Improvements to the MTG Arena premier play system and additional Pro Tour Invites for tabletop Regional Championship events were announced on today’s Weekly MTG stream.
William Jensen, Director of Play Programs, and Kyle Knudson, Associate Digital Product Engineer for MTG Arena, joined Blake Rasmussen to go over the changes to both digital and tabletop competitive play.
MTG Arena Premier Play Changes
The previous version of the MTG Arena premier play system was too restrictive according to Knudson. Despite the fact that the Qualifier Weekend points leaderboard offers players a way to reach the Arena Championship with consistent performance in Qualifier Weekends, the data showed that few players were making it to Day 2 in multiple Qualifier Weekends. The new system lightens the restrictions for success on each day of Qualifier Weekends and will make understanding the new system easier.
To start, the number of players for the Arena Championship will expand from 32 to roughly 100 to 120 while upping the prize pool for the Arena Championship from $200K to $250K. The Top 16 finishers in the Arena Championship will earn Pro Tour invites on top of monetary prizes. These adjustments come from the changes to how Qualifier Weekends work.
The current Qualifier Weekends required players to reach seven wins on Day 2 to qualify for the Arena Championship and the Pro Tour. The new system removes the PT invites from Day 2 (which were often fewer than 16 over the year) and lowers the threshold to six wins to make the Arena Championship. And instead of using a leaderboard to track at-large berths for the Arena Championship, players that win four to five matches on Day 2 will automatically qualify for Day 2 of the next Qualifier Weekend. Players that win at least one match on Day 2 will get an invite to the next Qualifier Weekend Day 1.
The only change to Day 1 of Qualifier Weekends is making it easier to reach Day 2. Players still need to reach seven wins on Day 1 to move on to Day 2, but now they will have an additional loss to give on Day 1.
No other changes to MTG Arena premier play will come this cycle with the new system starting with the May Qualifier Weekend, which will feed Arena Championship 7. Qualifier Weekends leading up to May will still qualify for Arena Championship 6 and players will earn PT invites for reaching seven wins on Day 2 of Qualifier Weekends.
Players can earn entry to Qualifier Weekends by earning tokens from reaching max wins in Qualifier Play-In events, finishing in the top 250 of either MTG Arena ranked ladder, or by reaching at least one win on Day 2 of Qualifier Weekends (starting in May). Qualifier Play-In events take place the Friday before each Qualifier Weekend and share the format of the Qualifier Weekend. Best-of-One and Best-of-Three Play-Ins are available.
Arena Opens will continue to be run and feature Limited. As of today, there are no plans for Constructed opens. Arena Opens will continue to offer Qualifier Weekend tokens in addition to cash prizes.
Regional Championship Pro Tour Invites Increase
Starting with the next wave of Regional Championships in May, the number of Pro Tour invites for top finishers is increasing for every RC in all regions. See the updates below:
| Region | Current No. of invites | New No. of invites |
| United States | 32 | 64 |
| Europe, Middle East, and Africa | 24 | 36 |
| Japan/Korea | 12 | 16 |
| Canada | 8 | 12 |
| Mexico/Central America/Caribbean | 2 | 4 |
| Southeast Asia | 4 | 6 |
| Australia/New Zealand | 8 | 10 |
| China | 4 | 8 |
| Chinese Taipei | 2 | 3 |
| Brazil | 4 | 6 |
| South America | 2 | 4 |
With invites now being offered to finishers in places like third, fifth, and sixth, there will be a need to for updated structures to determine who earns these extra invites. For events with a invites extending down to third place, both finalists earn an invite and then either the third-place player after the Swiss or the third and fourth players play a match while the finals happen to determine the last invite. For fifth and sixth-place invites, either use the standings from the Swiss to rank the four players who lose in the quarterfinals or have the four players play matches to determine fifth and sixth place. For all invites after eighth place, use standings following the final round of Swiss.
Jensen noted that Pro Tours can afford to be a bit bigger and the scaling up of invites is in proportion to competitive play numbers in their regions. He also said that the Play Programs team is watching the size of the United States Regional Championship and is having discussions of potentially having two RCs for the US.
More details for MTG Arena premier play can be found in the official article from Wizards of the Coast.