Yesterday Wizards of the Coast published an update to the Premier Event Invitation policy that reflects changes first announced in July. Gathering Magic covered has previously covered these changes.
Here's the summary of the changes taking effect provided by Wizards:
- Details about Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers (P-PTQs) and Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers (R-PTQs) have been added.
- Gold-level Pro Tour Players Club pros and members of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame cannot compete in Pro Tour Qualifiers (this includes both Preliminary and Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers). In order to make travel costs easier on both groups of players, Gold-level pros receive airfare to compete in a Pro Tour (this was previously a $500 appearance fee), and Hall of Fame members receive a $1,500 appearance fee for competing in a Pro Tour.
- Planeswalker Points–based byes have been updated to reflect the move to checking yearly point totals for determining byes.
New Pro Tour invitation rules have been added. This includes:
- The Top 8 players from each individual-format Grand Prix earn airfare and invitations to the Pro Tour that it feeds (previously it was Top 4, with 5th through 8th receiving invitations if the attendance was 1,200 or more players).
- The Top 4 teams from each team-format Grand Prix receive airfare and invitations to the Pro Tour that it feeds (previously it was the Top 2 teams, with 3rd- and 4th- place teams receiving invitations if there were 400 or more teams in the event).
- Players with 33 or more match points at the end of the Swiss rounds of a Pro Tour receive invitations and airfare to the next Pro Tour.
- PLayers with 39 or more match points at the end of the Swiss rounds of a Grand Prix receive invitations to the Pro Tour that it feeds.
- Professional Points are now distributed based on a player's match points at the end of the Swiss rounds for Pro Tours and Grand Prix, rather than by the place the player finished in (excluding Top 8 players, who receive Pro Points based on their finish).
For a visual representation of the PTQ changes going into effect, please see below.
The complete Premier Invitation Policy can be found here.