Two Million Dollars Added to Pro Tour Sideboard Staff Wizards of the Coast is pleased to announce the addition of $2,000,000 to the Pro Tour and Grand Prix prize pool, as well as enhancements in several other tournament programs. Junior Super Series The Junior Super Series has enjoyed great success in North America over the last tournament season. Approximately one hundred and fifty $1000 scholarship Junior Super Series Challenges were run in the 1999/2000 tournament season. A $50,000 scholarship Junior Super Series Championship tournament will be held at Disney's Wide World of Sports in June 2000. As a method of continuing to increase support for junior programs, the following improvements will be implemented: 300 Junior Super Series Challenges will be available in the 2000/2001 tournament season, each with $1000 scholarship prize, premium card prizes and "Magic for a Year". Friday Night Magic Premier Stores in North America began running Friday Night Magic tournaments in February 2000. The response to the program has been very positive, with many new organizers running DCI sanctioned tournaments. In order to build upon the success of the program, the following expansion will occur: Friday Night Magic will continue to run in Premier Stores in North America and progressively expand to other continents and countries throughout the world. This expansion should begin in June 2000. Additional common and uncommon premium prize cards will continue to be produced for Friday Night Magic players. Pro Tour The Pro Tour program continues to grow in popularity around the world. Media coverage of the Pro Tour from sources such as ESPN will continue to expand over the next year. In order to continue the elevation of the Pro Tour circuit and to support the ability of players to earn significant income from the Pro Tour, Wizards of the Coast will implement the following: Effective September 1, 2000, each Pro Tour will now offer a total prize purse of $200,000 and the World Championships prize purse will be increased to $300,000. This change will take effect September 1, 2000. An additional Pro Tour will be added to the tournament season, bringing the total to six Pro Tours plus the World Championships. The format for this additional Pro Tour will be Standard. A two-month Qualifier season will be added using in the Standard format. Pro Tour formats will now include: Standard, Block Constructed, Extended, Rochester Draft, Booster Draft and three-person team Rochester Draft. This change will take effect with the 2000/2001 tournament season, which begins September 1, 2000. The first Standard-format Pro Tour will be Pro Tour Chicago 2000. Each season, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region will each host one Pro Tour or World Championship. This change will take effect with the 2000/2001 tournament season with Pro Tours held in Tokyo, Japan and Barcelona, Spain. The following is the tentative Pro Tour schedule for the next two seasons: Month (target) Pro Tour Location Pro Tour Format September 2000 New York Team Limited November 2000 Chicago Standard January 2001 Los Angeles Rochester Draft March 2001 Tokyo Block Constructed May 2001 Barcelona Booster Draft July 2001 To be determined Extended August 2001 Toronto (Worlds) Rochester/Extended/Standard September 2001 New York Team Limited November 2001 Chicago Standard January 2002 Los Angeles Rochester Draft March 2002 Paris Block Constructed May 2002 Washington D.C. Booster Draft July 2002 To be determined Extended August 2002 Asia (Worlds) Booster/Block/Standard The following is a summary of the yearly Pro Tour Qualifier schedule: Qualifier Months Qualifier Format Feeds Event January and February Sealed/Booster Draft 5th PT of season: variable (Booster) March and April Standard 6th PT of season: variable (Extended) May and June Team Limited 1st PT of season: New York (Team) July and August Block Constructed 2nd PT of season: Chicago (Standard) September and October Sealed/Rochester Draft 3rd PT of season: Los Angeles (Rochester) November and December Extended 4th PT of season: variable (Block) Grand Prix Grand Prix events around the world have enjoyed tremendous growth in popularity in recent years. Grand Prix events provide players all over the world with the experience of a high-caliber tournament with considerable cash prize awards. Grand Prix events represent an important part of the sanctioned tournament structure for all levels of tournament players. In support of the Grand Prix program, the following program changes will be implemented: All Grand Prix tournaments worldwide will now offer a total prize purse of $25,000 each. Prize money distribution will extend to players finishing in the top thirty-two of the Grand Prix. A portion of the prize purse will also be awarded to the top finishing players with a DCI rating flag of 1700 or below. This change will take effect September 1, 2000. The number of Grand Prix events held worldwide will be increased dramatically. Over forty Grand Prix will be held each year, with approximately 12 Grand Prix in North America, 15 Grand Prix in Europe, additional Grand Prix in Japan and regular events in such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan. Grand Prix are also planned for new areas such as China, Poland and Russia. This will take effect January 1st, 2001 as scheduling permits. Masters Series The Pro Tour circuit provides significant cash prizes for competitors, especially for those who finish consistently well in high-level tournaments. In order to further advance the viability of professional Magic players and to support televised high-level Magic competition, Wizards of the Coast has created the "Masters" tournament series. The Team Challenge held at Pro Tour New York was a small-scale test of this tournament series. The exact details are still being determined, but the following details have been decided: The "Masters" tournament series is composed of four tournaments each season. Each Masters tournament will be held in conjunction with a Pro Tour. The Masters tournament swill start on Thursday evening before the Pro Tour, with a Masters Qualifier tournament starting Thursday morning. The finals of each event will be filmed on Sunday for ESPN2. The following thirty-two players will receive an invitation to individual-format Masters tournaments: The winner of the previous year's Masters event (if there isn't one, then one more player is invited via Pro Points.) The top twenty-four previously uninvited players in the professional standing used to determine invitations to the Pro Tour at which the Masters event is held. The top five previously uninvited players in the DCI rating category that most closely resembles the Masters tournament. The top two from the Masters Qualifier tournament to be held immediately before the event. The Masters Qualifier tournament is open to any previously uninvited player with six or more Pro Points in the professional standing used for invitations to the Masters tournament. The following eight teams will receive an invitation to team-format Masters tournaments: The most recent Team Pro Tour winner and finalist. The most recent Team Masters winner (if this overlaps the above category, then one extra team is invited via team rating.) The top four previously uninvited teams based on DCI three-person Team Limited rankings. The winning team from Masters Qualifier tournament to be held immediately before the event. The Masters Qualifier tournament is open to any previously uninvited team with a rating of 1700 or higher. The following prize schedule is used for the Masters tournaments: Individual-format Prizes ($150,000) 1 $25,000 2 $15,000 3-4 $10,000 5-8 $6,500 9-16 $4,000 17-32 $2,000 Team-format Prizes ($156,000) 1 $60,000 2 $30,000 3-4 $15,000 5-8 $9,000 Detailed information regarding the Masters tournament series will be provided throughout the next month at Sideboard Online (www.sideboard.com). DCI Rating System Improvements In the interest of maintaining the highest level of accuracy of DCI ratings and the highest level of service to DCI members, the following policies will be implemented: All fees will be removed from ratings appeals. All players will have access to free appeals to help ensure ratings are as accurate as possible. An improved on-line appeal application form will be provided to players. Any appeals must include a complete appeal application form in order to be processed. This policy will take effect September 1, 2000. Effective immediately, DCI ratings and rankings will be published to the web on a weekly basis. Many players finish near the top of Pro Tour Qualifier and Grand Prix tournaments but do not finish high enough to receive an invitation to the Pro Tour. In order to reward and encourage these players the following policies will be adopted: Extended and Standard ratings will be combined into one Constructed rating. This will allow players who participate in Extended Pro Tour Qualifiers to earn rating points toward receiving a rating-based invitation to Standard format Pro Tours and vice-versa. This is a particularly important improvement to the rating system because of the introduction of a third constructed-format Pro Tour. This will also allow players who enjoy one constructed format more than others to play in sanctioned tournaments of their favorite format and still have the rating points apply toward byes and invitations for all constructed-format events. Vintage ratings and Limited ratings will not be affected. Composite ratings would consist of the average of a player's Limited and Constructed rating. This policy will take effect September 1, 2000. Each Pro Tour Qualifier round will end approximately two months before the appropriate Pro Tour begins. This will allow time for Qualifier and Grand Prix tournament results to be submitted to the DCI so the results can be processed and ratings can be published that include those Pro Tour Qualifier tournaments in the calculations. Rating-based invitations to the Pro Tour will then be announced. This will help players receive a Pro Tour invitation if they have accumulated several top-finishes in qualifying events. This will take effect immediately. Players with an extremely high rating in one constructed format and an extremely low rating in the other constructed format may have their overall ranking affected when the formats are combined. This is especially important for players who would have received rating-based invitations to upcoming Pro Tours. To compensate those affected players, the DCI will be freezing both the August 31st Standard ratings and the August 31st Extended ratings. For the next two Pro Tours that would have used each rating list, we will award invitations to anyone who would have received an invitation under the old system but doesn't receive an invitation under the new system. Thus the top players on the August 31st Standard-format ranking list are guaranteed invitations to both Pro Tour Chicago (which is the Standard Pro Tour taking place in December 2000) and Pro Tour Tokyo (which is the Block Constructed Pro Tour taking place in March 2001). The top players on the August 31st Extended-format ranking list are guaranteed invitations to both the 6th Pro Tour of the 2000/2001 season (which is the Extended Pro Tour scheduled for July 2001) and the 6th Pro Tour of the 2001/2002 season (which is the Extended Pro Tour scheduled for July 2002). To clarify, the DCI will calculate which players would have qualified if the new Constructed rating did not exist (and the August 31, 2000, lists were used) to determine rating-based invitations to those Pro Tours. Anyone who would have been invited under the old system will receive an invitation, whether they received an invitation under the new system or not. This is the only way in which the "frozen" August 31 Standard and Extended ratings will be used.