Today has been quite the dump of promotional MTG cards. Players are jumping out to their Store Championships to play for their $125 Saruman, new Duel Masters crossover promos just dropped, and now we have announcements relating to 2023 Eternal Weekend.
Its undeniable that Legacy and Vintage get less support than MTG’s more recent formats. Anyone trying to break out into the Pro Tour scene competitively is going to have a difficult time doing it playing Legacy or Vintage. Part of this is likely because of how difficult it can be to acquire cards for Legacy and Vintage. Both of these formats have cards that define the metagame affected by the Reserved List, meaning they effectively cannot be reprinted.
That said, one event each year celebrates Magic’s oldest competitive formats with massive prizes to be won. Players lucky enough to top eight their respective Vintage or Legacy Championships could have these $3000+ promotional cards waiting for them!
2023 Eternal Weekend Promotional Cards
Eternal Weekend is a yearly MTG event that hosts tournaments for Legacy and Vintage. There are generally a few of these worldwide, with each event commonly divided by regions.
To demonstrate just how much these cards can go for, take a look at the above Twitter post from MTG personality Fireshoes. This details the two promotional cards from the last Eternal Weekend in 2022: Ponder and Gush. The recorded offers for these cards are $3600 and $5800! Bizarrely, this year’s promotional cards could go for even more thanks to potential interest from a larger platform of players.
Dragon’s Rage Channeler
Those brave enough to attend and attempt the Legacy championships will be competing in-part for this Dragon-Rage Channeler. The card sees play in both Legacy and Modern as a tool for Delver and Murktide-style decks that want to get on the board quickly and interact with their opponents for just long enough to close the game out.
Able to easily become a Flying 3/3 when Delirium is enabled, Dragon’s Rage Channeler excels in decks with a lot of cheap noncreature spells since its Surveil ability not only offers card selection, but can help turn on its Delirium ability. The card is so powerful that it had to be nerfed in MTG Arena’s Historic format. Players who manage to top eight a Legacy Championship will receive one copy of this card.
Mental Misstep
Vintage Championship players will be competing for a promotional copy of one of the most broken cards in Magic’s History. A card that can only counter spells with mana value one may seen innocuous, but the card has been banned in Modern and Legacy and has been restricted in Vintage. The only place you can still play Misstep, besides as a one-of in Vintage, is in Commander, where it sees plenty cEDH play.
The reason why this card is so powerful is because of its mana cost. Requiring one blue Phyrexian mana, players can cast this spell for zero mana. The problematic mechanic of Phyrexian Mana has been demonstrated multiple times, but this and Gitaxian Probe are the biggest offenders. We even list this mechanic as one of the worst design mistakes Magic has ever made.
Countering a one-mana spell becomes broken when spending zero mana because players going second can suddenly counter one-mana cards on turn one. Imagine being able to counter your opponent’s Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer without even having a land in play. This can extend to cards like Ancestral Recall in Vintage.
The best card to counter with Misstep, at least when it was legal, was actually itself. It wasn’t uncommon for a stack-full of Missteps to appear in a competitive format when the card was still legal.
Even though this card cannot be played in many places, do not think the card’s legality will affect its price too much. Gush from 2022’s Legacy Championship promotional cards has the same legality as Mental Misstep, and was still worth $3800.
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The Top Prizes for 2023 Eternal Weekend
While these promotional cards are nothing to scoff at, the top prize for the 2023 Legacy and Vintage Championship champions are pieces of artwork. Each piece of artwork is unique for each championship location, and depicts iconic cards “embedded in an oversized card frame.”
Vintage Championship players will be competing for one of three different Black Lotus oversized cards! Definitely the most iconic card in Magic’s history, Black Lotus, for a very long time, was also the undisputed most expensive card in Magic’s history. That thrown has a new ruler now, but that doesn’t change just how iconic this card truly is.
Legacy Championship Champions are in for a variety of different oversized cards depending on where they are playing. Players in Europe will be playing for this oversized Force of Will piece, while Asian Legacy Championship players will be fighting for a Volcanic Island. Finally, North American players will try their best to win this Lightning Bolt.
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2023 Eternal Weekend Details
With so much value on the table, many players will want to try their hands at the 2023 Eternal Weekend tournaments. There’s so much on the line that its not uncommon for proficient Legacy and Vintage players to fly out to these events. Fortunately, at the request of many in the community, we have the details for some of these tournaments a few months in advance.
As suggested by the three different top prizes, there will be three different locations for the 2023 Eternal Weekend Championships. With eight promotional cards being offered at each event, 24 of each of the Legacy and Vintage Championship top 8 cards will be in existence, but that’s it! That makes these promotional cards some of the rarest in history!
It appears we have details for all three different events that are part of the 2023 Eternal Weekend. Here are the corresponding dates, locations and hosts:
- November 17-19 in Prague, Czech Republic—hosted by JK Entertainment
- November 24-26 in Aichi, Japan—hosted by BIG MAGIC
- December 8-10 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—hosted by Card Titan
Notably, all three of these events will be on different weekends, allowing Legacy and Vintage aficionados to travel between the three if they please. Announcing these events ahead of time, and having them all on different dates, is a massive improvement that should allow travel arrangements to be easier to arrange.
While the Legacy and Vintage Championships will be the main events at these locations, there should be a healthy variety of side events and special guests as well. More details should be made available as the dates approach, so if you’re interested in playing for these incredibly expensive promotional cards/paintings yourself, keep your eyes on this page for any updates.
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