Coming soon December 14-15, Arena Championship 7 will take place. For those unfamiliar, the Arena Championship is a digital tournament series that was introduced in the 2022-2023 Pro Tour Season. There are three Arena Championships each year, with each event featuring a handful of the top players on the platform.
While these events sometimes don’t get the recognition they deserve, they are extremely competitive and showcase Magic play at its highest level. Arena Championships typically feature a prize pool of at least $200,000. Plus, anyone who places in first or second place earns an entry into the corresponding World Championship. So, there’s a lot on the line at these tournaments.
Unfortunately, though, many players are not happy with how this particular event is structured. If you’re a fan of seeing some of the best players in the world battle in a Limited environment, you’re going to be disappointed.
No Limited at Arena Championship 7
Yup, you read that right. The final Arena Championship of the year is going to exclusively showcase Standard Constructed. This is a rather strange decision. It’s very rare a tournament of this magnitude does not have a Limited portion whatsoever.
In fact, all six of the previous Arena Championships boasted three rounds of a corresponding draft format to kick off the event. Outside of a handful of Pro Tour events that were held on Arena during the Covid pandemic, nearly every Pro Tour, Arena Championship, or World Championship over the last few years has had draft mixed in.
As of right now, it’s unclear as to why this decision was made. Some players are predicting this choice was made for logistical reasons. The previous Arena Championships each had exactly 32 participants that earned invites through qualifier events on Arena. This cleanly allows for four pods of eight drafters.
Due to issues reaching a sufficient number of players in the past, this time around, Wizards had made it easier to qualify for Arena Championship 7. For more information on these changes, take a look here.
There could easily be upwards of 100 players in Arena Championship 7, which is a big difference in attendance. With more competitors than usual and possibly an odd number of players, perhaps setting up a draft portion was difficult.
For now, this is speculation. More details are going to be revealed on Monday about Arena Championship 7, but one thing is for certain. There are tons of players who are very upset.
Player Reaction
Competitors in the event and Magic players who plan to tune in alike are baffled by the choice to eliminate Limited. For Arena Championship 7 participants, it’s frustrating that many players qualified for the event in the first place through Limited play. Now, these Limited aficionados are forced to put all their testing into Standard, without being able to get an edge in the field through draft.
For others in general, it’s infuriating to see how little recognition Limited has gotten in the competitive scene recently. After all, Regional Championships don’t involve Limited, and there haven’t been any Limited Spotlight Series events announced yet.
One player even pointed out the irony behind the switch to play boosters as a means to “save Limited,” when Limited events don’t seem to be a priority.
It’s not at all surprising to see players disappointed. Foundations Limited may not be the best format to highlight on the biggest stage, but it’s better than nothing.
Some players even suggested using Duskmourn as the draft format of choice if Foundations Limited fell short. Hopefully we get a more detailed explanation on Monday regarding the reasoning for this perplexing decision.
