Hello! I’m Lee Sharpe and I recently joined the digital product management team for Magic Online. The focus of my role is managing the Magic Online events. I played Magic in its early days and later rekindled my interest in college. From here I started going to event and became very active in the judge program (a L3 at one point), and also served on the Magic rules team.

I’ve played Magic Online since the original beta and subsequent launch in 2002, and started worked on it as an employee of Wizards of the Coast in 2007 as a developer on the team that codes the card sets. After a couple years, I moved on to the business intelligence team. I grew in that role and have led the focus into Magic Online analytics for several years now before accepting this new role. I’m excited by the challenges it offers and am eager to take it on!

The addition of me to the team will allow other members of the Magic Online team to focus on other parts of Magic Online, and in this way we will collectively be better equipped to improve the experiences of Magic Online players.

You can expect me to manage events in a data-driven way. I like to try things and measure what happens, keeping what works and removing or fixing what doesn’t. If you have thoughts on Magic Online events, I encourage you to reach out to the official Magic Online Twitter account (@MagicOnline), me on twitter (@mtg_lee), or email magiconlinefeedback@wizards.com. While we can't reply directly to all contacts, we do read everything.

New Rotating Daily Event Schedule

Something a lot of players express is they don’t want the Daily Event schedule to have the same format at the same time every day. With help from the digital event coordinator and business intelligence teams, we have created a new Daily Event schedule that rolls out with the February 18 downtime. With this schedule, the week is divided into three periods. Monday and Tuesday (and early Wednesday into the downtime) follow a schedule. After the downtime, Wednesday and Thursday take that schedule and shift it an hour later. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday shift that schedule yet another hour later. There are some exceptions, but this is the general trend of the schedule. Hopefully, if your favorite format isn’t at a time you can make on one set of days, you can make it in another set.

Here’s a summary of what's happening with each format.

New to Magic Online

Players new to Magic Online can play in New to Magic Online events using their New Player Points in any of the five times per day it is available on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. If you’re new to Magic Online, these events are a great low-risk way to familiarize yourself with the Magic Online client.

Standard, Modern, Block Constructed, and KTK/FRF Sealed

Players interested in Standard, Modern, Block Constructed, and the current Sealed format will see the usual high quantity of Daily Events every day. These formats tend to do well on Magic Online, and so we’ll continue to offer a large number of Daily Events for these formats.

Legacy

The number of Legacy events is being reduced. Some of the Legacy times rarely if ever reach the minimum players needed, while others do all of the time. It’s not good for anyone when events are scheduled but do not reach enough players. It wastes the time of the people who show up. It makes make people think there’s actually nobody playing the format, and they may decide not to try for another event that would happen. We don’t want to hurt Legacy by giving a bad experience to the people that show up in time slots that don’t work. There are still multiple Legacy Daily Events each day, and we believe this will be a better experience overall for Legacy players.

Pauper

Due to popular demand, more Pauper Daily Events are being added. Pauper will have at least one Daily Event every day (except Wednesday, due to the weekly downtime) now, and more on the weekends. Enjoy, champions of the commons!

Vintage

Late last year, Magic Online reduced the number of Vintage Daily Events to the weekends only in order to build an audience, and combined it with the Vintage Championship during the Holiday Festival. Between these, the Vintage audience has grown online. This format is the newest format to Magic Online and it’s still a balancing act to do the right thing for it. We want to build the Vintage community and believe that adding a few more scheduled events will help. Two more are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Pacific. You can get excited about the format by watching the Vintage Super League on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., and then have the opportunity play in at least one Vintage daily each day for the rest of the week!

Magic 2015 Sealed

Magic 2015 Sealed Daily Events are cancelled. None of these events have fired in over two months. Sealed players have shown they are more interested in whatever the current format is (currently KTK/FRF Sealed), and as I said above plenty of those will be running.

Momir Basic

Momir Basic is certainly a fun format, but the variance inherent to it makes it more appropriate to queue events than the daily events intended for regular and serious high-level competition on Magic Online. We have decided to cancel the Momir Basic daily events. As always, we will constantly continue to re-evaluate the schedule.

Here's the Schedule

Below you can check out the full schedule. This schedule will take effect following the February 18 downtime. We’ll be monitoring the performance of the events and make adjustments accordingly, and feedback always helps figure out opportunities to create better experiences for players. We look forward to improving all Magic Online events. Enjoy!

Lee Sharpe

Digital Product Manager—Magic Online Events

All times are Pacific—UTC-8 until 3/8, then UTC-7 until 11/1