Magic: The Gathering Arena will soon host its first Mythic Championship from June 21-23, and you can either watch the action as it unfolds or work towards qualifying yourself. In the coming weeks you too can fight through matches to earn a spot in the event that will feature the top players from all over the world in an event that will doll out a total of $750,000 in cash.
First place will take home the top prize of $100,000, while subsequent placements will pay smaller amounts. The format will consist of best-of-three matches in Standard using the MTG Arena client, broadcast live on Twitch. Certain competitors have already secured a spot, namely previous Mythic Championship winners Allen Wu, Andrew Elenbogen, Ben Hull, and Gregory Orange, as well as 32 players from the pro league. The sixteen other slots are up for grabs by online players.
The Mythic Championship Qualifier Weekend is coming up, May 25-26, and will determine who claims those spots. The Top 16 at the end of the second day on MTG Arena secure their opportunity at the title. To compete in the qualifier, you must have placed in the top 1,000 ranked players from March and April of this year.
May 25th will proceed with an in-client queue where players play until they win eight matches or lose two, whichever comes first. As expected, the format is Traditional Constructed in the same best-of-three Standard format.
May 26th will be made up of the Top 128 players from the day before, who will be contacted by email if they have secured a spot. Those games will run within a direct-challenge tournament with seven rounds of Swiss play, with no change to the number of games, remaining at best-of-three and Traditional Constructed.
It is exciting to see MTG Arena as a welcome addition to the TCG eSports scene through Twitch. Hot on the heels of the Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) that concluded on April 28th. For years now Blizzard has involved its gaming community in the largest of its tournaments by promoting a program that asks viewers to select a champion, and then award card packs in game depending on how well that individual performs. As there will be about a month between the MTG Arena weekend qualifier and the actual championship, there may be something similar in the works over at Wizards of the Coast. Either way the championship is sure to drum up hype and shift the meta in new and interesting ways if a competitor manages to win with some unorthodox deck-building skills.
