Wizards of the Coast
The World Magic Cup 2018 is happening in Barcelona, Spain on December 14-16 and Wizards of the Coast will be streaming the event on Twitch on twitch.tv/magic. It's always fun to see teams from different countries battle it out in the Magic tournament but if you're worried if trolls in chat will ruin your viewing experience at home, you'd be glad to know that Wizards of the Coast is doing something to help filter them out.
Today, the company has announced that they will be testing Twitch chat in the subscriber-only mode for the duration of the World Magic Cup. The cost of a Twitch subscription to the official Magic: The Gathering is $4.99 so that means only users who paid that amount for the subscription will be able to chat in the channel during the stream. This should create an overall better viewing experience for those who participate in chat as the barrier of entry will go a long way against trolls who make Twitch more toxic.
"We strive to continuously improve the quality of chat during our events, and this is a further exploration of the best possible ways to better the experience," Wizards of the Coast explained. "Wizards is dedicated to bringing people together with our games and creating safe, inclusive environments for players of all types, whether in physical spaces or online."
According to Twitchtracker, the official Magic: The Gathering Twitch channel only has 147 subscribers so that means only 147 subscribers can participate in the chat. Expect those numbers to rise when the event goes live though.
Sadly, this will be the last World Magic Cup as Wizards recently announced that there will be no World Magic Cup next year. Hopefully, they will bring it back in 2020.
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