Mike Rosenberg is a writer and gamer and has been part of the Magic text coverage team since 2011. He joined Wizards as organized play’s content specialist in June 2014.

The 2017–18 season of competitive Magic ended with a bang, as Luis Salvatto earned just enough points to tie Seth Manfield in the race for the 2017–18 Player of the Year title. The last time a tie in the Player of the Year race took place was in 2010 between Brad Nelson and Guillaume Matignon, and just like last time, we'll be resolving the tie in the same way . . .

. . . a Player of the Year playoff!

2017–18 Player of the Year Playoff at Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica

The 2017–18 Player of the Year Playoff between Seth Manfield and Luis Salvatto will be taking place on Thursday, November 8 at the Pro Tour venue—the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Georgia—the day before Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica gets underway.

The format that Seth and Luis will be competing in will challenge their knowledge of the Standard Constructed format, the various decks in the format, and the matchups with a little twist on a best-of-seven showdown.

Both Seth and Luis will submit four different Standard decks without sideboards by midnight on Monday, November 5 (they supply the lists, and Wizards will ensure they have the decks available to them come Playoff Day). Those four Standard decks submitted by each player cannot overlap by more than eight nonland cards.

Playoff Day begins at 3 p.m. Atlanta local time (12 p.m. PT/8 p.m. UTC) and will be streamed on twitch.tv/magic. Seth and Luis will compete in a best-of-seven playoff using a modified Standard Constructed one-game-match format. The details of the playoff are as follows:

For each one-game match, Seth and Luis will select one of their four submitted Standard decks to battle.

Once decks are chosen, the selections are revealed to both players; players will have access to each other's decklists and will have a brief moment to review what they will be playing against.

For this modified one-game-match Standard format, players will be able to take one "free" mulligan each game (they may draw seven cards on their first mulligan in each game).

Once a player wins a match with one of their Standard decks, they cannot use that deck for the remainder of the playoff.

In order to win the playoff, a player must win one game with each of the four decks they submitted.

Tune in to twitch.tv/magic on November 8 at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET/8 p.m. UTC to watch the Player of the Year playoff live!

That's the info you need for Playoff Day, but what about the weeks leading up to the big showdown?

Seth and Luis have you covered.

Introducing the Pro Streaming Series

Starting next week, you'll be seeing familiar faces from the Pro Tour on twitch.tv/magic during weekdays! The Pro Streaming Series will feature some of the Pro Tour's best competitors as they stream Magic: The Gathering Arena for 3-hour blocks on our Twitch channel.

In celebration of the 2017–18 Player of the Year Playoff, our first two pros in the Pro Streaming Series are none other than Seth Manfield and Luis Salvatto, who will be streaming each week leading up to Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica week.

You'll be able to catch their first broadcasts on Thursday, October 18. Luis Salvatto will be streaming from 10 a.m.–1 p.m. that day, while Seth Manfield has a night shift as he streams from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. (all times Pacific).

So tune in to twitch.tv/magic starting next week and show your support for #TeamLuis and #TeamSeth in the lead-up to the 2017–18 Player of the Year Playoff!