Magic Online Announcements, July 2, 2019

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

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Quick Links

Core Set 2020: Magic Online Edition

Introducing the Pauper Premier League

Banned & Restricted List Update Window

Modern Horizons: Magic Online Edition

Vintage & Pauper Playoff Winners

Limited MCQ Preliminary Reschedule

MOCS Playoff July 13

Team Modern Super League

Limited MOCS Preliminary Sunday

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Downtime August 14

Build Notes

Core Set 2020: Magic Online Edition

Core sets are back! Core Set 2020 events kick off today, July 2, on Magic Online—so you can get some early practice before your paper Prerelease this weekend. Seize your first chance to play Magic in its purest form, 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.

Introducing the Pauper Premier League

Our friends at CoolStuffInc.com are hosting a new Pauper Premier league. Starting on July 11, you can check out the action every Thursday at 6:00 p.m. PT. Check out the announcement video!

Banned & Restricted List Update Window

Next week, at 8 a.m. PT on Monday, July 8, 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.

Modern Horizons: Magic Online Edition

Modern Horizons events are well underway and boosters are on sale, but events are only available until August 14, so log in and play today! You'll be able to play in Draft Leagues, Sealed Leagues, and Phantom Draft Leagues, and we're introducing a new entry option specifically for this set: Modern Horizons Tokens.

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

Vintage & Pauper Playoff Winners

Congratulations to shir kahn (Vintage) and Team5c (Pauper), the winners of last weekend's Format Playoffs! A very special mention also to those who have qualified for Format Championships—to view the list of invites so far, click here.

Limited MCQ Preliminary Rescheduled

The Limited MCQ Preliminary event scheduled for 11 a.m. on Tuesday has been rescheduled to 3 p.m. for this week only.

MOCS Playoff July 13

As a reminder, the MOCS Playoff event on July 13 will have a special start time of 7:35 a.m. The format will be Standard, so make sure to fit in some Standard practice rounds if you've qualified for the event. Your last chance to qualify will be this Sunday, July 7, in the scheduled MOCS Preliminary.

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. The broadcast begins at 6 p.m. PT every Tuesday at twitch.tv/magic.

For more information and team rosters, click here.

Limited MOCS Preliminary Sunday

On Sunday, July 7, there will be a Magic Online Championship Series Preliminary event for 2019 MOCS! The format will be Phantom Sealed, the set will be Modern Horizons, 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 next Saturday , July 13.

Although this is a replacement event for the canceled June 9 event, all players who have 35 QP or more are eligible to enter this Sunday's event.

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 August 14

The next downtime will be on August 14, 3 a.m.–noon PT/-7 from UTC. This is for the Commander (2019 Edition) content update.

Build Notes

General | The inactivity timer has been reduced from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.

General | The Duel Scene window has regained its Event, Match, and Game ID information in its title bar.

General | Various visual improvements have been made to the new Play Lobby.

General | Today's update brings with it the return of the London Mulligan, which will apply to all Magic Online games in all formats in accordance with R&D formally adopting this mulligan for all of Magic.

Standard, Commander | Thousand-Year Storm now functions correctly.

Commander | Skullbriar can no longer crash the game when moving around to various zones.