There are two things I want to put explain here. First, how to qualify for a PT, now called "Split Championship" (for example "Zendikar Rising Championship"). Second, how one might attain Rivals or MPL membership.
Qualifying for a Split Championship
I chose the Zendikar Rising Championship path just as an example, as as of now, qualification for following Split Championships should work mostly the same. To clarify: Split Championships, which are named after whatever set released prior to them, are the new PT and fall into the same vein as Pro Tour, Mythic Championship, and Player's Tour.
- If you're in either League, MPL or Rivals, you get to play this tournament. So far so easy.
- If you win a (Super) Qualifier or a Champions Showcase on Magic Online, you also qualify.
- If you do well at a Split Championship, meaining 30 points/ten wins, you get to compete again.
- There are third-party tournaments that qualify players for a Split Championship.
- Now to the most important way of qualification: through Magic Arena Qualifier Weekends. There are Qualifier Weekends most months, always two-day tournaments. Assuming you get to participate, you play Day 1 with a deck of your choice in the format that particular Qualifier Weekend is in, in best-of-three matches, until you win seven or lose three. If you win seven matches you get to play Day 2, where you play until you reach seven wins or two losses. If after those two days, you won seven times on both days, you are qualified for the next Split Championship.
How to Qualify for a Qualifier Weekend
As you can see above, there are a bunch of additional ways to qualify. But the most relevant path to qualification is excluded here:
- Finish within the Top 1,200 Mythic ranks in either Constructed or Limited at the end of the month prior to the Qualifier Weekend.
When I told people I was writing this article, some asked me to incorporate a section on how to achieve a Top 1,200 rank. Well, first you need to hit Mythic, which comes after passing through five other ranks, each with four stages of six steps. This is the famous "ladder" that you have to climb. You can build your rank over time, but there's a catch: a monthly reset that sets you back two ranks. This means, if you ended a season in Mythic, you'll get put into Platinum 4 for the start of the next month.
| Rank in Previous Month | Rank After Monthly Reset |
|---|---|
| Mythic | Platinum 4 |
| Diamond 1 | Gold 1 |
| Diamond 2 | Gold 2 |
| Diamond 3 | Gold 3 |
| Diamond 4 | Gold 4 |
| Platinum 1 | Silver 1 |
| Platinum 2 | Silver 2 |
| Platinum 3 | Silver 3 |
| Platinum 4 | Silver 4 |
| Gold 1 | Bronze 1 |
| Gold 2 | Bronze 2 |
| Gold 3 | Bronze 3 |
| Gold 4 | Bronze 4 |
| Silver 1 | Bronze 4 |
| Silver 2 | Bronze 4 |
| Silver 3 | Bronze 4 |
| Silver 4 | Bronze 4 |
| Bronze 1 | Bronze 4 |
| Bronze 2 | Bronze 4 |
| Bronze 3 | Bronze 4 |
| Bronze 4 | Bronze 4 |
Staying in the Top 1,200: I've heard of a lot of people stressing out about this, so I wanted to at least give the heuristics I used myself:
-
Play Limited: There are a lot fewer players in Limited Ranked, making it easier to reach Top 1,200 purely through numbers.
-
Camp once your safe and just check whether you stay safe: Encouraging not playing Magic is weird, but if you're Top 500 two days prior to the end of the month you're likely safe. I don't feel comfortable giving you certain ranks at which you can definitely camp, so I'll avoid doing that here.
Getting into the Leagues
I assume that you are in a similar position as I am, so not in either League, which is why I'll just cut explaining League play itself as well as the MPL Gauntlet. If you really want to know about this, you should check out this.
The Challenger Gauntlet is the way into MPL and Rivals for all players who are not part of either League yet. You get into the Gauntlet by doing well at one of the three Split Championships—Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, Strixhaven. Invited are the eight highest-finishing non-League players of each tournament, or every non-League player at 11-4, whichever is greater.
This means you qualify for the Gauntlet if there are at most seven other non-League players placing higher than you in a Split Championship, or if you're 11-4. Note that the Split Championships are only around 200 people each and 72 of them are League members, and we should assume those to perform slightly above average. So there are going to be some 10-5 players qualifying for this and there are probaly not going to be many more than 24 participants in the Challenger Gauntlet.
The tournament structure of the Challenger Gauntlet is TBD, but the Top 4 of it get directly into MPL and the next eight enter the Rivals Gauntlet, which I will explain in a second. The twelve (or more) remaining players get an invite to a future event in the 2021–2022 season, but no invite to either League.
If you are non-League player before and reach rank 5–12 in the Challenger Gauntlet, you are in the Rivals League for sure. You face off against medium-finishing MPL and Rivals players in the Rivals Gauntlet, with Top 4 joining MPL, while the other twenty participants join the Rivals League.
Summary
If you want to participate in Magic at the highest levels, you have to qualify for a Split Championship and there are a bunch of ways to do that, the most important being Arena's Qualifier Weekends. You can qualify for those again through various means, but the most relevant remains the monthly ranked play on Arena.
If you want to get into MPL or Rivals, you need to have a result of 11-4 or slightly worse, assuming other non-League players don't take too many of the good records at a Split Championship. From there you advance to the Challenger Gauntlet and need to reach Top 12 there to be in a League.
I hope this article managed to explain Magic's organized play system to you and made it more clear what qualifies you for what. If you have any additional questions, feel free to leave a comment or message me on Twitter. Until next time!
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