Mythic Invitational Boston 2019

The Mythic Invitational Boston 2019, billed simply as the Magic Invitational, was an exhibition event taking place at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts, United States on March 28–31, 2019. It featured the biggest-ever prize pool awarded in a single Magic tournament, with $1,000,000 distributed to the 64 participants, with the winner earning $250,000. The event took place entirely on Magic Arena, and invitations were extended to 30 members of the Magic Pro League, 26 select high-profile Magic streamers, and 8 top-ranked Magic Arena players.

Format and Structure
The tournament featured double-elimination play through all days of the tournament using a new format called Duo Standard.

In Duo Standard, players submitted two Arena Standard-legal decks. Players couldn't sideboard between games, though they could submit a sideboard (for cards such as Mastermind's Acquisition). Players could submit two different decks, two of the same archetype with different cards in both, or the exact same deck twice.

A groups of sixteen players battled in double-elimination flights until four players from each flights remained. Those remaining sixteen players advanced to another double-elimination bracket, which would further advance four players to the finale. The final four played double-elimination once again to try to grab the $250,000 first prize.

Prizes
The prize purse of the tournament is $1,000,000, with each participant earning a minimum of $7,500. The prizes are distributed as follows:

Results
Andrea Mengucci won. He defeated Piotr Glogowski 2–0 in the Grand Finals to win $250,000.

Controversy
The announcement was received with mixed response from the community. Criticism was leveled at the tournament structure: The lack of sideboards, the Duo Standard system with random deck selection for game 1, and using double elimination for such a high-stake tournament. The invitation list was also criticized, with many of the game's top streamers, such as Jeff Hoogland and Caleb Durward, being omitted, as well as the Platinum pros that were not members of the MPL, such as Gregory Orange, fifth-ranked in the world at the time of the announcement. Others praised the diversity of players invited, in particular that the invitation list included a number of female/non-binary players, a segment not represented in the MPL.

During the months leading up to the event, several individual players had to be replaced, some under unfortunate circumstances:


 * During GP Prague, MPL player Rei Sato was found to have been acting against the rules and was disqualified. While the action was found not to be significant enough for a ban, he was further disinvited from the Invitational. As the guest list was not officially announced, his replacement is not clear. Some found the punishment to be an unusual addendum to the end of the investigation, as Sato's invitations to further Mythic Championships was not affected.


 * After the invitation list was announced, MaferMTG informed Magic Esports that she would not be attending, which was borne out of some harassment done regarding her past social media posts. Her position was substituted by Caleb Durwood.


 * Jason Chan aka Amaz was unable to join, due to his visa was unable to make in time. He was replaced by Vanessa Hinostroza, aka NessaMeowMeow.


 * On March 27, 2019 Magic Esports Twitter suddenly announced that Owen Turtenwald wouldn't be participating, and that he was replaced with Brian David-Marshall. No reason was given. Three days later unconfirmed rumors surfaced that Turtlewald had been behaving in an inappropriate manner towards female players.