2020 Magic Pro League

The **2020 Magic Pro League season** was the second season for the Magic Pro League.

Starting in August 2020, *Magic: the Gathering*’s Organized Play calendar planned to move away from seasons that follow the calendar year (the 2019 season) back to seasons that are split over multiple calendar years (the 2020–21 season). But the 2019 season ended in December 2019, so to fill the gap between then and the beginning of the 2020–2021 season, the Magic Pro League held a shortened seven-month season.

## History

In 2020 the Rivals League was introduced, and the MPL was reduced to a 24-player league with players able to earn up to $50,000 in appearance fees in addition to prizes earned at tournaments. MPL players are also be invited to Mythic Invitationals and all Tabletop Players Tour events.

For the shortened 2020 season, the 24 players were made up of the Top 20 members of the Magic Pro League at the end of the 2019 season and the Top 4 non-Magic Pro League Mythic Points leaders (Challengers): Raphael Levy, Ondrej Strasky, Chris Kvartek and Gabriel Nassif.

Unlike its 2019 season, the 2020 Magic Pro League didn't have any kind of league play structure. Instead, members of both the Magic Pro and Rivals Leagues would compete for their places in the 2020–21 season by earning Player Points at Players Tours and Mythic Points at Mythic Invitationals, Mythic Qualifier Weekends, and Mythic Point Challenges.

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 were also 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. While some large events later in the year would be held, they would not pay out points for League positions. The current Rivals and MPL players would hold their positions, with some newer players taken from the first series.

As 2020 Partial Season MPL players maintained their league status for next season, those players were no longer be eligible to play in the three remaining Mythic Point awarding events (the April 4 Mythic Point Challenge, May 16 Mythic Qualifier *Core Set 2021*, and June 20 Mythic Qualifier *Core Set 2021*). All MPL players were to be invited to the October 22-25 Mythic Invitational – *Zendikar Rising*, which was the event these outstanding qualifiers would feed. This was later replaced by the Mythic Invitational 2020 (August 28–30, 2020). Other events, including the Players Tour Finals Minneapolis (July 10-12) and Mythic Invitational – *Core 2021* (July 23-26), were cancelled.

## References

1. ↑ David McCoy (August 14, 2019). "The Magic Pro League Will Have a Partial 8-Month Season to Start 2020". Hipsters of the Coast.
2. ↑ Elaine Chase (August 14, 2019). "The Future of *Magic* Esports". Magic Esports.
3. ↑ David McCoy (January 28, 2020). "Wizards Announces the 2020 Magic Rivals League Roster". Hipsters of the Coast.
4. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (March 12, 2020). "Changes to *Magic'*s Competitive Season and Event Schedule.". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
5. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 1, 2020). "Esports Update: MPL, Rivals, and Competitor 2020 Partial Season Changes". Magic.gg.