Massive changes are coming to the Pro Player's Club starting with the 2018-19 season. These changes, and information related to the 2017-18 Pro Tours, World Championships, and World Magic Cup were detailed in two articles today.

Professional Play

Elaine Chase laid out the schedule for the next Pro Tour season, including qualifying for the events. Grand Prix will get their own article tomorrow.

First up, the schedule. Notable in this is the return of Modern to the Pro Tour level at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan and the special Team Constructed (Standard, Modern, and Legacy) at Pro Tour 25th Anniversary.

In order to facilitate the Team Constructed Pro Tour, more qualifying options will be available. They include being part of a Top 16 Team in the Pro Tour Team Series after Pro Tour Dominaria, making the Top 4 of a Team Grand Prix between January 6 and May 2, 2018 (and there will be more Team Grand Prix tournaments), finish in the Top 2 of a Regional Pro Tour Qualifier for the 25th Anniversary Pro Tour, or use existing Pro Tour invites from Pro Club Status, Hall of Fame, or Pro Tour finishes.

The prize purse for Pro Tour 25th Anniversary, along with an exhibition tournament, will be $1,000,000. More details will be coming in September. Below you can find the RPTQ schedule for Pro Tour 25th Anniversary and the other Pro Tours in the 2017-18 Pro Tour Season.

The article also detailed the World Championship, the World Magic Cup, and the Pro Tour Team Series Final. The World Championship will use Standard and Ixalan Booster Draft on the first two days (3 rounds of draft; 4 of Standard). The Top 4 on Sunday will be best-of-five using Standard decks. The winner will walk away with $100,000.

Before the Top 4 takes place, the top two teams from the Pro Tour Team Series will battle in Ixalan Team Sealed. In the event that the teams split the match total, there will be a tie breaker involving a separate sealed pool, detailed in the article.

Finally, the World Magic Cup gets an update as well. Day One will still consist of Team Sealed and Unified Standard, but once a team earns four match wins they advance to the second day of competition (Double Elimination pool play). Then the Top 32 will be rounded out based upon match record and tie breakers.

Pro Club

A separate article detailed changes to the Pro Players Club. These changes will take place after the conclusion of the upcoming 2017-18 Season. The 2017-18 season will operate as it has, but will also track finishes for the transition.

Rather than operating on a calendar yeah, Pro Club Status will be upgraded once each season (roughly aligning to different set releases). This will allow players an opportunity to earn status based on their last four seasons rather than a calendar year. Seasons will only count the Top 3 Pro Point finishes in their span. A new Pro Level - Bronze - has also been introduced for players with 10-19 Pro Points. These players earn one bye at Grand Prix and invites to Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers.

Elaine Chase introduced the changes as a way to not only make it easier to gain benefits at the Professional level, but to also take away some variance. The current model places greater emphasis on the first Pro Tour of a season and any event where one does poorly could trash an entire year's of work. With the seasonal model, the ability to count only the last four seasons will give player's a chance to better gauge where they are. Additionally, it will allow changes to be rolled out with greater speed since it will affect a smaller segment of time.

The original article is well worth a read as it provides tons of insight and detail into Wizards' thought process - something refreshing given the recent spat of announcements.

What do you think of these changes? Do they make chasing the Pro Tour dream more palatable to you? What does this mean for your favorite player?