The future of competitive Magic: The Gathering is evolving this year with big changes for the 2020-2021 season. Whether you prefer to play tabletop Magic or digitally (Magic Arena or Magic Online), there's now a clear path on how you can qualify for the next season's major tournaments like the Players Tour Finals (tabletop) and the Mythic Invitationals (Magic Arena), but some fans still have a lot of questions about the path to reach the highest levels of competition. Some still find the new system of organized play complicated, with many still confused on how to qualify for invitational high-level MTG events. Thankfully, the Magic Tabletop Esports team recently did an AMAA (Ask Me Almost Anything) on Reddit to answer fans' questions.
Ben Drago, Senior Manager of Competitive Gaming, and Scott Larabee, Manager of Organized Play Programs along with Athena Froehlich, Magic Esports Community Manager answered some questions about the lack of stability in competitive play, behind-the-scenes reasons that make the new system a challenge to solidify, and how how prestigious is the new Players Tour meant to be compared to the old Pro Tour.
When a fan addressed the lack of stability due to the continuous changes on competitive Magic, Ben Drago answered:
For those who are confused about the new structure of organized play, they pointed out the flowcharts that were first revealed last August. Here's a chart that shows the path to the highest levels of competitive Magic:
Another fan asked if there are other ways of qualifying through Magic Arena without having to grind their way to the top of the ranks, to which Athena replied, "We recognize that more choices = more fun. We are currently working to establish new ways to play competitive Magic on Arena, that do not require maintaining Mythic Rank."
She also pointed out the Dreamhack Magic Arena Opens with a prize pool of $100,000.
When a fan asked how prestigious is the new Players Tour meant to be compared to the old Pro Tour, since he heard people saying it's four times as easy as before, Ben responded:
The Magic Tabletop Esports team also confirmed that there will be video coverage of all Players Tours and Players Tour Finals, and that they will "experiment with Players Tour Asia-Pacific and time shift the English language coverage so it's live at a better time for European and American audiences."
When asked about the behind-the-scenes reasons it was a challenge to solidify the new system, Ben said, "Creating and re-furbishing multi-million dollar competitive gaming systems are not easy. They're complex, intensive, and they require great care. It should be challenging to do something this big with so many people involved. We're proud of what we've created, and we plan to continue to make it better. That said, the challenging of creating the thing is (thankfully) behind us. :) Now we have the challenge to keep improving and tweaking along the way."
Athena went on to say that her goal is to create an easy-to-understand video series that will explain their organized play structure from beginner to Magic Pro League for both tabletop and Arena, so look forward to that.
They also went on to clarify that they will soon announce the four other members of this year's Rival League soon.
What do you think about competitive Magic's new system and their responses? Do you think the new system is better than the old? Feel free to discuss in the comments below.
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