I'm gonna keep drinking and shouting loudly during Commander games. Nothing in this road map says I cannot.

As it is worded now you can NOT play more then one Players Tour event anywhere in a given season which is one year.

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>> You are, however, limited to playing in just one regional Players Tour event per Players Tour Finals.

>> A year-long season of the Players Tour

I assume there is just 1 Players Tour final per year / season.

u/WotC_Clarke care to help?

Those that remember the GSL code S league from the first few years of starcraft two will find this far too familiar.

The Rivals League will consist of 46 players as follows:

1st–12th ranked digital players (not previously in the MPL)

1st–12th ranked tabletop players (not previously in the MPL)

Bottom 12 players from the MPL Gauntlet

The bottom 4 players from the previous MPL season

6 discretionary invites

Love these changes overall! A few questions I have about the Rivals League and how people fall out/get in. There doesn't seem to be a clearly noted way that people are relegated from Rivals League unless I missed something. Is it implied that each year, the Rivals League will be fully re-filled based on this criteria again? If so, when considering the 24 that are ranked 1-12 digitally and in paper being "not previously in the MPL" does that mean ever? Or just in the previous season?

If Rivals get automatically invited to the Players Tour / Mythic Invitationals, while anyone aiming to get in will have to qualify for each separately, wouldn't it make it very hard for any turnover to occur in the Rivals League, or is the aim to have Rivals League be fairly stable similarly to MPL?

I see in the article that it says player points will use pro points as a starting basis. I'm interpreting this as players with X pro points start with X player points. I'm hopeful someone on the wotc team can confirm this?

Thanks a bunch! Cool new system!

Will all 9 regional PTs have video coverage each year?

This overall looks great. I'd really like for Hall of Fame members to get automatic invites to the regional Players Tour tournaments. I don't think it would be a major effect, and it would be great to have a venue for semi-retired greats to periodically participate in a top flight tournament. The occasional tournament where a mostly retired player like Kibler or Darwin Kastle or whoever makes a deep run would be great from a viewer's perspective, and with roughly 900 qualifiers for each regional Players Tour season, inviting an extra 30 people or so doesn't seem like a big deal.

Last Chance Qualifier winners held the day before Players Tour events

This is listed as one of the criterias for qualifying for the Players Tour. Are all Players Tour events to be held in locations where there is a MagicFest happening the same weekend, as has happened with Mythic Championships this year?

Is there any kind of restriction on eligibility to play in either event? Say JoeSemiPro is already qualified for the Players Tour. Can Joe still play in the next PTQ or WPNQ?

Is there any restriction on a LGS double-dipping and running a WPNQ and SCG IQ as the same event?

What about MPL players, are they restricted to just 3 Player Tours as well? If so this seems like its not the best way to monetize the esports aspect of the game but we shall see.

So does this mean that my favorite HoF players will only be able to play in 3 PT events per year and that 6 of the other PTs will not have them in the field?

So to be clear there will be no "pro points" replacement for GPs still. Its either go x-2 or bust. With that being the case I really don't see any incentive to play GPs over the side event PTQs at GPs.

Pretty happy with the changes. Some interesting stuff to unpack.

SCG Tour, WPN, PTQs, GP top 8 (CFB tour basically) all feed into a REGIONAL PT which then feeds to the big boy PT (unless you straight up win a GP or probably do very, very well in the other events). But it doesn't look like grinding GPs, etc will keep you on any kind of invite train. For that you have to keep doing well at the Regional PTs.

Hall of Famers are now invited to the Regional PTs, not the big once a year PT.

I don't see anything about travel reimbursement which is the key for anyone wanted to try and grind anything.

Where can we find these in-store qualifiers?

Does this mean that there’s no way to play in all 3 of your regions pts? Or just that you can’t ever play in more than 3 in a year

So, just to be clear, in a season we will first have (in some order) PT Americas #1, PT Europe #1 and PT APAC #1, all three of which feed into PT Finals #1, and then after PT Finals #1 we get PT Americas #2, PT Europe #2 and PT APAC #2, etc.? Did I get that right, /u/WotC_Clarke ?

Yeah and your not locked to a region so it's more like "play the game, and have a reason to see the world". It does seem like paid flights are definitely gone though. You have to just win enough to afford your own way.

Do you have any information as to how many of these will be allowed/available in a time period? There has literally been one MCQ in 6 months that I can attend without travelling at least 300km and spending hundreds of dollars, and this is in a city of 1.5 million with a very active magic community. In comparison, there used to be 6-10 pptqs in the same time period. This has really stifled competitive play.

Paper Magic has way less prizes than what it has before, like less than half since MC are 500k, paper new thing name are from 150k-250k depends where you are. So no real reason to play paper anymore.

It's not quite that simple. For every Mythic Invitational (top-level Arena event) there's three regional Players Tour events and a Players Tour Finals (top-level Arena event). The Mythic Invitational has a prize purse of 750K. The three regional Players Tour events and the Players Tour Finals prize purses add up to 850K, but split over 4 events.

Also, re: travel:

Whilst Players Tour events are regionalized, if you live in one region but want to play in another, you can do that. You are, however, limited to playing in just one regional Players Tour event per Players Tour Finals.

That said, I imagine there aren't any travel accommodations for PTs outside your region. Honestly, I didn't see anything in the article about travel accommodations period, so there's certainly still some validity in your point, but that's also the sort of detail I could see falling under the following clause from the article:

One last important note before we dive in: this is a structural announcement. That means we'll be talking about qualification paths, ways to advance, and what awaits you when you do advance. Additional details like formats, dates, coverage, and more specifics will be available for individual events later.

Getting crazy fucking flowcharts is a huge improvement compared to zero flowcharts.

Maybe it is named in the article but something about not seeing the forest trough the trees: will paper magic have camera coverage at high levels still? Or will only arena get coverage?

There are scattered comments about coverage in here for PTs and stuff, but is there any way to get an overview of which events will have video coverage and which won’t?

1. Does only being able to compete in one Players Tour event mean one per season (like it says in the article, but could be a typo), so in one out of nine events, or one per 3-PT-events-cycle, so in three out of nine events?

2. Is the same true for MPL and/or Rivals League players? If not, what is true?

The WPN Qualifiers will be WPN Premium-only? Or any LGS can organize one?

If I top 8 GP Atlanta next month what do I qualify for? Also will there be ptqs at these 2019 GPs?

Is there any confirmation on the status of mcq's (I guess PTQ's now again) for GP's like Ghent, which had their mcq's removed from the schedule? Really hoping there will be qualifying side-events there.

So...what, if anything, does this mean for typical GPs, which weren't always Standard events?

Does this more or less make it impossible for there to be a "Mythic Championship", a.k.a. "Pro Tour" level event that's ever dedicated to Modern again?

Someone tell me how I should feel about this!

This is perfect, considering that my work schedule is rather rigid, because it would give me the option to decide which event to play based on when I can get the weekend off. Thanks for replying.

It has been confirmed on Twitter that there's no streaming contract, just the "show up to events" contract.

I know this wasn't a coverage announcement but i do wish there was some announcement on getting GP coverage back. Even when I wasn't playing events it's nice to have an event to tune into during a given weekend. I prefer watching paper to online magic for tournaments personally. There's more skill to follow bluffs and read body language in paper that you lose on a computer.

The good news is that elsewhere in this thread /u/WotC_Clarke mentioned that all 9 Regional Players Tour events will have video coverage, and I assume that means the Players Tour Finals will as well, so that's at least 12 high-level paper events per year.

How big do independent events need to be to qualify as premier series events and earn qualification paths to the Players Tour? You mention two but that you want to expand. If a big Magic city had an annual city-wide tournament event sponsored by multiple WPN stores, with enough participation and a big enough prize pool, could that get big enough to qualify?

Players Tour Americas? So, outside US, probably one or zero of these events per year, isn't it? Why not making Players Tour divided per region (North/South/Central America)? It's impossible to qualify for these and need to travel to USA without travel awards!

Will there be any coverage for the Player's Tour (finals)?

The article mentions that you can attend any Players Tour, but only one per cycle. Does that mean that if I Top 8 a GP, I could choose to play the next Players Tour in Europe, Americas or APAC or is the qualification already linked to a specific region's PT? And are the three events (always?) going to be on the same weekend?

I guess no details as to when (and how) SCG tour events will give an invite? I'm going to assume it's just the actual winner of opens, if that, and if not tied to only invitationals? Asking because I may add some SCG events to my travel schedule.

This is definitely better than the current system and probably better than the old system? Time will tell but it seems positive and gives really clear lines as to who gets MPL and who doesn't.

The only thing that I'm not quite sure on are the WPN qualifiers - these feel like PPTQs but with a direct slot to PTs? Are they going to be offered to a lot of stores or just ones closer to the old Advanced Plus? /u/wotc_rachel /u/WotC_Clarke

I know there's more info to come but I felt like most of the rest of the announcement made sense at first reading - this is the only bit I feel like I need clearing up

Is the Rival player just elevated for the rest of the season, and their Rivals + MPL performances are used as criteria for the next season's placement?

Im glad there is finally a road map to show me how I will never get there!

Looks like PPTQs/RPTQs are back in the menu! with another name this time. Or are they just PTQs? i'm a bit confused..

So, as a competitive paper player, what's the timeframe for relevant events to resume? The "players tour" qualifiers, etc; the basic timeline of the article seems to have things really converting over around mid-2020; at what point will I be able to attend a 'players tour qualifier'?

What happens when someone leaves or is removed from the MPL midseason?

Is their spot vacant until filled at the usual time, or does wotc just pick someone?

Similarly, what if it's someone who would normally keep their slot? Assuming we fill at usual times, which feeding event gets the extra slot?

Hi WotC staff reading this thread to view the internet reaction. /waves

I see in the article that it says player points will use pro points as a starting basis. I'm interpreting this as players with X pro points start with X player points. I'm hopeful someone on the wotc team can confirm this?

Thanks a bunch! Cool new system!

Here's something I'm curious to know. Since this new "Player's Tour" is supposed to be the reincarnation of the old Pro Tour, will the Player's Tour receive live coverage? Will it be streamed? Will it have live text coverage? Or, will it just be like the old RPTQ's, not have any live coverage, and the winning decklists will eventually just get posted somewhere?

Personally, I hope they stream these events and give them that "Pro Tour" excitement and feel.

Really interested in this Latam Series, hopefully more details are announced soon

flowcharts!

Hi WotC staff reading this thread to view the internet reaction. /waves