How to Set Up a Major in MTGSL, Step by Step

What Is a Major?

A Major is a first-class event type on MTG Super League designed for multi-phase, multi-day championships - think Pro Tour, Regional Championship, or Store Championship weekend. Unlike a regular league (which is a single continuous event), a Major is composed of a sequence of phases. Each phase is its own Swiss-paired event, but the pairings in later phases account for the combined record from all prior phases.

Multi-Phase Structure

Define 2-8 phases upfront. Each runs as its own event with its own rounds and scoring.

Cross-Phase Pairings

Swiss seeds in Phase N use the combined W/L/D record from all completed prior phases.

Automatic Advancement

Set a Top N or minimum-points threshold. MTGSL calculates who advances automatically.

Players join the Major once. They are automatically enrolled in each qualifying phase - dropping from the Major removes them from all remaining phases.

Who Can Run a Major?

Majors are available on Pro Organiser, Community Org, and Store tiers. Casual accounts cannot create Majors.

Tier	Can Create Majors?	Store Required?
Casual	No	N/A
Pro Organiser	Yes	No (standalone is fine)
Community Org	Yes	Optional
Store (LGS)	Yes	Optional - can attach to store

Tip: Not a Pro yet? Upgrade from your dashboard to unlock Majors and unlimited events.

Planning Your Event

Before clicking "Create," answer these questions:

How many phases? A two-day event typically has 2-4 phases. More phases = more granular advancement, but more work to manage.
What formats will each phase use? Mix freely: Draft on Day 1, Constructed on Day 2, Top 8 bracket to close.
How many rounds per phase? Standard cuts: 3 rounds for a Draft pod phase, 4-5 rounds for a constructed Swiss phase.
What is your advancement rule? Top N (e.g. Top 64 advance to Day 2) or minimum points (e.g. 12 points = 4-2 or better). You set it on the phase players are advancing into.
Do you want a final bracket? Optionally finish with a single or double-elimination bracket (Top 4, 8, 16 or 32) to crown a champion. See Final Bracket for the two ways to set it up.
Will you charge entry? Entry fees are part of the Pro Organiser and Store plans. Connect Stripe first via your profile settings.

Creating the Major

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Start from the Create Event wizard

From your Dashboard, click Create Event. On the event category screen, select Major Event. You'll be taken to the dedicated Major wizard.

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Step 1: Details

Give your Major a name, description, start/end dates and house rules, and optionally host it under one of your stores/organisations (which can also submit results to Unity League). Add a cover image afterwards from the Major page.

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Step 2: Phases

Design your phases. You can use the Pro Tour preset as a starting point (Day 1 Draft → Day 1 Constructed → Day 2 Draft → Day 2 Constructed → Top 8), then customise freely. See the Phases section below for all options.

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Step 3: Bracket (optional)

Turn on This major has a final playoff bracket and choose its size (Top 4, 8, 16 or 32) and type (single or double elimination). If your last phase is Commander or cEDH, you pick a Top 4, 10 or 16 played in pods instead. The top players by the standings after the last phase play it. See Final Bracket.

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Step 4: Access

Choose the advancement mode (see Advancement), the max participant cap (players join a waitlist once it's full), and the entry fee and currency (USD, EUR, GBP or CAD). Entry fees need a Pro Organiser or Store plan on your account, or on the owner of the store hosting the Major. Make it invite-only so only players you add can join, or set when registration opens and closes.

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Step 5: Review & Launch

Review every setting, including the entry fee, who can join, and the registration window. Once you're happy, click Create Major. Share the Major link for registrations - you can still edit phases until they start.

Configuring Phases

Each phase represents one block of play with its own format, round count, and scoring. Phases run sequentially.

Phase settings

Setting	Description
Name	e.g. "Day 1 - Booster Draft", "Constructed Swiss"
Format	Sealed, Draft, Standard, Modern, Commander, cEDH, or Custom
Rounds	Number of Swiss rounds in this phase (1-20). Pairings are made round by round from the live standings.
Scoring	Match Points (3/1/0) by default: 3 per win, 1 per draw, 0 per loss, on the phase's own page and in the Major standings. Also: League Points (2-0 is 3, 2-1 is 2, 1-2 is 1), Wins Only, Pod Points, cEDH 5/1/0, or Custom win/draw/loss values.
Packs per player	For Sealed/Draft phases - how many packs each player opens
Pod size	Draft phases: players per draft pod. Commander/cEDH phases: players per game pod.
Restrict advancement into this phase	Who gets into this phase, based on the combined standings so far. Off = everyone still active plays. Set Top N or Min Points to make a cut.
Bracket phase	This phase is the elimination bracket itself, with no Swiss rounds. It's seeded from the Major standings. See Final Bracket.

Where the cut goes: put it on the first phase of the new day. For a Top 64 cut into Day 2, turn on Restrict advancement into this phase on your first Day 2 phase and set it to Top 64. Everyone below 64th is done once Day 1 finishes. The Pro Tour template does exactly this on phase 3.

Reordering & editing phases

Drag the arrow buttons on each phase card to reorder them. You can add, remove, and reorder phases freely until the first phase starts. Once any phase is active, you can still edit future phases but not started or completed ones.

Running the Event

From the Major's profile page you'll find a Phase Timeline on the Overview tab showing all phases with their current status.

1

Start Phase 1: Click "Start Phase" on the first phase card. MTGSL automatically creates a new league for this phase, enrolls all registered participants, and immediately generates the initial schedule. For Swiss phases, Round 1 pairings are posted right away - subsequent rounds generate automatically after each round's results are in. For Round-Robin phases, the entire match schedule is created upfront. A link to the phase league appears in the timeline.

2

Run rounds: Players report match results in the phase league exactly as they would in any MTGSL league. Results feed into the running standings in real time. For Swiss phases, each new round's pairings are seeded from live standings as soon as the previous round is fully reported.

3

Complete Phase 1: Once the phase's last round is reported, the phase completes automatically. A bracket phase completes when its final is reported. You can also click Complete on the phase card at any time. MTGSL locks the phase results and updates the combined standings.

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Start Phase 2: Click "Start Phase" on Phase 2. MTGSL automatically determines who is eligible (based on the advancement rule you set), seeds pairings using the combined record from Phase 1, and creates the Phase 2 league with Round 1 (or the full schedule for round-robin) ready to go.

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Repeat for each phase until the final bracket or final phase is complete. The Major completes once every phase is done, which for a Major with a bracket means when the bracket's final is reported. That's also when results go to Unity League, if you turned that on.

Important: Phases must run in order - complete each phase before starting the next. You can still edit upcoming (not yet started) phases at any time, but active or completed phases are locked.

Advancement

Each phase can have an advancement rule that determines who is eligible to play in the next phase. If no rule is set, all active (non-dropped) participants advance automatically.

Advancement types

Top N

Only the top N players by combined points advance. Ties at the cut are broken by combined wins.

Example: "Top 64 advance to Day 2"

Minimum Points

Players who have accumulated at least N points advance. No fixed headcount - the number who advance depends on performance.

Example: "12 points or more (4-2 or better)"

Advancement modes

Semi-Auto

MTGSL calculates who advances and shows you a preview. You confirm (or adjust) before the next phase starts. Gives you a final check.

Automatic

Players advance without a confirmation step. Faster for events where you trust the math. All previous phases must be completed before auto-advancement runs.

Standings

The Major profile page has a Standings tab with two views:

Summary view: Aggregate record (W/L/D) and total points across all completed phases. This is the main ranking table.
Breakdown view: A per-phase grid showing each player's record in each individual phase. Useful for checking who is advancing and verifying results.

Standings update in real time as match results are entered in the individual phase leagues.

Final Bracket

There are two ways to finish with a bracket. Both are seeded from the standings (1st plays last, and so on), and the bracket winner is the Major champion.

A bracket phase

Tick Bracket phase on your last phase, like the Pro Tour template's "Day 3 - Top 8 Playoffs". The phase is only the bracket: no Swiss rounds. Players come in through that phase's advancement rule (e.g. Top 8), seeded by the Major standings, and capped at the bracket size you chose.

Use it when: the playoff is its own day or session.

A final bracket after the last phase

Turn on This major has a final playoff bracket without ticking Bracket phase. Your last phase plays its Swiss rounds as normal, then the top players by that phase's standings (your bracket size) play the bracket.

Use it when: the cut happens straight after the last Swiss round.

You can choose single elimination (one loss = out) or double elimination (two losses = out). Common sizes: Top 4, Top 8, Top 16. The phase, and the Major, only complete when the bracket's final is reported.

Commander and cEDH finals are played in pods, never 1v1. When the bracket phase (or last phase) is Commander or cEDH, the wizard offers a Top 4 (one final pod), Top 10 (seeds 1-2 wait in the final pod while seeds 3-10 play two pods) or Top 16 (four pods, whose winners play the final pod). Only the pod winner moves on; a drawn pod sends its highest seed through.

No bracket needed? Leave it off. The winner is simply the player who finished first in the final Swiss phase's combined standings.

Managing Participants

Managers can add, drop, and reinstate participants at any stage of the event from the Participants tab on the Major profile page.

Adding players before the event starts

Search by email or screen name and click Add Participant. Players added before any phase starts are enrolled in Phase 1 along with everyone else when you click "Start Phase."

Late entrants (adding players mid-event)

Managers can add participants to a Major even after one or more phases are already running. When you add a late entrant:

They are added to the overall Major roster immediately.
They are automatically enrolled in any currently active phase league as a late entrant, so they appear in the phase's standings and can be paired in upcoming rounds.
They start with 0 points for any rounds that have already been completed before they joined. This is unavoidable and expected - late entry is a tradeoff, not a loophole.
For Swiss phases, they will be included in the next round's pairing draw. For Round-Robin phases, they are added to the league but pre-generated matches for past rounds are not retroactively created.

Standings impact: A late entrant starts at the bottom of the standings. In a Swiss phase this typically means they are paired against other low-scorers in the next round. For advancement purposes their final point total is compared against everyone else's - they are at a structural disadvantage, which is intentional.

Dropping a participant

Drop a participant from the Participants tab at any time. Before the event starts, the record is deleted and the next waitlisted player (if any) is promoted. Once the event is active, the drop is recorded with a timestamp and the participant is excluded from future phase advancement. Their results in completed phases remain in the standings.

Reinstating a dropped participant

If you need to reverse a drop, click Reinstate next to the participant's name. They are immediately restored to active status. If a phase is currently running, they are also re-enrolled in that phase's league as a late entrant - the same rules around 0 points for past rounds apply.

Participant cap: The Major's max participant cap is enforced when adding new players. If the Major is full you'll see an error. Reinstatements and late enrollments in active phase leagues both keep the phase's participant count accurate automatically.

Example Event Formats

Pro Tour (built-in preset)

1

Day 1 - Booster Draft · 3 rounds · 3/1/0 scoring

2

Day 1 - Constructed · 5 rounds · 3/1/0 scoring

3

Day 2 - Booster Draft · 3 rounds · Top 64 cut from Day 1

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Day 2 - Constructed · 5 rounds · 3/1/0 scoring

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Day 3 - Top 8 Playoffs · Bracket phase · Single elimination · Top 8 from Days 1 and 2

Store Championship Weekend

1

Day 1 - Sealed · 5 rounds · Top 32 advance

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Day 2 - Sealed (same pool) · 4 rounds

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Top 8 Draft · Bracket phase · Top 8 advance · Single elimination

Commander Open

1

Swiss Pods - Round 1-3 · Commander · 4-player pods · 3 rounds

2

Swiss Pods - Round 4-6 · Commander · 4-player pods · 3 rounds · Top 24 advance

3

Top 4 Final Pod · Bracket phase · Top 4 advance · One final pod decides the champion

Run Your Own Major Event