In this article, MTGS staff member and Grand Prix veteran Ben Gomes highlights his experiences with the Grand Prix and how the changes to the Premier Play system will affect all of us. Whether you're a Grand Prix veteran yourself or you're just looking to dip your toes in the water, this article explains how things are going to look different for you in the months to come.
Hey all, welcome to the beta of a new iteration of MTGS!
Let me start by saying that this is a beta, we are mostly looking for feedback and nothing you see is set in stone. We are doing a public beta to get the opinion of the community before anything happens. There's a lot of stuff to take in, so rather than go on at length, I've highlighted just a couple of the new features below. This beta should last for about a week, and we really want your feedback, so whenever you find something that doesn't work the way it should or that you think is missing or could be improved, please post in the Feedback subforum and let us know! Best of all, for helping us make this site the best that it can be, we'll be hosting a giveaway for helpful feedback! Simply try out the site and let us know your thoughts in the Feedback forum and you'll be entered into a pool to get actual prizes. 
We've got some sweet new features for you to check out:
First, we have our own card database now. It has a detailed price tracker based off TCGplayer.com and provides some great extra functionality. You're now able to see at a glance from the search results page whether a card's value is trending up or down, and we have some options that don't appear anywhere else. Ever wanted to search for cards that refer to themselves in their oracle text (very useful for searching for value creatures for EDH for example)? You can do that. Even better, your searches can even find cards of sets that we've only partially spoiled! This won't immediately be a replacement for magiccards.info — we're still making tweaks and adding features (this is the beta after all), so let us know what you think!
Speaking of the spoiler, there's new stuff to check out there too. We now have the ability to have multiple active spoilers! Want to follow M14 and Modern Masters with just the MTGS spoilers? We've got you covered. And, as I hinted at above, every spoiler is automatically integrated into our database. That means that the second we know about a card, it will be showing up on your searches when looking for the next sweet thing to include in your decks. We also now have mouse-over card image displays on spoiler cards so that you can easier see exactly what you're talking about.
Additionally, the PM system has gotten an overhaul. You'll notice that PM discussions are much easier to follow now. The discussion is laid out similar to a thread, so you no longer need to worry about the mega-quote nests that used to build up from necessity.
The forums themselves have some cool changes too. You'll notice that you can at a glance see who the most recent poster in the thread was by avatar. We've also streamlined the posting process to work entirely from the quick-reply. You can add images, preview your post, and do everything without loading a whole new page. There's more stuff than I can go into here, but stuff like the new poll options should continue to give you pleasant surprises throughout the beta.
Market Street has been redesigned from the ground up. We have an entirely new system in place that is just a click away via the Trading Post tab at the top of the page. Check out Galspanic's guide to the new Market Street below for the full details on this.
Hello MTGS Traders!
Welcome to our new and much improved Market Street. All the features that you are used to working with are still there, but we have been working to make things better - easier to use, more intuitive, and harder to get infractions. There are a number of massive changes so it's probably best to just hit them point by point.
1 - When you start your Sales/Trade threads they are set up so your rules are text field, your Haves are another, and finally you have a field for Wants. That should help keep things clear and organized. On top of that the Haves and Wants have an easy card look up system so you will avoid typos and create direct links to the card. We have also included "nudges" in these blank fields to read the rules and make sure things are compliant... No excuses, right? 
2 - You can no longer bump your Trade/Sales thread by posting. In fact, nobody can bump threads to the top by posting! In your initial post there is a "Bump Button" that you can use instead. It's on a timer so you can't bump more than once every 24 hours so that won't be an issue. If other users post to your thread it won't bump your thread, but neither will YOU replying to their offers. That means that people who wish to conduct business in public will be able to without fear of over-bumping their thread.
3 - Right now we have to manually retire old threads and if you want it back you have to contact us, wait, and have one of the mods resurrect your thread. No More! If your Thread goes inactive after 30 days it will automatically be retired and a PM sent to you. Then you will be able to open it up yourself and go about your business without needing the mods for any of that. You will also only be able to have one thread, so we don't need to worry about people with multiple threads either.
4 - If someone posts to your Trade/Sales thread you will receive a notification. I assume most of us hover over our threads already but it's nice to see a little note up by your PMs to let you know too.
5 - If you have traded with a user it will now show up under their Avatar in their Profile. Why does this matter? It's nice to jog your memory if you don't remember, but also if a user changes their name you will have that visual queue that you have worked with him/her before.
That's the bulk of it on the user side of things. You will also notice that we have some new security measures in place that should help cut down on the number of people who shouldn't be hanging out in there. So, get in there and try it out... see what there is to see and let us know what we need to fix. I imagine that a lot people are pretty content with the way it is now, but after working with these changes for the last few months I am pretty excited about what we have going on here.
-Galspanic
Remember, the purpose of the beta is that we get as much feedback as possible. We need to know everything that isn't working, and everything that could be better. We want to make this the best MTG site experience it can be, so every little bit helps.
And with that, I think it's best to let you all dive in.
Thanks everyone!