Games - Pro Tour

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	Games - Pro Tour

The Pro Tour (or PT) is the highest form of competitive play for the Magic: The Gathering
collectible card game. It is a series of high payout tournaments held throughout the world and run by the Wizards of the Coast "Organized Play" section of the DCI, culminating in the Magic World Championships at the end of each season.

Pro Tours are invite-only tournaments. The winner is awarded more than $20,000 for his victory. Pro Tours also award Pro Points which give various benefits to players and are used to calculate the Pro Player of the Year Race.

Making the Top 8 of a Pro Tour is the dream of any competitive Magic player. Professional players are often compared by the number of Top 8's they've made during their career.

Origins

The first major Magic: The Gathering tournament was the 1994 World Championship held at GenCon. It was a single-elimination 512-person Constructed event run over three days of competition. The winner, Zak Dolan, received a trophy and little money. Another World Championship was organized in 1995, but only in 1996 was held the first true Pro Tour. The idea was to run several tournaments each year that would gather the best players in the world and reward them with cash for their dedication to the game.

Qualification

The Pro Tour is a qualification-only tournament. The are several ways to qualify:

By finishing in the Top 32 of the previous Pro Tour
By winning a Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) tournament. These are open tournaments run during the months preceding the Pro Tour.
By finishing high in a Grand Prix
(GP): the top sixteen finishing players in a GP are invited, regardless of how many of those already hold an invitation. (This is a fairly recent change, and previously, the top 8 previously uninvited players received an invitation.)
By being at least at level 3 in the Magic Pro Players Club. One earns levels in the Pro Players Club by acquiring Pro Points at previous Grand Prix and Pro Tour events. Players qualifying this way are said to be on the Gravy Train.
By having a very high ELO rating. - Top 100 in either Limited or Constructed (same format as the Pro Tour itself) or average of 2000 in case of a team tournament

Although contrarily to some other competitions there are no "wild card" invites. Very rarely however, players can receive sponsor's exemptions, such as past pro tour parcipiant David Williams (of 2004 World Series of Poker fame) received in his invitation to the 2005 season Pro Tour LA. Players in the Hall of Fame get permanent level 3 status in the Pro Player's Club, and therefore a permanent invite to all Pro Tours.

Season structure

The professional circuit's season consists of five Pro Tours run over a year in the following order:

Constructed PT held in winter.
Limited PT held in spring.
Constructed PT held in summer.
Limited PT held in fall.
World Championships held in November or December.

One of these Pro Tours is played in teams of three players.

The Constructed Pro Tours use the Standard, Block Constructed or Extended deck construction rules. The Limited Pro Tours are held in Booster Draft for individual competition, and in Sealed Deck (first day) and Rochester Draft (final two days) for team competition. The World Championships use a variety of formats over five days: Standard (first day), Booster Draft (second day), either Extended or Block Constructed (third day), Team Rochester Draft (fourth day, only for national teams), Standard and Team Rochester Draft (final day).

The 2006 season will use the following pattern:

Standard Pro Tour held in March
Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension Booster Draft PT held in May
Team Ravnica Block Constructed PT held in June
"Snap" Booster Draft in October
World Championships held end of November/start of December

The location of the Pro Tour follows a regular pattern:

Worlds are held on a rotating basis in America, Europe or Japan.
One Pro Tour is held in Europe (Prague, Czech Republic in May 2006).
One is held in Japan (Kobe, Japan in October 2006).
One is held in the United States (Charleston, South Carolina in June 2006).
One is held in an "exotic" place (Honolulu, Hawaii in March 2006).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering) ]

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