A Long Awaited Limited Championships

This past week, we received news from William Jensen, director of organized play, hall of famer, and a personal friend of mine, that we will have a new Pro Tour-like event, the Limited Championships, in 2027.

As you can see in the picture above, there are a few ways to qualify via the PT, but most of the event's slots will be filled by the public. This is also a Worlds Qualifier, in that the T8 drafters will be sent directly to Worlds, which also semi-connects it to the PT.

This is amazing news. Limited has been an underrepresented part of competitive Magic for years. A $500k prize pool is a solid investment and gives players who mostly play Limited, such as myself, a great event to look forward to.

This is a 99% positive announcement. I should probably not even mention the negative reaction I had to it, as it was a minor detail that irked me upon first reading it, but I do have a critique.

It annoys me that the HoF is invited. That's not to say that I want to exclude my HoF friends and the players I've always admired. I'm annoyed that as we keep adding more to OP, and they keep including HoFs, it feels like we should also include high-level, HoF-worthy players who aren't in the HoF. For example, Javier Dominguez is an all-time top 5 player and has far surpassed the threshold of what it means to be a Hall of Famer. If players like him can't get in, it feels like these players are getting snubbed.

For instance, I'm 100% certain that if Depraz wanted to Q for this event, and he likely will, he would Q. But I don't think he should have to if this is the only event he wants to play in the year. There's probably no active player I'd rather watch draft than Depraz, and Depraz would be a first-ballot HoFer if it still existed.

I hope that the continued support of the Hall of Fame benefits means a return of the Hall of Fame in some capacity. I know they've discussed it at some point and have never followed up on whether they're going to continue adding players to it or not.

Regardless, this event looks interesting. Had it existed ten or twelve years ago, I might never have taken Magic as seriously because I would have focused solely on Limited and used this as my competitive outlet. Now that I'm older with a family, I can't travel one or two times a month for Spotlights and RCs. As such, this is a great event to focus on, especially for someone who loves Limited and would love to play a Pro Level event about once a year. It would be nice if it were purely connected to the Pro Tour, but we'll have to see how that develops.

Regardless, it's a brilliant addition. Big props to William Jensen because I'm confident this would never have happened without his leadership. Billy has always been a Limited lover first and foremost since I met him over 25 years ago. The $500k prize pool will attract many Limited-only players and encourage some of them to return to Constructed if they qualify and convert the Limited Championships into a World Champs slot.

I'm waiting to see how the finer details shape up, but I will try and qualify via Arena at least. I'm also likely to pop my head out for some paper Magic from time to time. I even got a private message from a close personal friend who recently retired, Alexander Hayne, who wants to play in this event.

As a content creator, this is a breath of fresh air. There's something to aim my content at and prepare people for, which I absolutely love. My engagement with Magic fluctuates depending on the end goal. It can be as simple as playing 100s of Final Fantasy drafts to prepare for a week of winning Collector Booster boxes, of which I converted just under 50% of my runs. If I play half as much, I probably convert half as much. If I'm going to invest my time, there needs to be a carrot to chase, or otherwise, my time would be better spent elsewhere. With this event, people will try to get better leading up to the event. I'm looking forward to trying to qualify and also helping my buddies, and of course, my readers and Twitch viewers, to qualify.

I am worried about the event's coverage. I was underwhelmed with the slides and content they presented mid-draft at the last few PTs, as it appeared that slides like "cards they'd love to open" were a compilation of the highest win-rate cards in their colors, without including any contextual analysis about their deck. They often had cards I wouldn't put into the deck that I was drafting, or I wouldn't be happy if I did. Ideally, the way I'd handle that kind of slide, since they don't broadcast in real-time, is to have someone with a lot of experience sit down with a slide of the cards drafted and ask them which cards of each rarity they'd most want to open with their current pool. For example, if someone like TheHamTV is present, or any familiar face that people trust and who has had a lot of repetitions and success in the format, then that person should provide contextual analysis. This could be on or off air and would add more flavor and expertise to the segment. Right now, they cater the Pro Level Limited to players who rarely play Limited, which will not be the audience for an all-Limited event. I hope they find innovative ways to provide more detailed coverage that's focused on specifics rather than broad format information.

Between this Limited Championship and a Pro Tour with a draft top 8, I can't wait to see how this shapes the Limited community. We have everything to look forward to, and I hope there's even more to come. The next step for WotC is to bring back the Hall of Fame, and all will (almost) be right in the world.