Magic Invitational

The Magic Invitational Tournament used to be an annual Magic: The Gathering tournament where the sixteen best players of the past year are invited to duel in various formats.

Description
The played formats usually were specialty formats which were never played in other officially sanctioned tournaments, e.g. Auction of the People, and sometimes were experimental or specifically created for the tournament. Mark Rosewater also sometimes designed special stickered cards for these formats. Played formats were switched every few rounds. The tournament itself was Round Robin, meaning that every player plays each other at least once.

After the Round Robin portion was completed, the best two players played a finale which usually consisted of an array of formats previously played in the tournament. The winner of the tournament was allowed to design a card which would see print on a later date after Research & Development had its input on it to make it feasible for a Magic set. The artwork of the designed card featured the likeness of the tournament's winner.

The tournament started in 1997 and was held until 2007, but hasn't been held since. As part of the Organized Play Department's refocusing on grass roots programs, the Invitational was cut from the schedule.

Invitationals returned in another form with the 2019 Mythic Invitational, but these didn't feature especially designed cards for the winner. However, 2019 also saw the introduction of Player Spotlight in Throne of Eldraine. These are similar to the Invitational Cards but depict the current World Champion instead.

Magic Invitational winners and their cards

 * Note: Even though Olle Rade won the first Invitational, his card is the fifth card by an Invitational winner to be published. This is due to the circumstances that Rade quit Magic rather soon after the tournament without asking for his prize. He later made a comeback and asked Wizards of the Coast if he could still get his prize for this Tournament. Wizards agreed under the condition that Rade, who had since shaven his head, would be depicted in the Art with the long blond hair he had when he won the tournament.

Public voted Invitational cards
In addition, during the 2005 Tournament Wizards of the Coast held a public vote among the users of their website for the most popular card among the submissions which would also be printed after going through the usual R&D process but without featuring the winner in the art. The winning card was submitted by Tsuyoshi Fujita and was eventually turned into Gemstone Caverns.