Magic: The Gathering Arena to Host Friday Night Magic Events During Coronavirus Pandemic

Magic: The Gathering's Friday Night Magic will come to Magic: The Gathering Arena during the COVID-19 pandemic. Friday Night Magic has long been an opportunity for Magic players to gather at their local game stores for friendly competition. Sitting across the table from someone to trade spells doesn't mix well with recommended social distancing practices. Wizards of the Coast is using its MTG Arena digital platform to help with that issue. It already announced that the Brawl format will be free to play for the next month. Now it's bringing events with that familiar Friday Night Magic feel to MTG Arena as well.

MTG Arena will host three "Friday Night Magic at Home" events beginning next week. Each event has a unique format and offers cosmetic rewards. Wizards won't be pulling local stores out of the process though. To receive their rewards, players will have to screencap their event screen and post it on their local store's social media feeds. The stores will then send the player their code, which the player can redeem in MTG Arena for a unique sleeve.

Magic revealed what the card sleeves will look like. Take a look below:

Each event kicks off at midnight PT on Thursday and runs for 24 hours, until midnight PT on Friday. The first event takes place on March 27th and sees players competing with the four 2020 Challenger Decks. The April 3rd event allows players to build decks with any cards available in MTG Arena, regardless of what's in their collection. Both of these events should level the playing field for tabletop players using MTG Arena for the first time. The third event takes place on April 10th and brings back the HIstoric Brawl format. Here are the full details:

• March 27—Challenger Decks
  • Choose between the four preconstructed 2020 Challenger Decks and jump in to challenge others.
• April 3—All Access
  • Build a deck with any cards in Standard, whether they're in your collection or not. Play others, build more decks, play again. Rinse. Repeat.
• April 10—Historic Brawl
  • Build a 60-card Brawl deck with your Standard and Historic cards, and battle!

After playing in the event, players can seek their rewards. Here's the process, as revealed by Wizards of the Coast:

1. Play in the event (win or lose as much as you want)
2. Take a screenshot of your event page
3. Go to locator.wizards.com to find your local game store's website
4. Join their social media channel
5. Share your screenshot with a nice message on their channel
6. Store will message you a code* through that social media channel

Wizards of the Coast promises this is only the first step in its plans to keep Magic: The Gathering's community strong during the pandemic. It also encourages players to support their local game stores in whatever way they can.