Tonight at the Game Awards, Wizards of the Coast announced a new $10 million tournament series called Mythic Championships as well as the Magic Pro League. Both will begin in 2019.
Update: We’ve updated this post will all of the additional information that Wizards released after the Game Awards announcement.
Mythic Championships
Magic will be transitioning to a tournament structure called Mythic Championships. There will be a total of 10 Mythic Championship tournaments, plus other partner-run events, which will have a combined prize pool of $10 million. That money will be split equally between paper Magic and Magic Arena tournaments, meaning $5 million each.
The first Mythic Championship will be held at PAX East in Boston March 28-31, 2019. The event will be an invitational tournament with a $1 million prize pool. Wizards will announce the participants in January. Players can qualify for other Mythic Championships by playing MTG Arena, though the exact mechanism has yet to be announced.
Pro Tours will become Mythic Championships—more on that below.
Magic Pro League
In addition to the new Mythic Championships, Wizards will be introducing the Magic Pro League in 2019. The Magic Pro League will feature the top 32 Magic players in the world, who will be signed to a pro contract and will all be automatically invited to every Mythic Championship.
The players in the Magic Pro League will be paid $75,000 and will compete in weekly MTG Arena matches and Mythic Championships. At this time, we don’t know how the top 32 players will be determined or how long their contracts will last, but they will be ranked based on points earned via their finishes at Mythic Championship events.
Only 4 Pro Tours in 2019—Not 6
Pro Tours will become tabletop Mythic Championships and will increase their prize pools to $500,000. Wizards is also reducing the number of Pro Tours in 2019 from six to four. The four remaining Pro Tours will be:
- Cleveland: February 22–24
- London: April 26–28
- Barcelona: July 26–28
- Richmond: November 8–10
That means there won’t be a Pro Tour in Dallas/Ft. Worth the weekend of June 28th, 2019 or in Brisbane, Australia the weekend of December 6th, 2019.
The increased prize payouts at Pro Tour/tabletop Mythic Championships mean changes to how those prizes will be distributed. Every single player at each tabletop event will receive part of the $500,000 prize; but after London, there will no longer be any travel awards.
Nationals, the World Cup, the Team Series, and Pro Points/the Pro Club Are All Ending in 2019
Along with two of the previously announced 2019 Pro Tours, Nationals, the World Cup, the Team Series, and Pro Points/the Pro Club are getting the axe in 2019.
That means there will be no 2019 Nationals or World Cup, the 2018-19 Team Series will be the last Team Series, and all Pro Points will be forzen after GP Seattle—though Pro Club benefits will be extended through the end of 2019.
Magic Will Have a “Standard Plus” Format…Eventually
Elaine Chase revealed to Screen Rant that Wizards was planning on revealing a new format that will allow players to use their non-Standard legal cards on MTG Arena.
“Our intent for sure is to have Arena’s Standard Plus format. We don’t have any details to share on exactly what that looks like but don’t worry, players will still be able to use all their cards that rotate out.”
It seems likely that this new “Standard Plus” format will become available around the time that Ixalan and Dominaria rotate out of Standard next fall. Theoretically, that format could also include Kaladesh and Amonkhet, which were added to MTG Arena during it’s Closed Beta but are currently unavailable.
This breaking news story will be updated with more information as it becomes available.