More opportunities to compete at high levels, play for prizes, and gather with gamers from all over are coming in 2025 with the launch of the Magic: The Gathering Spotlight Series, an exciting, new large open tournament series taking place in cities around the world.
What Is the Magic Spotlight Series?
The Magic Spotlight Series is a large, multi-day celebration that will spotlight a specific theme at each event, and elements of that theme will influence the weekend’s events. Just as exciting as the events themselves, each Magic Spotlight Series stop will feature a flagship main tournament—a two-day open event that features a $50,000 prize pool, a sweet promo card, and invitations to an upcoming Magic Pro Tour event for the Top 8 finishers.
Next year, 2025, will feature eight Magic Spotlight Series events in total:
- Five in the United States, hosted by StarCityGames.com
- Two in Europe, hosted by Fanfinity
- One in Japan, hosted by BIG MAGIC
Magic Spotlight Series stops will also feature side events, vendors, special guests, and more at the discretion of the hosting organizer. As more information for each Magic Spotlight event becomes public, please refer to the organizer’s event information page for all the details on this front.
The Magic Spotlight Main Event
While the Magic Spotlight Series brings multiple days of Magic fun to select cities in the upcoming year, the event that is sure to attract competitive players will be the two-day main event: an open tournament featuring $50,000 in prize money awarded to top finishers.
The Magic Spotlight main event will feature one format over the course of two days of competition, with the action starting on Saturday. Everyone who signs up may compete in as many of the nine rounds on Saturday as they wish, but only players who have 18 match points or better (typically awarded via six or more match wins) may compete on the second day of competition on Sunday.
After six rounds on Sunday, the Top 8 advance to a single-elimination playoff, which will play to a winner on Sunday. These Top 8 players will secure invitations to an upcoming Magic Pro Tour event and will play for the title of Magic Spotlight Champion, the lion’s share of the $50,000 prize pool, and an extra-special prize for the winner of each Spotlight main event (more on that in the Spotlight themes section, later in this article).
The Magic Spotlight main events are open tournaments, meaning anyone eligible to participate in sanctioned Magic events may sign up while seats are available. Seating can run out, so players intending to compete are strongly encouraged to sign up early and in advance of booking travel and attending.
Promo cards will be available to each Magic Spotlight main event participant in non-foil, with promo cards changing for each theme. Additionally, the top 128 players from each Magic Spotlight main event will earn a traditional foil version of the promo card!
Additionally, there will be live video coverage of both days of the Magic Spotlight main events. We’ll have more details on how to tune in for each event in the future!
Spotlight Themes
Each Magic Spotlight event will feature a specific theme for the weekend and the main event.
We’re not quite ready to share each theme for 2025’s events, but we’re excited to reveal the themes—as well as the cities and dates—for the first two Magic Spotlight Series stops next year!
Magic Spotlight: Foundations: January 3–5, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Our very first Magic Spotlight Series stop will be celebrating Magic: The Gathering Foundations, kicking off this new program and a new era for Standard Constructed.
The event—hosted by StarCityGames.com—will be part of SCG CON Atlanta, a three-day gathering of trading card game fans of all ages to ring in the new year.
The Magic Spotlight: Foundations main event will begin on January 4, showcasing Standard Constructed over two days. With a $50,000 prize pool and eight invitations to the first Pro Tour of 2025 up for grabs, it’s an exciting way to welcome a new era of Standard.
All participants in the Magic Spotlight: Foundations main event will receive a borderless non-foil
Additionally, the top 128 participants in Magic Spotlight: Foundations will receive a traditional foil copy of the Terror of the Peaks promo card.
Finally, the winner of the Magic Spotlight: Foundations main event will not only walk away with the trophy and the first-place prize money, but they’ll also get something very foundational for their 2025 Standard preparation: Standard for a year! This means the winner will receive a full Play Booster Display case—that’s six Play Booster Display Boxes—of every Standard-legal Magic release in 2025. Note that the winning prize for each Magic Spotlight Series stop will differ from event to event, and we’ll have more info about future Magic Spotlight main event winner prizes in the future.
This will also be your last chance to qualify for the first Pro Tour of 2025 if the upcoming Regional Championships this fall are out of your reach or if your weekend doesn’t go as planned. Keep that in mind. The best foundational start to your Pro Tour journey is at the first one, so give yourself those opportunities when you can!
Additional details—including side events and more things to do during the weekend—will be found on the organizer’s website in the coming weeks. Check back regularly here as well for upcoming details!
Magic Spotlight: Modern: March 15–16, 2025, in Utrecht, Netherlands
The second Magic Spotlight event in 2025 will take place across the Atlantic in Europe!
Hosted by Fanfinity and featuring the beloved Modern Constructed format for its main event, this event is one that fans of Modern in Europe won’t want to miss. The main event will begin on Saturday during the Magic Spotlight weekend, feature a $50,000 prize pool, invitations to the second Pro Tour of 2025 to the Top 8, and more to come!
All participants in the Magic Spotlight: Modern main event will receive a non-foil borderless copy of a
Additionally, the top 128 players in the Magic Spotlight: Modern main event will receive a traditional foil version of the Kaldra Compleat promo card.
We’ll have more information on Magic Spotlight: Modern in the coming months—including what the special winner prize will be—so stay tuned!
Speaking of staying tuned, today we’ve only scratched the surface of what is in store in 2025. There is a lot more to come with the Magic Spotlight Series, and we can’t wait to share more with you in the coming months!