This evening, ChannelFireball announced a new MTG Arena event series called MagicFest Online. It will be made up of four Daily Qualifiers that feed two-day Weekly Championships, which earn players invites to a two-day Season Finals event—all of which will feature the Standard format. Top-finishing players in the Championships and Finals can earn invites to Players Tour Series 2 and the two finalists in the Season Finals will even be invited to the Players Tour Final.
There were be four Daily Qualifiers every day, from March 23 to April 3 at 3 AM, 9 AM, 3 PM, and 9PM Pacific. The Weekly Championships will take place on the weekends of March 28-29 and April 4-5, with each day starting at 9 AM Pacific, and the Season Finals will be held on on April 11-12 at 9 AM.
The schedule for MagicFest Online Season 1.
Each Daily Qualifier will cost $25 to enter (via my.cfbevents.com as if you were registering for a Grand Prix), will cap at 512 players, and be six rounds. All players who go 5-1 or better (as well as all Magic Pro League and Rivals League members) will qualify the associated Weekly Championship, which will award $25,000 in prizes and be split over two days. Day 1 will be eight rounds, with all 6-2 (or better) players continuing on Day 2 with six more rounds and then a cut to Top 8. The Top 32 players from each Weekly Championship will advance to the Season Finals, which will have the same structure as the Weekly Championships but will award $50,000 in prizes.
In addition to the cash prizes, all players in the Top 8 of the Weekly Championships and the Top 32 players in the Season Finals will earn invites to Players Tour Series 2, while the Top 2 players in the Season Finals will also earn invites to the Players Tour Finals.
MagicFest 2020 prize payouts and invites
All events will be Standard and will be conducted via the direct challenge feature on MTG Arena. ChannelFireball said it will explain how it will conduct pairings and match results on Sunday. It also said that it will be streaming coverage the Daily Qualifiers, Weekly Championships, and Season Finals at twitch.tv/channelfireball, which kicks off with LSV and William Jensen on Monday at 9 AM Pacific.
The announcement of MagicFest Online comes a week after ChannelFireball cancelled all of its in-person MagicFests until at least mid-May. Wizards of the Coast also cancelled Players Tour Finals Houston and Mythic Invitational Ikoria and suspended all in-person qualification events for Players Tour Series 2.