Magic Online Announcements, August 20, 2019

What Is the Magic Online Weekly Announcements Blog?

Every Tuesday, we round up all the biggest Magic Online news for the Weekly Announcements Blog.

Check in weekly for the latest updates!

Quick Links

More Limited MCQ Preliminaries

Premier Event Calendar Updated Through October

Banned & Restricted List Update Window

You Choose the Flashback

Next Spotlight Cube: Grixis Cube

Commander 2019 in Treasure Chests

Core Set 2020: Magic Online Edition

Modern Horizons—One Week Left!

Pauper Premier League

Team Modern Super League

Pauper MCQ Finals Saturday

Standard MOCS Preliminary Sunday

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Downtime September 25

More Limited MCQ Preliminaries

We're now offering 14 Limited MCQ Preliminary events per week—that's 5 additional events! Starting this week, the new events take place Friday at 2 a.m., 11 a.m., 4 p.m., and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m.

For more information on Preliminaries, click here.

Premier Event Calendar Updated Through October

The MTGO event calendar, MOCS info page, and MCQ info page have all been updated to include qualifiers for 2020's Players Tour (formerly named Mythic Championship in 2019) through October. Fierce combat and countless spoils await players who battle it out for a chance to compete alongside the best in 2020!

Banned & Restricted List Update Window

Next week, at 8 a.m. PT on Monday, August 26, R&D will make an announcement regarding the banned and restricted lists for each format. If there is a change to any format, Magic Online will implement that change at 12 p.m. PT on the same day as the announcement.

If a card is banned or restricted, players using the newly banned card in a league can finish their league courses in the intervening four hours. At noon, however, any remaining players with newly illegal decks will be removed from the league with their entry option returned to their collection. If a card is unbanned or unrestricted, players can join existing leagues with decks containing those cards after the update.

You Choose the Flashback

Outlasting all the competition, Khans of Tarkir won the first You Choose the Flashback contest on Twitter. This has earned it a week of Flashback time, beginning August 21. Players can enter these Phantom drafts of three Khans of Tarkir boosters using either 10 event tickets, 2 Khans boosters and 2 event tickets, or 100 Play Points.

Additionally, Vintage Masters, the other finalist, performed so well that we will also be running a Flashback week of that format. We haven't announced the schedule for events post-Throne of Eldraine yet, but this VMA Flashback week will probably happen in November.

Next Spotlight Cube: Grixis Cube

We know a lot of you really enjoyed the last Spotlight Cube. The next one, launching a week from tomorrow, is a doozy, too. Ryan Overturf (@RyanOverdrive on Twitter) has a real treat for us: the Grixis Cube. Starting August 28, you can pretend that green and white don't exist and draft a Cube with deep archetypes and deeper dives into the three (and a half) supported colors! Click here for a full design article talking about the Cube and the details of its awesomeness.

Commander 2019 in Treasure Chests

You can now find Commander 2019 cards in your Treasure Chests. The Treasure Chest page has all the details, but the quick version: 30% of chests will have a random C19 card, weighted by rarity. Four cards won't be available yet, though: Empowered Autogenerator; Elsha of the Infinite; Rayami, First of the Fallen; and Tahngarth, First Mate. These four cards will be released later, though, after we've fixed some remaining bugs on them.

Core Set 2020: Magic Online Edition

Core sets are back! Core Set 2020 events are well underway on Magic Online and redemption began last week, so now's the time to get in on the action. Seize your chance to play Magic in its purest form with this new core set, which features prominently the fiery Planeswalker Chandra Nalaar.

For more info about M20 on MTGO, including event details, check out Alli Medwin's article here.

Modern Horizons—One Week Left!

Modern Horizons events are ongoing and boosters are on sale, and we're happy to announce that events will now be available until August 28. Lots of folks are really enjoying this Limited format, so join the fun and log in to draft today! Draft Leagues, Sealed Leagues, and Phantom Draft Leagues are all available.

Check out Chris's release article for additional info on Modern Horizons events, and you can also learn more about the Open Play option changes in Magic Online's new Play Lobby from his Tumblr post.

Pauper Premier League

Our friends at CoolStuffInc.com are hosting a new Pauper Premier league, and you can read all about the results from Week 6 here. You can check out the action every Thursday at 6:00 p.m. PT on twitch.tv/coolstuffinc. Check out the announcement video!

Team Modern Super League

The newest Super League season is here with the return of the Team Modern format! Eight teams (including Wizards' Play Design group) will battle over 13 weeks for bragging rights in Modern, with Semifinals Two tonight between Pamplemousse and Brothers Who Bash. The broadcast begins at 6 p.m. PT every Tuesday at twitch.tv/magic.

For more information and team rosters, click here.

Pauper MCQ Finals Saturday

On Saturday, August 24, there will be a Pauper MCQ Finals at 9 a.m. PT. The event will cost 30 Event Tickets or 300 Play Points. The winner will receive an invitation to Mythic Championship Richmond.

This event marks our first-ever Pauper MCQ Finals event. This is a huge deal for Pauper fans everywhere who would like to see the format succeed and included in future rotations, so be sure to put it on your calendar!

Learn more about Mythic Championship Qualifier events here.

Standard MOCS Preliminary Sunday

On Sunday, August 25, there will be a Magic Online Championship Series Preliminary event for the 2019 MOCS! The format will be Standard, and things will kick off at 7 a.m. PT. MOCS Preliminaries are eight rounds of Swiss and require 35 Qualifier Points to enter. Winners will receive (among other prizes) an invitation to the MOCS Playoff event on October 5.

Learn more about MOCS events here.

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Format challenges are the first step toward qualifying for premier play through your favorite Magic formats. To learn more about Format Focus events and premier play qualification, click here.

The Magic Online Format Challenges continue every weekend for Modern, Vintage, Legacy, and Pauper formats except when replaced by Format Playoffs during scheduled Format Playoff dates.

Pacific Daylight Time (-7 from UTC)

Check out this page for further event details.

Downtime September 25

The next downtime will be on September 25, 3 a.m.–noon PT/-7 from UTC. This is for the Throne of Eldraine content update.