Welcome to 2020!

Magic World Championship XXVI is just around the corner. Make sure to #FindYourChampion before February 12 to win exclusive rewards inside MTG Arena!

We’ll see you in Honolulu, Hawaii in a two weeks but for now, let's jump into some updates.

MTG Arena

League Operations

Going forward, you can find comprehensive rules and tournament resources on our MTG Arena policy page on Magic.gg. For January we’ve added:

Magic Pro League Rules
Q1 2020 Mythic Point Challenge Rules
Invitation and Mythic Point information for Mythic Invitational Ikoria (with more to come this March)

Infraction Procedures and Fines

As ambassadors of Magic and competitive play, the MPL and Rivals are held to the highest standard. Inside the Magic Pro League Rules, there's a section detailing infractions and associated penalties including the introduction of fines.

Fines offer additional means of ensuring clean play and adherence to all tournament rules that don't also impact a person's ability to compete in the season. These new procedures will act as a system for both league officials, the MPL, Rivals, and the community at large to hold our competition to a high standard. That said, each situation comes with its own set of circumstances that will be evaluated against these guidelines.

Take a look at the full overview of the Tournament and Competitor Conduct Infraction Procedures inside the Magic Pro League Rules for more information.

Ikoria Mythic Qualifier #1 – Report

In the December 2019 Esports Update, we talked about how the old qualifier structure was asking too much of competitive players. For the 2020 Partial Season, we switched the Qualifiers over to one-day events where any player who reached 10 wins would qualify for Mythic Invitational Ikoria.

We just had the first of two qualifiers on January 11 and while it's only one event, we had more total qualifiers and a higher percentage of eligible qualifiers participate than our last comparable event of similar qualification path, which was August 2019's MCQW.

Results

22 players at 10 wins, including Rivals League member Matt Nass
26 players at 9 wins
32 players at 8 wins
60 players at 7 wins
116 players at 6 wins
183 players at 5 wins

Rivals League Updates

6 players from Rivals League earned Mythic Points from the qualifier:

Matt Nass (6)
Matt Sperling (2)
Ally Warfield (1)
Thoralf Severin (1)
Luis Salvatto (1)
John Rolf (1)

We'll be keeping an eye on how the second Mythic Qualifier–coming March 14–performs and whether we'll make any changes for the Core 2021 Mythic Qualifiers.

Mythic Invitational Ikoria

We've posted our initial event information for Mythic Invitational Ikoria, which takes place May 14-17 in the United States. Mythic Invitational Ikoria is the first of two Invitationals taking place in the 2020 partial season. This 128-person event will feature four days of competition and a $750,000 prize pool.

We'll have more info in February and March to give you the full picture on what to expect at this event but, for now, we’ve posted the criteria for being invited. The event information also includes the Mythic Points awarded at both Mythic Invitational Ikoria as well as July's Mythic Invitational.

Tabletop Magic

The first Players Tour events of 2020 are coming up this weekend. We've released several updates this month–each available in our Players Tour policy page–that you can dig into so you're ready to follow the matches over the next two weekends:

Players Tour and Players Tour Finals Invitations

With Players Tour Brussels and Nagoya this weekend, followed by Players Tour Phoenix the next weekend, we've continued to listen to feedback in how invitations for the Players Tour Finals in Houston this April will be made. We've adjusted the match points required to earn Players Tour Finals invitation to 33 match points after 15 rounds for all Players Tours. For Players Tour Americas and Players Tour Europe we've also adjusted the match points required to earn invitation to the following Players Tour, from 33 match points down to 30 match point after 15 rounds.

Both of these changes will result in more players earning invitations to future Players Tour events, beginning this weekend.

For reference, the invitation list for the upcoming Players Tour Finals event consists of the following players:

The twenty-four (24) members of the Magic Pro League.
Players that finish with 30 or more match points from the immediately preceding Players Tour Finals.
The winner of each individual-format Grand Prix that awards invitations to the designated Players Tour Finals.
The three (3) team members from the winning team from each team-format Grand Prix that awards invitations to the designated Players Tour Finals.
Players that finish with 33 or more match points after 15 Swiss rounds (or the top 20 finishing players after 15 Swiss rounds, whichever is greater) from the immediately preceding Players Tour Americas event.
Players that finish with 33 or more match points after 15 Swiss rounds (or the top 16 finishing players after 15 Swiss rounds, whichever is greater) from the immediately preceding Players Tour Europe event.
Players that finish with 33 or more match points after 15 Swiss rounds (or the top 12 finishing players after 15 Swiss rounds, whichever is greater) from the immediately preceding Players Tour Asia Pacific event.

In addition, the following criteria apply to the first Players Tour Finals of 2020 only:

The top 8 finishing players from 2019 Mythic Championship IV Barcelona.
The top 8 finishing players from 2019 Mythic Championship VI Richmond.

(An important note is that the Players Tour Finals invitation criteria listed above, for the first Players Tour of 2020, do not generate a pass down of invitations from one player to another.)

We can't wait to see who wins the first Players Tours of the year, and how Pioneer shapes up through all three events. Good luck to everyone in Brussels, Nagoya, and Phoenix!