Here I thought all we had to talk about was ComicCon, which was more than enough already. Luckily, Sig took care of that on Monday with an excellent article, and the latest bombshell has fallen to me.

And what a bombshell it is. Organized Play has been completely flipped on its head. Let’s try to first summarize the changes (lucky me, Wizards did it for me).

• Each advanced store can run one Preliminary PTQ per season, open to anyone who wishes to compete.
• Stores can choose between running a Standard, Modern, or Sealed Preliminary PTQ during each season, regardless of the format the Pro Tour it leads to is.
• The winner of a Preliminary PTQ will qualify for the season's Regional PTQ.
• The first Preliminary PTQ season will run December 2014–February 2015, and the Regional PTQ will take place a few weeks after the end of the Preliminary PTQ season.
• Anyone qualified for that season's Regional PTQ is ineligible to compete in a Preliminary PTQ for that season.

There are some other changes regarding Grand Prix and Pro Points, but those matter much less to us than the above do.

So I’ll start with what is clearly the most important question on all of your minds: What do we call these new events? I’m partial to “pre-tq” and “PTQ” but I’ve also heard “mini-Q” and “PTQQ,” which seems to be the most popular (because there’s more QQing involved, get it?).

Anyway, I guess we can talk about the rest of it as well, and let’s start at the top.

Every Advanced Store Gets a PTQQ

There’s been a ton of doom and gloom (as always) from players over this, and I think it’s largely overblown. The financial impact is much more of an open question, but I’ll address that as best I can as I go.

Every Advanced store getting a PTQQ brings more Magic to the LGS level, which is where Wizards has always tried to push it. This is a good thing, as it makes the barrier from FNM to PTQ less drastic and gets more Magic being played in-store.

The biggest downside is that for areas in the world with fewer stores, their opportunities to qualify for the regional have decreased. The other major challenge is that it requires a Level 2 Judge to run one of these events, and considering there are zero L2s in Oklahoma this is clearly an issue for us and others in our predicament.

Any Event You Want

While the Regional PTQ will be format-locked to that particular Pro Tour and I think some stores will follow that example, many will just run Standard tournaments since that is the most popular format.

This, of course, means fewer Modern events, and that’s where a lot of the trepidation comes from. It’s a fair point, but I think there are some things that make this a little easier to take than initially predicted.

Modern is an Eternal format. Price changes in the format are more akin to Legacy at this point than Old Extended, which predictably rose and fell every year. With Modern decks being good forever, you don’t see nearly as many people selling their decks at the end of the season, or buying in at the beginning. That’s been made abundantly clear this year, so I think this particular concern doesn’t go very far.

The one that does have merit, though, is simply that there will be fewer Modern events. That is somewhat concerning to me, though I want to point out that while we’re losing some number of Modern PTQs, we’re gaining in-store events that could be Modern. If this system increases the rate of FNM players who transition to PTQQ player, this could work out to a net positive.

All of that said, this does add some unpredictably to Modern. But Magic has always been this way, and it seems like Modern price movements will be more tied to events like Grand Prix and Pro Tours rather than seasons moving forward.

Honestly, this could be an opportunity. Without a PTQ season making it clear which decks are best, we now have more of an opportunity to gain an edge by closely watching MTGO or what is good leading up the Pro Tour or Grand Prix that will bring it to the general public’s attention and create the price movement.

Like I said, I don’t know that this is a net positive for the Modern format in general, but what I do know is that I can see some benefits to it, and as always Magic finance is a niche that rewards adaptability. Things have changed and will be different, but there will always be money to be made.

Regional PTQs

Another point about the PTQQ system, which functions similarly to the Invitational Qualifiers for SCG which have been a success, is that it creates a, frankly, healthier lifestyle for grinders.

I’ve been part of those “leave at midnight, drive eight hours, sleep in the car and then play a PTQ before driving home,” groups, and it’s not a good experience. Instead of people now having to travel every weekend for PTQs sometimes eight hours away, they can now play in the LGS around their state in smaller tournaments to qualify for one bigger one.

Scheduling, of course, is going to be an issue for some people, and there’s really no way around that. But I do know that the best players who before could put up 2-3 PTQ Top 8s a season but maybe not spike one to qualify should be able to qualify locally for the Regional PTQ, where making Top 4 or Top 8 is a much more realistic goal than winning the entire thing. This is a good thing, but it does have some unfortunate repercussions.

Namely, because PTQs will be run in-store, that means that store is much more likely to have the only “booth” at the event. Small dealers who made their money vending at PTQs are basically left out in the cold, as I know some of our forum members have mentioned. There’s no way around this: it sucks. It will likely drive prices up on places like TCGPlayer as fewer cards make it into the hands of the power-sellers there, and that’s also not a great thing for the community.

At the same time, it puts that money into the hands of the LGS. It’s an admirable goal by Wizards, but I wish it didn’t have to come at the expense of financiers. This ironically means that in 2014 dealing locally instead of online is more important than ever.

I wish I had sage advice here to soften the blow, but I don’t. I hope there is a way forward for those of you in this situation, and outside of the obvious stuff like developing a partnership with an LGS or through local social media groups I’m not sure how much there is to do.

One suggestion I do have, if you’re going to try and make it work, is to hit up every store in the area that may have someone walk in about Magic cards, and talk to them about handing out your business cards in exchange for something on your end. This has actually been somewhat successful for me, as lots of places like comic shops that don’t sell Magic nonetheless have people come in with Magic cards to sell, and a lot of the time they don’t mind pointing them in your direction.

My Takeaways

I understand that this article is kind of just a flow-of-thoughts one--it’s where I’m at on these changes that will fundamentally change the system we knew.

• More business for the LGS is good for them and good for Magic in your area, though it’s worse for small online dealers.
• I think online prices will rise a little. If we have a lot of Standard tournaments instead of an entire Sealed PTQ season, that’s fewer copies on the market. Coupled with fewer small online dealers, prices could easily tick up a little in the future.
• Slightly fewer people will qualify for the Pro Tour, but I do believe this makes the system a little more palatable for people who don’t want to grind every single weekend. It also makes it easier to turn FNM players into PTQ players. Grand Prix will also award more Pro Tour spots. This keeps the Pro Tour dream manageable while also allowing Wizards to control the size of the Pro Tour, which they want to feature only the best in the game.
• Change is scary, and for some it’s not always good. But I believe this is a good step for Magic as a whole.

Of course, those are just my opinions. What do you think?

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter