History
The first major Magic: The Gathering tournament was the 1994 World Championship held at Gen Con '94. It was a single-elimination 512-person Constructed event run over three days of competition. The winner, Zak Dolan, received a trophy but no money. However, Dolan was also given a large number of booster packs from various expansions, Arabian Nights through Ice Age, along with a deck of poker cards with Magic: The Gathering backs on them and a t-shirt. The secondary market value of those packs today would exceed many tournament payoffs, but is still not quite equal to the cash prizes of the current Pro Tour payouts. Another World Championship was organized in 1995.
In 1995 Brand Manager Skaff Elias suggested that organized play needed to take the step to the next level. The idea was to run several tournaments each year that would gather the best players in the world and reward them with cash for their dedication to the game. Players should have something to aspire to. Elias and Mark Rosewater along with others started to work on the concept. On 16–18 February 1996 the first Pro Tour, very briefly called The Black Lotus Pro Tour, was held in New York. The first Pro Tour season included three more Pro Tour events, culminating in the final Pro Tour, the World Championship, held in Seattle. In the following years a Pro Tour season (one year) always consisted of five and later six Pro Tours. From 2003 to 2005 Wizards of the Coast made an effort to bring the Pro Tour seasons in accordance with the calendar year instead of having the seasons last from August to August the next year. This resulted in two seasons of seven Pro Tours. Afterwards Pro Tour seasons were reduced to five and finally four Pro Tours a year.
Prize payouts have increased slowly over the years from ca. $150,000 per tournament in 1996–97 to ca. $230,000 in 2011. In the first Pro Tour season each Pro Tour awarded more prizes than the previous one, though. Afterwards prize payouts had only minor fluctuations throughout a season with the exception of the World Championships which always award some additional prizes.
Pro Tours started as single-format events in 1996, alternating between Constructed and Limited, with the exception of the World Championships which have been multi-format events since the inception of the Pro Tour. In 2010 Pro Tours were changed to always have several rounds of Constructed and Limited play.
Read more about this topic: Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering)
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