Skip to main content

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

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.

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.

“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, OverwatchMagic: 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.

Editors' Recommendations

Aaron Mamiit
Aaron received a NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was 4 years old, and he has been fascinated with…
How to buy and customize ships in Sea of Thieves
The name King of Red Lions floats above a red, customized ship in Sea of Thieves.

The newest season of Sea of Thieves is here to take you back to your favorite swashbuckling adventure world. And whether that means you're checking out the series for the first time or you're having trouble remembering everything from the last time you played, you're probably aware that you'll need a ship to find a transport your booty around. Here's how to get a ship in Sea of Thieves as well as customize it to your liking.

Read more
Quick! This PS5 bundle just got an unprecedented price cut
The Playstation 5 system standing upright.

We didn't expect the PlayStation 5 Slim, the updated version of Sony's video game console, to go on sale this soon, but you can already get the PlayStation 5 Slim Marvel's Spider-Man 2 bundle from Amazon with a 20% discount. From its original price of $559, you'll only have to pay $449, which is a fantastic price for this gaming machine. PS5 deals always attract a lot of attention, so we expect this offer to get sold out quickly. If you want to take advantage of it, you're going to have to hurry in completing your purchase.

Why you should buy the PlayStation 5 Slim Marvel's Spider-Man 2 bundle
The PlayStation 5 Slim is more than just a slimmed-down version of the original PlayStation 5 -- though the difference is noticeable with 18% less weight and 30% less volume for the disc version. There's no performance upgrade between the PS5 Slim and PS5, and you'll be able to play all of the PlayStation 5 games on either model, but the PS5 Slim comes with a 1TB of storage with around 842GB usable, compared to 825GB with 667GB usable in the original PS5. That's nearly 200GB of extra space for your installed games, save data, and screenshots.

Read more
How to change your Steam username
Steam library.

Unless you've got an absolute premium username or have too many linked accounts to name, there's no reason to stick with the same username forever. Unlike some services that offer limited username changes or charge to change your tag, Steam allows users to adjust their usernames at any time.

You don't have to keep that awful username you picked on some random Tuesday before hopping into a game. Here's how you can make a change.

Read more