Every Tuesday, we round up all of the biggest Magic Online news and post it right here in the Weekly Announcements Blog. Check in every Tuesday for all of the latest news!

On Friday, July 25, the Vintage Masters 4-3-2-2 Draft and Swiss Sealed Queues will be retired. As noted in a previous blog , the rest of Vintage Masters Events will remain active on Magic Online until the release of Khans of Tarkir in the fall.

When Magic Online returns from downtime on Wednesday, July 23, players will have 35 Phantom Points and one each of the five "Hunt" entry objects added to their accounts if they've been active on Magic Online between 2008, and the downtime on July 23. Due to the giveaway, Entry Objects for M15 Prerelease and Release Events will not be refundable.

New To Magic Online Events Refresh

In a continued effort to help new Magic Online players learn the game and the client, we are refreshing New To Magic Online Events with a new event and new prizes!

To help players get accustomed to a Limited environment, we are updating the existing suite of New Player Limited Events. The existing New Player Phantom Draft Queue will become the New To Magic Online Queue and will get new prizes that we'll talk about later in this section. We are also adding a scheduled New To Magic Online Sealed Event! To give players who are new to Magic Online the biggest possible variety of events, and to avoid duplicated formats, we will be retiring the current New Player Sealed Queue when all of the New To Magic Online Events roll out after downtime on Wednesday, July 23. The New To Magic Online Sealed Event will take its place beginning that Friday, July 25 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific. It will continue to run Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 12:00 p.m. going forward.

Maybe Limited isn't your thing though. Beginning Wednesday, July 23, players will now be able to get practice in a Constructed environment with our New To Magic Online Standard Queue Event! This new event, as well as the New To Magic Online Phantom Sealed Scheduled Events and New To Magic Online Phantom Draft Queues, will all be awarding 5-Card Booster packs — a new addition to Magic Online.

In the past, New Player Events generally awarded pre-chosen sets of cards. With the addition of 5-Card Boosters to the prize pool, New Players will have more chances to diversify their collection and get hard-to-obtain cards right out of the gate!

What exactly is in these 5-Card Booster Packs? Glad you asked! The rarity of the cards inside depends on which pack you receive. Four out of every Five boosters will be an "uncommon" pack and will award 3 random common cards and 2 random uncommon cards. One in five packs will be a "rare" pack and award 3 random commons, 1 random uncommon, and 1 random rare, or mythic rare card. Should you be lucky enough to get one, there's a chance that you'll get a premium pack that will replace a common card with a premium instead. When New Player Events launch, 5-Card Boosters will be awarding cards from the Magic 2015 Core Set! Over time, the cards that 5-Card Boosters award will rotate to new sets.