fussing over details with a similarly minded playgroup. I'd done things the same way I always had.

I was staying with Jason Adams, who'd won GP Vancouver. We'd tried to put in the time and think through Modern from every angle. But he also fell short, settling on a stock Dredge deck that seemed well-positioned but that he didn't know very well. We shared a compact room with twin beds in the Moxy hotel, designed according to a sort of millennial take on a rock star motif.

But when I think about PT London, I think about the eastern exterior of the ExCeL Convention center, located in an area known as the docklands. Overcast, drizzling, set against a man-made waterway, a few stragglers making their way inside, passing an already derelict Marvel Avengers promotional escape room as they go.

Inside, in contrast—crowded, a wide walkway, with conference rooms and upscale food vendors on each side. One entrance opening up to a Grand Prix, the next to the Pro Tour beside it. Industrial-strength HMIs blasting hard light onto concrete floors, the walls reverberating with gamers' screeches.

One of the things I like most about Magic tournaments is how they eclipse everything else. For two or three days, the competition takes over. Adventure. Escape. And winning could change your life.

The Pro Tour was invented by Skaff Elias to channel Magic's aspect of trade and acquisition—an addition necessary for the original game's survival. But Richard Garfield would have identified the Pro Tour itself as a sort of "meta-game"—one with special properties.

In a 1995 article for The Duelist , "Games Within Games," Garfield tells us that a metagame is a game composed of games: "When you play a number of games, not as ends unto themselves but as parts of a larger game , you are participating in a metagame."

The Pro Tour is a "metagame" not only as a series of competitions but insofar as that series provides the proving grounds for an especially fundamental metagame—the ladder system.

The ladder system visibly organizes players by rank. As such, it provides them with a quantifiable axis of success, since "even moving up a single rung of the ladder feels like a victory." Garfield observed that this metagame—which gives players a constant reflection of their own perceived value and progress—was especially compelling. He even made the bold claim that he could make any game popular so long as he could augment it with a ladder system, a claim well vindicated by the 21st century marketing development known as gamification.

The Pro Tour structured Magic's ladder system. Magic was no longer limited to one game against one opponent. The games became interconnected, serving as the bases for escalating levels of competition, played for stakes that determined one's rank.

When Odysseus entered Hades and found Achilles there, he tried to console him by remarking on his rule over the dead. Achilles responded that he'd rather be alive as the lowliest worker imaginable than a king in the shadow realm.

In terms of the Pro Tour, I'm alive again. Acquaintances I've known for 20 years, long since reduced to two-dimensional avatars, are once again rendered in 3D. Of course, for my part, the sensory overload and preoccupation with the task at hand has me reserving energy too much to engage in what, in other circumstances, could be interesting conversations.

Each day is broken into three rounds of drafting and five rounds of Constructed. The Limited format is War of the Spark—Magic's take on an MCU brawl—but as a prerelease, forcing players to learn the set in a short time. In order to keep my head fresh in the days leading up to the tournament, I streamlined my preparation. I'd figured out quickly that tempo-based blue/red stood above the archetypes and fit my style—I was somewhere between forcing it and really hoping I'd be able to draft it.

In the first draft I get a simple but solid version of the deck composed almost entirely of commons. In the first round, I'm paired against someone in my extended testing group. In the final game, I make an attack that telegraphs a marginal combat trick ( Samut's Sprint ) that, if I have it, will effectively end the game.

He blocks. I play the trick.

His face drops, and then twists into an expression of disgust.

"You play that? That card is terrible ."

Apparently the group had ranked cards in the Discord the night before and decided that this one was unplayable, biasing him towards the likelihood that I wouldn't have it.

I shrug, "it's fine."

"It's terrible !"

Almost immediately, though, he regains his composure. The lapse is relatable as grief. The viscerally felt response to a sudden plunge into a newly unfavorable reality. The retrospective impression of entire tournaments hinges on moments like this that seem as though they could've gone either way. In this case, the psychic disturbance can't linger too long—he was almost certainly losing anyway.

I win the next round but lose the finals. My opponent there has a slow controlling deck with a powerful card ( Command the Dreadhorde ) capable of reanimating our entire graveyards if the game goes long. I board in a conditional counterspell ( Crush Dissent ) that might be able to catch it by surprise. In the deciding game, though, I have an empty board, and when he hits six lands and plays something cheap, I decide to burn the Crush Dissent for the 2/2 that comes along with it. He plays the Command the Dreadhorde the following turn and I lose.

According to combinatorial game theory, as related by Richard Garfield in the appendix to his Characteristics of Games , games can often be decomposed into "positions"—units understandable as games. Subjectively, a position is just a decision— this or that —against a background of information. The core challenge is one of decryption: selecting the details relevant to a consistent interpretation and then tracing back the actions implied to the decision at hand.

My Constructed deck is U/R Phoenix.

Magic: The Gathering TCG Deck - U/R Phoenix by Jeff Cunningham

'U/R Phoenix' - constructed deck list and prices for the Magic: The Gathering Trading Card Game from TCGplayer Infinite!

Created By: Jeff Cunningham

Event: Mythic Championship London 2019

Market Price: $310.31

Nonbasic lands are Mountains.

+2: Look at the top card of target player's library. You may put that card on the bottom of that player's library. 0: Draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order. −1: Return target creature to its owner's hand. −12: Exile all cards from target player's library, then that player shuffles their hand into their library.

Spirebluff Canal enters the battlefield tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands. {T}: Add {U} or {R}.

{T}, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice Scalding Tarn: Search your library for an Island or Mountain card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.

({T}: Add {R}.)

Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that has the same name as a card in your graveyard, you may put a quest counter on Pyromancer Ascension. Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell while Pyromancer Ascension has two or more quest counters on it, you may copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.

Defender Thing in the Ice enters the battlefield with four ice counters on it. Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, remove an ice counter from Thing in the Ice. Then if it has no ice counters on it, transform it. // When this creature transforms into Awoken Horror, return all non-Horror creatures to their owners' hands.

Flash When Snapcaster Mage enters the battlefield, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost. (You may cast that card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

Flame Slash deals 4 damage to target creature.

Target player mills two cards. Draw a card.

Add two mana in any combination of colors. Draw a card.

Scry 1. Draw a card.

Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) Put target nonland permanent on top of its owner's library.

Devoid (This card has no color.) Exile target nonbasic land. Search its controller's graveyard, hand, and library for any number of cards with the same name as that land and exile them. Then that player shuffles.

({B/P} can be paid with either {B} or 2 life.) Choose target card in a graveyard other than a basic land card. Search its owner's graveyard, hand, and library for any number of cards with the same name as that card and exile them. Then that player shuffles.

{T}, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice Polluted Delta: Search your library for an Island or Swamp card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.

Draw a card. Scry 2.

Draw two cards, then discard two cards. Flashback {2}{R} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

{R}, {T}, Exile two cards from your graveyard: Grim Lavamancer deals 2 damage to any target.

({T}: Add {U} or {R}.) As Steam Vents enters the battlefield, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, it enters the battlefield tapped.

Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays {2}.

Replicate {R} (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time you paid its replicate cost. You may choose new targets for the copies.) Destroy target artifact.

Counter target colorless spell.

Flying, haste At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you've cast three or more instant and sorcery spells this turn, return Arclight Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield.

{T}, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice Flooded Strand: Search your library for a Plains or Island card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.

Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any target.

If an opponent had three or more cards put into their graveyard from anywhere this turn, you may pay {0} rather than pay this spell's mana cost. Exile target player's graveyard.

({T}: Add {U}.)

Flying Crackling Drake's power is equal to the total number of instant and sorcery cards you own in exile and in your graveyard. When Crackling Drake enters the battlefield, draw a card.

I've chosen it because it rarely gets manascrewed or flooded and it beats up on the variety of Tier 2 & 3 decks people tend to play in Modern. But, as I would have advised a newer Pro Tour player, this is PTQ-winner thinking—ie., failing to sufficiently factor that the PT is largely composed of a winner's metagame. Phoenix is only winning at about 50-55% against the expected Tier 1 of Humans and Tron. Not that this Modern offered too much room to move. Jason said I should've just played a tuned version of Tron, which I could do in my sleep.

U/R Phoenix is standardized to a remarkable degree, with about 54 maindeck cards—mostly cantrips—effectively set in stone, making the remaining choices especially significant. I'm playing three copies of a card I think is versatile and underrated— Set Adrift —and otherwise have a closely managed list. I spent most of the ride into the city debating between two of three cards for the last two sideboard slots.

In the fourth round, I'm playing against a Dredge player I know from online, and he's playing too slow, insufficiently trained to the physical interactions demanded by the deck. I should've called a judge sooner—a mistake I've made before—but instead rush my play to compensate. I probably would've lost anyway.

Jason ends up suffering from the same mechanical issues as my last opponent, losing out his remaining matches. Somewhere in between, he remarks at the surreal flow of the day. That he feels tired and dull, even during decisive moments. We'd attempted such precision in testing, afforded the upcoming event such significance, that we'd forgotten that peak mental acuity wasn't a given.

I'm able to stay focused for the time being. I win the next three rounds, despite tough opposition—Robin Dolar on his W/U Control, Ken Yukuhiro on Cheerios, and Antonio Del Moral Leon on Humans. In the last game of the day, against a Jund opponent who only speaks Chinese, I play a card draw spell at the end of his turn and then forget to draw one on my turn. A spectator—after audibly muttering to himself "this is the Pro Tour?"—calls a judge. My opponent argues the case that I shouldn't get the card—even snapping at the spectator for meddling—but the ruling follows protocol and I get the card and grind out the game.

Winning a series of matches always ends the day on a high note. I'm at 6-2 with plausible avenues to the Top 8. It's one thing to be a participant, it's another to be a competitor. I'm eager to join some members of the team for dinner, which turns out to be some distance away. I'm surprised by how similar it is to the dinners I remember from 15 years ago. I'm foggy. I get back late. And just as I'm starting to drift off to sleep at the Moxy, the fire alarm goes off.

We're not only playing in Richard's game, we're playing in Skaff's. We're experiencing the game implicit in all ranked competition—more specifically in this case, competition built around a game involving a considerable degree of variance. Skaff's "meta-game" is complex only because the outcome of its underlying game is determined by both luck and skill.

As Richard Garfield has frequently explained, variance, or luck, is not the opposite of skill. A variant of chess in which, at the end of any game, a die was rolled to modify the outcome, would involve just as much skill as the original game. Instead, as luck increases, only the returns to skill decrease—the better player wins less. They'll still recoup the value of their superiority—it'll just take more time.

Luck increases the uncertainty of a single game's outcome by varying the respective advantages dispensed to players over the course of the game. This turbulence obscures the causes of the game's outcome, preventing players from knowing entirely whether a win or a loss was a matter of luck or skill. This uncertainty shelters players' egos, allowing them to continue chasing the rank they feel they deserve. The function of luck, then, is to increase confusion and controversy—about the relative strength of players, about the best strategies, even about one's own skill level—in order to keep a game vital and contested.

One sign of a superior player is their ability to focus on decisions they can control. The game always offers up an excuse—a way to blame the loss on factors they can't control. And sometimes in sum they might have made a loss inevitable. But by not dwelling on them and instead scrutinizing their decisions the superior player accelerates their improvement. In other words, the winning strategy in the ladder metagame is to ignore luck.

So, if one understands this simple heuristic, wherein lies the challenge? How does the metagame of competition itself remain vital?

I make my way down to what could loosely be described as a continental breakfast—alive.

My draft Day 2 goes badly. I open one of the most powerful cards in the set, a blue/black rare ( Enter the God-Eternals ), and get passed a pack where the best card is a good blue/black uncommon ( Tyrant's Scorn ). Around fifth pick I'm given the choice between a solid red card ( Raging Kronch ) and a barely playable black card ( Vampire Opportunist ), and seal my fate by taking the black card. It's easy to become "pot-committed" in these scenarios because even as the first pack is drying up, you've cut off the person you're passing to, which justifies the hope the second pack will be good. And by the time the second pack runs dry, it's too late.

During deckbuilding, I confirm that the player passing to me is also blue/black. Except for the rare, my deck is thin, with little removal. I'm hoping to escape with a 2-1, but know that 1-2 is the likelier possibility.

I win the first round against an aggressive white/red deck after drawing  Enter the God-Eternals both games, bringing me to 7-2.

In Round 10 I'm called up for a feature match against former world champion Seth Manfield.

At the Pro Tour, feature matches are notable because they're the ones chosen for and surrounded by the film production apparatus broadcasting the tournament and recording the games for posterity. The lights are brighter—casting the rest of the convention center into darkness. There's just the players, the cards, and the table.

I split the first two games against his red/green deck full of wolves and Planeswalkers.

Before game three, I have to decide between two marginal spells to keep in the deck: Sorin's Thirst or Liliana's Triumph . The bad Shock or the Diabolic Edict . I can't figure out which is more relevant across a representative range of game situations, but find some rationale and shuffle up.

I open up with a perfect curve, ending with  Enter the God-Eternals  to kill his 4/4 ( Bloom Hulk ) and make my own 4/4 zombie token. He has a good draw too, but he's being pushed back on tempo. On the critical turn, he's forced to play an Arlinn, Voice of the Pack onto an empty board, with only the 3/3 wolf token to defend it.

But I'm staring at  Sorin's Thirst .

I can only attack into his blocker, play a Relentless Advance to make my token a 7/7, and pass. He untaps and thinks... and thinks. I ask the judge to watch for slow play, but any thinking—the fact that he has any options—is a bad sign for me, given that my own position is stalled. He's just optimizing. He makes another wolf token with a +1/+1 counter. He then uses Pollenbright Druid 's proliferate to bump it up, along with his  Jaya, Venerated Firemage , then combines them with Domri's Ambush to finish off my zombie, effectively ending the game.

At high stakes, even losses that can strictly be said to be the result of bad luck are disappointing, even though responsibility for their outcome can be deferred onto outside forces. The process is even more complex when the loss can be said to be the result of a mistake.

The tournament player is trained to resist the temptation to blame a loss on anything but themselves. However, because of the limited number of iterations of games available at the stakes where the mistake occurred, lessons from a loss may not have a chance to be applied at that same level for a long time. The player's training has lead them to take on a burden —the weight of culpable negligence—that's no longer adaptive. The lesson risks becoming a lasting injury .

I lose the following round too, to a white/red deck filled with ping effects against my deck full of X/1s, putting the Top 8 out of reach.

I walk outside against the water to clear my head. I soon find myself lying down into crossed arms in some corner of the Grand Prix. Jet lag has me in a stupor.

I lose to Eduardo Sajgalik on Hardened Scales, which should be a great matchup. But I'm imprecise and inefficient. An early flipped Thing in the Ice isn't enough to close the game. I can't tell if I screwed it up or if the cards just didn't play out right.

Then I lose to Reid Duke on Jund, another good matchup. He's characteristically sportsmanlike, but I have no energy to give. Game one I open a hand that contains a sideboard card from the previous round, which is an automatic mulligan and, from the point of view of tight competitive play, obviously unacceptable. Game two, I'm stuck with Islands and  Thing in the Ice only but still manage to have an out on the last turn to any land or any cantrip, but miss it.

I win the next, but then lose the next to a Whir Prison deck, after having finally cut my trump card ( Shatterstorm ) a few days earlier. My last opponent doesn't even bother showing up.

The "meta-game" of tournament play forces players to respond to the challenge of culpable negligence.

First, they must decide what their mistake reflects about their capabilities. Does it show a mere edge fracture, that being tested on, itself, almost counts as bad luck?

Or does it show a central flaw? And, if so—innate? Unavoidable? The recognition of which can only serve to remind them of their fundamental limits?

Or—a self-induced flaw? One which was avoidable by way of intervention somewhere down the line? The the question becomes—why did they allow this flaw to develop?

In any case, as long as their mind is still interior to the tournament, there's no insight worth three match points.

I'm exhausted. After hanging around for a bit—and watching as Yuuya Watanabe is, astonishingly, disqualified for playing with marked cards —I wander down the emptying mall corridor. I cross paths with Kai, and we trade some opinions on the format. It occurs to me that this marks the end of a two-year stretch where I've been competitively up to date. And indeed, I haven't played a game of Magic Online or Arena since.

Richard Garfield intended Magic as a game of perpetual discovery, with borders as fluid as those of Dungeons & Dragons. It ended up being a bit more of a combat sim.

There were two different types of gamer. "Explorers" played simply to relish in the possibilities, and "honers" play to win—relentlessly tuning out the noise caused by luck in order to better map out the game's underlying structure.

The honers entered into a competitive superstructure as the means of determining who understood best. This testing process itself functioned as a game, filled with highs and lows. At the heart of the challenge turned out to be those lows that had been within the honer's control.

They were ultimately forced to learn how to manage loss. But by what alchemy could they convert a loss into a win? Some redoubled their efforts within the game. Others took the insight back to the larger field in which the stakes mattered in the first place, in which the game turned out to be just one of many possible constructs available for exploration.

The Pro Tour was sustained by the collective imagination. The collective who grasped a Pro Tour Top 8's significance, built up over 25 years of concentrated mental energy, repetition, and history. The image is important—step outside its limits and the game turns into a marketing project. Marvel's Vs. Series paid out as much as the Pro Tour, but who cared?

It's easy to be disappointed in Wizards. By now, everyone understands the corporate MO: taking something genuinely cool created by some eccentric genius, and slowly but surely optimizing it for maximum profit, ie., maintaining fronts just long enough while ransacking the property for every last ruble. This tendency is only limited by the presence of an inner circle fighting to preserve the game's real value. Wizards hasn't been great at this. They went from one of the most free-thinking companies to one thoughtlessly chasing cultural trends five years after the fact, to say nothing of the recent series of foil-based currency schemes.

Players want desperately to access an extended world that has integrity and reality. Integrity exists to the extent that the world is structured around the game and not just marketing interests. As a construct, the Pro Tour needs some kind of continuity and boundary to feel real. If Wizards won't maintain the reality of the Pro Tour, how can players? At the same time its been infused with money, it's become derivative and forgettable.

The Pro Tour isn't about personalities, or even epic scenery, as much as it's about having adequate space to watch contested formats be worked out by the best in the game—getting to see the new ideas that break it open. In general in the game, there's been too much emphasis on personification as the key to engagement. Garfield and Skaff were right at the beginning to be skeptical of this premise as applied to a card game. Probably one of the worst things to happen to Magic, creatively, was for its approach to become systematized around Psychology 100 and Screenwriting 101.

There does come a time for change, though, one way or another. A group of young designers are waiting to revitalize the game, out from under years of stagnated design dogma and encroached corporate degradation.

And the Pro Tour is also waiting to take on new life under a transformed mythology. It won't be the Pro Tour of the blizzard of '96, held in the Puck Building in NYC, with its precedents for physical majesty, and a Top 8 emerging out of a wide field of the world's best players. It's one where the lesser competitors are confined to an intermediary realm, with only the most striking successes moving to the upper stratum, set against an electric background, where they compete through the greater fog of smaller fields with fewer rounds. So be it!

Winning and losing are nothing in the face of perpetual genesis!

May the Pro Tour never end!

How the MTG Pro Tour Works in 2024

What's changing in the world of professional Magic?

By Seth Manfield | @SethManfield | Published 3/20/2024 | 12 min read

Magic: The Gathering has a long and storied professional scene, going back more than 30 years. On March 18, 2024, Wizards of the Coast announced several changes across multiple platforms , including Magic Online, MTG Arena and of course tabletop play. I'm going to talk about those changes, but I also want to provide my perspective on pro Magic, as someone who has been a professional player for some time now.

The Pro Tour and World Championships

In my opinion, while having digital Magic tournaments is important, there is no replacement for the Pro Tour and the branding behind it. A Pro Tour is first and foremost a tabletop tournament. The locations of these events have shifted over time, but the tour does include players from many regions of the world. 

The Pro Tour and World Championships have the largest prize purses, feature the most extensive broadcasts and are an opportunity for players to gather. The gathering part of Magic is something that has ebbed and flowed within the past decade, but having that opportunity is crucial for the success of the game. There are many positives about the Pro Tour, from the judges to the tournament organizers to the players. However, I do want to talk about the pathway to actually qualifying for the Pro Tour.

Qualifying for the Pro Tour

There is a large section of Magic players who know of the existence of the Pro Tour but don't understand how to truly get involved in the system. To be fair, it can seem a bit convoluted, at least at the start. The most direct path to qualifying for the Pro Tour when playing tabletop Magic starts with winning a Regional Championship Qualifier (RCQ). 

The Regional Championship Qualifiers are often local, though I do understand that some countries have fewer opportunities to hold RCQs, compared to others. How easy it is to play in an RCQ will vary based on where you live, though the goal is they are more accessible than the Regional Championships (RC). Personally, I think that winning a qualification to a RC at a RCQ is an attainable goal. Qualifying for the Pro Tour is very difficult, but making each step feel attainable is important so that players want to engage in the system. 

Once players do make it to the Pro Tour, there is a requalification system for future Pro Tours and potentially earning a slot at the World Championships. 10 Wins at the Pro Tour is good enough to qualify for the next Pro Tour. Each win after the third win at a Pro Tour gets you Adjusted Match Points (AMP's), which are used to string together multiple invites and potentially make it to the World Championships. It sounds more complicated than it is in practice. Good finishes at the Pro Tour level do allow you to get on a "Pro Tour train" of sorts. I know this because I have qualified for each of the last four Pro Tours without using my Hall of Fame invite (an invite only Hall of Fame players have access to). 

Regional Championship Qualifications

The latest changes to the Pro Tour qualification path relate to how many Pro Tour qualifications are given out at the RC. Here is the graphic that explains the latest shift in invites:

These changes are very important to the sustainability of the current system, which relies heavily on players qualifying for the Pro Tour at the Regional Championship. I do believe Wizards has since adjusted this graphic to 36 qualifications in the EMEA region, rather than 32. However, as William "Huey" Jensen put it best, the number of invites based on region is based on math. Simply put, there are more Magic players in U.S., for example, compared to other regions, so I do think the U.S. should have the most invites.  For some players at the RC's, the experience involved investing money into traveling to the tournament, spending time testing and then achieving the result of 11 wins out of 15 rounds. A record like 11-4 is impressive and should be rewarded. I'm hopeful that the new invitation numbers mean that the ratio of the size of the RC to how many invites are awarded closely lines up across every region. 

Pro Tour Locations

I do want to take a moment to address that most Pro Tours are being held in the U.S. The standard has become between the World Championships and the Pro Tour, three of these major tournaments happen in the U.S. and one is held in Europe within a full-year cycle. This lines up with MagicCon locations. These decisions are likely financially rooted, and there are clear incentives for Wizards of the Coast to want Pro Tours in the United States.

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Wizards of the Coast is based in the United States, so it makes logistics easier and caters to the largest portion of the player base. While I understand why it's happening, this is a shift compared to previous versions of the system where the Pro Tour locations were a bit more spread out across the globe. 

As someone who lives in the United States, I do feel privileged by being closer to these marquee events, as traveling to a Pro Tour overseas is a major expense and endeavor. Many players have been affected by these strategic decisions, and for some, it may not be financially viable to travel to the Pro Tour at all. 

The Pro Tour Just Got Larger

Awarding more qualification slots at the RC also means that Pro Tours will be larger. I think adding more slots to the RC and making Pro Tours this size (likely about 350ish players) needed to happen. However, this is still a delicate dance, because if prizes aren't increased, it does mean from an equity perspective, the tournament invite isn't worth as much as it was before. 

The Arena Championship

The Arena Championship is the most prestigious event offered on MTG Arena. Like qualifying for the Pro Tour, there are multiple steps to qualifying for the Arena Championship. The latest announcement, which I will get into, does make it significantly easier to qualify for the Arena Championship. This was a very positive announcement for players looking to have a chance to make it to the Arena Championship. Here are the key differences:

The first step is qualifying for the Qualifier Weekend. There are a ton of ways to qualify for the Qualifier Weekend day one. Whether it's a play-in event or by doing well on the Arena ladder, for those familiar with the ways to qualify for the Qualifier Weekend Day 1, they won't be changing. For those that aren't familiar, of all the hurdles I mention in this article across multiple systems, making it to the Qualifier Weekend Day 1 is the one I feel is the least difficult.

The adjustments to how to make the second day of the Qualifier Weekend, and how to subsequently make it to the Arena Championship, are just math. You don't need to have as good an overall record as you did in the previous system because there are more losses to give and fewer wins needed. It's also possible to qualify directly for the second day of future Qualifier Weekends. Inevitably this will mean that since it's easier to qualify for the Arena Championship, the number of players competing in the Arena Championship will also increase. Early estimates are that the field will be around 100 players, which is over three times the current size. 

To cap off the announcement, there is also an increase in prize support coming to the Arena Championships to help accommodate for the increased player count. At 100 players and a $250,000 prize pool, from an equity standpoint, the Arena Championship rivals or even surpasses the Pro Tour. Having 16 confirmed invites directly to the Pro Tour at each Arena Championship also means there is a direct path to the Pro Tour from online play. Overall, I'm quite impressed with the changes to the path to make it to the Arena Championship, and I suspect this will create an influx of players into the system. 

The Magic Online Showcase

I do also want to touch on the latest Magic Online announcements, as there have been some recent shifts on the platform. Magic Online is now run by Daybreak Games, and this has potentially caused a strategy shift in terms of the direct offerings on the platform. The Magic Online Showcase events, while still present, will be changing the prize money they give out. The number will decrease from $70,000 to $50,000. While a decrease in prize money is hard to look at positively, some corresponding shifts are being made in conjunction with this change.

The Magic Online Showcase events, even before the latest changes, are not on the same scope in terms of overall prize money allocation as the Arena Championship or the Pro Tour. It makes sense that the goal of the Showcase events is to grow the Magic Online community. It does appear that the money being removed from Showcase prizes is still being used to attract interest in Magic Online. These funds will be reallocated to enhance the new version of the Magic Online Creator Program, which I will get into a bit more later. 

My Thoughts About What It Means to Be a MTG Pro Right Now

If you were expecting an article strictly presenting the facts of what the latest changes to competitive Magic are, well you likely stopped reading before this point. However, I want to provide my perspective on the life of actually being an MTG Pro. 

I know that a lot of my commentary so far has been monetary in nature. How much money is being awarded? Is it worth it to attend the events? These are certainly important questions to consider when understanding what the stakes are at a given event, but the fact is that there is not enough money in the system to "only" play Magic as a full-time job. I repeat, simply being skilled at Magic and winning lots of games isn't a good long-term career plan . There is more to "making it" as a pro Magic player than playing Magic. As someone who has tried to do this, and done very well in tournaments, I should know firsthand. This doesn't mean I'm going to discourage trying to be MTG Pro, but there are some clear distinctions that need to be made. 

The Practical Nature of the Pro Magic Lifestyle

For someone who is solely focused on playing high-level Magic tournaments, Magic is best considered as the equivalent of being on a college sports team. You still need to complete your classes (meaning have another job), while putting time and dedication into your craft. The highest-level events are on the weekend and occur infrequently enough there is time for other pursuits outside of Magic, even when qualified for all the Pro Tours. While you can try to make a living just off playing MTG, grinding leagues and challenges on Magic Online as a job isn't something I would recommend. 

Content Creation

To engage with MTG as a full-time job, I believe it is necessary to create content. It used to be that pro Magic took center stage, and content creators, like streamers and YouTubers, were more of an afterthought. This is far from the case today. While I do believe that pro Magic is a cornerstone of the overall play structure within the game, content creation has become absolutely massive. Almost all the individuals who engage in MTG as their full-time job produce content. Streaming, writing articles, podcasts, platforms like Patreon and cultivating an online audience in general are all part of content creation. Sponsorships often go hand in hand with content creation. 

Working full-time within the MTG space means being versatile. I know I have personally been juggling many ways of creating content for the past few years. Here are some tips I have for those looking to get into the content side of MTG, while also playing competitively:

• Be Aware of How You Present Yourself: Whether this be in a conversation on Twitter or how you dress for a Pro Tour. Perception matters, especially when you are putting yourself in a position to be a role model for others. 
• Form Relationships with Other Creators: Having friends and others within the community to bounce ideas off and help you cultivate your audience is extremely important. 
• Prepare For Obstacles: This path is a long one and isn't easy. The benefits aren't going to be immediate. The way you create your content may need to change out of necessity. 
• Personality is Important: Are you someone naturally funny? How about a large social circle? Having a contagious personality pays off when it comes to content creation. 
• You Can Create Content and Play High-Level Magic at the Same Time: It may be as simple as streaming gameplay while preparing for a tournament. Creating content and participating in pro Magic don't need to be and aren't mutually exclusive.  This brings me to the new Content Creator Program on Magic Online. This program has a lot of potential and is something I hope to engage with. Streamed and broadcasted gameplay is important to help advertise and grow the game, and it sounds like Magic Online will be having much more of this moving forward. 

Wrapping Up

The key to successfully engaging with the pro Magic system is making sure it occupies a healthy spot within your overall lifestyle. I know for me, detaching thinking about winning games of Magic to providing for my family and making a living was incredibly important. Going into a tournament with the right mindset really makes a difference. Never expect to win, but be happy when you do. There is too much variance in the game, and the odds are too lopsided to expect to do well in one particular event. Playing should be about enjoying yourself, having fun and hoping that the cards go your way. If you have done all the right things to prepare, that big moment may present itself, but when it happens is unpredictable. 

The latest changes to premier-level Magic play all make a lot of sense. It's good to hear that Wizards of the Coast is listening to feedback and making changes accordingly. It turns out that the best changes are often toggling numbers within the system, and that's exactly what has happened in the case of the Arena Championship. 

Do I wish there were some more changes to Premier Play like GP-style events (separate from MagicCons), or enhanced team trios opportunities? Yes. Do I wish that there were some Pro Club-level benefits like previous versions of the system? I do from a player's perspective, but it's not worth dwelling on. In this case, it's hard to detach my wishes and what makes sense. The old Pro Player Club, which provided extra appearance fees, flights, hotel rooms and more, was great for players within the system, though it's unclear how much that system benefited Wizards of the Coast. Wizards of the Coast is going to make the decisions they deem are in the best interest of the company. I'm choosing to engage with the system as it stands right now and am happy to have the opportunity to do so.

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When does the MTG Pro Tour start?

The Pro Tour is back , marking the return of competitive Magic: The Gathering to a layout similar to the pre-esports push by Wizards of the Coast that started with the release of Magic Arena .

Calling back to the prestige branding, there are three Pro Tours scheduled for 2023 with qualifying events starting with the New Capenna Championship on May 20 to 22. This will also include Regional Championship qualifying tournaments and Regional Championship tournaments that feed directly into Pro Tour invites.

But when does the Pro Tour start? Wizards of the Coast hasn’t announced a date yet but said the first Pro Tour will happen early in 2023. Each Pro Tour will be played on tabletop with around 300 players and a $500,000 prize pool for each tournament.

Every Pro Tour will be a split-format tournament with a Booster Draft followed by Constructed rounds. The first Pro Tour of the year will play Pioneer in its Constructed format. The following events will feature Standard then Modern.

All players who go 9-6 or better at the New Capenna Championship will earn an invitation to the first Pro Tour. All 32 players who qualify for this year’s World Championships will earn an invitation to the first Pro Tour, with the top-four finishers winning invitations to all three.

Outside of those avenues, performing well at Regional Championships is a primary method of making it into a Pro Tour. There are 11 regions, each with dedicated organizers that will hold events.

Digital players will remain in the dark for a little longer when it comes to their competitive future. Wizards of the Coast has not announced how Magic Arena and Magic Online players will be able to qualify for the Pro Tour. The eight players in the upcoming Magic Online Champions Showcase will be automatically invited to the first Pro Tour.

No information regarding Magic Arena qualification is available at this time.

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Magic Pro Tour - March of the Machine

• 2 Prize Pool
• 3 Participants
• 5 References

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Metagame Mentor: How Do You Qualify for the Pro Tour?

In just eight days, the highly anticipated Pro Tour Phyrexia will take place at MagicCon: Philadelphia . But what elevates the Pro Tour as the crown jewel for competitive Magic players, and how does one go about qualifying? In this special edition of Metagame Mentor, we'll explore the different paths to qualification and what it takes to earn your place on the Pro Tour stage.

What is the Pro Tour?

Magic: The Gathering 's Pro Tour is an invitation-only tournament series hosted by Wizards of the Coast, dating back to 1996. Before the advent of the Pro Tour , the tournament scene was unstructured, but the Pro Tour and its system of qualifiers changed the game forever, offering players a chance to prove their skills against the best from around the world. Due to its prestige, large cash prizes, and international reach, the Pro Tour is the highest level of competitive Magic apart from the Magic World Championship.

For players looking to take their game to the highest level, the Pro Tour offers an opportunity to showcase their skills on a global stage with live streaming coverage. The electric atmosphere of high-stakes Magic at a pinnacle tabletop event is something that cannot be matched online. Winning a Pro Tour solidifies a player's status as a top competitor, and those who have claimed multiple victories, such as Jon Finkel, Kai Budde, and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, have cemented their place in Magic competition as legends of the game.

For over two decades, Pro Tours were held several times per year, leaving a rich history in their wake. After recent detours involving Mythic Championships, Players Tours, and Set Championships with focus on digital play, the tabletop-made Pro Tour is back . Three Pro Tours are held per year, each offering approximately 250 qualified players the chance to compete for their share of $500,000 in prizes, invitations to the Magic World Championship, and the right to claim their place among the best in the world.

Qualifying for the Pro Tour has come a long way since the first Pro Tour in 1996, where players had to call a phone number and whoever called first got in. Now, players must prove their skills in paper or digital tournaments to earn their place. Let's take a closer look at the various paths to qualification.

The Regional Championship Path: Tabletop

The most common path to Pro Tour qualification is by performing well at Regional Championships. Regional Championships, held three times per yearly season in every geographic region, are invite-only events that players can earn entry to through various means, including Magic Online or Last Chance Qualifiers. But the most common way is via Regional Championship Qualifiers (RCQs) held at local stores or larger conventions. You can find RCQs around you by using the Store & Event Locator or your regional organizer's website . They are open to everyone, and the players who conquer their local scene compete for Pro Tour invites and other prizes at their Regional Championships.

One example of a player who took this path is Miguel Castro , the reigning European champion. After winning an RCQ at Tienda Itaca—"the best Magic store in Madrid (and Spain)" according to him—he triumphed over hundreds of players at the European Championship using the same Pioneer deck: Izzet Phoenix. Having attended Pro Tours several times before, he was excited to qualify again, and he described the return of the Pro Tour as "something really special". While he feels a bit of pressure, he's feeling better about his chances than ever before: "I feel more confident after demonstrating myself that I can compete at the high stakes."

Another example is Alejandro Sepulveda , the reigning South American champion. He won an RCQ at MagicSur Chile and subsequently crushed the South American Championship with his favorite Pioneer deck: Mono-Red Aggro. "Competing at the Pro Tour means a lot to me", he said as he recounted his experience at Pro Tour Ixalan several years ago. "It was a dream come true. I had been grinding local qualifiers until I finally got there, I did terribly at the Pro Tour, but I didn't care much about that at the time." But Pro Tour Phyrexia will be different, and Sepulveda is hungry for more. "I'm working really hard to up my game and unleash the great player I know I can be. I really want to make the most of it not only because it is good for me, but also because it is good for our South American community."

These Regional Champions, along with over 150 other players whose Regional Championship performance was good enough to qualify, may represent their regions at the Pro Tour in the knowledge that they're cheering them on back home. For more details on this first cycle of Regional Championships, including an overview of the region-specific number of invites for Pro Tour Phyrexia and the top Pioneer decks, check out my primer . More information on upcoming RCQ formats and promo cards is available here .

The MTG Arena Path: Digital

Another way to earn a Pro Tour qualification is by reaching seven wins in Day Two of a Qualifier Weekend on MTG Arena . To earn a spot in these monthly Qualifier Weekends, as described in more detail on MTG Arena Premier Play page , there are various methods: by finishing in the Top 250 of the Constructed or Limited ladder at the end of the preceding month, by reaching enough wins in Day 2 of an Arena Open, or—most commonly—via a Qualifier Play-In event.

Seven-win earners from Day Two of a Qualifier Weekend not only earn a Pro Tour qualification but also clinch a spot in the Arena Championship, which represents the apex of the MTG Arena Premier Play pyramid. To bring this thrice-yearly event to 32 competitors, remaining Arena Championship invitations are given to players with the most total Day Two match wins in contributing Qualifier Weekends. However, Pro Tour invitations are only awarded to seven-win earners.

One of the players who reached seven wins at the November Qualifier Weekend was Simon Nielsen . Although the difficulty of having to go 7-1 on both days made him initially hesitant about the effort required, he eventually realized there was a reason why Qualifier Weekends were difficult: "The payoff is through the roof. Not only is it a way to qualify directly for the Pro Tour, it also gives an invite to the Arena Championship, a tournament that's almost like a mini Worlds. With just 32 players and a huge prize pool, it certainly feels like it... I had to take them seriously, and put in an amount of preparation like I would for a Regional Championship. Outside of Regional Championships, these are some of the only events to qualify directly for the Pro Tour and should be treated as such. So for the November Historic Qualifier, Team Handshake spent a week trying out the many deck options in Historic, eventually finding the broken Goblin Trapfinder deck."

Nielsen was eager to return to the Pro Tour, where he has the chance to relive past victories. One of his fondest Pro Tour memories was from Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, where he achieved a new personal best that secured his spot in subsequent Pro Tours. "The feeling of joy as I won my last round was incredible. I remember Christoffer Larsen lifting me in the air in celebration", he reminisced. "Pro Tours offer this unique opportunity to really achieve something. You know that you get nothing for free; everyone tries their hardest. And if you can beat that, the payoff is immense."

The Magic Online Path: Digital

The Magic Online Premier Play program offers two paths to the Pro Tour, one direct and one indirect, and I've created my own flowchart to visualize this for us:

The indirect path involves performing well in one of the many Qualifiers or Super Qualifiers, which grant invitations to a Regional Championship. These Magic Online events come in a variety of formats, including Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, and Limited.

The direct path, on the other hand, is through the Magic Online Champions Showcase (MOCS) tournaments. Three times a year, they culminate in the eight-player Champions Showcase. To qualify, players can win an invite-only Showcase Qualifier, a Limited Showcase Open, or secure one of two at-large spots on the Leaderboard. All eight players also earn invitations to the Pro Tour.

One such player who earned his Pro Tour invitation through the Magic Online Championship Showcase is Kiran Dhokia , better known online as Cherryxman. "Whilst the Pro Tour has never been a goal of mine, it is an exciting new opportunity for me to compete at a high level," he told me. And as the Pro Tour features both Constructed and Limited formats, it presents a new challenge to Dhokia: "I am especially excited to develop my skills in Limited as I prefer Constructed, but learning formats that are new to me is very enjoyable."

When asked why Magic Online is his preferred platform, Dhokia had a clear explanation: "it's due to the great diversity of formats, decks, and the huge number of high level players online. The flexibility on offer, through leagues as well, allows for a great opportunity to practice and improve."

Previous Championship Success

World Champion Nathan Steuer

Another qualification path is via top finishes at previous Pro Tours or World Championships. The details get a bit complicated, especially given that 2022-23 is a transitional season. But one thing is clear: The Top 4 players from the 2022 World Championship (Nathan Steuer, Eli Kassis, Jakub Tóth, and Karl Sarap) are qualified for all Pro Tours this season, raising the level of competition.

Additionally, players who score enough match wins at a Pro Tour will automatically earn a qualification for the next one. At Pro Tour Phyrexia specifically, a 9-7 finish or better will grant an invite for Pro Tour March of the Machine. There's also an Adjusted Match Point system, which rewards players with high finishes over the previous three rolling Pro Tours, allowing solid performances to earn Pro Tour invitations as well. However, since Pro Tour Phyrexia is the first tabletop Pro Tour in years, these systems do not yet apply. Instead, all 32 players from Magic World Championshi[ XXVIII and players who finished 9-6 or better at the New Capenna Championship received invitations.

Among the New Capenna Championship qualifiers is Sam Bogue , better known online as IslandGoSAMe. Bogue regards Pro Tour Phyrexia as "definitely the most important tournament of my life so far." As he explained, "it's been a dream of mine to compete at a tabletop Pro Tour ever since I started playing this game 10 years ago; I'm sure the friend group I played with in Middle School would be proud of me. I've played in various Regional events before, but never an event that brings together players from all around the world."

As the Pro Tour features Pioneer just one week after the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One , it incentives format experts to come up with new and innovative brews. "I was very excited when I realized that this Pro Tour was Pioneer," Bogue said. "Since my Twitch and YouTube content has been Pioneer-focused for about a year now, I'm super ready to put my format knowledge and experience to the test here. Pioneer right now is one of the best formats to brew in, and Phyrexia: All Will be One will definitely give players a ton of new tools and strategies to work with for this event."

Magic Hall of Fame: The Legacy of Success

The Magic Hall of Fame enshrines the most significant and influential competitors of the game, and its members are invited to one Pro Tour per yearly season of their choice. Many Hall of Famers, including the likes of Luis Scott-Vargas, Shota Yasooka, Reid Duke, and Gabriel Nassif, are already qualified for Pro Tour Phyrexia through aforementioned qualification paths, so they don't need to use this special invite. Other Hall of Famers, however, plan to use their once-per-year invite immediately to compete at Pro Tour Phyrexia.

Among them is the record holder for the number of Pro Tours played— Raphaël Lévy . With over 100 Pro Tours under his belt, he's the most experienced player in the field. For years, his life revolved around the Pro Tour, and to him it offered something truly unique: "Recognition from your peers is one of the most precious and hardest thing to achieve in any competitive activities. Being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006 (what seems to be a lifetime away) was a milestone in my career but also an incredible moment. Playing at the Pro Tour with the Hall of Fame tag was and still is a driving force and a source of never-ending motivation."

Although Lévy took great pride on his string of consistent finishes that kept him on the Pro Tour train for decades, the organized play system and his priorities have changed since his competitive heyday. Most notably, he's become the proud father of two young kids. While he remains excited to attend Pro Tour Phyrexia, Lévy's Magic -related goals are different from before.

"Consistency isn't on the menu anymore, so now I'm more interested in posting a few more flashy finishes, if I can," he said. We're looking forward to seeing if his drive and experience can propel Lévy to yet another Top 8 finish, perhaps this time with loud cheers from his family back home.

Pro Tour Qualifiers: Tabletop's Fast Lane

Pro Tour Qualifiers—not to be confused with Regional Championship Qualifiers—are the most direct way to the Pro Tour. The first of these events will be held at MagicCon: Philadelphia . There's one on Friday and one on Saturday, and each will award four invitations to Pro Tour March of the Machine, taking place at MagicCon: Minneapolis on May 5–7. The format for these Pro Tour Qualifiers is Phyrexia: All Will Be One Limited.

To me, these PTQs are reminiscent of the old Grand Prix events. Although they are not held as frequently, they are open to anyone attending MagicCon: Philadelphia, held at a large convention, draw players from all around the world, and reward top performers with direct access to the Pro Tour. As an additional benefit, any Pro Tour qualification (regardless of qualification path) extends to an automatic invitation to the corresponding Regional Championship as well. Especially if you're a Limited expert, these PTQs may be perfect for you, so don't miss out on the opportunity!

Pro Tours: A Part of Magic 's History

There are several qualification paths towards the Pro Tour, ranging from tabletop tournaments to digital avenues: there surely is one that can work for you. Each winner has their name carved into competitive Magic history, making memories that last a lifetime.

We'll watch someone make their own history at Pro Tour Phyrexia, featuring live streaming coverage on February 17—19 with a stacked broadcast team. See you there!

Pro Tour Team Series

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The Magic Pro Tour Team Series was a professional event series that started with the 2017–18 Pro Tour season, though there was a soft launch starting at Pro Tour Aether Revolt . Announced on August 2, 2016, [1] the series emphasized the team aspect of Pro Tours. Formerly, teams were unofficial, and players frequently joined and left the major teams that collaborated; the Magic Pro Tour Team Series made teams an official part of the Pro Tour. The Pro Tour Team Series was terminated in 2019, when Magic Esports were introduced with the Magic Pro League and Mythic Championships on MTG Arena . [2]

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Format [ | ]

Teams consisted of six players each, including a designated team captain; these teams were registered prior to the first Pro Tour of the season that counts towards the Team Series. The only requirement for being a member of a team was being qualified for that Pro Tour. Once players were registered on a team, they would belong to that team until the end of that Pro Tour season unless player were substituted, or their team had disbanded. Players could only be a member of one team (including disbanded teams) in a single season.

Players earned points for their team by winning Pro Points at Pro Tours. For the first, second, and third Pro Tour in that season, the top five members' Pro Points were added to the team score. The top 8 teams (top 4 for the 2016–17 season due to it being a soft launch, top 16 for the 2017–18 season due to the special format of Pro Tour 25th Anniversary ) after the third Pro Tour received invitations and travel awards to the season's last Pro Tour, where all members of those teams earned Pro Points that were added to the team score.

In the 2018–19 season, teams could replace any member with the approval of involved players, the captain, and WotC. Points earned by the replaced member, as well as those earned by the new member previously in the season, were excluded from team scores. Teams could also disband if the majority of players, including their captain, decided to do so. Disbanding a team was the equivalent of withdrawal from the Team Series for that season, and members of that team were not allowed to join new teams for the remainder of the season.

The top 2 teams after the season's conclusion were invited to compete in a team playoff at the following World Championship, where the winning team was crowned the Team World Champion.

Following each season, the members of the top 8 teams of that season each received invitations and airfare to the first Pro Tour of the following season. [3]

Prizes [ | ]

The prize purse of in excess of $200,000 was distributed as follows between the top four teams after the Pro Season's conclusion:

Additionally, all members of the Top 8 teams received invitations and travel awards to the first Pro Tour of the next season, regardless of whether they remained on the same team.

Note that for the 2016–17 season 's Team Series, being the soft launch of the program, the total prize purse was $50,400.

Seasons [ | ]

Winners [ | ], notes [ | ], references [ | ].

• ↑ Helene Bergeot (2016-08-02). " PRO TOUR ELDRITCH MOON ORGANIZED PLAY ANNOUNCEMENT ". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2016-08-03.
• ↑ Elaine Chase (December 6, 2018). " The Next Chapter for Magic : Esports ". magicthegathering.com . Wizards of the Coast.
• ↑ Blake Rasmussen (2018-08-16). " AUGUST 16, 2018 PRO TOUR UPDATE ". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2016-04-29.
• ↑ Jennifer Long (2017-01-23). " Team Cardhoarder at the Pro Tour! ". Cardhoarder.
• ↑ Patrick Cox (2017-01-19). " Presenting: Team ChannelFireball Fire ". ChannelFireball.
• ↑ Eric Froehlich (2017-01-19). " Presenting: Team ChannelFireball Ice ". ChannelFireball.
• ↑ a b Announcing MTG Team Massdrop East/West . Massdrop (2017-01-19).
• ↑ All the Ways to Play Saheeli Rai . Top Level Podcast (2017-01-20).
• ↑ Rich Hoaen (2017-10-23). " Introducing the New Faces of Face to Face ". Manadeprived.
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