Major Magic: The Gathering Tournament Rumored Format Change Leads to Unfair Competitive Advantage

With upcoming tabletop Magic: The Gathering tournaments cancelled due to COVID-19, it looks like Wizards of the Coast might be planning to change some paper competitions to digital via MTG Arena, and according to the report, one major tournament is coming in just five weeks.

Over on Twitter, Grand Prix Dallas Champion Austin Bursavich said that the second Regionals Players Tour of the year, slated for mid-June will be held on Magic: The Gathering Arena instead of the originally-planned paper format, but that's not the only change it's getting. The format will reportedly also be changed from Pioneer or Modern to Standard since the two eternal formats are not available in Arena, and according to him, there will be major prize cuts. The GP Champion also noted that Wizards will make the announcement about this info on Tuesday, May 19.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

According to Bursavich, he heard about this information from the "elite players who tried to do the right thing". He said that members of the Rivals League and Magic Pro League were given this information five days ago, and that the announcement would drop on May 19. He noted that their strict contracts may be the reason why they can't openly discuss about it. "Unfortunately WOTC is seemingly incompetent, and repeatedly granting massive competitive advantages to the league members while contracts sort of hold them back," Bursavich added. "I am sharing this bcac it's the right thing to do. The elites getting a 2 week jump on info that the PT is in 5-6 weeks on Arena/all standard is a MASSIVE oversight."

If these changes are true, the advanced information would be unfair to non-Rivals or non-MPL players qualified for the Regionals PT. Wizards hasn't made an official announcement regarding any changes yet, so take this info with a grain of salt. We'll just have to wait until Tuesday to find out.

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths is now available on Magic: The Gathering Arena, and it's also available for tabletop play in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and everywhere else on May 15. Commander 2020 will also be released on May 15.

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