2012 World Magic Cup

The 2012 World Magic Cup was the inaugural World Magic Cup event after the discontinuation of the World Championship system. It was held on 16–19 August 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and featured 71 different national teams. The first World Magic Cup was won by Taiwan, led by Platinum pro Tzu Ching Kuo, defeating Puerto Rico in the final.

Format and schedule
The inaugural World Magic Cup featured five formats: Magic 2013 Booster draft, Standard, Magic 2013 Team Sealed, Modern, and Block Constructed. Team Sealed is a variation of Sealed deck where the team shares a pool of twelve Booster packs, which is used to build three 40-card decks. On the first day of competition, players competed individually to add to their team's score; on the second and third day, teams played against opposing national teams, with the winning team being the first to win two matches (each match being best-of-three-games).

Day 1 - Friday, 17 August
 * 3 rounds of Magic 2013 Booster draft
 * 4 rounds of Standard

Day 1 was seven rounds of individual Swiss play, where each win a player earned counted towards that player's team's total score. Players could not be paired against other players on the same team. The top 32 teams at the end of the day qualified for Day 2 of competition.

Day 2 - Saturday, 18 August Day 2 was six rounds of team play. Teams played 3-on-3, with the teams being made up of the three players with the best score on Day 1 of competition; the fourth was assigned a "coach" role, being able to assist the other players during the matches. The day also featured "pool play": Teams were divided, according to their standing within the event (seeding), into eight groups of four teams each, where each team played every other team in the group once, the format being Magic 2013 Team Sealed. The top two teams in each group advanced; if two or more teams were tied, the team(s) with the highest seed advanced. The teams were then divided again, according to their standing within the event, into four groups of four teams each, where each team played every other team in the group once, the format being Team Constructed, with one team member playing Standard, another playing Modern, and the third playing Block Constructed. The top two teams in each group advanced to Day 3 of competition; if two or more teams are tied, the team(s) with the highest seed advanced.
 * 3 rounds of Magic 2013 Team Sealed
 * 3 rounds of Team Constructed, featuring Standard, Modern, and Block Constructed

Day 3 - Sunday, 19 August
 * Quarterfinals, semifinals and final, featuring Team Constructed (Standard, Modern, Block Constructed)

The top eight teams then competed in a seeded (based on total number of points from Day 1 and Day 2), single-elimination bracket.

Pre-tournament favorites
Many pundits' favorites prior to the tournament's start was the Belgian national team. The team, captained by Pro Tour top eight competitor Vincent Lemoine, also sported Marijn Lybaert (four PT top eights), Christophe Gregoir (one PT top eight), and Peter Vieren (Grand Prix top eight competitor and Pro Tour mainstay). Another team favored to do well was the Slovak Republic; the team contained all three members of the winning team from the 2010 Team World Championship: Ivan Floch, Robert Jurkovic, and Patrik Surab. Other teams included the United States, with Brian Kibler and Luis Scott-Vargas; Japan, with Yuuya Watanabe and Yuuta Takahashi; and Australia, with Jeremy Neeman, Justin Cheung, and John-Paul Kelly.

Day 1
After seven rounds of individual play, Croatia stood atop the field with a combined 51 points, spearheaded by their captain Grgur Petric Maretic with the perfect 7–0 record. Pre-tournament favorites the Slovak Republic and the United States followed in the next positions. Peru made an impressive showing, finishing the day in 12th place despite only showing up with three players. The most surprising result after Day 1 was Belgium's elimination, however; their combined record of 11–11 was only sufficient for 43rd place. Pre-tournament favorite Japan nearly failed to show up due to a missed connection flight in Washington, D.C.. They barely avoided it by taking a cross-state 10-hour taxi ride, but still couldn't avoid a day 1 exit in 60th-place.

The top eight teams after day one: