Wizards of the Coast (WotC) announced today a new Magic: The Gathering tournament series spanning eight cities around the world in 2025 — each culminating with a $50K main event.
William Jensen, Director of Play Programs, joined Blake Rasmussen on today’s Weekly MTG stream to unveil the Magic Spotlight Series. The Magic Spotlight Series will bring multiple-day tabletop events with specific themes to cities across the globe in a new way for players to gather and also compete in open tournaments for big prize money, Pro Tour invites, and exclusive promo cards.
The eight Magic Series Spotlight events in 2025 will take place over three continents:
- Five in the United States, hosted by Star City Games
- Two in Europe, hosted by Fanfinity
- One in Japan, hosted by BIG MAGIC
While the marquee main events at each Magic Spotlight Series will be the open entry $50K, the weekends will be packed with feature side events, special guests, vendors, and more. The main events at all eight stops will be livestreamed, with more details to come from each tournament organizer.
Magic Spotlight Main Events
The Magic Spotlight main event will be a two-day open-entry tournament with Day 1 starting on Saturday. Players that earn 18 match points over nine rounds of Swiss advance to Day 2 on Sunday, which includes six more rounds of Swiss and a cut to a single-elimination Top 8 bracket. The Top 8 players earn Pro Tour invites in addition to prize money and promo cards, while the winner walks away a Magic Spotlight Champion and with an additional special prize.
All players that enter a Magic Spotlight Series main event will collect a non-foil promo card selected for each theme. Players that finish in the Top 128 of the main event earn a traditional foil version of the promo card.
Upcoming Magic Spotlight Series Themes And Dates
The full schedule for 2025 isn’t available yet, but the first two dates, locations, and themes are.
Magic Spotlight: Foundations: January 3–5, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia
The first Magic Spotlight Series event will kick off the year and be part of SCG CON Atlanta. The weekend will celebrate Foundations and its impact on Standard. The main event will feature Standard Constructed and take place on January 4-5. The special promo card for the main event will be a borderless alternate art Terror of the Peaks featuring artwork from Richard Kane Ferguson. This will be the last chance for players to earn invites to the first Pro Tour of 2025.
The special first-place prize for Foundations weekend is Standard for a year! The winner will receive a Play Booster Display Case (six Play Booster Display Boxes) of every Standard-legal Magic release in 2025. Cash prizes will pay down to 64th place in the Standard main event.
Magic Spotlight: Modern: March 15–16, 2025, in Utrecht, Netherlands
The second Magic Spotlight Series event will be in Utrecht, hosted by Fanfinity and showcase the Modern format. The promo card for the Modern main event will be non-foil borderless Kaldra Compleat with art by Monztre. The special winner prize hasn’t been announced yet. This event will offer Pro Tour invites to the second Pro Tour of 2025.
Read the full announcement from WotC. More details on SCG CON Atlanta and the first Magic Spotlight Series event can be found here. Registration and additional info will be coming soon.
