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‘Magic: The Gathering’ enters esports relevance with $10 million prize pool

Aaron Mamiit
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Magic: The Gathering, a 25-year-old trading card game that makes the headlines for its expensive cards, overhauled its competitive structure to place a bigger focus on esports with a prize pool worth $10 million.

The new Magic competitive structure will be made up of two major programs, namely the Mythic Championships and the Magic Pro League. The Mythic Championships will continue the large-scale tournaments of the trading card game, which are held either in physical venues or online, while the Magic Pro League will be made up of 32 top-ranked professional players who will compete in weekly matches on Magic: The Gathering Arena, which is the game’s newest digital version.

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Wizards will distribute $10 million in prize money throughout 2019 between the two programs. Players in the Magic Pro League will also receive streaming and playing contracts worth $75,000, which according to Wizards of the Coast VP of esports Elaine Chase, also encourages them to regularly stream matches on their personal channels.

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“Our investment in esports will catapult the game to new heights while providing support to the players by giving them the platform to build their brand and bring Magic to a broader audience,” Chase said in a statement.

The popularity of Magic: The Gathering continues to this day, but its physical version does not stream well for online viewers to watch. The game’s primary digital offering, Magic: The Gathering Online, also hosts several tournaments, but since it was launched in 2002, it pales in comparison to today’s digital card games, especially in esports viability.

Magic: The Gathering Arena looks to bring the card game into the modern age, backed by an over two-decade-old competitive scene and supported by Wizards of the Coast owner Hasbro. While it remains to be seen if it will be able to go toe-to-toe with esports titles such as digital card game Hearthstone and the newly crowned Best Esports Game at The 2018 Game Awards, Overwatch, Magic: The Gathering Arena certainly has the potential.

The new competitive structure of Magic: The Gathering has drawn the interest of at least one former pro player.

I would like to announce that I am un retiring.

I will do my best to play some of those crazy $$$ MTG stuff next year, both paper and digital.

Got a lot of work to do. Stream starts 10am PST tomorrow. Time to git gud.

— Savjz (@Savjz) December 7, 2018

The first of the new Mythic tournaments, which will each have a prize pool of $500,000, will take place at PAX East in March 2019.

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Aaron Mamiit
Aaron Mamiit
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