MTG Salvation

I am going to have it even worse, if I go through with my plans to attend GP Chiba.

The cards wont even be in English :S, right? I have no idea how exactly I am to register them, do I have to write the Japanese names or the English ones? I am going to have to hope I know cards by art, can't have my mobile to look them up.

I don't speak a word of japanese but I am expecting enough English about to work out what is going on yay for it being the worlds Lingua franca.. its just a 12 hour flight instead of a 21 or 24+ hour one to one of the other ones.

I don't even think I have had a tournament of 100 before. my regular FNM is no more than 24, although the other store in my city has many more for pre release and game day.

Thassa protect me.

I'm trying to find info for the Tacoma/Seattle GP but I can't find anything. Help a brother out?

Quote from krimsonviper »

I'm trying to find info for the Tacoma/Seattle GP but I can't find anything. Help a brother out?

That GP is a long ways off--I doubt you'll be seeing any kind of serious information update until July/August.

Does anyone know how the prize structures work? I am planning on going to GP Vegas this year and could not find a prize layout on the website. I see that most events award you "Prize Tix," what are they, and what do they get you? I assume you can redeem them for like boxes and playmats and things? If that is true, how many prize tix does it take to redeem for a sealed box or something?

There aren't any GP's close to me this season, but the SCG Open Series is coming by my area. Are most of the things in this still true for the SCG open?

Quote from Cohlt.45 »

Does anyone know how the prize structures work? I am planning on going to GP Vegas this year and could not find a prize layout on the website. I see that most events award you "Prize Tix," what are they, and what do they get you? I assume you can redeem them for like boxes and playmats and things? If that is true, how many prize tix does it take to redeem for a sealed box or something?

I realize this is a couple weeks late, but you can find the prize costs towards the bottom of the schedule page:

http://www.grandprixvegas.com/schedule

Quote from snurfy8 »

There aren't any GP's close to me this season, but the SCG Open Series is coming by my area. Are most of the things in this still true for the SCG open?

Yes and no. Most of section 5 (the part about actually playing) is still applicable, aside from not getting WotC promos, since it's an SCG event.

SCG Opens don't have the same variety of other vendors or artists, though. I don't recall seeing any in Providence, but I also wasn't looking very hard. There are side events, though.

Thanks!

How long after a GP does it take for Planeswalker Points to show up? I did pretty well at one of the GP Vegas main events and I've been curious how many PW points I'll get, but so far all I see is a side event from Friday.

This was really helpful. I'm planning on heading to my first GP in London in a couple of months. One thing I'm not sure about is the side events. There is a list of scheduled events on the GP London website but will there also be other side events that just fire when they are full? Like drafts? I'd much rather play a draft side event than a sealed side event.

At every GP there usually is draft in the latest limited format (excluding special editions like MM2015) and sometimes 2HG Draft or Chaos Draft(Where you draft from 24 different sets).
These are starting whenever you get to 8 players, at least in Europe you get beepers so you can do other stuff while waiting. They usually also have pickup events for constructed formats too.

So I'm going to my first GP and PT in October (finally have in landing in Wisconsin) and just curious on what other people's experiences are like. I do plan on participating in the GP (sealed) and looking forward to the side events, since I doubt I can make it to day 2. Who knows, maybe that will change. I want to do some of the EDH/Commander pods and just wondering what should I expect going in, if I should bring a competitive deck or not. I would assume so.

As far as the Pro Tour goes, is there enough to do there if you are not participating in the main event?

What if I only want to play side events? Do I still have to pay the registration fee/register?

Nice primer. Thanks for the effort.

Unfortunately, you still have links to outdated information. In particular around byes for GPs. The official GP bye page you have linked is now archived and replaced with this document, specifically around page 23 http://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/mtg_peip-15_15apr20_en_0.pdf

I got my hopes up LOL. You can only get 1 or 2 round byes with planeswalker points now. Need 1300 in a season for 1 and 2500 in a season for 2 byes.

great post..would recommend it to friends..

This post has far too much valuable information to be on the general forums.

I'm hoping to go to GP DC, which will be my first time at such a large event. It's unlikely that I'll have enough free time to actually commit to playing in the tournament, but I'm hoping to get as many artist signatures as time permits before I have to head back home. Anybody have a sense of the average time it takes to wait in line for an artist signature at a GP?

Im going to Detroit Grand Prix and this really helped me

Hey everyone,

I'm glad so many have found this userful! As an FYI, I'll be updating this primer in the coming days, including with some of the trends developing the past few years where things such as prize support (ie. prize walls) are concerned. I'll also cover some of the common side events such as the Chaos Draft and Foiled Again! events, and all sorts of other things.

Hokay, so I finally got around to updating this for 2016. I'll be doing some formatting changes in the near future. Below is the change log.

03.19.2016 - Updated promo card section to the 2016 Season promo; updated GP Schedule link for 2016 Season; adjusted numbers for rise of Main Event entry fees (previously $40, now closer to $70); added mention of increasingly popular Prize Walls and Tickets; added mention of Artist card signing fees, advocating for them.

ToDo: Add section links, photo banners and other goodies to beautify this resource.

How well does this translate over to other major tournaments, like the SCG Open series? I'm doing an SCG event in a week and it'll be my first event bigger than an FNM.

Quote from rhianne »

Very helpful thread, as I'm going to my first GP soon. However, you should update information about sealed pools and passing. There were some major changes to competitive REL sealed events a while ago. Nowadays everyone opens their own pool, meaning you don't have to drop to get the cards you opened, since everyone builds their deck and plays with the cards they opened.

Thanks for the heads-up on thechange to competitive REL sealed events. I haven't been to one since GP Houston in 2013.

Quote from The_Shady_Prophet »

How well does this translate over to other major tournaments, like the SCG Open series? I'm doing an SCG event in a week and it'll be my first event bigger than an FNM.

I've never been to an SCG event, but with as big as those and TCGPlayer events are, I think it'd be fair to make a guide for those once I've gathered sufficient information. If I haven't replied too late, I was able to find this for now. Hopefully it helps!

http://www.starcitygames.com/content/yourfirstopen

That actually is a huge help, thank you! The open is this weekend and I'm double and triple checking everything to make sure I do well. As long as I don't make stupid mistakes like I did in practice last friday I should be fine.