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.

It's Modern's time to shine.

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan takes place in Bilbao, Spain, February 2–4, and will showcase the Modern Constructed format alongside Rivals of Ixalan-Rivals of Ixalan-Ixalan Booster Draft as hundreds of the world's very best compete for their share of $250,000.

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is this weekend! Follow all the action live from Bilbao, Spain, on twitch.tv/magic! Coverage of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan begins Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 9 a.m. local time (CET)/12 a.m. PT/3 a.m. ET.

PRO TOUR RIVALS OF IXALAN BASICS

Here are the key points to know about Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan if you're new or just getting back into watching a Magic event like this:

The Pro Tour is a three-day, invitation-only event featuring some of greatest Magic pros as well as top-finishing Grand Prix competitors, Hall of Famers, and players who found success in last August's Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers. Those players will be competing for a share of the $250,000 prize pool, with $50,000 going to the winner along with an invitation to the 2018 Magic: The Gathering World Championship.

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is the second Pro Tour of the 2017–18 season, and the second event for the Pro Tour Team Series, with six new teams joining up a little late to make their mark on the season. For a look at where the teams stand headed into this event, check out the 2017–18 leaderboard.

The formats for Friday and Saturday are three rounds of Booster Draft—using two Rivals of Ixalan packs and one pack of Ixalan, in that order—and five rounds of Modern Constructed. All matches on Friday and Saturday are best two out of three games.

Modern is a robust Constructed format, featuring every card printed from Eighth Edition back on July 28, 2003, all the way to the most recent release, Rivals of Ixalan. Modern also boasts a banned list, meaning players cannot use any card on that list in the Modern deck that they register.

All players with 12 or more match points (a 4-4 record or better) at the end of the first day will advance to Day Two of the competition.

The Top 8 players at the end of Day Two will advance to Sunday's playoff, featuring a traditional single-elimination bracket.

All matches played on Sunday are best-three-out-of-five, with the first two games featuring pre-sideboard action.

The winner gets $50,000, Platinum status in the Pro Tour Players Club through March 24, 2019, and an invitation to compete in the 2018 Magic: The Gathering World Championship.

The $250,000 prize pool pays down to 64th place, awarding a minimum of $1,000. In addition, all players with 33 or more match points at the end of the Pro Tour's Swiss rounds will receive an invitation to compete in the next Pro Tour.

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan has a ton packed in it, and if you're looking for someone from #teamcoverage who is much better at flexing a high word count about all things Pro Tour related, Rich Hagon's preview will give you even more.

WHEN DOES COVERAGE START?

Don't miss a single round of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan on twitch.tv/magic Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as the action gets going at 9 a.m. local time each day.

Local time, in this instance, is Central European Time (Bilbao, Spain, all that). That means 12 a.m. PT, 3 a.m. ET, or 8 a.m./08:00 UTC each day.

If you can't watch the broadcast live, no problem! We'll be replaying the broadcast once each day concludes, so in case you can't watch it all in your time zone, you'll have a chance when the hours are a little more convenient.

In addition to that, VODs (videos on demand) of each round and segment will be available on our Twitch page, so if you can't catch it all live, catch it all on demand later during the weekend at your own leisure!

THE COVERAGE TEAM

Here's who you will see on Twitch this weekend bringing you live coverage:

Play-by-Play Commentators: Marshall Sutcliffe, Riley Knight, and Tim Willoughby

Color Commentators: Simon Görtzen and Paul Cheon

News Desk: Rich Hagon, Brian David-Marshall, and Maria Bartholdi

Feature Match Spotters: Rashad Miller and Neil Rigby

Writer-Reporters: Frank Karsten and Chapman Sim

Content Managers/Editors: Blake Rasmussen and Mike Rosenberg

Social Media: Marc Calderaro

Executive Producer: Greg Collins

WHERE ELSE CAN I EXPERIENCE THE COVERAGE?

Round-by-round content, decklists, articles, pairings, results, standings, and more can be found on the Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan coverage page, so be sure to bookmark that and check back regularly for all sorts of goodness.

The Pro Tour will also be broadcast in Japanese on Nico Nico, with Pro Tour Champion Tomohiro Kaji and many other Japanese coverage mainstays bringing Japanese viewers everything from Bilbao.

WHEN WILL DECKLISTS BE PUBLISHED?

Modern Constructed Top 8 decklists will be posted shortly after the Swiss rounds conclude on Saturday. As for the rest of the top decklists, featuring all decks finishing 6-4 or better, those will get posted on Sunday at some point during the quarterfinals.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

If you can't watch the live broadcast but want to follow along while out and about, follow @magicprotour on Twitter for the very latest. Join in on the conversation using the hashtag #PTRIX.

With now 43 teams, hundreds of players, and hundreds of thousands of dollars up for grabs, you won't want to miss all the Modern action starting Friday on twitch.tv/magic!

AND IF YOU WANT MORE MODERN . . .

Be sure to tune in Tuesday, February 6, for the premiere of the Team Modern Super League, brought to you by Randy Buehler and Athena Froehlich!

For a little more on what the Team Modern Super League is about, check out the Super League website.