Star City Games announced this evening that it was cancelling the next two stops of the SCG Tour, in Baltimore and Syracuse, due to “rising concerns over the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus).”
UPDATE: Wizards of the Coast has cancelled both Players Tour Finals Houston and Mythic Invitational Ikoria and has rescheduled Players Tour Series 2, while ChannelFireball has cancelled MagicFests through the middle of May.
UPDATE: Star City Games has cancelled three additional SCG Opens through the middle of May.
SCG Baltimore was scheduled to take place this weekend on March 14 and 15, while SCG Syracuse was to be held the next weekend on March 21 and 22. Players who preregistered for the events will be refunded and Star City Games says that it is working to reschedule them for “some time later this year.”
Star City Games’ decision comes on the same day that the World Health Organization classified the novel coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic, while the state of Washington halted gatherings of more than 250 people and Washington, D.C. recommended that “non-essential mass gatherings, including conferences and conventions, be postponed or cancelled.” Two weeks ago, ChannelFireball also announced the cancellation of MagicFest Turin, which was scheduled for April 3-5, as the coronavirus began to spread in Italy.
Magic has four premiere events coming up in the three consecutive weeks between April 24 through May 10: Players Tour Finals Houston and the three Players Tour Series 2 events in Copenhagen, Denmark; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Kitakyushu, Japan. Hipsters reached out to Wizards of the Coast to ask about the company’s plans for those events but had not heard back by the time this article was published.