Magic Online Weekly Announcements, July 8, 2025

Posted on Jul 08, 2025

THE LEAD 

Vintage Cube League Continues

It’s for another round of Vintage Cube. This iteration features some new overarching themes involving old favorites as well as the debut of cards from Magic: The Gathering®–FINAL FANTASY™. Read the latest article about the updates from Creative Director Ryan Spain and Cube Curator Chris Wolf today!

64-Player Single Elimination Drafts Return Tomorrow

For the holiday weekend in the U.S., we’re bringing back 64-player Vintage Cube Elimination Drafts. We’ll have the normal cadence – four times a day at 6:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (all times Pacific) starting tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. PT. We’ll also keep an eye out on demand and add extra tournaments if necessary.

The normal entry options of 15 Event Tickets or 150 Play Points apply, and prizes are found on this page.

EVENT UPDATES

MTGO Spellgrounds Returns

Great news – our Spellgrounds project is underway! Try out a slice of the current Pioneer metagame until tomorrow – all with sideboards geared specifically for this group – all for free!

You’ll encounter a Super-Jump style draft – 3 of the 6 decks are presented randomly for you to select one. Then play up to 3 matches without the pressure of prizes on the line.

This week’s Pioneer lists are live now on this Moxfield page. Next week’s Modern Spellgrounds lists will be available later this week – watch Discord for the link.

Here’s the list of upcoming Spellgrounds events:

• July 14 – Modern
• July 21 – Pauper
• July 28 - Legacy

We hope you find this is a no- or low-risk way to expand your horizons in Magic Online and it’s a great way to learn the format before ...

Pioneer Championship Week Starts Next Monday

Building off the success of Modern Madness a few months ago, we are debuting Championship Week series for our rotating MOCS formats. First up is Pioneer Championship Week ...

Starting next Monday, July 14 at 8 a.m., complete one of the following feats in order to earn a Pioneer Point:

• Complete a 5-0 League course
• Finish 4-0 or 3-1 in a Pioneer Preliminary
  • We’re adding a handful of these events to the schedule – next Tuesday and Wednesday at 5 a.m. PT (12:00 UTC)
• Top 8 a Pioneer Challenge 32 event

That Pioneer Point is good for free entry into the Pioneer Championship Week Finals next Saturday, July 19 at 7:00 a.m. PT. Unlike other Finals events of this type, you are able to directly enter the finals with the entry options of 40 Event Tickets or 400 Play Points!

Prizes for the Finals will be the same as a Super Qualifier, but without invitations or Leaderboard Points. In addition, the Top 32 finishers and those with the same record as 32^nd place will receive an event-exclusive version of the Pioneer Showcase avatar – Heartfire Hero!

MTGO BROADCASTS

MTGO Masters Latest Episode

Our series of 1v1 matchup streams is back with a new episode tomorrow on the MTGO YouTube page. This time – a Pauper battle with a twist featuring AshlyBits and Sam Bogue! Featuring Synthesizer, Burn, Walls Combo, and High Tide, this bite-sized video is perfect for seeing some of Pauper’s best strategies in action.

Hosts Will Hall and Anuraag Das serve up the action into a bingeable 15 minutes. This episode is live now, so check it out! And remember, we do giveaways on the night a new MTGO Masters episode debuts, so keep an eye out for the next chapter.

Catch YungDingo Streaming on Fridays

Magic Online is pleased to bring you weekly streams from some of our top creators. We’ve teamed up with YungDingo to show off MTGO at a regular time each week.

YungDingo takes the reins Monday nights at 6 pm PT (01:00 Tuesday UTC) streaming at twitch.tv/magiconline.

There will be giveaways galore, including Play Point codes and his own unique in-game avatar!

Visit YungDingo's stream and collect each Friday

PREMIER PLAY - It’s Pauper-Mania!

Two of the biggest online Pauper tournaments of the year run this weekend! How will the metagames shift based on the results of last weekend’s big tabletop Paupergeddon event?

Six RC Invites Up for Grabs This Weekend

Another pair of chances to score invites to the next round of tabletop Regional Championships are on tap this weekend!

We’ll have a Standard RC Qualifier that kicks off this Friday, July 11 at 7 a.m. PT (14:00 UTC)! It takes 40 Season 2 Qualifier Points to join this event. The Top 2 finishers earn seats at the RC and prizes go down to 64^th place.

Then on Sunday, July 13^th, it’s the Pauper RC Super Qualifier. This tournament also begins at 7 a.m. PT and features entry options of 40 Event Tickets, 400 Play Points, or 40 Season 2 Qualifier Points. The Top 4 finishers get invited to the October-November RC round and the Top 128 receive prizes!

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

Pauper Showcase Challenge Saturday

MOCS Season 2 rolls on, so it’s time to qualify more players for the next round of Showcase Qualifiers in August. 

It takes 40 Season 2 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!

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 Edge of Eternities. 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) unless otherwise noted.

• Now through July 23 – A three-week run of the one and only Magic Online Vintage Cube – need we say more? (Phantom)
• July 23-29 – We close out FIN season with Supreme Draft – the high-power, draft-two-and-toss-em format. (Phantom)

When Do Vintage Cube Leagues Return?

• Now through July 23 – Summer Refresh
• August 27-September 17 – Edge of Eternities Refresh

AROUND THE WEB

MTGO University

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 the MTGO University playlists on YouTube.

COMMANDER CORNER

Handful of New Cards in Tomorrow’s Treasure Chest Update

We have unearthed a few more gems from the Commander Backlog pile and have added them to the TC-Only slot of Treasure Chests starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT – check our Discord for exact timing (* indicates Extended-Art):

WEEKLY UPDATES

Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ Available Now

Two of the world’s titans of the gaming industry are teaming up for a fantastical play experience! Magic: The Gathering®–FINAL FANTASY™ (set code FIN) is now available on Magic Online!

Be sure to check out our article on MTGO.com now for full info on this expansion, including products, events, and Booster Fun.

MTGO Event Structures for FIN

With a price point of $4.99 for each Magic: The Gathering® - FINAL FANTASY™ Play Booster pack, we have created a new set of entry options and prize structures. They will look familiar to fans of LTR two years ago as FIN is basically mimicking that set. For full details, visit this article.

Redemption Corner

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

Aetherdrift regular redemptions remain on sale in the MTGO Store and Tarkir: Dragonstorm redemptions are now available as well!

As a reminder, we announced changes to the Redemption Program starting with Bloomburrow – read all about it in this article.

TOMORROW’S PATCH NOTES – July 9, 2025

Card Fixes

• Rescue from the Underworld will no longer cause the game to reset.
• Abilities that state “do this only once each turn” (Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian; Tom Bombadil, etc) will correctly no longer be allowed to resolve multiple times if that ability is copied.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – July 23, 9 a.m. to Noon PT

The next scheduled maintenance is Wednesday, July 23 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (16:00-19:00 UTC). This is to support the release of Edge of Eternities.