2020 Magic Pro League

2020 Magic Pro League
	[[File:{{#setmainimage:2012 MPL logo.png}}\|150px]]
Date	2020
Location	MTG Arena
Prize pool	$50,000
Winner	Ken Yukuhiro

The 2020 Magic Pro League season was the second season for the Magic Pro League.

Starting in August 2020, Magic: the Gathering’s Organized Play calendar planned to move away from seasons that follow the calendar year (the 2019 season) back to seasons that are split over multiple calendar years (the 2020–21 season). But the 2019 season ended in December 2019, so to fill the gap between then and the beginning of the 2020–2021 season, the Magic Pro League held a shortened seven-month season.^[1]

History

In 2020 the Rivals League was introduced, and the MPL was reduced to a 24-player league with players able to earn up to $50,000 in appearance fees in addition to prizes earned at tournaments.^[2] MPL players are also be invited to Mythic Invitationals and all Tabletop Players Tour events.

For the shortened 2020 season, the 24 players were made up of the Top 20 members of the Magic Pro League at the end of the 2019 season and the Top 4 non-Magic Pro League Mythic Points leaders (Challengers): Raphael Levy, Ondrej Strasky, Chris Kvartek and Gabriel Nassif.

Unlike its 2019 season, the 2020 Magic Pro League didn't have any kind of league play structure.^[3] Instead, members of both the Magic Pro and Rivals Leagues would compete for their places in the 2020–21 season by earning Player Points at Players Tours and Mythic Points at Mythic Invitationals, Mythic Qualifier Weekends, and Mythic Point Challenges.

The COVID-19 outbreak in January resulted in preventative measures taken in March. A large swath of the Grand Prix event schedule was canceled, and the Players Tour Finals Houston and the May Invitational were also canceled.^[4] By April, it was clear that further events were not safely feasible to hold, and Wizards wrote off the entire season as not salvageable.^[5] While some large events later in the year would be held, they would not pay out points for League positions. The current Rivals and MPL players would hold their positions, with some newer players taken from the first series.

As 2020 Partial Season MPL players maintained their league status for next season, those players were no longer be eligible to play in the three remaining Mythic Point awarding events (the April 4 Mythic Point Challenge, May 16 Mythic Qualifier Core Set 2021, and June 20 Mythic Qualifier Core Set 2021). All MPL players were to be invited to the October 22-25 Mythic Invitational – Zendikar Rising, which was the event these outstanding qualifiers would feed. This was later replaced by the Mythic Invitational 2020 (August 28–30, 2020). Other events, including the Players Tour Finals Minneapolis (July 10-12) and Mythic Invitational – Core 2021 (July 23-26), were cancelled.

Roster

Name	Qualification	Players Points	Mythic Points	Points Total	Final ranking
Andrea Mengucci	Top 20 MPL 2019	8		8	14
Andrew Cuneo	Top 20 MPL 2019		5	5	18
Autumn Burchett	Top 20 MPL 2019	12		12	09
Brad Nelson	Top 20 MPL 2019	8	6	14	08
Brian Braun-Duin	Top 20 MPL 2019		6	6	16
Carlos Romão	Top 20 MPL 2019				21
Javier Dominguez	Top 20 MPL 2019				21
Jean-Emmanuel Depraz	Top 20 MPL 2019		2	2	20
Ken Yukuhiro	Top 20 MPL 2019	24	6	30	01
Lee Shi Tian	Top 20 MPL 2019	18		18	05
Márcio Carvalho	Top 20 MPL 2019		6	6	16
Martin Jůza	Top 20 MPL 2019	12		12	09
Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	Top 20 MPL 2019	20		20	04
Piotr Glogowski	Top 20 MPL 2019	24	4	28	02
Rei Sato	Top 20 MPL 2019				21
Reid Duke	Top 20 MPL 2019	8	1	9	12
Seth Manfield	Top 20 MPL 2019	8	1	9	12
Shahar Shenhar	Top 20 MPL 2019		4	4	19
Shota Yasooka	Top 20 MPL 2019	18		18	05
William Jensen	Top 20 MPL 2019	24		24	03
Raphaël Lévy	Top 4 Challenger	5	3	8	14
Ondřej Stráský	Top 4 Challenger	8	3	11	11
Chris Kvartek	Top 4 Challenger	12	6	18	05
Gabriel Nassif	Top 4 Challenger				21