Tracking Magic events is one of the surest ways to stay on top of trends. The first requirement is to actually know when they are. Between Pro Tours, Grand Prix, new sets and the banned/restricted announcements, we have a lot of events to track. This article will lay out all of the events, along with helpful tools to track them.

Pro Tours

The Pro Tour is a mix of formats, showcasing both Limited and Constructed. We don't really care financially about the Limited aspect, but Constructed can be very valuable to track. One recent example:  PT Amsterdam last September. The breakout deck in the Extended format at that time was the Doran deck, captained by luminaries like LSV and Brian Kibler. If you followed it, you knew that several cards blew up soon after the deck's success. You could make a profit by knowing that Murmuring Bosk, Treefolk Harbinger and Knight of the Reliquary were hot.

This season promises the following events:

Feb 10: Paris, France. This event has a Standard portion, and we know that Rares and Mythics can really take off after a good showing.  Keep an eye on MTGO results to catch the pulse of the metagame.  I'll be at Pro Tour: Paris as part of the Untapped World Tour.

June 10: Nagoya, Japan. Unfortunately, this event only has Block Constructed to look forward to. Block is a historically-boring format and aside from all-stars like Rishadan Port, few cards see price bumps from Block. This is largely due to the fact that aside from the Tour, few people play Block.  Those playing MTGO might have Block interests, since the format is somewhat popular online.

Sept 2: Philadelphia, USA. This is the real jewel of the PT calendar because it showcases Extended. Even after the format got chopped in half, it is still expensive to play. The Doran deck happened in Extended, and there will surely be another breakout deck from this PT that people underestimate. Above all else, watch this one – read the coverage, but follow Twitter feeds of people at the event too. When it shows up in the coverage, it might be too late to snag the cards from stores or bots on MTGO.  Most importantly, keep an eye on Grand Prix: Atlanta's results this weekend.

Grand Prix

A Grand Prix is  just below the Pro Tour in the hierarchy of events. The downside is that you usually have well over a thousand people, meaning that some decks which show up early in coverage lose steam and miss top 8. Still, there are simply a lot of relevant GP events this year that are worth tracking and profiting from. Here's the schedule:

Jan. 22-23 Atlanta Extended - (I'll be here too, as a warm-up for the Tour.)

March 19-20 Kobe Extended

March 26-27 Barcelona Standard

April 9-10 Dallas Standard

May 28-29 Providence, RI Legacy

June 4-5 Singapore Standard

Aug. 27-28 Pittsburgh Standard

Oct. 15-16 Brisbane Standard

Oct. 29-30 Hiroshima Standard

Nov. 12-13 San Diego Extended

TBD Amsterdam Legacy

As you can see, a great mix of Extended and Standard. There are also two Legacy GPs scheduled this year, though Amsterdam doesn't have a date on the calendar right now. Legacy events are such insane money-makers for anyone who participates. Cards shoot up in value months before events as pundits and players call the decks they think will do well or break out. Dual lands and Force of Wills spike in value, Tarmogoyfs get a temporary price boost and more. If nothing else, track these two events.

Banning Announcements

As you saw recently with Grim Monolith, Time Spiral and Survival of the Fittest, a lot of money rides on the quarterly Legacy banning announcements. Sure, other formats can plausibly be affected, but the one that gets shaken up the most often is Legacy. The announcements happen as close to (and before) the 20^th of the month that they are slated for, usually announced on weekdays. The DCI is sort of cagey about announcing actual dates. On these especially, it pays to stay up till midnight and see if anything changes. The four dates are:

March 20

June 20

September 20

December 20

New Set Releases

The final category of important dates is the release of new sets. This is kind of an amorphous time frame though, as spoilers effectively can make for five weeks of intense tracking. Witness those who profited by snagging Dark Depths as soon as Vampire Hexmage was unveiled to see just how tracking these pays off.  Prereleases and release tournaments are great times to pick up new cards and cash out on the hype for ones that don't pay off. Here are the pre-release dates; you can expect to watch for spoilers about four to five weeks previous to the date with the bulk of the information coming within two weeks.

Mirrodin Beseiged Jan 29

Mirrodin Pure/New Phyrexia May 13

Magic 2012 July 10-11

The next set's release dates are not known at the time of writing.

Tracking it All

I suggest that you input these dates into whatever calendar you use. I use Remember The Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com) to track my calendar, especially since it syncs with Gmail and my iPhone. To say that the program has revolutionized my life is an understatement. It might be worthwhile for you to use, and the intuitive format entry system makes plugging all of these dates into a simple task.  Google Calendar is nice too, and can sync with most of your devices.  This is one of the basic requirements for being a good trader, so make it a priority to get these dates into your head.