Magic Online Weekly Announcements, October 22, 2024

Posted on Oct 22, 2024

THE LEAD

It’s Here – Vintage Cube LIVE Ultimate Guard Finals This Weekend!

The wait is almost over – after months of digital qualifying and hype, the Vegas 8 will gather live at Magic Con Las Vegas this weekend to Rochester Draft a real-life version of the Magic Online Vintage Cube! Everyone keeps what they draft, then the players compete for the lion’s share of the remaining undrafted cards – this is going to be epic – someone will walk away with a Black Lotus!

Catch streaming coverage of the draft on Friday, October 25^th starting immediately following Day One of the Magic World Championship – roughly 6:30 p.m. PT (01:30 Saturday UTC) – on twitch.tv/UltimateGuardLive and co-streamed on the MTGO Twitch channel.

Then on Saturday, the players return for three rounds of play – will someone already have the Lotus, or will it be up for grabs for the winner? Streaming coverage begins right after Worlds Day Two concludes around 6:30 p.m. PT (01:30 Sunday UTC).

Legendary Pro Tour coverage stalwart Marshall Sutcliffe will anchor the broadcast aided by Pro Tour Hall of Famer Reid Duke. You never know who else might stop by for this very special event!

Don’t know what a Rochester draft is? Have a read of Ultimate Guard’s event info page. In addition, check out MTGO Creative Director Ryan Spain’s process of assembling the physical Prize Cube in another article found here. It’s a great read for aficionados of old-school cardboard!

MTGO Prize Cube Events Live This Friday

For those of you who can’t make the trip to the desert for Magic Con, you can still enjoy the same Prize Cube that the Vegas 8 will play live. As soon as they’re done with their draft on Friday, we’ll turn on Prize Cube events in Magic Online. They’ll be live until November 12, so you have 2½ weeks to show off your skills – have a blast!

The 540 cards have been selected and the list is ready – click here to learn all about the Vintage Cube LIVE Prize Cube from our curators Ryan Spain and Chris Wolf.

MTGO AT MAGIC CON

If you’re attending Magic Con Las Vegas this weekend, be sure to stop by and high-five the Magic Online team! We’ll be based in Room S204 – right along the main hallway upstairs on your way to the main convention floor.

We have several ways for you to interact with us this year:

MTGO Play Stations

A pair of computers will be set up to allow you and a friend to battle on MTGO. We’ll have a couple different flavors of quick games to choose between:

• All Weekend: We'll be previewing the newest batch of Super Jump decks for quick-play challenges.
• Saturday & Sunday: Follow in the footsteps of the Vegas 8 and battle with their Vintage Cube LIVE Ultimate Guard Finals decklists on MTGO.

Giveaways Galore

Our Community team will be wandering around the convention hall and sending out occasional social media messages. We’ve got all the MTGO stuff you’d ever want, so find our man Torbin quickly to snag swag!

Magic Con Avatar

Everyone who walks in the door at Magic Con will find a card in their welcome bag with a QR code from MTGO. Scan it, provide us your email address for our mailing list and MTGO username (even if we already have them), and we’ll grant you this special, tradeable Ancestral Recall avatar the week following the Con! This is the only way to earn this avatar, and you must complete the survey by 5 p.m. on Monday, October 28^th.

Meet the Game Team

We had so much fun meeting so many of you in person at last year’s Magic Con that we really wanted to do it again! Stop by to say hello, chat, or otherwise see what we’re up to at this year’s event. Many members of the MTGO Creator Program will be stopping by as well – be sure to say Hello and snap a selfie.

Vintage Cube LIVE Viewing Area

Want to follow along with the big draft on Friday night or with coverage of the matches on Saturday? We’ll have seats and monitors set up for you to hang out with us one of the biggest events in MTGO history reaches the physical realm! You can also follow the streaming coverage on your phone Friday and Saturday nights after Worlds at twitch.tv/magiconline and twitch.tv/ultimateguard, starting around 6:30 p.m. PT (01:30 next day UTC) each day.

You can also catch a next-day replay of the Ultimate Guard Finals on the Main Stage - the Draft will appear on Saturday morning shortly after the hall opens to general badge holders, and the matches will be shown on Sunday morning.  

If you’re at Magic Con this weekend, be sure to stop by and see us!

MTGO BROADCASTS 

MTGO Discovery Zone Returns on MTGO University YouTube

Our learn-to-play series is back for another installment! Each month, host NileJoanRivers works with a prominent MTGO streamer to learn the ins and outs of the latest decks.

This month, Nile works with PieGonti to get the lowdown on Modern’s Dimir Frogtide deck.

For this and other season of Discovery Zone, check out MTGO University on YouTube.

PREMIER PLAY

Triple Qualifier Weekend Starting Friday

Six more Regional Championship invitations are on the line this weekend across three separate events.

First up are a pair of Limited Qualifiers on Friday, October 25^th at 2 p.m. PT (23:00 UTC) and again on Saturday, October 26^th at 1 a.m. PT (08:00 UTC). Both events will feature Duskmourn: House of Horror Sealed Deck with Top 8 Draft.

Then the weekend concludes Sunday, October 27^th with a Standard Qualifier at 1 a.m. PT.

You’ll need 40 Season 3 Qualifier Points to enter a Qualifier. The Top 2 finishers in each event earn seats in the January-March Regional Championship round, and prizes pay out to the Top 64.

For more information on these events, click the Premier Play Information link at the top of the Blog.

ALTERNATE PLAY

Frank Lepore’s Horror Cube Wraps on Friday

Our resident curator of all things Spooky Season, Frank Lepore, has returned at the perfect moment. See how he has expanded the Horror Cube beyond Innistrad – to Duskmourn, Ixalan, and other corners of the multiverse – in this article.

But hurry! You have until Friday, October 25^th at 8 p.m. PT (03:00 UTC Saturday) to enjoy this experience

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Magic: The Gathering Foundations. Each description mentions if the Draft is Phantom – cards won’t be added to players’ collections in Phantom events. All transitions take place at 10:00 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC until Nov. 3, 18:00 UTC after) unless otherwise noted.

• Now-October 25 – Just in time for our newest horror set, Frank Lepore returns with his Horror Cube, incorporating Duskmourn and other creepy crawlies from across Magic’s history into the previously Innistrad-themed set. (Phantom)
• Until November 6 – 4-player pods of Commander Masters draft return – each League course is two matches with winner-take-all prizes. (Phantom)
• October 25-November 12 – The Vintage Cube LIVE Prize Cube makes its appearance digitally – see if you can do any better than the eight from Vegas. This Cube will begin at approximately 8:30 p.m. PT once the Live event draft has concluded. (Phantom)

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:

• October 25 to November 12 – Vintage Cube LIVE’s Prize Cube will be in MTGO
• November 27-December 4 – Max-Power Vintage Cube
• December 18-January 22 – Vintage Cube for the Holiday Season

EVENT UPDATES

Standard Challenges Added

We’ve re-jiggered the weekly event schedule again and upgraded some Standard Preliminaries to Challenges! The times for the new events are:

• Monday 1 p.m. (20:00 UTC)
• Tuesday 10 a.m. (17:00 UTC)
  • This event will be canceled on set launch days
• Wednesday 5 p.m. (midnight Thursday UTC)

To compensate for these additions, we have removed most of the Second Chance Events (tournaments firing 30 minutes after a larger one).

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® - Fallout® Available Now!

Click here to read all about Magic: The Gathering® – Fallout®, now available on Magic Online!

The MTGO Store has all four Commander decks as well as the MTGO-exclusive Premium Booster (six foils, seven rares/mythics).

A couple items that didn’t make it into the original announcement:

• Fallout® cards appear in Treasure Chests until November 6.
• No new avatars with this set, nor are there any events.

We also have a new Premium effect to debut with Fallout® - the Pip-Boy frame and animation. Take a look!

Fallout® and its trademarks used with permission from Bethesda Softworks.

Duskmourn: House of Horror Now Available

From Rooms to multiple cool card treatments, this impending set does anything but manifest dread ... learn all about Duskmourn: House of Horror (set code DSK) in this article. Within that you’ll find out about all the scariness in store on MTGO:

• DSK Premium Boosters – get your bling on for just $5.99 USD each
  • Ryan Spain shows off our newest suite of Premium effects in this article!
• Commander Decks – both the ones from this set and several from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate
• Duel Commander’s ascent to full format with Challenges and Leagues
• Alternate Play (#horrorcube), including the return of Commander Draft Leagues
• Plus the usual bits and bobs: MOPR, Avatars, Treasure Chest info, etc

Redemption Corner

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

Bloomburrow redemption sets (both regular and foil-for-regular) are now on sale. 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.

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 – October 23, 2024

Card Fixes

• Pain Distributor will correctly grant Treasure upon a player casting their first spell each turn.
• Agility Bobblehead will grant the proper blue ability text to its target.
• Mysterious Stranger will correctly be able to target a maximum of one spell from a particular graveyard.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – November 6, 9 a.m.-Noon PT

After tomorrow, the next scheduled maintenance is set for Wednesday, November 6 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (17:00-20:00 UTC). This is to support the release of Magic: The Gathering Foundations.