2020 Players Tour Season

The partial **2020 Players Tour season** is the twenty-fifth Players Tour season (a.k.a. the Pro Tour).

## Description

The Season started on January 10, 2020, with MagicFest Montréal, Canada and was originally set to end on July 24–26, 2020 with MagicFest San José, USA. Like the previous one, it was a transitional season. While the system originally was designed to arrange itself into the calendar year, this plan was reversed going forward, which had resulted in a 17-month season for 2018-2019 alongside a partial 7-month season in 2020. This partial season doesn't feature a World Championship. The next World Championship will take place at the culmination of the 2020–2021 season.

Starting this season, the short-lived Mythic Championships were split into the tabletop Players Tour continental series and the digital Mythic Invitationals, and the Players Tour Finals and Rivals League were introduced.

The COVID-19 outbreak in January resulted in preventative measures taken in March. A large swath of the Grand Prix event schedule was canceled, and the Players Tour Finals Houston and the May Invitational also were canceled. By April, it was clear that further events were not safely feasible to hold, and Wizards wrote off the entire season as not salvageable. It was announced that some large events later in the year would be prospectively held, but that those events would not pay out points for League positions. Current Rivals and MPL players would hold their positions, with some newer players taken from the first series.

Any events, including the scheduled Players Tour Finals and Mythic Invitational wouldn't be played for Player Points or Mythic Points, and therefore 'wouldn't impact MPL or Rivals invitations for next season.

By May, the future of in-person gatherings was uncertain and likely to remain that way for some time. A new plan was needed, one that worked within current constraints to close out a completely disrupted season while providing hundreds of competitors with existing qualifications an opportunity to compete. Wizards of the Coast therefore shifted the 2020 Partial Season competitions from in-person destinations to online events, played remotely through MTG Arena. At the same time, the end of the partial season was moved up to the fall of 2020. Later that month, all remaining Grand Prix were cancelled. Tabletop Grand Prix did not return.

## World Championship XXVI

The 2019 World Championship, promoted as **World Championship XXVI**, was held on February 14-16 2020 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

## Grand Prix

### Feeding in the Players Tour Finals (Series 2)

**Date:** 11–12 January 2020
**Format:** Modern
 1.  Christopher Candevra
2.  Marcus Luong
3.  Oliver Tomajko
4.  Ian Birrell
5.  Evan Teachworth
6.  Tad Macaraeg
7.  Brendan Cohen
8.  Andrew Wolbers

**Date:** 25–26 January 2020
**Format:** Limited
 1.  Isaak Krut
2.  Christian Trudel
3.  Collin Rountree
4.  Terrence Campo
5.  Alexander Rosdahl
6.  Andrew Elenbogen
7.  Chas Hinkle
8.  Jordan Berkowitz

**Date:** 31 January - 2 February 2020
**Format:** Pioneer
 1.  Carlos Moral
2.  Claes de Graaff
3.  Kiriakos Avgoustis
4.  Olli Saarinen
5.  Fabian Gorzgen
6.  Lev Ducenko
7.  Miguel Castro
8.  Alexander Mertins

**Date:** 1–2 February 2020
**Format:** Pioneer
 1.  Takuya Ishizuki
2.  Yoshiro Mikami
3.  Taiki Yamashita
4.  Taiki Hattori
5.  Yuta Inukai
6.  Shinichi Ito
7.  Hirotaki Kawasaki
8.  Shinsuke Hayashi

**Date:** 7-9 February 2020
**Format:** Pioneer
 1.  Benjamin Weitz
2.  Andrew Lopez
3.  Kyle Henriksen
4.  Isaac Sears
5.  Joseph Artz
6.  Max Milechman
7.  Stephen Peters
8.  Jonathan Rosum

**Date:** 28 February-1 March 2020
**Format:** Limited
 1.  Nathaniel Knox
2.  Bradley Yoo
3.  Young I Son
4.  Jimmy Gorham
5.  Eric Severson
6.  Patric Selbey
7.  Andrew Goodwin
8.  Justin Porchas

**Date:** 7-8 March 2020
**Format:** Standard
 1.  Biaggo Ruocco
2.  Quentin Leroy
3.  Alexandre Murgay
4.  Matthew Garnham
5.  Adriano Moscato
6.  Quentin Garchery
7.  Davide Tedeschi
8.  Leo Carbonell

* March 13–15, 2020: MagicFest Detroit, USA (Standard) (canceled)
* March 20–22, 2020: MagicFest São Paulo, Brazil (Modern) (canceled)
* March 27–29, 2020: MagicFest Louisville, USA (Pioneer) (canceled)

### Feeding in the Players Tour Finals (Series 3)

* April 3–5, 2020: MagicFest Turin, Italy (Modern) (canceled)
* April 10–12, 2020: MagicFest Palm Beach, USA (Modern) (canceled)
* April 24–26, 2020: MagicFest Houston, USA (Limited) (canceled)
* April 30-May 3, 2020: MagicFest Copenhagen, Denmark (Limited) (canceled)
* May 7-10, 2020: MagicFest Charlotte, USA (Standard) (canceled)
* May 8-10, 2020: MagicFest Kitakyushu, Japan (Standard) (canceled)
* May 22–24, 2020: MagicFest Toronto, Canada (Modern) (canceled)
* May 29–31, 2020: MagicFest Prague, Czech Republic (Standard) (canceled)
* June 5–7, 2020: MagicFest Seattle, USA (Team Limited) (canceled)
* June 12–14, 2020: MagicFest Bilbao, Spain (Modern). Moved to Valencia (canceled)
* June 19–21, 2020: MagicFest Providence, USA (Pioneer) (canceled)
* July 10–12, 2020: MagicFest Minneapolis, USA (Limited) (canceled)
* July 17–19, 2020: MagicFest Liverpool, UK (Limited) (canceled)
* July 24–26, 2020: MagicFest San Jose, USA (Standard) (canceled)

## Players Tours

### Series 1

* January 31-February 2, 2020: Players Tour Europe - Brussels, Belgium

* February 1–2, 2020: Players Tour Asia-Pacific - Nagoya, Japan

* February 7–9, 2020: Players Tour Americas - Phoenix, USA

* April 24–26, 2020: Players Tour Finals (Series 1) - Houston, USA (canceled)

### Series 2

* May 1–3, 2020: Players Tour Europe - Copenhagen, Denmark
	+ Rescheduled: May 29–31 - Prague, Czech Republic (canceled)
* May 8-10, 2020: Players Tour Americas - Charlotte, USA
	+ Rescheduled: June 5–7, Seattle, USA (cancelled)
* May 9-10, 2020: Players Tour Asia-Pacific - Kitakyushu, Japan (canceled)
* July 10–12, 2020: Players Tour Finals (Series 2) - Minneapolis, USA (canceled)

#### Series 2 (rescheduled on MTG Arena)

There were four tournaments. Qualified players could play in only one of their choosing:

* June 13–14, 2020: Players Tour 1

* June 13–14, 2020: Players Tour 2

* June 19–20, 2020: Players Tour 3

* June 20–21, 2020: Players Tour 4

The finals were divided over two weekends:

* July 25–26, 2020: Players Tour Finals (Series 2)
* August 1, 2020: Players Tour Finals, Top 8 Playoffs (Series 2)

## Mythic Invitationals

* May 14–17, 2020: Mythic Invitational – Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (canceled)
* July 23–26, 2020: Mythic Invitational – Core 2021 (canceled)

### Mythic Invitationals rescheduled

August 28–30, 2020: Mythic Invitational 2020.

## Grand Finals

With the rescheduling, an entirely new event, the 2020 Season Grand Finals, was added. This took place on October 9-11, 2020, with the Top 16 from both the Players Tour Finals and Mythic Invitational qualifying for this exclusive $250,000 prize pool event.

### Invitees

* Top 16 competitors from the Players Tour Series 2 Finals

* Allen Wu
* Kristof Prinz
* Riku Kumagai
* Raphael Levy (MPL)
* Michael Jacob
* Patrick Fernandes
* Christoffer Larsen
* Ben Weitz
* Autumn Burchett (MPL)
* Austin Bursavich
* Ivan Floch
* Piotr Głogowski (MPL)
* Seth Manfield (MPL)
* Eetu Perttula
* Sam Sherman
* Alvaro Fernandez Torres

- Top 17 competitors from the Mythic Invitational 2020

* Luis Salvatto (RL)
* Grzegorz Kowalski (RL)
* David Steinberg
* Gabriel Nassif (MPL)
* Matt Nass (RL)
* Ken Yukuhiro (MPL)
* Luis Scott-Vargas (RL)
* Seth Manfield (MPL)
* Emma Handy (RL)
* Toni Ramis Pascual
* Christopher Leonard
* Luca Magni (RL)
* Chris Palmiotti
* Brad Nelson (MPL)
* Montserrat Ayensa
* Aaron Gertler
* Jun'ya Iyanaga

Jun'ya Iyanaga received his invitation as a pass down from Seth Manfield, who was already qualified through the Players Tour Series 2 Finals.

### Structure

The 2020 Season Grand Finals used both Standard and Historic Constructed formats on MTG Arena.

* Day One: 6 Swiss rounds
	+ Rounds 1-3: Historic Constructed
	+ Rounds 4-6: Standard Constructed

All players returned for Day Two. Records and tiebreakers earned on Day One carried over to Day Two.

* Day Two: 6 Swiss rounds
	+ Round 7-9: Standard Constructed
	+ Rounds 10-12: Historic Constructed

Players for Top 8 are determined and seeded by earning 8 match wins or standings at the end of Round 12.

### Prizes

* $250,000 prize pool (first place: $25,000)

### Play

#### Day 1

Prior to the tournament, a short panel was held with R&D member Andrew Brown and MPL members and weekend commentators Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Reid Duke, going over the statistics of the metagames.

Consensus entering the tournament was that Omnath Adventures – which combined Omnath, Locus of Creation with the power of Lucky Clover and Adventure spells like Bonecrusher Giant or Fae of Wishes – was the best deck against the field, while the Lotus Cobra-powered Omnath Ramp deck had the edge in the head-to-head matchup. The result was what many expected: 19 decks of the 32 played Omnath Adventures and another four played Omnath Ramp. Four players took Rakdos Midrange in to the field and suffered abysmal results. Seth Manfield was the odd man out with Dimir Rogue - with Soaring Thought-Thief and Thieves' Guild Enforcer - while Autumn Burchett successfully chose Gruul Adventures.

In the Historic portion, the metagame shifted far from the Goblins-centric meta during the Invitational into one where Omnath made up a third of the field. Whether from expected hate (that Reid Duke suggested) or the inevitable end of an unreliable deck (that Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa posited), only one player registered it. This change in metagame meant that the second most popular deck - Jund Sacrifice - was without prey. With Sultai picking up Yasharn, Implacable Earth as a powerful hate card, both commentators found that the deck was overrepresented for the metagame - despite this, Seth Manfield made an early sweep. A newcomer deck powered by Sea Gate Stormcaller was the Neoform combo deck, one that can win with .

On the day of competition, Autumn lead the pack undefeated, while Seth's only loss was to Autumn in round five. Austin Bursavich made for the only other 5-1 player, whose only loss was also to Autumn, but in the Historic portion. He wielded Omnath in both formats, Adventures in Standard and Ramp in Historic.

#### Day 2

Austin Bursavich quickly took over the lead from Autumn at 8-1 and qualified. The way the tournament was set up, players at 8 wins are removed from the Swiss as having qualified. Manfield (over Burchett) and Burchett (over Patrick Fernandes) followed at rounds 10 and 11, leaving five players to fight in round 12. At the low end of the 7-4s, Emma Handy defeated Ken Yukuhiro and Aaron Gertler defeated Kristof Prinz. The pairings of Fernandes/Wu and Nassif/Levy drew; while Wu had higher breakers than Levy, the field broke down in that Wu had both Yukuhiro and Prinz twice in his record, and both of them losing shifted his breakers down 1.4%. Wu ended up on 9th.

#### Top 8 play-offs

The Top 8 players faced one more day to earn the Grand Finals trophy. In the final match, Austin Bursavich bested Aaron Gertler to become Grand Finals Champion.

## References

1. ↑ Elaine Chase (August 14, 2019). "The Future of *Magic* Esports". Magic Esports.
2. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (March 12, 2020). "Changes to *Magic'*s Competitive Season and Event Schedule.". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
3. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 1, 2020). "Esports Update: MPL, Rivals, and Competitor 2020 Partial Season Changes". Magic.gg.
4. ↑ ***a*** ***b*** ***c*** ***d*** ***e*** Wizards of the Coast (May 20, 2020). "What's Next For the Magic Esports 2020 Partial Season". Magic.gg.
5. ↑ Elaine Chase (May 29, 2020). "2020 MagicFest And The Future of Tabletop Magic Esports". Magic.gg.
6. ↑ Corbin Hosler (October 9, 2020). "2020 Season Grand Finals Day One Highlights". Magic.gg.
7. ↑ Corbin Hosler (October 10, 2020). "2020 Season Grand Finals Day Two Highlights". Magic.gg.
8. ↑ Corbin Hosler (October 11, 2020). "2020 Season Grand Finals Top 8 Highlights". Magic.gg.
9. ↑ Corbin Hosler (October 11, 2020). "2020 Season Grand Finals Championship Match". Magic.gg.