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Magic Online Weekly Announcements, January 21, 2025

Posted on Jan 21, 2025

Premier Play Information 

Treasure Chest Information -Changelist Available Now, Updates After Downtime Tomorrow

MTGO Community Links: Forums  Discord  Twitter/X  Facebook  Instagram NEW! BlueSky

MTGO Official Channels: Youtube Twitch MTGO University MTGO Fundamentals


THE LEAD

Read All About It – Hover-Zoom & Card Image Improvements Live Tomorrow

Creative Director Ryan Spain is back with the low down on the latest updates to the look and feel of cards in Magic Online. Following tomorrow’s downtime, hovering your mouse over a card for a short time will let the image zoom to a more readable size. It’s a rollover feature, so you can quickly move from one card to the next, all without interfering with your ability to click to take game actions.

Another change is to re-frame how most cards look in the game, from fonts to art image clarity, making cards look closer to their tabletop versions. Check out this article for details and look for the changes to go live alongside tomorrow’s downtime!

Innistrad Remastered Available Following Downtime Tomorrow!

The first Magic offering of 2025 is a return to one of the game’s most beloved planes – Innistrad! Think of Innistrad Remastered (set code INR) as a collectible version of Innistrad Cube – your Gothic and cosmic horror favorites all under one banner.

Magic Online will be the exclusive digital home of Innistrad Remastered! The set will debut when we come up from downtime tomorrow, January 22.

Boosters

An Innistrad Remastered Play Booster featuring 14 cards with 1-4 rare/mythics and 1-2 foils will cost $3.99 USD in the MTGO Store, the same as a Standard set. Its contents will mirror their cardboard cousins – a rare/mythic, a wild card, a foil wild card, a regular or foil land, plus a retro-frame card in every pack!

The INR Premium Booster, a MTGO Store exclusive, features 4 rare/mythics, 6 foils, and 7 alternate-border cards among the 10 cards in the pack and will cost $5.99 USD. Here’s the breakdown:

Events

Innistrad Remastered events kick off immediately following downtime and run only until Aetherdrift events start at 10 a.m. PT (18:00 UTC) on February 11.

Odds & Ends


TREASURE CHEST UPDATE

Foundations Jumpstart, Mystery Booster 2, INR, and More in TCs Tomorrow

We’re restocking the Treasure Chest with Innistrad Remastered cards immediately following tomorrow’s downtime. Also, after a bit of a delay, Magic Online’s Treasure Chest will feature select cards from Foundations Jumpstart (set code J25) and Mystery Booster 2 (MB2) starting tomorrow as well.

Specifically, we’re including the following:

For those who are curious, common and uncommon versions of the J25 and MB2 treatments will feature in the next Magic Online Player Rewards grant on February 3 covering January event play and Store spending.

On top of all of that, we discovered a handful of cards that had been created but were never released. Here’s that list (*indicates original edition of a card released in a later Commander set): 

Additions to Treasure Chest 

Catti-Brie of Mithral Hall (AFC) 

Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient (AFC) 

Extract Brain (AFC)* 

Lorcan, Warlock Collector (AFC) 

Holy Avenger (AFC) 

Minn, Wily Illusionist (AFC) 

We will be updating Treasure Chests again on February 11 when Aetherdrift debuts, so be sure to crack them open if you love the look of these cards before they get hard to get!

For full details on Treasure Chest composition, click the Treasure Chest Information link at the top of the Blog.


PREMIER PLAY & EVENT NEWS

Congratulations Charalampos Kikidis, 2024 MOCS Season 3 Showcase Champion! 

Eight of Magic Online’s top competitors gathered this weekend to earn their share of $50,000 and two invitations to the 2025 World Championship. In the end, Charalampos Kikidis ruled the day! 

The day began with Vintage Cube with MOCS rookie Matthew Wright having the hot hand. The American player ran a Gruul strategy that featured Orcish Lumberjack and friends. Matthew defeated fellow American Andrei Klepatch, who played a 4-color good stuff build, in the pod finals to lock up a seat in the Championship round. 

In the Modern rounds, the two Boros Energy decks in the field met in the pod finals. Greece’s Charalampos Kikidis took the mirror match from Klepatch. 

Then in the Championship round, Kikidis topped Wright’s Dimir Oculus strategy in two games. 

Charalampos took home $13,000 as Champion, while Matthew earned $11,000. Both players will appear at the 2025 Magic World Championship later this year!  

The MTGO game team thanks all 8 Showcase competitors, our talented team of casters, and the exceptional behind-the-scenes production team for a great event! 

You can watch all of the action on MTGO’s YouTube channel and get decklists and standings on the event page on Magic.gg. 

If you want to be part of the next Showcase in May, click the Premier Play Information link at the top to learn more. 

It's Showcase Challenge Weekend 

A new MOCS season is underway, so it’s time to qualify the first players for the next round of Showcase Qualifiers in April.  

It takes 40 Season 1 Qualifier Points to enter a Showcase Challenge. The Top 8 finishers in each event earn a Championship Entry Token for the event’s format plus earn Leaderboard Points toward an At-Large berth in the next Showcase! 

Here are the dates and times for the first round of events: 

DATE 

TIME (PT) 

TIME (UTC) 

EVENT 

Saturday, January 25 

8:00 a.m. 

16:00 

Modern Showcase Challenge 

Sunday, January 26 

8:00 a.m. 

16:00 

Standard Showcase Challenge 

Saturday, February 1 

10:00 a.m. 

18:00 

Vintage Showcase Challenge 

Sunday, February 2 

8:00 a.m. 

16:00 

Legacy Showcase Challenge 

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


ALTERNATE PLAY

Last Call to Use Vintage Cube Draft Tokens

If you are still holding onto a Vintage Cube Draft Token, you have only until tomorrow’s downtime to use it. We will be removing all unused Tokens from accounts during downtime with no refunds – please make sure you use them up!

Pioneer Chaos Draft Start Next Week

We’re gathering up Phantom boosters of every non-Core set in Pioneer (yes, Foundations, you’re in) and tossing them in the grab bag – chaos will ensue ...

Check out the Pioneer Chaos Draft League starting next Wednesday, January 29. It’ll run for about two weeks until the start of Aetherdrift, so don’t miss out!

When Does Vintage Cube Return?

With the current Holiday round of Vintage Cube ending at tomorrow’s downtime, here’s the plan for the next round of Vintage Cube:


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

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.


PATCH NOTES – January 22, 2025

Quality-of-Life Improvements

General Updates

Card Fixes – Holiday Bug Bash!!


NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – February 5, 9 a.m.-Noon PT

After tomorrow, the next scheduled maintenance is set for Wednesday, February 5 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (17:00-20:00 UTC). This is to support the release of Aetherdrift.