Magic Online Weekly Announcements, August 27, 2024

Posted on Aug 27, 2024

THE LEAD

2FA Required to Trade on MTGO Starting Tomorrow

MTGO accounts that wish to engage in trade will be required to enable Two-Factor Authentication following tomorrow’s patch around 10 a.m. Pacific time. You can read all about the reasoning for this change in this article and get instructions for enabling 2FA here.

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

Banned and Restricted

As announced yesterday, Banned and Restricted lists have been updated and the changes have taken effect on Magic Online. To summarize:

• Banned in Modern: Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief
• Banned in Pioneer: Amalia Benevides Aguirre and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord
• Banned in Legacy: Grief
• Restricted in Vintage: Vexing Bauble and Urza’s Saga

VINTAGE CUBE LIVE

Vintage Cube LIVE Rolls on with Week 5

One of the biggest events in Magic Online history continues this week. Win your way to Las Vegas to draft Vintage Cube – LIVE at MagicCon: Las Vegas, thanks to our friends at Ultimate Guard – and take everything you draft home with you!

For the latest updates to the series announced August 5, check out this article. The Bloomburrow update of the Cube will be in play for Weeks 3-8 of Vintage Cube LIVE digital events.

To get to Vegas, you must run a gauntlet of three different tournaments undefeated:

Step 1 – The Feeder League

The entry point for the series - 6 Event Tickets or 80 Play Points per course

Your next scheduled chance to play in the Feeder League will come this Saturday, August 31.

You’ll need to win FOUR matches without losing in a single course to collect a Limited Championship Entry Token. There are now prizes for 2 wins and 3 wins in a course.

IMPORTANT: It is possible that the Feeder League could be only open for 24 hours or less depending on demand. Once we approach an internal target of entries that yield a Week’s worth of Entry Tokens, we will provide a 1-hour warning prior to the League closing to new entries. Players who’ve already drafted after the League closes will have 24 hours to complete their matches.

Step 2 – The 64-Player Drafts

Use that Entry Token to battle through two straight single-elimination Cube Drafts. Six match wins in a single event advances you to the last step.

Week 5’s 64-Player Drafts for this week have been posted in the MTGO client.

NEW! Scheduled Events that are full will continue to be displayed in the client until their start time! This means that if someone drops from the event, that change will reflect right away instead of requiring you to restart MTGO.

Friendly Reminders:

• If a 64-Player Draft (or any other Scheduled Event) hasn’t reached its minimum number of players at the start time, the event will wait up to 15 minutes to get to the right number of players. There’s no reason to drop out after the start time – you'll be refunded if it fails to fire!
• If a regularly-scheduled 64 doesn’t fire for some reason, the replacement will be scheduled for 3 hours later and will be posted for entries as soon as possible following the cancellation.

Week 6’s 64-Player Drafts will post in the MTGO client Monday, September 2 at 10 a.m. PT – all 4 days’ events will post at the same time for Week 6 due to the Labor Day holiday.

Limited Championship Entry Tokens are usable as entry for all 8 Weeks of Vintage Cube LIVE.

Step 3 – The Vegas Qualifier

The eight winners of a single Week’s 64-Player Drafts meet in one final showdown. The one player who’s left standing at the end punches their ticket to Las Vegas, while the other participants receive digital set prizes and an exclusive avatar.

Week 5’s Vegas Qualifier will be held on Saturday, August 31 at 9:30 a.m. PT (16:30 UTC).

The Winner’s Circle

Our fourth player qualified for the Ultimate Guard Finals at MagicCon is lucajak! Congratulations to them -Who will join them this week?

You can get full details on the entire series on this page, including the Official Rules. The link to the announcement article is found here.

MTGO BROADCASTS 

MTGO Masters Season 2 – Every Wednesday at 1 p.m. PT – New Web Page!

Sixteen online Magic luminaries are gathering for a new season of competition slinging spells in Modern on Magic Online – but with a heavy dose of Modern Horizons 3 added. It’s the return of MTGO Masters!

Continuing tomorrow at 1 p.m. PT (20:00 UTC), this 12-week series features a four-player faceoff with spots in the next round at stake. It all leads to a two-week Top 8 finale in mid-September. Until then, the format is Win 2 Before You Lose 2 – both for matches in a week and also weekly pods prior to Top 8.

Anuraag Das and Will Hall return as hosts for the stream broadcast on the main MTGO Twitch channel – twitch.tv/magiconline – as well as Anuraag’s channel twitch.tv/anzidmtg. We will also be featuring co-streaming partners throughout the season. Also, keep up to date with the series at mtgo.com/masters.

Last week, Hall of Famers ruled the day: Seth Manfield swept the pod, while Martin Juza also stayed in the running for the Top 8 with a 2-1 finish. AliEldrazi and D00mwake fared worse, unfortunately, and have been eliminated from this season.

We continue to trim the field – two players will be sent home each week until we reach our Top 8 show on September 11^th. With elimination on the line, it’s simply Modern in all its glory – no more Theme Weeks or gimmicks until a champion is crowned!

Twelve players remain, so it’s time for the Last Chance pods. Top 8 or bust for this group of four players in Week 9:

• Seth Manfield
• Kanister
• YungDingo
• Alexander Hayne

Each contestant will bring two decks to the table and neither will contain Nadu or Grief. Check out what our celebrities conjure up tomorrow and every Wednesday all season long!

PREMIER PLAY

Ten RC Slots Up for Grabs Over Labor Day Weekend 

With a holiday weekend approaching in North America, there’s ample opportunity to earn an invite to the first Regional Championship of 2025.

First up is a Modern Super Qualifier this Friday, August 30 at 2 p.m. PT (21:00 UTC). It's your first chance to test ideas in a refreshed Modern landscape post-Nadu and Grief at the Premier level. What will emerge to claim the top spot in the metagame?

It takes 40 Event Tickets, 400 Play Points, or 40 Season 3 Qualifier Points to enter. The Top 4 finishers in this tournament grab a seat in the January-March RC round, and prizes pay out to the Top 128! 

The rest of the weekend is dedicated to 2-slot Qualifiers. These can only be entered with 40 Season 3 Qualifier Points. The schedule is as follows:

• Vintage Qualifier – Saturday, August 31 at 7 a.m. PT (14:00 UTC)
• Limited Qualifier (BLB Sealed Deck with Top 8 Draft) – Sunday, September 1 at 7 a.m. PT
• Pioneer Qualifier – Monday, September 2 at 7 a.m. PT

Both Vintage and Pioneer will have new facets to their metagames with the recent B&R updates.

Click the MTGO Premier Play link at the top of the Blog for more information.

ALTERNATE PLAY

Vintage Cube Bloomburrow Update

Our Vintage Cube Curation Team is back with an update to incorporate new cards and swap in archetypes. Check out this article for more details. This will be the Cube for the following events:

• Vintage Cube LIVE – the remainder of digital qualifying through September 28
• MOCS Season 2 Showcase – broadcast now slated for Sunday, September 15
• Vintage Cube Elimination Queues – runs until September 24
• The normal Vintage Cube League – starts tomorrow & runs until downtime on September 18, normal entry options (10 Event Tickets / 100 Play Points) and prizes apply

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Duskmourn: House of Horror. All these offerings are Phantom – cards won’t be added to players’ collections in Phantom events. All transitions take place at 10:00 a.m. PT unless otherwise noted.

• Through September 18 – Vintage Cube returns to support the next MOCS Showcase on September 14. (Phantom, ends at downtime)
• September 18-24 – As promised when we had to end its run early in May, we are running back Modern Horizons 2 Flashback (Phantom only)

When Is Vintage Cube League Back?

A regular feature of the Blog, this item points out when the next scheduled run of our most popular event will take place:

• August Refresh to Support MOCS & Vintage Cube Live
  • New Cube in Feeder Leagues/64s/Vegas Qualifiers Now!
  • New Cube in Single Elimination Queues Now!
  • Normal Cube Leagues run until September 18

AROUND THE WEB

Content Creator Applications Open - Round 2

Yes, you are reading this correctly we are reopening our Creator Program applications for MTGO. If you missed out last time, this is your time to shine. Read about it in this article. Be part of something special and help us shape the future of MTGO. Think you have what it takes to be an MTGO Creator? 

Tell Your Friends! New Learn-to-Play Channel – MTGO University

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.

MTGO Fundamentals New How-To Series

Welcome to our how to series teaching you all the tips and tricks when learning and starting out on MTGO. Watch all the new content and more here NEW: MTGO Fundamentals

WEEKLY UPDATES 

Thank You Beta Testers – Next Round September 13

We appreciate our Beta testers who got the first look at exciting new updates to the look and feel of cards (including our foils) that will be released later this year!

Our next Beta round is set for the weekend starting Friday, September 13 (skipping part of the day on September 14 for MOCS play). If you’d like a sneak peek at Duskmourn: House of Horror and want an opportunity to test it against cards from Magic history, you can join the Beta program by submitting a ticket at help.mtgo.com (your login there is the same as MTGO).

Bloomburrow Now Available!

It's time to gather the communities of the Valley together in an epic fight against the Calamity Beasts – Bloomburrow is on sale now in the MTGO Store! Check out this article now to learn all about what MTGO has on offer with this new set:

• Play Boosters, Premium Boosters, and Commander Decks
  • Gilded frames return on the Anime cards
• Treasure Chest Update
• Commander Backlog progress, plus the usual pile of updates from around MTGO

Duel Commander Now Available on Magic Online

One of the most popular ways to play competitive Commander is now available on Magic Online. Duel Commander is a 1v1, 20-life format utilizing the 99 in new ways never done digitally before. With thousands of fans worldwide, its distinct metagame and banned lists, and both a Tournament Practice room and a League, the time is ripe to take this game mode for a spin!

Check out this article now to learn all about the format, its origins, and get ready to play on MTGO.

Note: There is one Known Issues and one Known Exploit for Duel Commander:

• Known Issue – You can’t submit a deck that has multiple creatures with Companion, even if all but one are in the main deck.
• Exploit - It’s possible to swap into a card banned as a Commander during sideboarding.

Although we are trying to get fixes for these as soon as possible, if the Exploit is seen in a League match, it should be reported at help.mtgo.com.

Redemption Corner

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

Outlaws of Thunder Junction are going fast – so get those sets completed and redeemed today!

Redemption Changes

As a reminder, we announced changes to the Redemption Program starting with Bloomburrow – read all about it in this article. Bloomburrow redemption sets go on sale on September 4.

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 – August 28, 2024

Quality of Life Improvements

• Two-Factor Authentication will required to enabled Trade.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – September 18, 9 a.m.-Noon PT

The next scheduled maintenance is set for Wednesday, September 18 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (16:00-19:00 UTC). This is to support the release of Duskmourn: House of Horror.