Magic Online Weekly Announcements, April 14, 2026

Posted on Apr 14, 2026

THE LEAD 

Read All About It - Secrets of Strixhaven Set Article

Our return to the campus of Strixhaven is nearly here! Check out all of the details on the release of Secrets of Strixhaven, launching on Magic Online next Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC):

• Premium Booster for $6.99 USD
• 5 Commander Decks, one for each college – each just $29.99 USD
• Plus info on events, Treasure Chest, Player Rewards, Booster Fun and more! ...

Congratulations to MOCS Season 1 Showcase Qualifying Players!

After months of top competition and a three-weekend gauntlet of qualifying tournaments, 8 players have emerged to contest the next MOCS Showcase in June! Congratulations to these players:

Scheduled Downtime Tomorrow, 9 a.m.-Noon PT 

Magic Online will be offline for scheduled maintenance tomorrow, April 15, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (16:00-19:00 UTC). Be sure to follow our social channels for updates. The 9 a.m. Modern Challenge will be rescheduled for 30 minutes after downtime ends.

PREMIER PLAY

Showcase Prestige Avatars for 2026

Players who reach a MOCS Showcase Qualifier earn an event-exclusive avatar as part of their prizes. If you competed in a Season 1 Showcase Qualifier, the respective avatar will be granted to you during tomorrow’s downtime. Here are the avatars for the 2026 season:

• Legacy – Hexing Squelcher
• Modern – Voice of Victory
• Standard – Keen-Eyed Curator
• Vintage (Season 1 only) – Containment Priest
• Pauper (Season 2 only) – Duress
• Pioneer (Season 3 only) – Formidable Speaker

Two RC Qualifiers This Weekend

This weekend marks the start of the new qualifying seasons for tabletop Regional Championships as well as the MOCS Leaderboard!

First up is a Legacy RC Qualifier on Saturday, April 18 at 7 a.m. PT (14:00 UTC).

Then on Sunday, April 19, it’s a Pioneer RC Qualifier, also at 7 a.m. PT.

It takes 40 Season 2 Qualifier Points to enter an RC Qualifier. The Top 2 finishers in each event are invited to the Regional Championships held in October-November, plus 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.

EVENT UPDATES 

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Draft League Starts After Downtime

To close out TMT season, we’re featuring a beloved draft format – Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty! The six-day League begins tomorrow following downtime and runs until Secrets of Strixhaven launches next Tuesday.

Entry Options include 12 Event Tickets, 120 Play Points, 3 NEO boosters + 2 Tickets, or 3 NEO boosters + 20 Play Points.

Prizes are as follows (boosted slightly from MH1/MH2):

• 3-0: 4 NEO Boosters, 150 Play Points, and 2 Season 2 QPs
• 2-1: 1 NEO Booster and 100 Play Points

Pauper Preliminaries Return After Downtime

Now that Pauper is in season for MOCS and the format’s audience has grown significantly, we’ve brought back Preliminary events. It’s your chance to score a whole mess of Qualifier Points at once to gain entry to Qualifiers, Showcase Challenges, and more!

Pauper Preliminaries will take the place of Vintage Preliminaries in each of their 5 time slots following tomorrow’s downtime (all times Pacific, for UTC add 7 hours):

• Thursdays at 4 a.m.
• Fridays at midnight
• Mondays at 11 a.m.
• Mondays at 5 p.m.
• Tuesdays at 7 p.m.

Learn more about Preliminary events at the Premier Play link at the top of the Blog.

NRG Series MTGO Showdown April 26 – SOS Limited, Cash for Top 32!

Magic Online is partnering with Nerd Rage Gaming to host a digital qualifying series for the tabletop NRG Series Championship!

The NRG Series MTGO Showdown begins on Sunday, April 26 at 10 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC) and features Secrets of Strixhaven Sealed Deck with Top 8 Draft.

A total of $5,000 in cash will be paid out to the Top 32. The event’s winner will take home $1,200 and qualify for the season-ending Championship tournament in Buffalo Grove, Illinois in December that features 24 players and a $35,000 prize pool.

This is also the second of four planned tournaments in 2026 that count towards NRG’s digital leaderboard. In all, six players (4 event winners & 2 Leaderboard) will get seats at the NRG Championship.

IMPORTANT: This event is region-locked – only accounts with Magic Online billing addresses in the US, Canada, or certain European countries (included on the list on this page) may participate.

Registration for this event costs $35 and will only be processed via NRG’s site. Attendance will be capped at 384 players with a maximum of 9 rounds of Swiss pairings.

Players will be directed to NRG’s event Discord channel for assistance, including judge calls and any technical issues on the day. For issues with accessing the event in advance after it’s posted in MTGO on April 21, please file a ticket at help.mtgo.com

Pack Wars – Dominaria United Starts Tomorrow

Next in the rotation for Pack Wars – the Magic Online space for Mini-Master – is Dominaria United.

The idea is simple – crack a pack, add 2 of each basic land, and play a game. In the Keeper League, you then crack another pack, edit your deck, play a game ... and keep going until you have opened 4 packs and played 4 games!

We'll be back to offering both keeper and phantom version of Pack Wars - details are found here. Both are found under the Limited section in the Pack Wars tab.

The Keeper League is easy – 4 packs + 4 games (plus prizes if you do well) for just 4 Event Tickets or 40 Play Points!

Contraption – 2-Year Standard – One Week Left

Our experiment with 2-Year Standard comes to a close next Tuesday.

This format covers every Standard-legal set from Bloomburrow forward. The cards in those sets currently on the Standard ban list are also banned for this format: Cori-Steel Cutter, Heartfire Hero, Screaming Nemesis, and Vivi Ornitier.

• Our normal League runs until Secrets of Strixhaven launches on April 21.
• We’ll have Challenge 32 events at the following times:
  • Friday at 3 a.m. PT (10:00 UTC)
  • Sunday at 4 p.m. PT (23:00 UTC)
  • Next Tuesday at 7 a.m. PT (14:00 UTC)

Contraption involving paid events will be on hiatus for a few weeks while we plan timing of additional formats.

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and the next set release in June. 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 unless otherwise noted.

• April 15-21 – Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is back to finish off TMT season. (Keeper)
• April 21-May 5– Secrets of Strixhaven Limited is front and center for these two weeks.
  • The Best-of-One League returns but will only run for the first week until April 29.
• May 6-June 3 – Vintage Cube is back with updates from the newest set, plus it will support the next MOCS Showcase in early June! (Phantom)
• June 3-17 – Vintage Supreme Draft returns for two weeks – the pick-2-and-toss-em format with a custom setup (including duplicates for key archetypes). This will be updated with new cards unlike the last run. (Phantom)
• June 17-23 – We'll close out SOS season and lead up to Magic Online’s 24^th birthday by bringing back the original favorite draft format: Invasion Block Draft! (Keeper – yes, really!)

When Do Vintage Cube Leagues Return?

• May 6-June 3 – SOS/Late Spring Update to support MOCS

CREATOR NEWS

SOS Early Access Streams Thursday & Friday 

Dozens of your favorite creators will be showcasing the new set in Magic Online Early Access streams! Tune in this Thursday, April 16 at 10 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC) until Friday at 12 noon PT (19:00 UTC). Check with your favorites to see who will be on at which times. 

WEEKLY UPDATES

Redemption Corner

Check out our Redemption page for full program rules and inventory levels (updated weekly). As a reminder, the game itself is the most current place to determine if there is stock remaining for Redemption Tokens.

Lorwyn Eclipsed redemption tokens are now on sale. Foil-for-regular sets have sold out, while regular sets have 20% remaining.

As a reminder, Magic: The Gathering® | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™ is not redeemable.

TOMORROW’S PATCH NOTES – April 15, 2026

Collection

• Prepared spells will be searchable by name. For example, searching for Ancestral Recall will display both that card as well as Emeritus of Ideation.
• Individual names of Duskmourn Rooms will be searchable.

Duel Scene

• Clear the Land will correctly have lands enter tapped.
• Players will correctly be given priority if an ability triggers in the Cleanup step.
• Death’s Kiss will correctly double the attacking creature’s power, not its own.
• Doorkeeper Thrull and leaves-the-graveyard triggers will play nicely together.
• A game reset issue involving damage assignment has been corrected.
• Harmonize abilities will play nicely with floating mana, not skipping the chance to tap a creature for cost reduction.
• Nettle Sentinel will have Always Yes as an option when right-clicking its trigger on the stack.
• Reins of the Vinesteed will function correctly without locking its controller out of the game.
• Riptide Gearhulk will no longer cause a game reset when it targets multiple permanents.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – June 17, 9 a.m.-Noon

After tomorrow, the next scheduled maintenance is Wednesday, June 17 from 9 a.m. to noon PT (16:00-19:00 UTC).