Magic Online Announcements, November 26, 2019

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Pioneer Week Is Here!

Modern Horizons Encore Draft November 27

Pioneering a New Ban Cadence

Alternative Play Calendar

Legacy Premier League

Limited MOCS Preliminary Friday

Modern & Pauper Format Playoffs

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Downtime December 2

Pioneer Week Is Here!

Push Magic's latest format to the limits during an epic week of Pioneer events, all of which can qualify you for the Players Tour . . . Every! Single! Day! So many of you have taken the time and energy to speak out: you love Pioneer. And we think it's pretty great, too. In fact, we think it's so great that we want to celebrate its success this week!

The celebration already began on Monday, November 25 and will last through Sunday: if you want to play Pioneer, we have the events for you. All week long, we're running at least one Pioneer PTQ. These PTQs are in a variety of time slots, so no matter your schedule, chances are there's an event time for you. The following events have been added or changed:

Pacific Time (-8 from UTC)

PTQ Finals Date Start Time (UTC -8) Format Friday, November 22 9 a.m. Standard Monday, November 25 5 a.m. Pioneer Tuesday, November 26 9 a.m. Pioneer Wednesday, November 27 3 p.m. Pioneer Thursday, November 28 6 a.m. Pioneer Friday, November 29 10 a.m. Pioneer Friday, November 29 11 p.m. Pioneer Saturday, November 30 7 a.m. Pioneer *Sunday, December 1 6 a.m. Pioneer Friday, December 13 7 a.m. ELD Sealed

*NOTE: The December 1 PTQ pre-empt's that day's Pioneer Challenge event.

Modern Horizons Encore Draft November 27

Beginning tomorrow, November 27, and running until next Wednesday, December 4, you can draft Modern Horizons. Drafts will include both Phantom and non-Phantom events. Phantom entry costs 10 Event Tickets, 100 Play Points, or 5 Modern Horizons Tokens, and non-Phantom entry costs 25 Event Tickets, 250 Play Points, 10 Modern Horizons Tokens, or 3 Modern Horizons boosters + 4 Event Tickets.

For weeks listed in the Alternative Play Calendar from Alli's article as non-Phantom events, this League will begin at approximately 10 a.m. PT on the first day listed, which is always a Wednesday. These Leagues will be closed to new entries at 10 a.m. PT on the last day listed and ended no later than 2 p.m. that same day.

Pioneering a New Ban Cadence

For the new Pioneer format, R&D has announced that all changes to the banned list will happen on Mondays. Since we know that many Pioneer fans play on Magic Online, we wanted to make it clear how this will work with Magic Online league play.

Until the Pioneer format is placed on the normal ban cadence, Pioneer bans will take effect the day after the announcement, at noon Pacific time on Tuesdays.

If a card is banned, players using the newly banned card in a league can finish their league courses up until the ban takes effect. At noon PT on Tuesday, 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, players will be able to join the Pioneer league with decks containing those cards after the changes are made effective at noon PT on Tuesday.

For more information about Pioneer, check out Blake's announcement article.

Alternative Play Calendar

For the Throne of Eldraine Alternative Play season, we're trying something new and different: a series of blasts from the past. And by that, we mean way in the past. For this season, we're introducing several non-Phantom events into the schedule, but all events listed below are Phantom unless stated otherwise:

Events Dates Phantom or non-Phantom Modern Horizons Encore Draft November 27–December 4 Phantom & non-Phantom Vintage Masters Encore Draft December 4–11 non-Phantom Vintage Cube December 11–TBD Phantom

Legacy Premier League

Legacy Premier League, Legacy's popular community league, makes its return on twitch.tv/itsJulian. Don't miss more playoffs on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT). Head over to the Legacy Premier League page to check out previous results, past videos, decklists, and more.

Limited MOCS Preliminary Friday

On Friday, November 29 there will be a Magic Online Championship Series Preliminary event for 2019 MOCS! The format will be Phantom Sealed, the set will be Throne of Eldraine, 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 December 28.

Note that this is your second-to-last chance to use QPs in the 2019 season.

Learn more about MOCS events here.

Modern & Pauper Format Playoffs

The push to acquire 35 Format Points is on as Modern kicks off our last round of Format Playoffs for 2019 on November 30 at 8 a.m. You can catch the Pauper Playoff the very next day on December 1 at 10 a.m.

The weekend following, you can catch the Vintage Playoff on December 7, also at 10 a.m. Legacy will end things off on December 8 at 8 a.m.

To join, you must acquire 35 Format Points for the format in which you wish to compete. For more information, click 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 Time (-8 from UTC)

Check out this page for further event details.

Downtime December 2

The next downtime will be on a Monday rather than the usual Wednesday, December 2, beginning at 3 a.m. and continuing until noon. All times listed are Pacific time (UTC-8).