2012 Pro Tour Season

The 2012 Pro Tour season was the seventeenth Pro Tour season. It was a transitional season, as changes were made to the Pro Tour system (including the new World Magic Cup and Players Championship tournaments), and it was retroactively made to overlap with the latter half of the 2011 season. As such, events in 2011, starting with GP Kansas City in June, counted towards the 2012 season's races and end-of-year levels and benefits. However, the 2012 season itself started on 7 January 2012 with Grand Prix Austin, and ended on 13 May 2012 with the conclusion of Pro Tour Avacyn Restored.

2012 season changes
The season introduced a number of changes that were announced during the tail end of 2011. These include the abandonment of the DCI ratings system in favor of Planeswalker Points; byes at Grand Prix events would now be awarded to players earning a sufficient number of Planeswalker points, rather than to players with a high DCI rating. For Pro Tour Dark Ascension, players could get invited by earning enough Planeswalker points, but this method of qualification was removed after that event. Pro Tours were now scheduled to be held shortly after each new Expert-level set release, with the event taking the name after that expansion rather than the host city, as had been customary in past seasons. The number of Grand Prix events was greatly increased, though the number of Pro Tour invitations awarded for each of these was substantially decreased; in past seasons, the top 16 players had qualified for an upcoming Pro Tour; in 2012, only 2-4 players per event qualified. The Pro Players Club also received an overhaul, with the new Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels replacing the old Level system.

Lastly, the World Championships and the Player of the Year race were replaced by two events: The World Magic Cup and the Magic Players Championship, with the winner of the Players Championship being considered the Player of the Year. This was somewhat altered in later seasons, however; the Player of the Year race returned, and the Players Championship was renamed into the World Championship, with the winner of the event being considered the World Champion. As such, the winner of the 2012 Magic Players Championship, Yuuya Watanabe, is considered the 2012 World Champion.

Pro Tour Dark Ascension
10–12 February 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States.

Pro Tour Avacyn Restored
11–13 May 2012 in Barcelona, Spain.