Magic Online Weekly Announcements, February 20, 2024

Posted on Feb 20, 2024

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THE LEAD 

Warhammer 40,000 Commander Decks On Sale Tomorrow!

Your favorite characters from Warhammer 40,000 join the Magic: The Gathering Multiverse for a special Universes Beyond set. The same four decks that debuted in tabletop in October 2022 will be on offer in the MTGO Store starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. Pacific time (18:00 UTC). They are:

• Forces of the Imperium (white-blue-black)
• The Ruinous Powers (blue-red-black)
• Tyranid Swarm (blue-red-green)
• Necron Dynasties (mono-black)

Each deck sells for $39.99 USD. Once purchased, the cards become part of your Magic Online collection for use in Legacy (#triumphofsaintkatharine), Vintage, Commander, and Freeform formats. 

Cards in these decks will not be made available in Treasure Chests nor be part of any All-Access period. The decks are only available in the MTGO Store until April 5 – be sure you don’t miss out! 

WARHAMMER 40,000 and its trademarks used with permission from Games Workshop. Warhammer 40,000 © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2024.

Vintage Cube Returns Tomorrow!

Magic Online’s most popular format is back again with a fresh polish! Enjoy two weeks of Cube starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT. Creative Director Ryan Spain and Vintage Cube Curator Chris Wolf has been hard at work concocting a slate of 38 changes to shake up the Cube environment.

Check out the Curation Team’s design comments in this article, or access the full Cube list in its usual spot.

Events-wise, we will feature the usual Swiss Draft League and Single-Elimination Draft – details found here. We were going to skip 64-player events this time as a test, but we have a good cause to bring them back March 1^st-5^th! More details on that next week.

MTGO BROADCASTS

Save the Date - Vintage vs. Type 1 Stream Hosted by BDM, March 2-3

One of Magic’s most prominent personalities, Brian David-Marshall, is hosting a weekend of Magic Online Vintage Cube with celebrity drafters taking on an entertaining challenge: Stipulation Draft! It’s all to raise funds and awareness for JDRF Game2Give, the gaming arm of JDRF, the leading global type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization.

The stream starts at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time (12:30 ET, 17:30 UTC) on both Saturday and Sunday, March 2-3 and will be broadcast on MTGO’s Twitch channel - twitch.tv/officialmagiconline.

Starting tomorrow, February 21 at noon PT (20:00 UTC), you can donate via the Vintage vs Type 1 campaign page to earn rewards on MTGO ranging from free Vintage Cube event entries to event-exclusive avatars. All-Access until March 6 is also in the mix!

Check out the why and how of this special event in this article.

Introducing: The Magic Discovery Zone!

Looking for a fun way to introduce your friends to some of Magic Online’s competitive formats? Gather around your favorite screen of choice for our new series The Magic Discovery Zone!

Every Monday at 5 p.m. PT (01:00 Tuesday UTC), join host NileJoanRivers in a live stream on the MTGO Twitch channel. She’ll be coached by an MTG celebrity on the ins and outs of a featured deck. Then follow along as they dive into a MTGO League to practice, ask questions, and get a better understanding of the deck’s game plan. The mood here is all about fun and learning!

Season One will follow Nile through the Standard format. Episode One aired last night, featuring celebrity coach Ashlizzle. We’ll have the VOD of that debut show up on MTGO’s YouTube channel late this week or early next week.

Then tune in live for Episode Two next Tuesday (a one-time shift) when Nile is joined by Yoman5. Other featured coaches in future weeks include Haiyue Yu, Mason Clark, and Gerry Thompson!

MTGO Masters – Season 1 Start Next Week

Sixteen of the Magic world’s finest are gathering for a new season of competition-slinging spells in Modern on Magic Online – it’s our new series MTGO Masters!

Starting next Wednesday at 1 p.m. PT (21:00 UTC), this weekly series features a four-player faceoff with spots in the next round at stake. It all leads to a two-week Top 8 finale starting on May 8^th.

Anuraag Das and Will Hall are your hosts for the stream broadcast on the main MTGO Twitch channel – twitch.tv/officialmagiconline – as well as Anuraag’s channel twitch.tv/anzidmtg.

Tune in to twitch.tv/officialmagiconline starting at 1 p.m. PT (21:00 UTC) this Friday, February

PREMIER PLAY

Legacy Qualifier Moving Back One Week

With Warhammer 40,000 Commander being added to the Legacy format so quickly, we though it only fair to give players more time to get the cards they require for this season’s Legacy Qualifier event.

The Legacy Qualifier will now be held next Friday, March 1, at 2 p.m. Pacific time (22:00 UTC).

Limited Super Qualifier Doubleheader This Weekend!

Your next chances to earn a seat at the April-June Regional Championship round (feeding Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3) are available this weekend. 

We have a pair of Limited Super Qualifier events that will be the largest yet to feature Murders at Karlov Manor on MTGO. As usual each event utilizes Sealed Deck with a Top 8 Draft.

Here are the start times:

• Saturday, February 24 at 7 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
• Sunday, February 25 at 1 a.m. PT (9:00 UTC)

Each event can be entered with 40 Event Tickets, 400 Play Points, or 40 Season 1 QPs. The Top 4 finishers in each get the coveted RC invite and prizes go down to 128^th place!

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

ALTERNATE PLAY

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Outlaws at Thunder Junction. Except for Best-of-One, all of 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 (18:00 UTC) unless otherwise noted.

• February 21-March 6 – The Polish Pass of Vintage Cube allows two more weeks of play in a slightly-tweaked sandbox.
  • In a further change, we will be holding 64-Player single-elimination drafts during the back end of this run starting March 1.
• March 6-13 – The Vintage Cube goes Supreme for one week – everyone's favorite top-two-of-every-pack format returns. 
• March 13-20 – An old friend returns: Flashback Invasion Block Draft.
• March 20-April 10 – Chris Wolf and Ryan Spain will have the first quarterly refresh of Vintage Cube with packages of cards shuttling in and out.
• April 10-16 – We’ve gathered 18 sets with a medium-to-heavy emphasis on the most universal of card types to create Artifact Chaos Draft!

When Is Vintage Cube Back?

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

• Fast Follow Update: February 21-March 6 (64s March 1-5)
• Supreme Vintage Cube: March 6-13
• Spring Update: March 20-April 10 (64’s TBD)

EVENT UPDATES

Limited Event Adjustments Starting This Weekend

As a result of player feedback, we are making both permanent and temporary changes to certain Limited Scheduled events on weekends.

The Saturday & Sunday 1 a.m. PT (9:00 UTC) time slots will now be home to Limited Preliminaries. The Limited Challenge 32 events previously at those times are moving back two hours to 3 a.m. PT (11:00 UTC).

However, with the Super Qualifiers taking place this weekend, the Saturday Limited Challenge 32 and the Sunday Limited Preliminary are pre-empted this week only.

WEEKLY UPDATES 

Redemption Corner

We’ve updated our Redemption page with new quantity percentages

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Redemption Tokens (both regular and premium) are now on sale alongside Wilds of Eldraine Tokens (regular sets only).

Murders at Karlov Manor is anticipated to be on sale on Wednesday, March 6.

Two-Factor Authentication Is Now Live – Protect Your Account Today!

A long-requested security feature is now part Magic Online – check out Ryan Spain’s article to learn the why, what, and how to put Two-Factor Authentication into effect to help protect your account!

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 below.

On weekends featuring Showcase Challenge events, the Format Challenge that starts at either 6 a.m., 8 a.m., or 10 a.m. Pacific time is pre-empted by the Showcase Challenge; Format Challenges scheduled at other times remain in place.

NOTES:

• The number in the title represents the minimum fire size and the lowest place to receive prizes.
• In MOCS Season 1, Standard and Pauper Challenges are never pre-empted.
• 32-Player Limited Challenge events are 6 rounds with no playoff
• Challenges with a Second Chance Event that fires 30 minutes later are shown in Bold.

Check out the Magic Online Format Challenges page for further event details.

PATCH NOTES – February 21, 2024

• Warhammer 40,000 Commander debuts in the game
  • The set is only available via Store purchase - it's not found in Treasure Chests or included with any All-Access
• Deadly Cover-Up will correctly shuffle the target’s library.
• Cases cloaked by Cryptic Coat (try saying that five times fast!) will no longer give away their mysterious details while face-down
• Unscrupulous Agent will no longer tuck the exiled card under itself needlessly
• Case of the Burning Masks will correctly ignore damage dealt by other copies of itself in previous turns.
• The Draft scene no longer displays duplicate cards in a pack (created by the new Wildcard slot) as a single pile – this was causing 2 cards to be picked from a single pack in the early days of MKM draft.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – To Be Announced

The next scheduled maintenance will be announced at a later date.

Author: Tony Mayer