ChannelFireball

ChannelFireball is an online retailer for Magic cards and related gaming utensils based out of Santa Clara, California, United States.

Profile

It is popular for its text article and web video content produced by its associated Pro Players such as Luis Scott-Vargas, William 'Huey' Jensen, Reid Duke and others. As these players usually test together for large tournaments and often bring similar strategies to those tournaments, they are known as a Super-team because the large number of members ends up splitting into multiple testing houses (as opposed to traditional teams who enter team events that only consist of three players, or three to four players comprising the national team at the World Magic Cup, or even the six-person Pro Tour Team Series). ChannelFireball has also been hosting high-level events throughout the world, most visibly Grand Prix events, which, from 2018 to 2020, they were the sole hosts of.

The name of the website and team is derived from the cards Channel and Fireball, one of the original combos in Magic, and is also related to its video content.

Content

In addition to articles, ChannelFireball was among the first content creators to produce video content. Predominantly, there are two kinds of video content featured on ChannelFireball:

• Studio videos entitled "Magic TV" in which a host (most frequently Mashi Scanlan) would interview one or more pro players about a certain topic, such as upcoming Banned/Restricted list updates, the current state of a format, what to expect out of the next big tournament, or the Top 8 best cards in a certain category.
• Gameplay captures, from Magic Online and now Magic: The Gathering Arena, in which a player comments on their decision process for each play they make during the game.

ChannelFireball has also since January 2015 been associated with Limited Resources, a popular podcast about Limited Magic hosted by Marshall Sutcliffe. Other podcasts are Magic FM, Lords of Limited, Scry Me a River and Constructed Resources.

In May 2020, ChannelFireball began the Pro subscription, where all high-level strategy content is put behind. It also branched into other TCGs, such as Pokemon and Flesh and Blood.

Professional teams

ChannelFireball has been sponsoring a number of professional players throughout its history. Initially, these were all members of team ChannelFireball (or team Fireball, which it was known as in the beginning) and featured among others Luis Scott-Vargas, Josh Utter-Leyton, David Ochoa, and Gerry Thompson. In 2014, ChannelFireball also became the sponsor of a second team, The Pantheon, with prominent players such as Jon Finkel, Kai Budde, Gabriel Nassif, and William Jensen, but with the advent of the Magic Pro Tour Team Series, this team was picked up by D3 Go!. In the 2016–17 season, ChannelFireball was associated with the following teams:

• ChannelFireball Fire (Patrick Cox, Josh Utter-Leyton, Martin Jůza, Paul Cheon, Matt Nass, Corey Burkhart)
• ChannelFireball Ice (Eric Froehlich, Joel Larsson, Mike Sigrist, Ben Stark, Ondřej Stráský, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa)

In 2017–18, ChannelFireball fielded a single team:

• ChannelFireball (Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, Josh Utter-Leyton, Martin Jůza, Mike Sigrist, Ben Stark, Luis Scott-Vargas)

Event organizer

Starting in 2018, ChannelFireball Events (CFBE) is Wizards of the Coast's exclusive global partner to run all Grand Prix.

In November 2021, ChannelFireball organized the first large event after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in Las Vegas. Although Magic: the Gathering Las Vegas wasn't billed as a MagicFest or Grand Prix, and didn't feed into the 2022 World Championship, it was considered a huge success.

Sold

In July 2022, ChannelFireball was acquired by TCGPlayer.com.

External links

• Channelfireball.com