COVID-19 altered the landscape of competitive magic, and the ability for players to physically gather for tabletop gaming events. However, with 2025 officially having arrived, I want to make the case for this being the year with the greatest amount of competitive play opportunities within the United States and Europe, since the onset of the pandemic.

Making it Onto the Pro Tour

The vast majority of magic players are not in my personal situation. The goal for most players is aspirational in nature and involves making it onto the Pro Tour. This is not an easy task, due to the often multi-step process, and seemingly incredible odds against achieving the goal. 

The good news is that the Pro Tour is getting larger in 2025 with more ways to qualify for the most prestigious tournaments MTG has to offer. I will get into those qualification paths in a minute, but first let’s talk about the Pro Tours and World Championships that have already been scheduled. 

Pro Tours will be taking place at:

MagicCon Chicago - February 21-23rd

MagicCon Las Vegas - June 20-22nd

MagicCon September - September 26-28th

Notably, all of the MagicCons and Pro Tours will occur in the United States this year. The United States does represent the largest section of the competitive player base. Still, I personally would have liked to see a bit more variety in terms of the locations chosen. 

In order to qualify for the Pro Tour there are some qualification paths that should be familiar to players who have been playing over the past couple of years at the competitive level. 

The Regional Championship Qualifiers and Regional Championships will be returning in 2025, with the qualification mostly unchanged. However, the biggest difference here is that in regions such as the United States there are now going to be double the amount of Regional Championships! Two Regional Championships will be held for one qualifier season, giving players the option of which event they would like to attend, or is closest to them. This is a very positive change in my mind. 

The Magic Spotlight Series

Here is another brand-new component of the new Organized Player system. The Magic Spotlight Series resembles Grand Prix events of years past. Large open tournaments, which include a special promotional card, and top finishers receive direct invites to the Pro Tour. This is perhaps the most straightforward path to the Pro Tour, as it does not require multiple steps like in the RCQ and RC process. 

Regarding locations for the Magic Spotlight series, there will be 5 in the United States, 2 in Europe, and 1 in Japan. This spread makes sense to me as it caters to the three largest bases of players in the world, and different tournament organizers can run these events without too much direct involvement from WOTC. With the Spotlight Series being a brand new series of events in many ways, it will be interesting to see how popular these tournaments are, but I suspect they will be successful. 

The World Championship

For players wondering what it actually means to be a professional Magic player, I personally consider someone who makes it to the World Championship someone who can refer to themselves as a professional, as this is the most prestigious event the game has to offer. The World Championship will take place in December of 2025, and requires doing very well at a major events, or doing pretty well at multiple Pro Tours in 2025, in order to qualify. It’s safe to say that making it to the World Championship is a huge accomplishment!

Online Play

There are paths to success that aren’t through tabletop play. The Magic Online Championship Series is an avenue for players to find success by doing well on Magic Online, and features a wide array of formats that often aren’t used for competitive play. For example, cube draft is a large part of competitive play on Magic Online, and who knows, I would love to see the Magic Online Vintage Cube Live experience, powered by Ultimate Guard, return again in 2025! 

There are also major events on MTG Arena, in the form of Arena Championships. The way to qualify for Arena Championships changed towards the end of 2024, and simply put, qualifying for the Arena Championship is now easier and more straightforward than it used to be. I personally love being able to play games for high stakes at my own pace, and have a set threshold of wins that is needed in order to reach a goal.

MTG Arena will continue to provide Arena Direct events where you can win boxes of sealed product by doing well playing sealed deck, and Arena Open’s that award straight cash for doing very well. 

My Advice

The variety of event offerings may seem somewhat overwhelming at first. There have been years during my career where I have scheduled events on almost every weekend of the year. I now realize that picking and choosing certain events and working on careful preparation for those events is the most important thing. 

The events listed above are not all-inclusive in terms of ways to make it onto the Pro Tour. For players that aren’t qualified for the Pro Tour, there is a large selection of events that take place at MagicCon’s that cater to many sections of the player base. I have personally already made travel plans for all three MagicCons in 2025, as these remain the can’t miss gatherings of the year for me personally. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic year playing Magic in 2025! There are so many different ways to play and treat this game, that I know my personal perspective as a highly competitive player, is only one small sliver of the total player base. If you happen to run into me, or any of the TeamCFBUltimateGuard crew at an event this year, please stop by to say hello!

Cheers!

Seth Manfield