2020 Players Tour Season

The partial 2020 Players Tour season is the twenty-fifth Players Tour season (formerly known as the Pro Tour).

Description
The Season started on January 10, 2020, with MagicFest Montréal, Canada and was originally set to end on July 24–26, 2020 with MagicFest San José, USA. Like the previous one, it was a transitional season. While the system originally was designed to arrange itself into the calendar year, this plan was reversed going forward, which had resulted in a 17-month season for 2018-2019 alongside a partial 7-month season in 2020. This partial season doesn't feature a World Championship. The next World Championship will take place at the culmination of the 2020–2021 season.

Starting this season, the short-lived Mythic Championships were split into the tabletop Players Tour continental series and the digital Mythic Invitationals, and the Players Tour Finals and Rivals League were introduced.

The COVID-19 outbreak in January resulted in preventative measures taken in March. A large swath of the Grand Prix event schedule was canceled, and the Players Tour Finals Houston and the May Invitational also were canceled. By April, it was clear that further events were not safely feasible to hold, and Wizards wrote off the entire season as not salvageable. It was announced that some large events later in the year would be prospectively held, but that those events would not pay out points for League positions. Current Rivals and MPL players would hold their positions, with some newer players taken from the first series.

Any events, including the scheduled Players Tour Finals and Mythic Invitational wouldn't be played for Player Points or Mythic Points, and therefore 'wouldn't impact MPL or Rivals invitations for next season.

By May, the future of in-person gatherings was uncertain and likely to remain that way for some time. A new plan was needed, one that worked within current constraints to close out a completely disrupted season while providing hundreds of competitors with existing qualifications an opportunity to compete. Wizards of the Coast therefore shifted the 2020 Partial Season competitions from in-person destinations to online events, played remotely through MTG Arena. At the same time, the end of the partial season was moved up to the fall of 2020. Later that month, all remaining Grand Prix were cancelled. Tabletop Grand Prix did not return.

World Championship XXVI
The 2019 World Championship, promoted as World Championship XXVI, was held on February 14-16 2020 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Feeding in the Players Tour Finals (Series 2)

 * March 13–15, 2020: MagicFest Detroit, USA (Standard) (canceled)
 * March 20–22, 2020: MagicFest São Paulo, Brazil (Modern) (canceled)
 * March 27–29, 2020: MagicFest Louisville, USA (Pioneer) (canceled)

Feeding in the Players Tour Finals (Series 3)

 * April 3–5, 2020: MagicFest Turin, Italy (Modern) (canceled)
 * April 10–12, 2020: MagicFest Palm Beach, USA (Modern) (canceled)
 * April 24–26, 2020: MagicFest Houston, USA (Limited) (canceled)
 * April 30-May 3, 2020: MagicFest Copenhagen, Denmark (Limited) (canceled)
 * May 7-10, 2020: MagicFest Charlotte, USA (Standard) (canceled)
 * May 8-10, 2020: MagicFest Kitakyushu, Japan (Standard) (canceled)
 * May 22–24, 2020: MagicFest Toronto, Canada (Modern) (canceled)
 * May 29–31, 2020: MagicFest Prague, Czech Republic (Standard) (canceled)
 * June 5–7, 2020: MagicFest Seattle, USA (Team Limited) (canceled)
 * June 12–14, 2020: MagicFest Bilbao, Spain (Modern). Moved to Valencia (canceled)
 * June 19–21, 2020: MagicFest Providence, USA (Pioneer) (canceled)
 * July 10–12, 2020: MagicFest Minneapolis, USA (Limited) (canceled)
 * July 17–19, 2020: MagicFest Liverpool, UK (Limited) (canceled)
 * July 24–26, 2020: MagicFest San Jose, USA (Standard) (canceled)

Series 1

 * January 31-February 2, 2020: Players Tour Europe - Brussels, Belgium


 * February 1–2, 2020: Players Tour Asia-Pacific - Nagoya, Japan


 * February 7–9, 2020: Players Tour Americas - Phoenix, USA


 * April 24–26, 2020: Players Tour Finals (Series 1) - Houston, USA (canceled)

Series 2

 * May 1–3, 2020: Players Tour Europe - Copenhagen, Denmark
 * Rescheduled: May 29–31 - Prague, Czech Republic (canceled)
 * May 8-10, 2020: Players Tour Americas - Charlotte, USA
 * Rescheduled: June 5–7, Seattle, USA (cancelled)
 * May 9-10, 2020: Players Tour Asia-Pacific - Kitakyushu, Japan (canceled)
 * July 10–12, 2020: Players Tour Finals (Series 2) - Minneapolis, USA (canceled)

Series 2 (rescheduled on MTG Arena)
There were four tournaments. Qualified players could play in only one of their choosing:
 * June 13–14, 2020: Players Tour 1


 * June 13–14, 2020: Players Tour 2


 * June 19–20, 2020: Players Tour 3


 * June 20–21, 2020: Players Tour 4

The finals were divided over two weekends:
 * July 25–26, 2020: Players Tour Finals (Series 2)
 * August 1, 2020: Players Tour Finals, Top 8 Playoffs (Series 2)

Mythic Invitationals

 * May 14–17, 2020: Mythic Invitational – Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (canceled)
 * July 23–26, 2020: Mythic Invitational – Core 2021 (canceled)

Mythic Invitationals rescheduled
August 28–30, 2020: Mythic Invitational 2020.

Grand Finals
With the rescheduling, an entirely new event, the 2020 Season Grand Finals, was added. This took place on October 9-11, 2020, with the Top 16 from both the Players Tour Finals and Mythic Invitational qualifying for this exclusive $250,000 prize pool event.

Invitees
• 🇺🇸 USA Allen Wu
 * Top 16 competitors from the Players Tour Series 2 Finals

• 🇩🇪 DEU Kristof Prinz

• 🇯🇵 JPN Riku Kumagai

• 🇫🇷 FRA Raphael Levy (MPL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Michael Jacob

• 🇧🇷 BRA Patrick Fernandes

• 🇩🇰 DNK Christoffer Larsen

• 🇺🇸 USA Ben Weitz

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ENG Autumn Burchett (MPL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Austin Bursavich

• 🇸🇰 SVK Ivan Floch

• 🇵🇱 POL Piotr Głogowski (MPL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Seth Manfield (MPL)

• 🇫🇮 FIN Eetu Perttula

• 🇺🇸 USA Sam Sherman

• 🇪🇸 ESP Alvaro Fernandez Torres • 🇦🇷 ARG Luis Salvatto (RL)
 * Top 17 competitors from the Mythic Invitational 2020

• 🇵🇱 POL Grzegorz Kowalski (RL)

• 🇺🇸 USA David Steinberg

• 🇫🇷 FRA Gabriel Nassif (MPL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Matt Nass (RL)

• 🇯🇵 JPN Ken Yukuhiro (MPL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Luis Scott-Vargas (RL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Seth Manfield (MPL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Emma Handy (RL)

• 🇪🇸 ESP Toni Ramis Pascual

• 🇨🇦 CAN Christopher Leonard

• 🇮🇹 ITA Luca Magni (RL)

• 🇺🇸 USA Chris Palmiotti

• 🇺🇸 USA Brad Nelson (MPL)

• 🇲🇽 MEX Montserrat Ayensa

• 🇺🇸 USA Aaron Gertler

• 🇯🇵 JPN Jun'ya Iyanaga Jun'ya Iyanaga received his invitation as a pass down from Seth Manfield, who was already qualified through the Players Tour Series 2 Finals.

Structure
The 2020 Season Grand Finals used both Standard and Historic Constructed formats on MTG Arena. All players returned for Day Two. Records and tiebreakers earned on Day One carried over to Day Two.
 * Day One: 6 Swiss rounds
 * Rounds 1-3: Historic Constructed
 * Rounds 4-6: Standard Constructed
 * Day Two: 6 Swiss rounds
 * Round 7-9: Standard Constructed
 * Rounds 10-12: Historic Constructed

Players for Top 8 are determined and seeded by earning 8 match wins or standings at the end of Round 12.

Prizes

 * $250,000 prize pool (first place: $25,000)

Day 1
Prior to the tournament, a short panel was held with R&D member Andrew Brown and MPL members and weekend commentators Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Reid Duke, going over the statistics of the metagames.

Consensus entering the tournament was that Omnath Adventures – which combined Omnath, Locus of Creation with the power of Lucky Clover and Adventure spells like Bonecrusher Giant or Fae of Wishes – was the best deck against the field, while the Lotus Cobra-powered Omnath Ramp deck had the edge in the head-to-head matchup. The result was what many expected: 19 decks of the 32 played Omnath Adventures and another four played Omnath Ramp. Four players took Rakdos Midrange in to the field and suffered abysmal results. Seth Manfield was the odd man out with Dimir Rogue - with Soaring Thought-Thief and Thieves' Guild Enforcer - while Autumn Burchett successfully chose Gruul Adventures.

In the Historic portion, the metagame shifted far from the Goblins-centric meta during the Invitational into one where Omnath made up a third of the field. Whether from expected hate (that Reid Duke suggested) or the inevitable end of an unreliable deck (that Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa posited), only one player registered it. This change in metagame meant that the second most popular deck - Jund Sacrifice - was without prey. With Sultai picking up Yasharn, Implacable Earth as a powerful hate card, both commentators found that the deck was overrepresented for the metagame - despite this, Seth Manfield made an early sweep. A newcomer deck powered by Sea Gate Stormcaller</c> was the Neoform</c> combo deck, one that can win with.

On the day of competition, Autumn lead the pack undefeated, while Seth's only loss was to Autumn in round five. Austin Bursavich made for the only other 5-1 player, whose only loss was also to Autumn, but in the Historic portion. He wielded Omnath in both formats, Adventures in Standard and Ramp in Historic.

Day 2
Austin Bursavich quickly took over the lead from Autumn at 8-1 and qualified. The way the tournament was set up, players at 8 wins are removed from the Swiss as having qualified. Manfield (over Burchett) and Burchett (over Patrick Fernandes) followed at rounds 10 and 11, leaving five players to fight in round 12. At the low end of the 7-4s, Emma Handy defeated Ken Yukuhiro and Aaron Gertler defeated Kristof Prinz. The pairings of Fernandes/Wu and Nassif/Levy drew; while Wu had higher breakers than Levy, the field broke down in that Wu had both Yukuhiro and Prinz twice in his record, and both of them losing shifted his breakers down 1.4%. Wu ended up on 9th.

Top 8 play-offs
The Top 8 players faced one more day to earn the Grand Finals trophy. In the final match, Austin Bursavich bested Aaron Gertler to become Grand Finals Champion.