2012 Pro Tour Season

The 2012 Pro Tour season was the seventeenth Pro Tour season. It was a transitional season, as changes were made to the Pro Tour system (including the new World Magic Cup and Players Championship tournaments), and it was retroactively made to overlap with the latter half of the 2011 season. As such, events in 2011, starting with GP Kansas City in June, counted towards the 2012 season's races and end-of-year levels and benefits. However, the 2012 season itself started on 7 January 2012 with Grand Prix Austin, and ended on 13 May 2012 with the conclusion of Pro Tour Avacyn Restored.
==2012 season changes==
The season introduced a number of changes that were announced during the tail end of 2011. These include the abandonment of the DCI ratings system in favor of Planeswalker Points; byes at Grand Prix events would now be awarded to players earning a sufficient number of Planeswalker points, rather than to players with a high DCI rating. For Pro Tour Dark Ascension, players could get invited by earning enough Planeswalker points, but this method of qualification was removed after that event. Pro Tours were now scheduled to be held shortly after each new Expert-level set release, with the event taking the name after that expansion rather than the host city, as had been customary in past seasons. The number of Grand Prix events was greatly increased, though the number of Pro Tour invitations awarded for each of these was substantially decreased; in past seasons, the top 16 players had qualified for an upcoming Pro Tour; in 2012, only 2-4 players per event qualified. The Pro Players Club also received an overhaul, with the new Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels replacing the old Level system.
Lastly, the World Championships and the Player of the Year race were replaced by two events: The World Magic Cup and the Magic Players Championship, with the winner of the Players Championship being considered the Player of the Year. This was somewhat altered in later seasons, however; the Player of the Year race returned, and the Players Championship was renamed into the World Championship, with the winner of the event being considered the World Champion. As such, the winner of the 2012 Magic Players Championship, Yuuya Watanabe, is considered the 2012 World Champion.
==Grand Prix (January 2012)==
GP Austin 	GP Orlando
 Date: 7–8 January 2012	 Date: 14–15 January 2012
 Format: Limited 	 Format: Standard
 Attendance: 1044 	 Attendance: 926
 1. Raphaël Lévy 	 1. Conley Woods
 2. Patrick Cox 	 2. Patrick Chapin
 3. Craig Edwards 	 3. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa
 4. Eric Downing 	 4. Stephen Mann
 5. Jason Howden 	 5. Gabriel Nieves
 6. David Ochoa 	 6. Ben Friedman
 7. Austin Bursavich 	 7. Javier Adorno
 8. David Saylor 	 8. David Ochoa
==Pro Tour Dark Ascension==
10–12 February 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States.
Place	Player 	Prize 	Pro Points	Comment
1 	Brian Kibler 	$40,000	30 	Fifth Pro Tour Top 8, second Pro Tour win
2 	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	$20,000	24 	Ninth Pro Tour Top 8
3 	Jon Finkel 	$12,500	22 	Thirteenth Pro Tour Top 8
4 	Mamoru Nagai 	$12,500	22 	
5 	Denniz Rachid 	$10,000	20 	
6 	Matt Costa 	$10,000	20 	
7 	Lukas Blohon 	$10,000	20 	
8 	Jelger Wiegersma 	$10,000	20 	Fourth Pro Tour Top 8
==Grand Prix (February–April 2012)==
GP Kobe 	GP Lincoln 	GP Madrid 	GP Baltimore
 Date: 18–19 February 2012	 Date: 18–19 February 2012	 Date: 25–26 February 2012 	 Date: 25–26 February 2012
 Format: Limited 	 Format: Modern 	 Format: Limited 	 Format: Standard
 Attendance: 1117 	 Attendance: 716 	 Attendance: 1314 	 Attendance: 1545
 1. Masahiro Hiraga 	 1. Bronson Magnan 	 1. Ivo Grossholz 	 1. Matt Costa
 2. Ken Yukuhiro 	 2. Andrew Cuneo 	 2. David Garcia Copete 	 2. Dave Shiels
 3. Kouji Takeishi 	 3. Luis Scott-Vargas 	 3. Guido Sondag 	 3. Jackie Lee
 4. Hiroaki Kitahara 	 4. Samuel Friedman 	 4. Fabio Rodrigues 	 4. Matt Scott
 5. Katsuhiro Mori 	 5. Mary Jacobson 	 5. Christian von Kalkstein	 5. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa
 6. Hiroshi Ishida 	 6. Samuel Karls 	 6. Florian Koch 	 6. Max Tietze
 7. Yuuya Watanabe 	 7. Matt Mercier 	 7. Marco Frantuma 	 7. Eric Meng
 8. Takayuki Nagaoka 	 8. Derrick Rutledge 	 8. Martin Jůza 	 8. Adam Snook
GP Lille 	GP Seattle-Tacoma 	GP Indianapolis 	GP Nashville
 Date: 3–4 March 2012 	 Date: 3–4 March 2012	 Date: 10–11 March 2012	 Date: 17–18 March 2012
 Format: Standard 	 Format: Limited 	 Format: Legacy 	 Format: Limited
 Attendance: 1505 	 Attendance: 1160 	 Attendance: 1214 	 Attendance: 1037
 1. Richard Parker 	 1. Robert Smith 	 1. Tom Martell 	 1. Reid Duke
 2. Simon Diaz 	 2. Iain Bartolomei 	 2. Kenny Castor 	 2. Todd Anderson
 3. Kristof Benaets 	 3. Jason Huang 	 3. Dan Jordan 	 3. Kyle Babin
 4. Tom Valkeneers 	 4. James Nguyen 	 4. Colin Chilbert 	 4. Josh Utter-Leyton
 5. Manuel Mayer 	 5. Andrejs Prost 	 5. Ando Ferguson 	 5. Caleb Durward
 6. Jonas Köstler 	 6. Paul Rietzl 	 6. Caleb Durward 	 6. Robbie Cordell
 7. Grzegorz Kowalski	 7. Henry Romero 	 7. Pascal Maynard 	 7. Lissa Jensen
 8. Martin Zimmermann	 8. Owen Turtenwald 	 8. Adam Yurchick 	 8. Shuhei Nakamura
GP Kuala Lumpur 	GP Mexico City 	GP Melbourne
 Date: 24–25 March 2012 	 Date: 24–25 March 2012 	 Date: 31 March–1 April 2012
 Format: Standard 	 Format: Limited 	 Format: Limited
 Attendance: 612 	 Attendance: 685 	 Attendance: 558
 1. Yuuya Watanabe 	 1. Paul Rietzl 	 1. David Crewe
 2. Xin Sui 	 2. Humberto Patarca 	 2. Geoff Zhao
 3. Sutti Lee 	 3. Craig Wescoe 	 3. Oliver Oks
 4. Chao Lu 	 4. Daniel Hernandez 	 4. Simon Harnden
 5. Sukhum Kiwanont 	 5. Pascal Maynard 	 5. Thomas Rafferty
 6. Tzu Ching Kuo 	 6. Mario Flores 	 6. Daniel Unwin
 7. Kingston Tong King Yim	 7. Gottlieb Yeh 	 7. Jeremy Neeman
 8. Jason Yap 	 8. Gustavo Nuñez Moreno	 8. Hao Wu
GP Turin 	GP Salt Lake City 	GP Manchester
 Date: March–1 April 2012	 Date: March–1 April 2012	 Date: 21–22 April 2012
 Format: Modern 	 Format: Standard 	 Format: Limited
 Attendance: 1063 	 Attendance: 1137 	 Attendance: 1028
 1. Antonino De Rosa 	 1. Shahar Shenhar 	 1. Alexandre Darras
 2. Michael Thiel 	 2. Michael Peterson 	 2. Mario Pascoli
 3. Jose Velazquez 	 3. Tom Martell 	 3. Joel Larsson
 4. Alessandro Lippi 	 4. James Cooper 	 4. Lasse Nørgaard
 5. Marco Cammilluzzi 	 5. Michael Hetrick 	 5. André Müller
 6. Yann Blumer 	 6. Bryan Olvera 	 6. Marijn Lybaert
 7. Alessandro Portaro 	 7. David Gleicher 	 7. Ciro Bonaventura
 8. David Progin 	 8. Marcel Angelo Zafra 	 8. Adam Katz
==Pro Tour Avacyn Restored==
11–13 May 2012 in Barcelona, Spain.
Place	Player 	Prize 	Pro Points	Comment
1 	Alexander Hayne 	$40,000	30 	
2 	Gaudenis Vidugiris	$20,000	24 	Second Pro Tour Top 8
3 	Josh Cho 	$12,500	22 	Pro Tour debut
4 	Ken Yukuhiro 	$12,500	22 	
5 	Jon Finkel 	$10,000	20 	Fourteenth Pro Tour Top 8
6 	Denniz Rachid 	$10,000	20 	Second Pro Tour Top 8
7 	Thomas Holzinger 	$10,000	20 	
8 	Naoki Shimizu 	$10,000	20 	Second Pro Tour Top 8
==Notes==
: Yuuya Watanabe is considered the 2012 Player of the Year, as he won the inaugural Players Championship event, later renamed the World Championship. However, Yuuya would have been the 2012 Player of the Year even under the traditional Player of the Year system.
==References==
Category:2012