This past weekend saw the first of eight planned Magic Spotlight Series events take place in Atlanta, Georgia. As the Spotlight Series is the big push Wizards is making to revive competitive Magic in 2025, a lot was riding on it. Thankfully it appears to have been a huge success, drawing over 1,400 players across the weekend. Just as it was finishing up, the next two events in the Magic Spotlight Series were formally announced, including a surprise Limited tournament.
These events will be the backbone of competitive Magic this year, and it’s great to know we won’t have to wait long to see the pros sling more spells. While we don’t have all the details yet, the dates and formats alone have sent the community into a frenzy of hype and speculation. This is an encouraging sign, and should stand the series in good stead come Summer.
Magic Spotlight: Dragons
Both of the new events were announced in a tweet by Star City Games yesterday. SCG also hosted this past weekend’s Magic Spotlight: Foundations as well. It’s worth noting that this won’t always be the case. In the original announcement, William ‘Billy’ Jensen mentioned that the Spotlight Series events in Europe and Japan will be hosted by Fanfinity and BIG MAGIC, respectively. These two new events will be US-based, however.
The first of these two new Magic Spotlight Series events is Magic Spotlight: Dragons. This will be held at SCG Con Denver this April, from the 11th to the 13th. Interestingly, this lines up exactly with the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm. The set is planned to launch fully on April 11th, the same day that this event starts. This makes perfect sense when you consider that the format for this Magic Spotlight Series event will be Tarkir: Dragonstorm Limited.
It’s pretty rare for Limited formats to be the subject of major events. Typically you’ll get some Limited side events if you’re lucky, but that’s about it. As a result, players are understandably excited. In the Reddit thread discussing the announcement, ChemicalExperiment noted that they’re “So happy to see one of these for limited!”
In terms of structure, past precedent suggests that this event will feature Sealed on day one, then Draft on day two. The Magic Spotlight Series seems to be shaking some things up, however, so we could also see a twist. We’ve heard nothing of the promo for this event or the ‘big prize’ that will follow on from Spotlight: Foundations’ case of every Standard set for a year. All should be revealed in due course, however.
Magic Spotlight: Secret Lair
After the Limited twist with Magic Spotlight: Dragons, the second new Spotlight Series was simultaneously more and less interesting. Magic Spotlight: Secret Lair will be held at SCG Con Indianapolis, from May 30th to June 1st. Unlike Dragons there’s no associated set launch with this one; the closest thing is Final Fantasy on June 13th.
The format for this event will be Modern. Since Magic Spotlight: Modern is coming to Utrecht in the Netherlands from the 15th to 16th of March, this will be the second Modern event in the series. Given that the format is now being pushed following its ‘rotation’ in December, this makes perfect sense. The format isn’t particularly surprising here.
What’s more interesting is the title. Magic Spotlight: Secret Lair implies some kind of connection with Magic’s long-running limited-edition product line. There are a lot of ways this could manifest. Maybe the event is to coincide with a new Secret Lair Superdrop, which will be available early for attendees. Maybe the ‘big prize’ for this one is an exclusive Secret Lair drop, or even a Secret Lair ‘subscription’ for a year. There are plenty of possibilities, but, as with Dragons, no information to go on for now.
Magic Spotlight: Secret Lair is a bit of an enigma. Secret Lair has had a bit of an ‘anything goes’ policy for a while now, and to see that applied to a major event would be very exciting indeed. Even if it’s mostly just a normal event, however, it’s still very much welcome. Modern is just starting to get its groove back, and events like this will help with that immensely.
A Tough Act To Follow
Of course, both of these events now have extra weight on their shoulders due to the success of Magic Spotlight: Foundations this past weekend. According to MTG Decks, a staggering 1,453 players took part in the event. That’s a wild figure, especially given the state competitive Standard has been in for a while now. The format as it stands isn’t perfect – Foundations didn’t have quite the impact many hoped – but clearly it’s good enough to draw such a massive crowd.
There are a few other contributing factors at play here, too. This being the first event in a brand-new series certainly helped. As did the exclusive Terror of the Peaks promo: a $20 card with artwork from Richard Kane Ferguson. It’s hard to imagine the allure of possibly winning six cases of Play Booster boxes didn’t play a part, either. Fundamentally, however, I think the success of this weekend’s event comes down to something simpler. In the original announcement for the Spotlight Series, Billy Jensen noted the following.
“There aren’t that many weekends on the calendar where someone can say ‘you know what, I just want to, without preparing for it in terms of qualifying or doing groundwork, go play a big Magic tournament.'”
William ‘Billy’ Jensen
Clearly this rings true for many. Given the opportunity to play for good prizes at a high level, nearly 1,500 players jumped at the chance. It’s been a long time since something like the Spotlight Series has even been an option. Now that it’s available, we’re getting an accurate idea of the demand that exists for competitive Magic in 2025.
Whatever the reason, the success of this tournament was a hugely encouraging sign. Many players long for Magic to get back to the glory days of Pro Tours past, where a real living could be made playing the game. That probably won’t happen this year, but the Spotlight Series could lay all the necessary groundwork if it can keep this up.
