Magic Online Announcements, October 22, 2019

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Every Tuesday, we round up all the biggest Magic Online news for the Weekly Announcements Blog.

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Quick Links

Special Downtime, Special Events: No Entry Requirement Needed

Pioneer on Magic Online

Masters Edition II Encore Draft October 23

Innistrad Flashback Draft October 30

PTQ & MOCS Calendar Updates

Alternative Play Calendar

Legacy Premier League

Pauper PTQ Finals Saturday

Modern MOCS Preliminary Sunday

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Downtime October 23

Build Notes

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Special Downtime, Special Events: No Entry Requirement Needed

While the headliner for Wednesday's downtime is the introduction of Pioneer, Magic Online is also making some architectural changes behind the scenes. While we have been testing internally, nothing is as effective as getting changes in front of players. Because of this, we're taking a couple extra precautions on Wednesday.

We're going to start by restricting player actions to only playing in Open Play matches when we first go live. This means that all events, trades, and store purchases will be disabled. This is just to let us sanity check MTGO as players are logging in.

If that goes well, we'll turn on trade and the store about 10 minutes later. And then a few minutes after that, we'll turn on non-league events. Leagues will remain paused as we continue to validate changes.

All is not lost for you Throne of Eldraine fans, however, since we're going to set up two No Entry Requirement Phantom Sealed events for players to join, one League and one Scheduled Event, that will help us validate some of the changes at scale.

The League will be available right as we turn on events, and you'll have about 15 minutes to join. You'll then have about 3 hours to finish two matches. Each win you earn gets you a Player Rewards Pack that includes a random promo card.

The two-round Scheduled Event will start about one hour after we go live. Your first win gets you a Player Rewards Pack, and your second win gets you a Treasure Chest. Full details on both events can be found below.

Note that both Basic and Full accounts can participate in these events, so everyone can show up and play. And since players can create a Basic account without purchase, this is a good chance to test drive MTGO.

NO ENTRY REQUIREMENT PHANTOM SEALED LEAGUE

Schedule: This League will begin on October 23, after we return from maintenance. This league will have a 30-minute join window and a 3-hour runtime.

Product: 6 PhantomThrone of Eldraineboosters (cards drafted in the event will not be added to your collection)

Structure: Up to 2 matches, played at your convenience

Entry Options:

• No entry requirement

Prizes:

• 2 wins: 2 Player Rewards Packs
• 1 win: 1 Player Rewards Pack

NO ENTRY REQUIREMENT PHANTOM SEALED SCHEDULED EVENT

Schedule: This event will begin on October 23, one hour after we return from maintenance.

Product: 6 PhantomThrone of Eldraineboosters (cards drafted in the event will not be added to your collection)

Structure: Deckbuilding, then two rounds of Swiss pairings. Round 1 will begin as soon as deckbuilding ends. Round 2 will begin two minutes after the last match in Round 1 ends.

Entry Options:

• No entry requirement

Prizes:

• 2 wins: 1 Treasure Chest
• 1 win: 1 Player Rewards Pack

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Pioneer on Magic Online

Speaking of Pioneer, Magic's new nonrotating format featuring cards from Return to Ravnica forward comes to Magic Online Wednesday. Pioneer Leagues start after our weekly maintenance is complete and a Pioneer Format Challenge has been added to the weekly schedule starting this Sunday at 6 a.m. PT!

For more information about Pioneer, check out Blake's announcement article and be sure to tune into Weekly MTG at 2 p.m. PT on Thursday, October 24, on twitch.tv/magic when Aaron Forsythe and Max McCall will be on to answer any and all questions about Pioneer.

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Masters Edition II Encore Draft October 23

Beginning tomorrow, October 23, and running until next Wednesday, October 30, you can draft Masters Edition II. And just like the Masters Edition draft two weeks earlier, it's using the original Draft style: this is non-Phantom. When you draft these cards, they're added to your collection. Entry options are 12 Event Tickets, 3 Masters Edition II boosters plus 2 Event Tickets, or 120 Play Points.

For weeks listed in the Alternative Play Calendar from Alli's article as non-Phantom events, this League will begin at approximately 10 a.m. PT on the first day listed, which is always a Wednesday. These Leagues will be closed to new entries at 10 a.m. PT on the last day listed and ended no later than 2 p.m. that same day.

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Innistrad Flashback Draft October 30

To celebrate Halloween, players can enjoy frightful fights in the upcoming Innistrad Flashback Draft! Get in on all the spooky action starting Wednesday, October 30. Innistrad Flashback Draft runs through November 6, so you'll have plenty of time to enjoy the creepiest of creatures.

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PTQ & MOCS Calendar Updates

The Premier Event schedule on the MOCS and PTQ pages have been updated with the following dates and formats:

PTQs

*Note: November 8—Special Start Time of 3 p.m. PT (23:00 UTC)

MOCS

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Alternative Play Calendar

For the Throne of Eldraine Alternative Play season, we're trying something new and different: a series of blasts from the past. And by that, we mean way in the past. For this season, we're introducing several non-Phantom events into the schedule, but all events listed below are Phantom unless stated otherwise:

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Legacy Premier League

Legacy Premier League, Legacy's popular community league, makes its return on twitch.tv/itsJulian. Don't miss Group D's show on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT). Head over to the Legacy Premier League page to check out previous results, past videos, decklists, and more.

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Pauper PTQ Finals Saturday

On Saturday, October 26, there will be a Pauper PTQ Finals at 9 a.m. PT. The event will cost 30 Event Tickets or 300 Play Points. The winner receives an invitation to their choice of the first set of Players Tour regional events in February.

Learn more about Players Tour Qualifier events here.

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Modern MOCS Preliminary Sunday

On Sunday, October 27, there will be a Magic Online Championship Series Preliminary event for the 2019 MOCS! The format will be Modern, and things will kick off at 7 a.m. PT. MOCS Preliminaries are eight rounds of Swiss and require 35 Qualifier Points to enter. Winners will receive (among other prizes) an invitation to the MOCS Playoff event on December 28.

Learn more about MOCS events here.

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Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Format challenges are the first step toward qualifying for premier play through your favorite Magic formats. To learn more about Format Focus events and premier play qualification, click here.

The Magic Online Format Challenges continue every weekend for Modern, Vintage, Legacy, and Pauper formats except when replaced by Format Playoffs during scheduled Format Playoff dates.

Pacific Daylight Time (-7 from UTC)

Check out this page for further event details.

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Downtime October 23

The next downtime will be on October 23, beginning at 3 a.m. and continuing until noon. All times listed are Pacific time (UTC-7). This is for standard maintenance.

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Build Notes

General | Infrastructure updates to the Magic Online platform

General | Pioneer format has been added to the client.

General | Cards that prevent damage now correctly interact with damage that can't be prevented.

General | Certain hyperlinks have been fixed throughout the client.

General | Issues with importing premium versions of cards from a .dek file have been fixed.