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Major Changes to 2012 Magic Tournament Structure
Wizards of the Coast announced today major changes to their Pro Play organized play offerings for 2012. This is the third of a series of announcements designed to dramatically modernize and improve their organized play program, starting with the Grand Prix announcement and Planeswalker Points later on. These new changes are aimed at the World Championships, National and Pro Points.
2012 World Championship
From the official announcement:
For the first time since the creation of the Pro Tour, Magic: The Gathering will have a single tournament to determine the best player in the world: the 2012 World Championship.
To accomplish this goal, the World Championship is changing from a Pro Tour-sized event to an exclusive sixteen-person tournament. These sixteen titans of Magic will battle for a $100,000 prize purse at Gen Con 2012 in Indianapolis (August 16-19). The field will be made up of the following players:
- 2011 World Champion
- 2011 Magic Online Champion (determined at the 2011 Magic Online Championship held at Magic Weekend San Francisco)
- Winners of the previous three Pro Tours (Philadelphia, Dark Ascension in Honolulu, and the second Pro Tour in 2012). Pro Tour Philadelphia champion Samuele Estratti is the first invitee to the 2012 World Championship.
- The top-ranked player from each geo-region (Asia Pacific, Europe, Japan, Latin America, and North America) in the Planeswalker Points 2012 Professional Total who are not yet invited based on the above criteria.
- The top-ranked players in the worldwide Planeswalker Points 2012 Professional Total who are not yet invited based on the above criteria sufficient to bring the total number of invited players to the 2012 World Championship to sixteen.
In 2012, a player’s Professional Points total consists of the Planeswalker Points earned at Pro Tours, Grand Prix, and the 2011 World Championships for a twelve-month period (see Premier Event Invite Policy for specific dates), so this will select the players who have done the best against the highest level of competition for an entire year.
“Think of the best Pro Tour Top 8 ever and then double it,” said Aaron Forsythe, Senior Director of Magic R&D. “The live coverage will be awesome as we showcase these players as the masters of the game. The 2010 Player of the Year playoff showed how Magic fans around the world got behind seeing the best play against the best.”
With live video match coverage each round, in-depth player interviews and deck techs, analysis from experts in R&D and the world of Magic, and more opportunities for fans to follow and support their favorite players through social media, the 2012 World Championship promises to be unlike any other Magic tournament ever.
“Under the current system, you can make an argument for several different players being the best in the world,” said Scott Larabee, Magic Organized Play Program Manager. “Is it the Player of the Year, who had the most top finishes but may not have won a major tournament? The World Champion, because that’s what the title suggests? A Pro Tour winner, because Pro Tours probably have the toughest field of players? We wanted a clear answer, and the new World Championship provides that.”
Further details about the format and schedule of the 2012 World Championship will be announced next year.
National Championship
Given the above, there will no longer be a higher level event for the National Championships to feed into, but that doesn’t mean that the National Championships to go away, thankfully. From the official announcement:
National Championships will no longer be feeding a larger global event. With the World Championship moving to its new model, as well as a growing need for individual regions to tailor their organized play offerings, it was necessary to separate Nationals from a larger organized play path. This change helps individual regions develop the right tournaments and events—from Wizards Play Network events up to National Championships—to meet the needs of their region’s player base.
“As the Magic brand grows across the world, Wizards has faced challenges in attempting to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to certain programs, and Nationals was one of those,” said Helene Bergeot, Director of Organized Play Programs and Operations. “It is up to the regional offices to decide on the size and scope of their countries’ National Championships, and we’ve seen that in many of those countries, the pride of being your country’s champion is a primary motivation for players.”
National Championships will be run at a Planeswalker Points multiplier of 8x, the same as Grand Prix. Along with the expanded Grand Prix schedule, Nationals provide a good opportunity for many players around the world to experience a large-scale Magic tournament and earn high amounts of Planeswalker Points in a single event.
Expect to see the complete National Championship schedule by April 2012.
Pro Points & Pro Player’s Club
This is perhaps the most disheartening of the announcement, especially if you identify yourself as a “pro player”:
As previously announced, Wizards of the Coast will be honoring all Pro Players Club travel, invitations, and appearance fee benefits at 2012 Pro Tours, Grand Prix, and National Championships based on a player’s level at the end of the 2011 Pro season. Pro Points will no longer be awarded at events starting in 2012, and the current Pro Players Club will end after the 2012 season (concluding after the last Grand Prix of 2012). Wizards of the Coast plans to replace the Pro Players Club in 2013 with a new system that accomplishes the goal of making sure the most deserving players are recognized through Pro Tour invitations and other rewards.
For 2012, all players qualified for a Pro Tour via Planeswalker Points will earn airfare to that Pro Tour. Players who win Pro Tour Qualifier tournaments will continue to receive invitations and airfare to the Pro Tour.
As with any new system, Wizards of the Coast will be evaluating the effectiveness of the new tournament structure and Planeswalker Points into 2012.
“We are making important changes to our organized play system,” Larabee said. “Planeswalker Points is a major step in this process, and it is important to better understand how the new system will impact the players. That gives us the flexibility to adjust our programs accordingly. While we’re in this transition phase, honoring the 2012 benefits is a priority.”
Added Forsythe, “As we see how the new system works when released into the wild, we’ll be looking at ways to make sure players who represent the game well at the highest level are rewarded for their dedication. The idea behind the Pro Club is sound, but we need to do some amount of reconfiguring.”
The Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards as they currently exist will end with the 2011 season. The 2012 World Champion will replace the function of the Player of the Year award. Wizards of the Coast is investigating a new version of Rookie of the Year award, as well as other new end-of-season awards that are not dependent on the outgoing Pro Points system.
Because the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame is tied so closely to Pro Points, Wizards will be adjusting the process by which players become eligible for induction and how the voting committees are determined. More information on the changes to the Pro Tour Hall of Fame eligibility and voting systems will be coming next year as we approach the voting period for the Class of 2012.
You can learn more about these changes, too, from a Q&A with Magic Organized Play Manager Helene Bergeot.
Reaction
It is the opinion of this author that overall, these changes are not good ones – for the community, at least. We do have to bare in mind that at the end of the day, Wizards of the Coast is a for-profit company and they need to do what they feel is best for their bottom line. In a way, this is a good thing: if WotC’s balance sheet is better, it stands to reason that Magic will remain for that much longer.
In the same vane, WotC is a company with a strong, passionate community behind it. If they were to upset that community to much, it certainly is likely they could jump ship if unhappy. Then again, no matter what happens, many people simply continue to play Magic anyway.
That said, these changes seem geared toward the high competitive, more “professional” level players. And yet, what about those folks at home who enjoy reading and watching the coverage; checking up on their friends or their favorite player? Is the new Worlds make up really a good indicator of who the best in the world is? This author is leaning towards not. In addition, a part of what makes Worlds so special is the fan fare it receives between the opening ceremony, the pride of all the National champions, the coverage and more. This seems like a set back. Moreover, cutting the prize purse back from $250,000 to $100,00 is certainly a deterrent. Why would so-called pro players want to play in this event now?
With Nationals, it seems like these events will become more like Grand Prix events with little else changing, which is a good thing. However, while the pride of being the National Champion of one’s country is important, there will certainly feel like something is missing when this event doesn’t qualify one for Worlds or any other event, for that matter.
Finally, we have perhaps the biggest blow to the pro player community – the removal of Pro Points and the Pro Player’s Club. It’s good that WotC has decided to honor current commitments. However, the future looks bleak. It is a surprise that Pro Tour Qualifiers – now the best shot at qualifying for the Pro Tour (which there is technically only three per year now!) – will still have the air fare award; and even though WotC claims that they plan to allocate the resources into some other kind of reward program, it will never be the same and it stands to reason that the rewards will not favor the players so much. Again, this begs the question, why aspire for pro play at all anymore? Why not just play in a Grand Prix, win some money and call it a day?
Overall, a sever blow to the pro community the lasting effects of which are, naturally, unknown at this time. In the end, the aspiration aspect of the game of Magic is, in this author’s opinion, a very important aspect to what makes Magic the Gathering so incredibly great and sets it apart from every other collectible card game on the market place. Hopefully, Wizards has not forgotten this.
Martin Juza Takes Down Grand Prix Hiroshima
Magic Grand Prix Hiroshima is now in the books. After 18 rounds of swiss (including the top eight), Czech Martin Juza is the Grand Prix Hiroshima 2011 champion, having bested Kouichi Tanaka, Rin Satou and Takahiro Shiraki in the finals with his Green & White Token-based deck.
Click the links below for the official coverage. Plus, the top eight deck lists!
Magic Grand Prix Double Header – Legacy & Innistrad Sealed
Busy weekend in the Magic the Gathering community, with both Grand Prix Amsterdam (Legacy) and Grand Prix Santiago (Brazil) having took place and each crowned a champion!
In Amsterdam, 1,878 Grand Prix champion hopefuls sleeved up their Legacy decks and did battle. Only Pierre Sommen of France stood alone after the dust settled, piloting his Bant deck featuring Stoneforge Mystic, Knight of the Reliquary and a host of powerful blue cards like Force of Will and Jace, the Mind Sculptor to defeat Ciro Bonaventura, piloting a RUG Tempo deck with Delver of Secrets (!) two games to one.
Top 8 Player Profiles – Amsterdam
Pierre Sommen - GP Amsterdamn Champion
On the other side of the world, there was a Grand Prix of an entirely different flavor in Santiago, Brazil. This time, 737 players registered to do battle with Innistrad sealed deck. Despite a star-studded top eight including Owen Turtenwald, Paulo Vitor Damo de Rosa (PVDDR), Martin Juza and New England’s own Melissa DeTora (congrats Melissa!), only one champion could be crowned and that champion is Igor Silva Pinto!
Interestingly enough, this event also featuring a number of player disqualifications, including one high profile DQ that involved a player in the top eight. You can read the Head Judge’s statement regarding this incident, here.
Top 8 Player Profiles – Santiago
GP Champ Igor Silva Pinto celebrates with friends
Jeremy Neeman win in Australia
Congratulations to Jeremy Neeman, winner of Grand Prix Brisbane! After a battling through a talented and international Top 8, Neeman takes home his second Australian Grand Prix trophy in a row, following on from his victory in Sydney last year.
Jeremy Neeman, piloting Blue/Black control, narrowly beat out Tim Fondum, piloting G/W Tokens, in three tense games. Rounding out the Top 8 were Shouta Yasooka, Andreas Pranoto, Jacky Zhang, Luke Mulcahy, Daniel Unwin, and Hao-Shan Huang. Congratulations to all the Top 8 finalists, and once again to ‘The’ Jeremy Neeman, the Grand Prix Brisbane champion!
Magic “Modern” Format to be Qualifier Season
Included in the a recent article on DailyMTG.com, columnist Brian-David Marshall announced at the very bottom of a short by significant announcement: Modern will be the January Pro Tour Qualifier season format. Here’s what he had to say:
And if that’s not enough Modern for you, the Pro Tour Qualifier season that starts in January (feeding the second Pro Tour of 2012) will also be Modern. Look for more information about that PTQ season after Worlds.
BDM is first referring to the fact that the fledgling Modern format was announced as a format for this year’s World Championship in San Francisco.
That said, it remains to be seen just how popular and successful this new format will be, given the recent card bannings that took place.
Magic Weekend San Diego & Worlds 2011
Wizards of the Coast has announced the full details of the up coming Magic the Gathering World Championship! This year, Worlds is returning to sunny San Francisco, California at the Fort Mason Center. Last time Magic Worlds visited San Francisco, Julien Nuijten blew away the competition to be crowned champion!
Magic World Championships (Magic Weekend), held on November 17th to the 20th, is the culmination of events for the year. Players from all over the world will travel to San Francisco to battle for their chance to be crowned Magic World Champion. Players will battle for three days in three different formats (Standard, Booster Draft, and Modern), including the National Team competition as well before a winner is crowned. Please click here to learn more about the tournament format itself. For prize payout information, please click here.
Want to know if you’re invited to play in this prestigious, invitation-only event? Find out! Even if you are not qualified, Magic Weekend offers some of the best public events around! Check them out by clicking here.
For more information, including past event history, a picture of the convention center, a peek at the event’s opening ceremony and more, please click here.
228 Magic PT Hopefuls Descend on Milford, MA
An amazing 228 Pro Tour hopefuls have descended upon TJ Collectibles in Milford, MA, braving both close quarters and heat for their chance at Magic Pro Tour fame, glory, and a trip to beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii! Participants will be testing their Innistrad sealed deck skills as they battle over a numerous swiss rounds to determine the final eight elimination rounds for Innistrad booster draft to determine a winner.
We’ll be bringing you all the action as best we can through out the course of the day. Stay turned to our Facebook and Twitter accounts (@tjcollect on Twitter) for all the Innistrad sealed deck action!
Magic Pro Tour Honolulu Qualifier This Saturday
Magic the Gathering Pro Tour Qualifiers are returning to TJ Collectibles in Milford, MA. This time, for your chance to qualify to play in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii!
The format for this event is Innistrad Sealed Deck. Each participant will receive six booster packs of Innistrad, with which to build a minimum 40-card deck. Basic land cards will be provided. Following the swiss portion of the event, the top eight players will proceed onto a single-elimination Innistrad booster draft to determine the winner!
A Sealed Deck swap and deck lists will be required.
Registration begins at 9:00 AM, with a prompt 10:00 AM start. Entry price is $30.00 USD per player.
So, come on down and enjoy TJ Collectibles legendary prize support and a tournament run the TJ’s way: “fun, fast and friendly!”
But wait, there’s more:
Special: It’s a Booster Draft Day special! We have specially priced booster drafts through out the day, starting super-cheap with the price increasing $2.00 per draft you participate in, to a maximum of $10.00! With prices like these, you could draft all day long!
Tournament Structure
The structure for qualifier tournaments feeding the Pro Tour will be modified Swiss-style, with the Top 8 players playing in a single-elimination format for prizes and invitation(s).
- Deck lists are required
Tournament Length
- Swiss rounds – 50 minutes per round
- Top 8 matches will have no time limit
- Number of Swiss rounds based on attendance according to the following chart:
Attendance Number of
Swiss rounds17 – 32 5 33 – 64 6 65 – 128 7 129 – 226 8 227 – 410 9 411 or higher 10
Advancement
- All players may participate in all Swiss rounds.
- The top 8 players after the final Swiss round will advance to the top 8 single-elimination finals.
Top 8
- Top 8 matches will be best 2 of 3
- Top 8 matches will have no time limit
- Where necessary, the standings after the Swiss rounds will still be used to determine final order in the standings.
Notes
- 32K, REL: Competitive
- The Magic: The Gathering Tournament Rules and Infraction Procedure Guide are in effect for this event unless specifically overruled by information in this Format Document
- Players must bring pen, paper, card sleeves and appropriate counters.
Prizes for this Event Type:
Invitations and airfare to the next Pro Tour are awarded to the top finishers, with the exact number of invitations determined by tournament location.
Booster pack prizes will be based upon attendance.
UPDATE: Samuele Estratti Splinters the Competition at PT Philly!
Congratulations to Samuele Estratti, 2011 Pro Tour Philadelphia champion! He bested finalist Josh “Wrapter” Utter-Leyton in the finals with his Blue/Red Splinter Twin combo deck against Josh’s “Counter-Cat” deck.
Combination decks were all the rage over the course of the weekend, between Splinter Twin decks, Pyromancer Ascension, Storm-based decks, Through the Breach, Hive Mind and more. Perhaps one of the biggest stories is Samuel Blacks “Poison Shoal” deck, the goal of which is to deal ten poison damage as quickly as turn TWO!
Aggressive strategies were not left out in the cold however, as Zoo and Affinity both put up very respectable numbers.
Finally, it is interesting to note that not a single Cloudpost deck even cracked the Top 8! The big bogey man in the room appears to have suffered a sound beating at the hands of the numerous combo decks, Zoo and Affinity.
Can the format adjust and right itself? Will Control decks make an appearance in the future? Is Modern just going to be another combo-centric format? Only time will tell!
WotC Announces PT Honolulu and 15 Grand Prix Events
Wizards of the Coast, designers and publishers of the popular Magic the Gathering card game, announced today a huge, expansive premier organized play schedule for the first quarter of 2012 including a Pro Tour in beautiful, tropical Honolulu and fifteen Grand Prix events!
In February, the Magic Pro Tour will return to Honolulu, Hawaii as the marquee showcase of high-level Magic play, scheduled for February 10-12 just one week after the Dark Ascension release. WotC has decided to schedule the Pro Tour so close to the release of the second Innistrad-block set release in order to showcase the new set in the hands of some of the strongest Magic players in the world.
In addition, with Pro Tours turning into private events, Wizards promises increased coverage via streaming video feeds, audio, text, live chat and social media in order to involve fans from home and feel like they’re a part of the event. Expanded coverage will highlight the top players in the world showing off their latest decks and strategies with each and every Pro tour.
If Honolulu is a place you would like to visit, then qualifying at a Pro Tour Qualifier is for you. The season to qualify for PT Honolulu is fast approaching, with the season to do so beginning October 1st. The format for these events is Innistrad Sealed Deck. Likewise with 2011, winners of live PTQ events will be awarded airfare to the Pro Tour. Stay tuned, as TJ Collectibles will announce their PTQ’s in short order. Please see the event calender for details.
The newly expanded Grand Prix events begin in January with back-to-back events in the United States. The remaining announced schedule through March includes events in Japan, Spain, France, Malaysia, Mexico, Australia and Italy. The formats featured at these events will include Standard, Sealed Deck, Legacy, Extended and now Modern.
In addition, a newly expanded, flexible prize payout structure will be in place. Grand Prix will now offer between $10,000 and $40,000 USD in prize money, with the possibility that some events offer cash-equivalent prizes as well. Specific information about prize payouts and formats will be announced in the coming months.
With out further ado, check out this schedule:
Grand Prix Schedule (January-March)
| City | Country | Dates |
| Austin | USA | January 7-8, 2012 |
| Orlando | USA | January 14-15, 2012 |
| Kobe | Japan | February 18-19, 2012 |
| Lincoln | USA | February 18-19, 2012 |
| Madrid | Spain | February 25-26, 2012 |
| Baltimore | USA | February 25-26, 2012 |
| Lille | France | March 3-4, 2012 |
| Seattle | USA | March 3-4, 2012 |
| Indianapolis | USA | March 10-11, 2012 |
| Nashville | USA | March 17-18, 2012 |
| Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia | March 24-25, 2012 |
| Mexico City | Mexico | March 24-25, 2012 |
| Melbourne | Australia | March 31-April 1, 2012 |
| Salt Lake City | USA | March 31-April 1, 2012 |
| Turin | Italy | March 31-April 1, 2012 |
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