Magic Online Weekly Announcements, January 7, 2025

Posted on Jan 07, 2025

THE LEAD

MTGO’s Modern Madness Next Week

One of the best lessons we learned from Creator Season is that our community likes events that are easy to qualify for and have good prizes. So we are running back our series concept next week starring the recently-refreshed (and re-popularized) Modern format!

Kicking things off is a Modern Super Qualifier this Sunday, January 12^th at 7 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC) - it’s a garden-variety Super Q – read all about it in the Premier Play section below.

Then on Monday, January 13 at 7 a.m. PT, the Modern Madness begins! Do one of the following before the start of Saturday’s Finals tournament to earn a Modern Point:

• 5-0 a Modern League course
• 4-0 or 3-1 a Modern Preliminary
• Top 8 a Modern Challenge 32 event
• Top 16 a Modern Challenge 64 event

It all culminates in the Modern Madness Finals on Saturday, January 18^th at 7 a.m. PT. It’ll be like a normal Super Qualifier without Leaderboard Points or RC invitations, except that only players with Modern Points can participate.

Like normal events, you can only play on a single account that you own in any given Scheduled Event (including the Finals), and unused/extra Modern Points will be flushed from the system following the Finals.

VINTAGE CUBE

Vintage Cube Holiday Bundle Available Until January 15

You still have time to cash in on one of the best gaming deals of the season – the Magic Online Holiday Bundle includes 3 Cube Drafts plus an exclusive Brainstorm avatar for $27 USD! There are two important dates tied to this:

• This Bundle leaves the Store next Wednesday, January 15 at 10 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC)
• Vintage Cube Draft Tokens must be used before downtime on Wednesday, January 22 – unused Tokens will be cleared from accounts at that time with no refunds.

Read All About It – Vintage Cube MOCS Fast Follow Update Takes Effect Tomorrow!

Our Cube curation team of Ryan Spain and Chris Wolf have looked at the data from the first few weeks of the Holiday Vintage Cube season and have agreed on a set of tweaks that’ll be put into place tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. PT (18:00 UTC). In all, 16 cards are being swapped and this will be the collation used for our highest-level competition, the MOCS Showcase, next weekend.

Here are the swaps:

Check out their article now for details on the why for what’s in and out, and the full updated list.

Leagues will remain in progress, so it’s possible a deck from before the change can be paired against a newer deck – this is expected.

64-Player Single Elimination Drafts will continue their every-four-hour cadence around the clock through January 14.

MTGO BETA

New Beta Round This Weekend Featuring Innistrad Remastered and UI Updates

The next round of Beta is again upon us. If you’re already signed up for the Beta Program, mark your calendar for this weekend. We’ll be putting Innistrad Remastered through its paces from Friday, January 10 until Tuesday, January 14.

But that’s not all we’re testing – we're rolling out the corrections we made to the hover-zoom feature we accidentally launched back in November, as well as debuting the results of our Frame Refactor – changes to how cards on presented on MTGO, from art clarity to foiling and more.

Because INR is an all-reprint set and because we want measurable feedback about the user experience, we are offering a Limited Point to all Beta participants for use in the live client for INR drafts starting January 22. Note that this is not going to be a recurring offer with Beta, except in rare circumstances where we’re testing more than card sets.

Not yet signed up for MTGO’s Beta? Help us test the new set to get a sneak preview, The goal is to ensure we release a quality product, so we appreciate all the help we can get – sign up today!

To apply for the program, submit a ticket at help.mtgo.com - choose Apply to Beta Program as the subject, fill out the form and agree to Terms. If you're admitted to the Program, you will be invited to join this week's Beta round.

PREMIER PLAY

Modern Super Qualifier This Sunday

Your next chance to reach the April-May round of Regional Championships comes up this Sunday, January 12. A Modern Super Qualifier will start at 7 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC).

It takes 40 Event Tickets, 400 Play Points, or 40 Season 1 Qualifier Points to enter this event. The Top 4 finishers in the Qualifier earns invites to that RC round and the top 128 earn prizes.

For more information on MTGO Premier Play, click the link at the top of the Blog.

EVENT NOTES

You Meet in a Tavern Patched Tomorrow

Due to a game-breaking bug, the CLB card You Meet in a Tavern has been temporarily banned from Commander and other Eternal formats (including Pauper) since mid-December. The issue has been fixed and will get out of jail in our next patch tomorrow around 10 a.m PT (18:00 UTC).

Two Modern Challenges Promoted to 64-Player Level

The two newest Modern Challenges – 9 a.m. PT Wednesday and 7 a.m. PT Monday – have performed so well from the outset that they’ve been immediately promoted to the 64-Player tier effective tomorrow, January 8. So for the time being, we can say it's possible to compete in at least one Modern Challenge 64 event every single day!

AROUND THE WEB

MTGO University – MTGO Fundamentals How-To Series Live

We’ve introduced a brand-new landing spot for everything related to getting your new-to-MTGO friends up to speed on playing our game – MTGO University! Whether you’re new to a specific format, new to Magic Online, or are just curious about what this version of MTG is all about, check out MTGO University.

New to MTGO University – the MTGO Fundamentals playlist: short-form videos showing off a bunch of tips and tricks. Check it out on YouTube today!

WEEKLY UPDATES

Magic: The Gathering Foundations On Sale Now

Click here for more details on the newest expansion, Foundations. Highlights include:

• FDN Premium Booster for $5.99 USD – includes five rare/mythic cards and eight foils (some are both!)
• Wall of Roots Fixed!
• Commander Corner, Treasure Chest Updates, and more

Redemption Corner

We’ve updated our Redemption page with new quantity percentages.

Bloomburrow sets redeemed with regular digital cards are now out of stock. BLB sets redeemed with foil digital cards remain in stock in low quantities. As a reminder, we announced changes to the Redemption Program starting with Bloomburrow – read all about it in this article.

Duskmourn: House of Horror redemption tokens are also now available in the Store. A limited number of Outlaws of Thunder Junction sets still remain available.

Finally, Magic: The Gathering Foundations is not a redeemable set – redemptions will resume with Aetherdrift.

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Format Challenges are the first step toward qualifying for Premier Play through your favorite Magic formats and provide excellent prizes for those looking to test their mettle in their favorite formats. Learn more about Premier Play qualification to get started today.

Magic Online's Format Challenges run as shown on the schedule on this page.

TOMORROW’S PATCH NOTES – January 8, 2025

Card Fixes

• You Meet in a Tavern will correctly only provide creature cards.
• Break Out will no longer cause a game reset when a player selects a creature with mana value 2 or less.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – January 22, 9 a.m.-Noon PT

The next scheduled maintenance is set for Wednesday, January 22 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (17:00-20:00 UTC). This is to support the release of Innistrad Remastered.