Wizards of the Coast has officially cancelled Players Tour Series 2 and will end the Magic Pro League’s 2020 season, calling it “unrecoverable.”
Players Tour Series 2: Cancelled
Two weeks ago, Wizards announced that it was cancelling Players Tour Finals Houston and Mythic Invitational Ikoria, as well as rescheduling the three Players Tour Series 2 events that were to take place at the beginning of May. But as the COVID-19 situation has progressed, it has become clear that it will not be safe to hold the rescheduled dates at the end of May, either.
“The previously rescheduled Players Tour Series 2 events…are now cancelled,” Wizards said. “Players that were qualified for these events are eligible for travel reimbursement as with the previously cancelled Players Tour events. We will continue to contact affected players to provide information about eligible travel reimbursement. If you have an invitation to Players Tour Series 2, it will be honored for a future event.”
The 2020 Season is “Unrecoverable”
Now that half of the Magic Pro League’s 2020 season—Players Tour Finals Houston, Mythic Invitational Ikoria, and Players Tour Series 2—have been cancelled, Wizards cannot run enough events to constitute a functional season. As such, it believes that “the 2020 Partial Season is now unrecoverable, and we will start fresh again next season, beginning later this year.”
This fresh start will feature the same 24-person roster for the Magic Pro League, while the current 32 players in the Magic Rivals League will also return—with some additions. Wizards will honor the Player and Mythic Point qualifications (seven of each) for next season’s Magic Rivals League, increasing its roster size from 32 to 46. (Well, 47, as you’ll see below.)
It’s unclear if the next Magic Pro League season will be a partial season similar to the 2020 Season or if it will be the intended year-long 2020-21 Season. That likely depends on if Wizards is able to hold events by August, when the 2020-21 Season was scheduled to start.
Player Points Qualifications
With the cancellation of Players Tour Series 2 and the uncertain status of Players Tour Final Minneapolis, there might not be any more opportunities for Wizards to award Player Points. Therefore, Wizards will award the seven qualification slots to the next Magic Rivals League to the top Player Point earners from Players Tour Series 1. However, since there was a two-way tie for seventh, all of the eight players will qualify for the Magic Rivals League. They are:
- Corey Burkhart
- Kenta Harane
- Shintaro Ishimura
- Zachary Kiihne
- Joel Larsson
- Yuta Takahashi
- Brent Vos
- Jacob Wilson
Mythic Point Qualifications
The seven Mythic Point qualifications will be determined by the standings at the conclusion of the three remaining MTG Arena events that award Mythic Points: the April 4 Mythic Point Challenge, the May 16 Mythic Qualifier Core Set 2021, and the June 20 Mythic Qualifier Core Set 2021.
Like Players Tour Final Minneapolis, the status of Mythic Invitational Core Set 2021 is up in the air and will not count towards qualification even if the event is played.
How Much of Magic’s 2020 Schedule Will Survive?
The last major in-person Magic event, MagicFest Lyon, was held on the first weekend of March. Since then, Wizards has cancelled Players Tour Finals Houston and Mythic Invitational Ikoria, as well as Players Tour Series 2, and delayed the tabletop release of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths to May 15. Meanwhile, ChannelFireball cancelled all MagicFests through July and Star City Games similarly cancelled its SCG Tour events until mid-May.
It has been clear for weeks now that 2020 wouldn’t go as planned for anyone, let alone for Magic and its community. COVID-19 continues to affect huge swathes of the world with no end in sight—so as cancellations continue to stretch into the summer, it’s fair to wonder how many (if any) of the remaining in-person Magic events in 2020 will even take place.