Over the past weeks, several Magic: The Gathering events have already been cancelled due to the Coronavirus concerns, including MagicFest Turin, and the four other MagicFest events ChannelFireball recently announced, and Star City Games Baltimore and Syracuse.
Today, Wizards of the Coast has announced that they're cancelling more MTG events for the health and safety of fans, players, employees.
Here are the significant changes WotC is making:
> CFB Events will continue to assess MagicFests on a case-by-case basis, closely monitoring local health and government advisories.
> We are canceling the Players Tour Finals in Houston and shifting those invites.
> We are rescheduling and relocating the upcoming round of regional Players Tour events.
> We are adding an online regional Players Tour event option for players who are not able to or choose not to attend an in-person regional Players Tour event.
> We are canceling the Mythic Invitational originally scheduled for May.
ChannelFireball recently cancelled all MagicFest events through mid-April.
Players who were invited to Players Tour Finals in Houston, originally scheduled on April 24-26, will be invited to the already-scheduled Finals scheduled for Minneapolis, July 9-12. According to WotC, the event will be larger and will award more prize money to accommodate the larger field.
For Regionals Players Tours, WotC has moved and rescheduled the events:
> The event scheduled for Copenhagen April 30–May 3 has been moved to Prague on May 29–31.
> The event scheduled for Charlotte on May 7–10 has been moved to Seattle, June 5–7.
> We are actively looking for a replacement venue and date for the event scheduled for Kitakyushu, May 8–10. We will have more information soon.
> We are adding an online event option that will take place on Magic: The Gathering Arena June 13–14 for players who are not able to attend one of the in-person events or if we have to cancel any of the above rescheduled events. This event will award Player Points and, in lieu of prize money, will offer travel awards to the Players Tour Finals. There are still a lot of details to work out on this event, but we wanted to make sure to have a digital event for those who may still be unable to travel at that time.
The Mythic Invitational Ikoria is cancelled and won't be rescheduled, and all Mythic Invitational invites for 2020 will be shifted, so playerswho qualified for the May Invitational will instead be invited to the Mythic Invitational scheduled for July 23, and anyone invited to the July Invitational will instead be invited to the October Mythic Invitational.
"We are rescheduling several events to later in the year as it gives us the best chance for travel and local restrictions to be lifted and to adequately assess the health and safety of our events," WotC stated. "Please understand that this is a developing situation and some details may not be finalized and others may change depending on the recommendations and guidelines of government officials. We will work to finalize all dates and details as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and flexibility as we work through these changes."
WotC went on to say that they will be sending travel reimbursements to qualified players with non-refundable, non-transferrable flights to previously scheduled Players Tour events if they booked their travel prior to March 12.
It's good to see that WotC is prioritizing the health and safety of the Magic community with these significant schedule changes for competitive MTG. Hopefully, a vaccine will be made available soon, so the other major MTG events scheduled later this year won't be cancelled.
Related: 2 'New' Magic: The Gathering Keywords Revealed (For Ikoria?)
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