When do you have Magic Events in the Store?
We do regular events several times a week, both draft and constructed. Check our Calendar Page for more information.
Special events, like Prereleases and Launch Parties may start earlier.
How does a Magic the Gathering Tournament Work?
Magic tournaments come in two basic styles, Constructed and Limited.
Constructed Tournaments
In Constructed tournaments, players bring their own cards in a pre-made deck. Decks must consist of no fewer than 60 cards, and no more than four of any one card. The basic land cards, however, may be used in any quantity.
A banned list of specific cards is maintained for each format. A list of banned cards can be found here.
In addition to the player’s 60+ card deck, a 15-card sideboard is permitted. Following the first game of a best-two-of-three match, each player is permitted to replace or add any number of cards from his or her sideboard or basic land cards. This allows players to modify their deck during a match to better deal with their opponent’s strategy.
- Standard uses cards from the most recent two blocks and the current core set.
- Extended uses cards from the most recent seven blocks and the most recent three core sets.
- Block Constructed permits only cards from a single “block” of sets. Most Block Constructed tournaments use the most recent block, but organizers may sanction tournaments using any block.
- Vintage allows virtually every published Magic set. While ratings and rankings are maintained for this category, only Limited and Constructed format rankings are used for invitations to major tournaments, like Pro Tours or World Championships.
- Legacy uses the same sets as Vintage, but has no restricted list and a separate banned list. Like Vintage, ratings and rankings are maintained for this category, but are not used for invitations to major tournaments.
See below for more information on Blocks and Sets.
Limited
Limited tournaments are based on a pool of cards which the player receives at the time of the event. Any number of basic lands may also be added to the deck. The decks in limited tournaments need only be 40 cards minimum; all the unused cards function as the sideboard. There is no 4-of-a-kind limit per card as there is in Constructed decks.
There are two common types of limited tournaments.
- Sealed deck: Players each receive five or six booster packs of 15 cards. They play with these cards and cannot trade or exchange them.
- Booster draft: Players each receive three booster packs of 15 cards. After being seated around a table, each player simultaneously opens one booster pack, selects a single card, and then passes the rest to the next player over. After all players have drafted fifteen cards, they each open their second pack, and drafting continues. Players examine privately the cards they receive; direct communication between drafters is not allowed. Once players have built their decks, they compete against the other players in the draft.
What are Sets and Blocks?
Wizards of the Coast releases a new set of cards approximately every three months. There are Core sets and “named” sets. Named sets are grouped into Blocks of three, named after the first set in the block.
For example, the 9th Core Edition was followed by the Shards of Alara Block consisting of the sets Shards of Alara, Conflux and Alara Reborn.
