Mentioned in this article Games: Hearthstone

Wizards is rolling out two initiative targeting esports: a new attempt at digital Magic, and a special invitational.

Magic: The Gathering Arena looks to be a promising digitization of the beloved card game, and has drawn early praise.

Wizards’ esports-themed invitational, however, is being heavily criticized for a complicated format and substantial prize pool that rewards several levels higher than professional competitive events.

Two new initiatives from Wizards of the Coast seem targeted at esports fans as the game developer seeks to draw viewers to its flagship card game, Magic: the Gathering. While both moves show a clear plan of investment by Wizards into its game’s competitive scene, they also show some clear areas where MtG has fallen behind.

The first initiative is Magic: The Gathering Arena, the most recent attempt by Wizards to digitize the card game (Disclosure: I’ve been invited into the closed beta and have played a few times). Finally, the company seems to have the recipe right, and many initial takes are trending positive. Comparisons to Blizzard Entertainment’s successful Hearthstone are already being made.

The second was announced this week and is substantially more complicated. Later this summer is the game’s $1 million Pro Tour 25th Anniversary (Yes, that’s 25 years of competitive Magic). The main event is an $850,000 tournament featuring the top players, cards, and some challenging modes.

The complicated element comes in with the remaining $150,000. Announced this week is a special invitational tournament called the Silver Showcase, featuring four established Magic players, a celebrity poker player with a history of Magic success, and three top Hearthstone streamers, two of whom left the Magic pro scene years ago. These final entrants were selected by Wizards explicitly “as recognition for their contributions to competitive gaming history, either on the Pro Tour or elsewhere.”

Fans have quickly identified this maneuver by Wizards as a play to earn eyes from the esports crowd. As Magic expert Jeff Hoogland succinctly writes, “It is an advertising for Magic that is being targeted at Hearthstone players by inviting some of their top content creators. This is smart on Wizards’ part and a good use of their advertising dollars. Show people who you know already like card games your card game.”

Still, there’s a lot to criticize. For one, the format of the Silver Showcase is possibly one of the most complex and aged that Wizards has come up with in a while:

“The Silver Showcase will be a Rochester Draft event like no other, as the players Rochester draft three packs each of Limited Edition (Beta), one pack each of Arabian Nights, one pack each of Antiquities, and one pack each of Legends.”

If I were to explain this to non-Magic players, it’d be something like saying it’s Calvinball, but designed by people in the 1800s. Magic is a very fun game when played right, but older sets (the ones for Silver Showcase are all well over 20 years old) are not well-designed, and definitely not designed to be played per how the game has evolved over the last 25 years.

More importantly, however, is what message Wizards is sending to other Magic pros. The $150,000 prize total for just eight players is being distributed incredibly fairly—last place walks away with $12,500. The weekend is far and away the highest-prized tournament Wizards has ever thrown, and current pros are pointing out how unfair it is to give pros of other games such a handsome reward.

“If you put together all my winnings from the [2016-17] season, including money from the 10 Grand Prix events I played, I… still didn’t make more money than the participation prize for the Silver Showcase,” writes Magic pro Sebastián Pozzo. “I think it’s natural for full-time Magic players to be upset about this.”

He adds that he thinks Wizards is “basically telling the community that [the two pros that quit Magic] made a great call when they left the MTG Pro Scene.” Fellow player Eric Froehlich provides even clearer details in this Twitter thread, outlining that he estimates players often lose money for going to tournaments due to a combination of low prizes and travel costs. Froehlich has finished at the top of many Magic events over the last twenty years, but is still heavily considering retiring and going into poker as a result of the Silver Showcase. Many other pros echo his concerns.

Ultimately, Magic seeking to intersect with esports is a winning idea. Arena looks promising, and there really isn’t anything wrong with the idea of inviting esports pros from outside the game in for a while. A clear lesson for Wizards—do it in a way that doesn’t aggravate your players.