After more than seven years, Team Limited is back in a big way.
Magic Spotlight: Marvel Super Heroes will be the first large-scale, open-entry Team Limited Magic: The Gathering tournament since Andy Vorel, Joel Sadowsky, and Vince Ferraiuolo won Grand Prix Providence in May 2019. Team Limited is such a rare treat it brings out Limited diehards as well as “retired” players who can’t resist cracking some packs and battling with longtime friends.
This weekend’s Spotlight Series event will showcase Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes in all its glory. With the set officially launching on June 26, players will have had prerelease events and just three days of digital practice after the set debuts on MTG Arena and Magic Online tomorrow. Add on top of that the complexity of Team Sealed compared to individual Sealed or Draft and we have the recipe for a fantastic weekend of Limited Magic.
Teams will be competing for their share of a $50,000 prize pool with Pro Tour invites, promo cards, and glory on the line.
- 1st: $15,000.00, Pro Tour invites for each team member
- 2nd: $7,500.00, Pro Tour invites for each team member
- 3rd-4th: $3,750.00, Pro Tour invites for each team member
- 5th-8th: $3,000.00
- 9th-12th: $2,250.00
- 13th-16th: $1,350.00
- 17th-20th: $900.00
- All players receive a Elektra, Daughter of the Hand promo card
- Members of the the Top 48 teams receive a Foil Elektra, Daughter of the Hand promo card
So What is Team Limited?
Many players have participated in Sealed events, whether prerelease or RCQs or LCQs, but Team Sealed is a bit different. For an individual Sealed deck tournament, a player opens six packs and constructs a minimum 40-card deck and can use any cards in their pool for sideboarded games. In Team Sealed, three players open 12 packs and build three minimum 40-card decks and players must divide up the remaining cards and assign them to specific decks for sideboarding purposes. These constraints put teams under pressure to construct three cohesive decks using a larger portion of their pool compared to individual events.
On top of that, teams only have 75 minutes to go through all the permutations of decks their pool allows them to discover. Recent sets like Secrets of Strixhaven or Magic: The Gathering | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have focused on five color combinations in Limited (the schools in SOS and the enemy-colored pairs in TMNT), but Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes returns to a traditional Limited setting where all 10 color pairs are viable and have signpost uncommons and rares to build around. Seeing how teams split up the colors among the three players, which color gets divided between two players, or if a color gets ignored altogether will be exciting to watch.
Teams that earn 18 or more match points through eight rounds of Swiss on Day 1 advance to Day 2, where they will be tested with yet another pool and build. The four teams at the top of the standings after six more rounds of Swiss advance to the Top 4 and the coveted position to get to Team Draft.
For the semifinals, the teams that will face each other are sat at the same table with each player placed between two players from their rival team. Then they draft like normal as they attempt to read signals and cobble together the strongest decks possible while keeping track of what cards they pass as their teammates could likely face them later. Once the players assemble their decks, the teams square off and the sides with two match wins advance to the finals. The two remaining teams then draft again, build, and battle it out for the title of Team Limited champs.
Coverage
Star City Games will be streaming all 16 rounds on our YouTube channel with coverage starting at 2 PM ET/11 AM PT on Saturday and Sunday. Similar to our coverage of Spotlight Dragons, where we featured Luis Scott-Vargas and Reid Duke on Day 1, we will be watching one team to start and following its players as long as they are in contention for the Top 4.
This weekend we will be watching from the perspective of the most recent World Champion and Hall of Famer, Seth Manfield, and his teammates: Frank Skarren and Pete Ingram. The team boasts five Limited Grand Prix trophies and is anchored by Manfield, a two-time World champion, two-time Pro Tour champion, and five-time GP champion. Manfield is flanked by two longtime friends who are relishing the opportunity to get play together as a trio. Skarren, a two-time Limited GP winner, and Ingram, a Team Limited champ, have played team events with their friends before but finally get to compete as a trio after a lifetime of playing Magic.
“Team Limited is a big part of Magic’s history,” Manfield said. “There aren’t that many opportunities to play it, and so having a chance to play competitive Limited alongside friends is a major draw for this tournament.”
Unlike Constructed tournaments, Limited coverage can’t fall back on featuring different deck archetypes every round or finding rouge decks having surprising runs. Instead of typical Deck Tech interviews, our focus will be on how our featured team builds its pool and how the players pilot those decks. I will be spectating the team as they build their pool, then will interview the players to get their thought process on how they viewed the pool, which archetypes they found interesting, how they decided on the final decks, and who was picked to play each deck. Our broadcast will start with our commentators taking viewers into the minds of the players by going over the pool, pinpointing the key cards, and discussing which archetypes could be supported. Then they will see how the final decks were constructed.
Will the pool be strong and have a clear path for each deck or will the players have to scrap together three decks? How will the first Team Limited tournament in the Play Booster era play out in terms of deck power level? Which deck-building decisions will have the biggest impact in the matches? We will watch it all unfold.
The team of Manfield, Skarren, and Ingram formed their squad right after the format of Spotlight Marvel Super Heroes was announced with Ingram leading the charge. The group of friends have wanted to team together for years, but this opportunity worked out for all three, especially with the chance to play Limited.
“We’re extremely excited to play this event. Competitive Team Limited is one of the best formats I’ve played in any game,” Skarren said. “You get to play with your closest friends, and there’s a ton of agency and skill expression which lets the strong teams shine.”
And when these guys say they have made memories together playing Magic, it spans decades, from playing games on the floor to tournament halls, to even attending major life milestones.
“From GPs, to Pro Tours, Frank’s old basement, Seth’s Hall of Fame ceremony and Wedding,” Ingram said, “We’re all really great friends outside of Magic.”
Skarren echoed that sentiment.
“I have so many fond memories of traveling to events with both of these guys,” Skarren said. “It kind of all blends together at this point, but I still remember the feeling of just having a great time, getting to escape from my real life problems, and play the game I love with the people I love.”
The squad will be preparing in a number of ways from jamming games on MTG Arena when the set launches digitally tomorrow, to devouring the card file, and running practice 3v3s with local friends before traveling to the main event. We’ll all get to see what they have learned this weekend as they face off against hundreds of other teams competing to take home a trio of Infinity Gauntlet trophies, Pro Tour invites, and thousands in cash prizes.
