"Sukenik, wanna hang out this weekend? We can test or just talk Magic."
"Nah, I can’t; I gotta play in the MOCS on Magic Online."
"Oh, I’ve heard of that but never played in it or knew enough about it."
After this article, you will not be able to say that last line (but you can say the first line to me as often as you would like). You can go here if you want to learn more about the MOCS before I begin.
To qualify for a MOCS End-of-Season Championship, all you honestly need is about 100-150 tickets, a decent amount of luck and/or time, and an open mind. Before I delve any deeper, let me explain what the MOCS is.
The Magic Online Championship Series (or MOCS for short) is how you qualify for the sixteen-person Magic Online Championship, an in person tournament with a $100,000 prize pool. A person must either be last year’s Magic Online Champion, winner of the MOCS Player-of-the-Year Championship, winner of a MOCS Last Chance Qualifier, or winner of a MOCS End-of-Season Championship in order to participate in the Magic Online Championship.
A MOCS End-of-Season Championship is an invite-only event that occurs about once a month on Magic Online. You can qualify for a MOCS End-of-Season Championship in only one way: by having fifteen or more Qualifier Points (QPs). These are awarded to people who place well in various events on Magic Online.
The first type of tournament that you can get QPS in are Daily Events. In these, you play a four-round event for the low cost of six tickets. In previous articles, I have stated how Daily Events are the most cost-efficient event on Magic Online. Coincidentally, they are also the best in terms of obtaining QPs. If you manage a 3-1 record, you receive one QP. Going undefeated awards with you a whopping three QPs. Sometimes people don’t really care about the QPs, so you can arrange a "split"…but I won’t really talk about that, since it is a little bit under the table.
You can also play in Premier Events. The amount of rounds depends on the number of people in the tournament, but you should expect to be playing seven or eight rounds. If you Top 8, you get three QPs, and then each subsequent win gives you another QP. This means that you can get up to six QPs in one event.
Don’t be fooled, though! In terms of time and maximizing the amount of QPs you should be able to get for a given amount of time, Daily Events are a lot better than Premier Events. To Top 8 a Premier Event, you likely need to go X-1 (so 6-1 or 7-1) or better. However, you could have spent that time playing Daily Events instead. With the same record as in the Premier Event above, this means you would’ve earned a 4-0 and a 3-1 (or something around that), which is a total of four QPs. You only get three QPs for making Top 8 of a Premier Event and, sure, every win gets you another QP, but you could have just as easily been in more Daily Events during that time. If you are simply trying to get a lot of QPs, I recommend playing as many Daily Events as possible until you reach fifteen QPs.
Another reason for playing in Daily Events coincides with why it is easier to go 4-0 in two events instead of 8-0 in one event. Once you get to about 4-0 in a large tournament, the people that you play against are "better" players. You are simply playing against other people with the same high record. However, if you play two four-round tournaments and go 4-0, when you play in the second tournament your first opponent doesn’t have the same perfect record you had in the previous event. Your first opponent may be just a subpar player because you are both 0-0 (in a new tournament). Generally, doing well in multiple small tournaments is a lot easier than going really far in one large tournament.
What other Magic Online events award QPs?
The last type of event (except for Release Sealed events, 64-Drafts, or any other special events like that) that you can get QPs in are eight-man queues. This includes both Limited and Constructed. Only first place gets a QP in these single elimination events. That means you have to 2-0-1 or 3-0 to get a QP. The main problem here is that if you have that record you would have a QP in a Daily Event, but you would also have the opportunity to get two more QPs from winning the last round.
So what’s the strategy here? Just play in as many Daily Events as possible?
Well…pretty much, yeah!
Each MOCS Season is about a month long. During the first two to three weeks, I recommend playing in exclusively Daily Events. While most months I am fortunate enough to have fifteen or more Qualifier Points a week or two in, sometimes I am busy with school or life and don’t have this luxury. That’s when it comes down to crunch time.
There are two main ways to grind up as many points as possible in a short amount of time.
The first one is multi-queuing. This one is very good for people with a fairly decent Internet connection that have the ability to multitask. I suggest only playing in two events unless if you have done this quite a few times. There have been times when I have been greedy and played four events at once. To be fair, I don’t understand why on Saturdays there are Pauper Daily Events at 2:30 AM and 3:30 AM and Standard Daily Events at 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM, but I suppose it really is greedy to try to play in all of those. All joking aside, two events can be manageable, but you have to realize that sometimes you can’t play certain decks if you decide to do this.
For instance, you probably don’t want to duo-queue Delver in Standard with Delver in Pauper. There are multiple decks that can perform very well and are forgiving of minor misplays. For instance, if you play G/R Aggro, it doesn’t take a lot of time to know you should be attacking with your three Strangleroot Geists. Also, Zombies variants are a very good call for simply smashing face and worrying about another match. In Pauper, I tend to lean towards combo decks. The reason for this is that you just have to pass the turn a few times and then spend a minute or two actually trying to combo off and win the game. As a rule of thumb, I recommend going with an aggressive deck or a combo deck if you want to play more than one queue at once.
The second way to grind up as many points as possible quickly is to always be in a tournament when you are online. Sometimes when I sign online, I will notice that there are no Daily Events that I have a deck for until about an hour or two later. Instead of just spending that precious time on Reddit or Facebook, you can just enter an eight-man event. Likely, this small event will finish up just in time for your Daily Event to start. This allows you to always play the deck you want (or only have one deck on Magic Online), and you can take your time doing it.
Alright, so you have fifteen QPs… What now?
As far as I am concerned, there are only two things you can do. You can either spend a lot of time with friends and family, or you can grind more QPs! Why would you possibly want to do the latter?
For every ten QPs past the first fifteen, you receive a bye at the MOCS End-of-Season Championship at the end of the month. You can get up to two byes, so someone who really wants to win the MOCS should always shoot for 35 QPs. Two byes can be really helpful for tiebreakers or sleeping in a little bit on the morning (or night) of the MOCS, since these are typically eleven-round events.
You can also try to qualify for the MOCS Player of the Year Championship. All of the QPs you have acquired, separated by format (Constructed and Limited), are listed on tables with all of your competitors on the Wizards website. The goal? To be in the Top 150 on either table. Someone who qualifies for every MOCS End-of-Season Championship along with getting a bye here or there will surely be invited to the MOCS Player of the Year Championship.
Any last tips?
Of course! I highly recommend using the acquisition of QPs as a "lame" excuse to venture out into other formats. Everyone knows that Standard and Modern are relatively expensive, while Limited has pretty low EV (expected value). What is the cheapest Daily Event format to yield a lot of QPs? It’s none other than Momir Basic! For the low, low cost of ten dollars/tickets for a Momir Avatar, you are able to play an endless amount of Daily Events (well, besides the six-ticket entry fee).
The next cheapest is Pauper, where a good deck is 30-50 tickets maximum. The best part of Pauper is that there is surely a viable deck for everyone. Do you like aggro decks? Goblins, White Weenie, Mono Green Aggro and Infect, and Affinity are all very strong. Love Delver? There is Mono-Blue Delver in Pauper, too! Combo? Sure, there is TEPS and just U/R Storm. Control your thing? I hope you like Cloudpost Control decks. I highly recommend investing in Pauper if you want be a part of the MOCS.
In closing, do your best and have fun playing Magic and Magic Online! You can be a part of the Magic Online Championship Series with just a little bit of time and work. Hopefully the next MOCS End-of-Season Championship won’t max out now…
(P.S. I still don’t understand why there is a cap on the monthly MOCS End-of-Season Championship. Be sure to register the day before to guarantee your spot.)
Thanks for reading,
Jonathan "Watchwolf92" Sukenik