Magic Online Weekly Announcements, December 31, 2024

Posted on Dec 31, 2025

THE LEAD

Read All About It - Holidays 2024 Article

It’s that time of year again! Magic Online closes out the year in style with a bunch of different promotions. Check out this article now for details on:

• Holiday Bundle – 3 Cube Drafts plus an exclusive avatar for $27 USD!
• Mythic Event Token - $25 USD for All-Access until January 2 – Last day to purchase is today

VINTAGE CUBE

Read All About It – Vintage Cube Update for the Holidays: 5 Weeks of Fun On Now!

Our Cube curation team of Ryan Spain and Chris Wolf has put together another puzzle for Cube lovers to solve through the holidays and into January – it's the return of the main-line Vintage Cube for the holidays! With Fallout®, Duskmourn, and Foundations arriving since the last iteration, the Cube’s as shaken as a snow globe – 70 card swaps in all!

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

Note: We'll have details on the Fast Follow update to the Cube in next Tuesday's Blog. It is slated to go live next Wednesday, January 8.

PREMIER PLAY

Standard Qualifier This Saturday

Your next chance to reach the April-May round of Regional Championships comes up this Saturday, January 4. A Standard Qualifier will start at a special time of 1 a.m. PT (09:00 UTC).

It takes 40 Season 1 Qualifier Points to enter this event. The Top 2 finishers in the Qualifier earns invites to that RC round.and the top 64 finishers 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 Temporarily Banned

Due to a game-breaking bug, the CLB card You Meet in a Tavern remains temporarily banned from Commander and other Eternal formats (including Pauper). We expect the card to get out of jail in our next patch next Wednesday, January 8.

EVENT UPDATES

Modern Challenge Every Day!

Thanks to consistent turnout since the last Banned and Restricted announcement and to ring in 2025 properly, we've increased support for Modern Challenges starting tomorrow. Every single day of the week will now feature at least one Modern Challenge event!

The changes appear in Orange on the Preliminary and Challenge Schedule. They include 2 Prelims upgraded to Challenge 32s, and 4 Challenge 32s getting promoted to the 64-player level.

Duel Commander Trials Start This Weekend

We've had a rough time attracting a critical mass of players for Duel Commander Challenges since they began. So we're trying something a bit different based on the experiment we did for the format during Creator Season a couple weeks ago ...

Introducing Duel Commander Trials - a 16-player minimum tournament with a Top 8 playoff. Start times are the same as they were for Challenges: Saturdays at 9 a.m. PT, and Sundays at 5:30 a.m. & 4 p.m. PT

Note that as a test, we will be using 50-minute rounds for Trials which is shorter than other Duel Commander matches.

Entry is still 25 Tickets or 250 Play Points, and the prize structure is proportional compared to the Challenges. 

• 1st Place - 400 Play Points, 25 Treasure Chests, 40 Qualifier Points, and 1 regular set
• 2nd Place - 350 Play Points, 20 TC, and 30 QP
• 3rd-4th - 300 PP, 15 TC, and 20 QP
• 5th-8th - 250 PP, 10 TC, and 10 QP
• 9th-12th - 250 PP, 5 TC and 10 QP
• 13th-16th - 150 PP

Note that we hope to generate a critical mass of regular players to upgrade this back to a Challenge at some point soon.

Challenge 32s & Trials - Minimum Prize for X-2s

We've instituted a new policy for players who complete a Challenge or Trial with just 2 match losses but don't earn back at minimum their entry option. This can happen when Challenge 32 events attract 73 or more competitors or when a Trial hits 25 players.

Players in this position will now be granted Play Points to fill the gap to have the entry option be the minimum prize. The grant will be processed by Customer Support within 2 business days of the event.

Vintage Cube 64s Return Friday

As promised, we have adjusted the cadence of Vintage Cube 64-Player Elimination Drafts to mirror demand. Starting Friday, they will fire every four hours between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. PT daily. We will continue to monitor this and add back drafts to the schedule as this Cube season continues.

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

Holiday Break Until January 2

The Magic Online game team will be on vacation for Daybreak’s annual Christmas to New Year’s holiday break. Barring in-game emergencies, we’ll be back in action on Thursday, January 2. Please allow extra time for social media and Customer Support responses during this period, though monitoring will continue as normal.

Also, Premier Play invitations from December 20 onward will all be processed starting January 2.

Thank you for your patience during this upcoming week – we hope you have enjoyed playing MTGO in 2024 and look forward to continue serving you in 2025!

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 regular redemption sets have sold out. BLB foils can still be redeemed for regular sets. 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, and its set quantities are dwindling low.

A limited number of Outlaws of Thunder Junction sets still remain available.

Please note: Shipment of redemption sets may be delayed up to a week due to our company’s holiday break next week – thank you for your patience.

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.

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

After tomorrow, 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.