Coverage

Coverage is an informal term denoting the live reporting from large scale tournaments such as Pro Tour, World Championship, Grand Prix or StarCityGames Open and Invitational tournaments. Coverage has taken many forms over the years, including written reports and articles, podcasts, and live video streams.

History

Official coverage of high-level Magic events has been present ever since the inception of the professional circuit. For the very first Pro Tour, PT New York 1996, a VHS video was produced, using interviews and match footage from the event. Video coverage of the top 8 matches continued for subsequent events, although in many cases, the footage has been lost. Early commentators included Mark Rosewater, Brian Weissman, Brian Hacker, and Chris Pikula; Randy Buehler first joined the coverage team upon joining R&D in 1999, although he had previously been a guest commentator at the 1998 World Championships. Coverage of professional Magic events sometimes featured on ESPN2, starting with the 1997 World Championships; the last event covered on ESPN2 was the 2000 World Championships. Written coverage of events was, for the most part, published in the Sideboard magazine; over the years, this coverage was incorporated into the online website (sideboard.com), which later got merged with Magicthegathering.com.

Randy Buehler remained a commentator and producer of Pro Tour coverage for many years. Prominent co-commentators alongside Buehler in the 2000s were Worth Wollpert, Brian Kibler, Mike Flores, and Brian David-Marshall. Coverage was expanded to include extensive text coverage at all Grand Prix events and many National Championships. Brian David-Marshall and Josh Bennett featured extensively as a text reporter at North American and Asian Grand Prix events, while in Europe, key personnel in the early-mid 2000s included Kim Eikefet, Craig Jones, and Tim Willoughby; additionally, it was common that professional players who had been eliminated from the tournament joined the coverage team as reporters.

In the late 2000s, unofficial video coverage debuted, most prominently by GGs Live and Star City Games. GGs Live, spearheaded by Rashad Miller, began producing live streaming coverage of North American Grand Prix events and Star City Games Open events in 2009; up until this point, video coverage had existed only of the top 8, but GGs Live also showed feature matches in the Swiss rounds. This would eventually be made a feature of the official coverage as well, and starting with PT Dark Ascension in 2012, live video coverage of all three days of competition at Pro Tours was broadcast on Twitch.

The main site for event coverage changed from Magicthegathering.com to magic.gg in 2019 when Arena became the major avenue for online play. This also came with a porting of old event coverage pages, though many failed to make the transition, such as most of the Grand Prix.

Text coverage

Text coverage is provided for almost all large tournaments and give updates of the matchups and results for each round, as well as having features on the overall trend in the tournament, as in what deck archetypes are making an impact. Text coverage also often feature game reports on certain feature matches that showcase high profile players or interesting developments in the Metagame. With the advent of video coverage, text coverage has taken on a less prominent role at most events, focusing more on interviews, numerical analysis and history rather than matches.

Audio coverage

As an additional feature, Wizards of the Coast used to provide interviews of players and updates on the overall trend of the tournament for the first two days Pro Tour and certain Grand Prix tournaments, and released them for download as podcasts. Randy Buehler hosted the Pro Tour Podcast in 2005–06 before Rich Hagon, who had previously done unofficial coverage of European Grand Prix as a member of the Mox Radio podcasting team, took over starting in 2007. Hagon continued producing podcasts from high level events until 2011, at which point the advent of large scale video coverage led to the discontinuation of this form of Magic coverage.

Video coverage

Video coverage is a live video feed from a tournament, often with play-by-play commentary and color commentary from former Pro players. The Top 8 of Pro Tour and World Championship tournaments has been featured as a video feed since the late 1990s, including it being featured on the television station ESPN2 in the United States.

Due to technological advances and the rise in popularity of live streaming video transmitted via the internet, Video Coverage had greatly expanded and showcased video coverage of all days of every Pro Tour and occasionally Grand Prix played in Europe, Japan, and North America. With the restructuring of premier play in 2022, Wizards's video coverage was only for the Pro Tour, Worlds, Arena Championships and the Magic Online Premier Play Program, with the Regional Championships being streamed at the local organizer's behest.

During the MTG Arena Championship era, Discord screenshare streaming was the main solution for the new online client. While Arena in the abstract was seen as clearer to watch, the processing load was too great for some players' computers and live crashes were occasionally witnessed. The graphical quality from chained broadcasting also suffered greatly.

From the Tournament Rules (May 13, 2024—Outlaws of Thunder Junction)

• 2.13 Video Coverage
  Some Competitive and Professional Rules Enforcement Level tournaments use video for live streaming or replay broadcast of matches. Players may decline to appear on camera; however, players in the playoff matches of Professional Rules Enforcement Level tournaments may not decline to appear on camera. Video commentators are considered spectators for the purpose of the tournament but may talk during the match as long as they can’t be heard by players being covered. They are responsible for behaving respectfully to all tournament participants during coverage.
  Spectators are also permitted to record matches provided that they do so unobtrusively.
  The Head Judge of a World Championship or Pro Tour tournament may, in their sole discretion, use video replay to assist in making rulings during a match. Video replays may not be used to assist in making rulings in tournaments other than a World Championship or Pro Tour tournament. Players may not request that a judge consult a video replay. Video replays may also be used for investigative purposes at a later time.

Key people in coverage

Production and floor reporting

• Rich Hagon
• Brian David-Marshall
• Rashad Miller
• Sean 'Day9' Plott
• Becca Scott
• Meghan Wolff
• Will Hall

Play-by-play

• Gaby Spartz
• Marshall Sutcliffe
• Tim Willoughby
• Maria Bartholdi
• Riley Knight
• Eilidh 'AliasV' Lonie
• Haiyue Yue
• DeQuan Watson

Color commentator

• Randy Buehler
• Ian Duke
• Simon Görtzen
• Matej Zatlkaj
• Frank Karsten
• William Jensen
• Raphaël Lévy
• Jacob Van Lunen
• Luis Scott-Vargas
• Paul Cheon
• Reid Duke
• Eduardo Sajgalik
• Martin Jůza
• Patrick Sullivan
• Cedric Phillips
• Osyp Lebodovicz
• Corey Baumeister
• Mani Davoudi
• Carmen Handy

External links

• Showdown in New York - Pro Tour New York 1996 coverage
• Trick Jarrett (March 06, 2014). "Modern Slides". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.