Scheduling Your Grind

Today we’re going to take a bit of a break from Tournament Reports and Deck Lists and narrow in on something that isn’t often talked about in the Magic Community – finding and scheduling these high-level events. Everything I write in this article is from my own point of view, so if you live in a foreign country, things may be subtly different for you. For certain, the required number of planeswalker points is likely to change, so be wary that your mileage may vary.

When we talk about Grinding, we’re usually referring to going to as many tournaments as possible in a given period, trying to ‘grind out’ rewards related to those tournaments. The first step towards this is determining what’s out there. Here’s a quick overview. The Magic tournament scene is broadly split into three circuits right now, as well as independent events. The first and most well-known of these is the Pro Tour Series.

The Pro Tour Series

The Pro Tour is the crowning event of Magic. Held three times per year in varying locations, they offer the largest payout for a Wizards-run tournament. They are held over multiple days in multiple formats, and often feature names that you’ll hear when running around your local card shop. They’ve also got a pretty significant prize payout - $40,000 for first place, and then staggering downwards to the top 75, who each get $1000.

However, the Pro Tour isn’t something you can just walk into. You need to qualify for it. To that end, there’s three major ways to achieve this. You can Top 25 a Pro Tour, Top 4 a Grand Prix, or win a Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ). All of those are monumental accomplishments, and represent the goal for a number of aspiring grinders.

A step down from the Pro Tour is a Grand Prix (GP). Held most weekends in varied locations on the globe, they feature an 8x planeswalker point multiplier and two days of play – if you make the cut. In addition, they’re the most prominent tournament that offers byes to players for good play. You can earn between 1 and 3 byes for any given GP. The simplest way to get 3 is to win a Grand Prix Trial (Held in local stores) for the appropriate Grand Prix, though you can also qualify for them through Planeswalker Points. Grand Prix’s are the largest public events in Magic, and can break 1500 attendees regularly.

In addition, there’s the World Cup, which has only been added this year. This is an invite only tournament and has the dubious distinction of being the only tournament that you need to qualify to qualify for. You need to achieve the same number of planeswalker points as you would for a single bye at a GP to Qualify for the World Cup Qualifier – which are held three times per country. Alternatively, you could win player of the year, but the Qualifier seems a bit more likely.

That’s a rough sketch of the Pro Tour Series, but it’s hardly the only show in town.

The Star City Games Open Series

Star City Games is arguably the most well known magic sales hub on the internet. They also happen to run the largest independent tournament series on the market. The Star City Games Open series is basically a fully fledged competitor to the Pro Tour, and has comparable prizes.

The crown jewel in the Open Series is the Invitational. Held four times a year, it pays $75,000 out to the top 64 players, including $15,000 for first prize. However, like the Pro Tour, the Invitational doesn’t allow just anyone to walk in – you need to qualify first. There are broadly four methods of qualification. The first is to place highly at the previous Invitational. You can also win a SCG Invitational Qualifier (which come in three flavors – Normal, Super, and Elite, with increasing prize for each), or accumulate enough Open Points (Star City’s reward program, earned from placing well at their events), and finally, you can perform exceptionally well at an Open.

Star City Opens are to the Invitational what Grand Prixs are for the Pro Tour. They’re open events – no qualification needed – with hundreds of players. There’s one most weekends in some city in the USA. They generally feature two types of events – a Standard Open on Saturday and a Legacy Open on Sunday. Achieving top 8 in either of these will get you an invite to the Invitational of your choice that year.

The TCGPlayer Max Series

While I haven’t participated in any of their events as of the writing of this piece, but from the looks of it, it’s got a healthy following as well. The crown event is a $50,000 championship – paying $12,000 to the top finisher. To get there, you need to earn TCGPlayer points, which are available from tons of events held all around the country. Some stores even run weekly events.

While it appears to be the smallest of the big circuits, it could be true that there’s less interest in them, making the tournaments softer by comparison. Again, I haven’t attended any of their events, so your mileage may vary.

-----

Now for the real question: Why is this important? Why do we care about all these different tournaments that are being run all around the world? Well, we want to go to some of them! We’ve got a couple of free weekends for the next few months and we want to play some high level magic and maybe see some prizes. If that all sounds fun, then there’s something you should know off the bat.

This stuff gets complicated quick.

I’m not an organized person by nature. In fact, I’m very unorganized. I need to-do lists to keep track of my day-to-day tasks. I keep a notebook on me like it’s a crutch. For me, doing this kind of thing requires preparation. The rest of this article is going to more or less go through my methodology for deciding what I’m doing with my weekends for the next two months. (And it should also give you a reasonable idea about the tournament reports that you can expect to see here on a weekly basis!)

First thing I’m going to do is block off the days that I can’t do anything. Understandably, there’s a fair amount of events going on between now and July that I can’t miss for one reason or another.

June 3 – Brother’s Graduation

June 22-24 – Meeting Girlfriend’s Family

July 6-8 – M13 Prerelease (Weekend at Marshalls)

July 12-14 – Connecticon

Seems easy enough. We just won’t look for events on those days. Next up is to hit the ‘big fish’. These are huge events, and I can’t see anything else interfering with me going to them. Because I played like a madman during the previous planeswalker point season, I have enough points for a single bye to all GP’s, and I have a qualification for the World Cup Qualifier. I generally use www.mtgmom.com to track the dates of important events, so I’ve got that in the background while I do this. It tracks the location of all Pro Tours, GP’s, Star City and TCGPlayer events, which makes it pretty invaluable.  According to that site, the only World Cup Qualifier that I can reasonably go to is in Maryland, and held on the 16^th of June. That’s an open weekend for me, so we’ll slot that into our schedule. I probably won’t win, but it’ll be a fun time, and it’s only a couple of hours drive.

Always check the details of a big event like this, because there might be more interesting things going on. For example, the World Cup Qualifier is a two day event if you make Top 8, so I’ll have to plan to either have a hotel room, or drive there and back if I turn out to make Top 8. Checking the event’s website, it looks like there’s going to be a PTQ on Sunday – so even if I don’t make the Top 8, I’ll likely still want to be there. I’ll plan on getting a hotel room for the night – they have a deal with the event so that it’s less than 100 dollars with a complimentary breakfast thrown in, which is probably cheaper than driving there and back twice, including tolls – and it’s certainly easier on my mind if I don’t need to wake up at 6am to be there by registration.

The other major event on my calendar for this period is GP Atlanta. Pop has agreed to go with me, so we’ll be spell slinging for the weekend in Legacy fashion. I’ve still not 100% settled on a deck, but preliminary results seem to be pointing at a Burn deck. I don’t know legacy too well, so a strong linear deck might just be the best option. This is taking place on June 30-31, but we’ll need to fly out on the 29^th to be there in the morning. Note to self, book hotel, book your plane flight.

The schedule now looks like this:

May 25-27 – n/a

June 1 -3 – Brother’s Graduation

June 8-10 – n/a

June 15-17 – Magic World Cup Qualifier

June 22-24 – Meeting Girlfriend’s Family

June 29-July 1 – GP Atlanta

July 6-8 – Weekend at Marshalls

July 12-14 – Connecticon

We have three weekends free during this period, and with all the travel that I’m going to be doing, I don’t think I’m going to want to do a ton of long-distance travel during those. I check the weekends on MTGMom to find out if anything is really local. The 26^th of May is a PTQ in my hometown, run by my home shop. It’s literally within walking distance of my apartment, so we can add that to the list. June 8-10 has nothing worth noting.  I’d like to have something on June 8-10 so that I’m at least warmed up for the Qualifier the following weekend. MTGMom doesn’t count GPT’s as major events, and so doesn’t list them. You need to use locator.wizards.com for that – search for Grand Prix Trials.

A quick search for premier events on that weekend in my area reveals that two stores are having a double GPT Saturday. I very much prefer Ron’s Comic World for that even though Top Deck Games is closer, though the two affiliated GP’s for either aren’t exactly within travel distance. I’ve got options here, but I’ll leave it up to me on those dates to decide if it’s worth going to. Sometimes you should leave flex in your schedule to account for being tired, sick, or just not feeling like playing Magic. Burnout is a real thing, and you need to take your mental fatigue into account whenever you have major events coming up.

On a lark, I do a quick check for the weekends that I’m not available, and I find something interesting. My brother’s graduation is on Sunday, in New York, and I’ll be traveling up through NJ on the Saturday before. As a result, I’ll be passing by a major event being held in Edison NJ – a $5,000 TCGPlayer Tournament. It starts early in the morning, so if I go and play in it, I can leave as soon as I’m reasonably out of the prize running (or if I win) and head home for dinner. It’s not something I’m married to, idea wise, but it’s certainly a possible thing I could do if I’m in the mood to that weekend.

Also, the weekend of Connecticon isn’t going to be a bust, Magic-wise, because there’s a number of events being held there by Star City Games – including an Elite Qualifier. I’ll most likely play in something, but I wouldn’t want to miss too much of the convention itself, so I’ll make that call once I see the program for the convention.

May 25-27 – Redcap’s Corner PTQ

June 1 -3 – Brother’s Graduation

June 8-10 – (Double GPT Weekend at Ron’s)

June 15-17 – Magic World Cup Qualifier

June 22-24 – Meeting Girlfriend’s Family

June 29-July 1 – GP Atlanta

July 6-8 – Weekend at Marshalls

July 12-14 – Connecticon

Seems like a busy couple of months, but it should also be extremely exciting. Just based on that list, I’ll be traveling to a state I’ve never been to, flying on my own for the first time, playing in two of the biggest tournaments of my life, and all of that wrapped up in a couple of very significant life events. I’m going to be exhausted and running off adrenaline for half of the time, but I couldn’t be more thrilled for the whole thing.

Wish me luck, and check back on Thursday, where I’ll be building a Standard deck from scratch – including sideboard and a few test matches against the top decks in the format. What deck, you might ask? Well, that’s up to you guys! Let me know in the comments section, either here or on Reddit, what kind of deck you’d like to see my construct. I’ll take the suggestion that I like the best, and we’ll see it come to life on Thursday.

Also, a question for the community. I generally have been using Thursdays to write articles on Tournament Reports and Deck Techs, but I've gotten a few comments from people saying that those have gone over their head a bit because they're not as experienced with deckbuilding. How would you guys feel about Tuesdays becoming an introductory deckbuilding series? Again, let me know in the comments - both here and on Reddit.