Wizards of the Coast announced today that both Emma Handy and Jess Estephan are leaving the Magic Rivals League.
Handy has been hired by Wizards to work on their Play Design team and, as such, is ineligible to compete in Rivals. Handy had an excellent year on Magic’s tumultuous 2020 professional circuit, Top 16’ing the online Mythic Invitational and Top 8’ing the 2020 Season Grand Finals.
Estephan, a native of Australia, recently got married and moved to the United States. Unfortunately, due to the terms of her fiancé visa, she is ineligible to work in the US and is therefore unable to continue to participate in Rivals. Estephan was the first woman to win a Grand Prix and was a member of the Magic Pro League during its inaugural season.
Per the rules of the Magic Rivals League, neither player will be replaced on the 2020-21 Rivals roster because they left the league in the middle of the season. Due to the fact that neither Handy or Estephan completed all of their matches in the round robin League Weekends, Wizards “will be voiding all League Weekend match results against them and canceling their future matches. We believe this is the most equitable way to handle their departure at this point in the season while maintaining even numbers of match wins and being able to accurately calculate tiebreakers.”
