What Is the Magic Online Weekly Announcements Blog?
Every Tuesday, we round up all of the biggest Magic Online news for the Weekly Announcements Blog.
Check in weekly for the latest updates!
Quick Links
- Announcing Streamer Showdowns
- The Holiday Cube is Available Until Wednesday, July 22
- Announcing August (Season 9) MOCS and MOPR Promos
- Magic Online Collection Performance Upgrades Coming July 15
- Magic Origins Prerelease Coming Friday, July 24
- Double Pro Tour Qualifier Weekend
- Redemptions Processed During July 29 Downtime Will Be Slightly Delayed
- Upcoming Wizards Account System Maintenance for Wednesday, July 15
- Downtime for July 15, 2015
- Ongoing and Upcoming Events
- Download Magic Online
Announcing Streamer Showdowns
We're happy to announce that Streamer Showdowns will no longer be confined to a schedule of one-per-set release. From here on out, we'll be hosting Magic Online drafts for our community of awesome streamers once every month.
Our next event features the newly updated Holiday Cube! Check out the streamer lineup below, then stop by your favorite streamer's Twitch channel on Thursday, July 16, at 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) for the inaugural Streamer Showdown.
Thursday, July 16, 1:00 p.m. Pacific (UTC-7) Event
- David Leavitt
- Frank Lepore
- Julian Knab
- Neal Oliver
- Paul Pires
- LoadingReadyRun
- Marshall Sutcliffe
- Gerry Thompson
Thursday, July 16, 6:00 p.m. Pacific (UTC-7) Event
- Derek Boyko
- Kenji Egashira
- Scott MacCallum
- Gabe Reale
- Ashlen Rose
- Noah Sandler
- Gaby Spartz
- Trey Van Cleave
The Holiday Cube is Available Until Wednesday, July 22
The newly redesigned Holiday Cube is available now until the Wednesday, July 22, downtime! With the Holiday Cube, you can play with some of the most powerful cards in Magic's history—even the "Power 9."
Check out Lee Sharpe's article for details about the upcoming Holiday Cube Events.
Get the full, newly-updated Holiday Cube list here.
Announcing August (Season 9) MOCS and MOPR Promos
The MOCS 2015 August Season runs from July 29, 2015, through August 26, 2015. The promo card is:
The August MOPR period runs from July 29, 2015, through August 26, 2015. Here are the promo cards:
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Event Promo |
Store Promo |
Play in one or more events during the August season, and you’ll get a nonfoil Relic Seeker. Five or more and you’ll get an additional foil Relic Seeker. Spend at least $20 total in the Magic Online Store during Season 9, and you’ll get a nonfoil Serum Visions. By spending $40 or more, you’ll get an additional, premium, Serum Visions.
And remember, this means it's your last chance to get the Season 8 MOCS and MOPR promos, like this alternate-art Vindicate.
Earning 15 Qualifier Points (QPs) will earn you a copy of this season's MOCS promo card. You get one promo for every 15 QPs you earn. Players can earn QPs from MOCS Events, PTQ Events, Release Events, and more! Get more details about the Magic Online Championship Series here.
Magic Online Player Rewards (MOPR) promos are earned a bit differently. In the MOPR program, Magic Online players are rewarded for participating in tournamanents of a sufficient size, as well as making purchases in the Magic Online Store. Learn about the specifics of the program here.
Magic Online Collection Performance Upgrades Coming July 15
We're happy to announce that the Collection Performance Upgrade that we had to delay last week will be rolling out this Wednesday, July 15, during the Magic Online downtime.
We have made a number of behind-the-scenes changes designed to improve the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of Magic Online. These changes have several practical benefits, many of which help reduce the amount of time you have to spend waiting for Magic Online to respond. There are three main changes that you should see immediately.
- Log in time is greatly reduced. That means if you get disconnected during a draft or a game, you’ll be able to rejoin the action faster!
- Moving large groups of cards is much smoother. Practically, this lets you create massive trade binders or organize a large collection with less headache.
- We have reduced many cases where a “Waiting for Main Navigation” message or a crash would occur due to memory or performance issues.
There are a few other changes that we’d like to highlight as well:
- We have improved our performance when moving, sorting, and filtering cards for display. Magic Online should remain responsive while these actions occur. If there is a delay, it will be indicated by a momentary light grey overlay.
- We have updated of a number of error messages that might display while navigating your collection to make these errors more helpful.
- We no longer pop up a progress bar while waiting for deck, collection, or active trade binder synchronization to the server to complete.
- It is not necessary to clear binders between trades and re-add items.
Accompanying these changes are three Known Issues that we would like to specifically highlight:
- If you add cards to a trade using the Wish List, and then right click that card and select a “Add X to Trade” option, Magic Online crashes. Note that this crash only occurs if you use both the Wish List and the “Add X to Trade” option in the same trade; using only one or the other will not crash Magic Online. We plan to have this fixed with the 7/22 downtime.
- If you attempt to add cards to a binder so that the binder would have more than 50,000 cards, exactly enough cards will be added to reach 50,000 though an error message will display telling you to decrease the number of cards and try again.
- In some scenarios, while trading, using the Search tool to import a deck causes Magic Online to crash.
Magic Origins Prerelease Coming Friday, July 24
Magic Origins Prerelease Events come to Magic Online on Friday, July 24! The Swiss Draft will give players a shot at drafting Magic Origins for the first time. Meanwhile, the Friendly and Competitive Sealed events make their comeback, now with six Magic Origins boosters plus the seed booster of your chosen color. Pay particular attention to the participation avatars this time around—there are five of them and some are only available during the Prerelease!
Get the full scoop on Magic Origins Prerelease and release Events here.
Double Pro Tour Qualifier Weekend
Attention all Pro Tour hopefuls, there's a double Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) weekend coming up! Modern Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries and the Dragons of Tarkir/Fate Reforged Sealed Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries begin tomorrow, July 15, and run through the day preceding each Finals Event.
Learn more about PTQs on Magic Online and get the full schedule here.
Redemptions Processed During July 29 Downtime Will Be Slightly Delayed
As a heads up to those of you who are planning to redeem a set sometime soon, we have a slight shipping delay on the horizon. Any redemptions that are processed during the Wednesday, July 29, downtime will not be shipped until Thursday, August, 6.
Upcoming Wizards Account System Maintenance for Wednesday, July 15
The Wizards Account System will be undergoing maintenance on Wednesday, July 15, from 7:00 p.m. Pacific (UTC-7) through Thursday, July 16 7:00 a.m. Pacific. Customers will be able to file for reimbursement and submit bug reports during this time, but responses will be delayed.
Downtime for July 15, 2015
A download will be required this week for the Collection Performance Upgrade. We have made a number of behind-the-scenes changes designed to improve the speed, efficiency and accuracy of Magic Online. Read the Magic Online Collection Performance Upgrades section above for full information.
- All tournaments will close Wednesday, July 15, at 4:00 a.m. Pacific (11:00 UTC)
- Store and trade activity will be suspended at approximately 7:45 a.m. Pacific (14:45 UTC)
- The system will be down from 8:00 a.m. Pacific (15:00 UTC) until 12:00 p.m. Pacific (19:00 UTC)
Ongoing and Upcoming Events
Now-July 22—Holiday Cube Events
July 15-July 17—Modern Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries
July 15-July 18—Dragons of Tarkir/Fate Reforged Sealed Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries
July 18—Modern Pro Tour Qualifier Finals 9:00 a.m. Pacific (16:00 UTC)
July 19—Dragons of Tarkir/Fate Reforged Sealed Pro Tour Qualifier Finals 7:00 a.m. Pacific (14:00 UTC)
July 24-July 27—Magic Origins Prerelease Events
July 27-August 12—Magic Origins Release Events