Card Kingdom and our Engage team are bringing the Magic: The Gathering community together in the spirit of giving with The Chalice! Sixteen prominent members of the Magic community will face off in a three-week-long fundraiser for SeriousFun Children’s Network, culminating in a day-long tournament hosted at Mox Boarding House Bellevue and streamed at twitch.tv/cardkingdom on Sunday, October 27.
Our goal is to raise $40,000 for SeriousFun, and each competitor is fighting for your donations. The more they raise, the more advantages they’ll unlock on their way to the final showdown. The tournament is split in two phases: fundraising and the showcase tournament.
Fundraising & Block Party Draft
Our Chalice competitors started fundraising this week with a goal of $2,000 each. Each competitor will be given a reward package as a thank you gift for donors who give at or above the $50 level. This special package will include Magic booster packs, stickers, and other goodies to thank community members like you for donating to an amazing cause. (Note: These reward packages are only available to US donors; international donors will receive a rewards package without a Magic booster pack due to shipping restrictions.)
Each week during the three-week fundraiser, we’ll track how much money each of our competitors has raised. They’ll then be seeded based on their standing to draft sets for the Block Party format in the tournament (more on that later).
The Tournament
October 26 & 27 will be a weekend of gathering and giving with so many opportunities for our community to get in on the action. The party starts on Saturday with an open Modern Tournament hosted at Mox Boarding House Bellevue. Entry is $50, and all players will receive a limited-edition Chalice playmat and lapel pin. With almost $3,000 in prizes on the line for our top 16 finishers, this is a great opportunity for local Magic players to compete in a high-stakes tournament while supporting a good cause. 100% of ticket sales for the public tournament will go to SeriousFun and will be added to our Chalice fundraising total.
On Sunday, the Chalice main event begins with three rounds of Standard play. What our competitors play is entirely up to them, and their decks will be revealed the morning of the event. The final four rounds will be a special Modern variant of our own design: The Block Party! During the fundraising portion of the event, our players will be drafting sets from Magic’s Modern era to create their own special card pools. From those card pools (and a legal Core Set), they’ll build a 60-card Modern deck with a 15-card sideboard. The more they raise, the higher their seeding in the draft.
However, there’s one small twist: If a player reaches their $2,000 fundraising goal, they’ll get to add two copies of any Modern card to their deck, regardless of whether they drafted the set it was printed in. Need that Karn Liberated, but someone swiped New Phyrexia? Make your goal and that silver golem can go in your deck. For each additional $1000 raised, they’ll unlock another copy of that card until they reach a full playset. Follow along with the drafts on October 11, October 15, and October 18 using the hashtag #CKChalice to see what our competitors pick.
The Competitors
So, who will be competing for the glory of hoisting the Chalice? This year’s tournament will feature sixteen of your favorite people from the Magic community:
- The Professor – Host of Tolarian Community College
- Chris VanMeter – Former Magic pro and current Card Kingdom Product Designer
- Michelle Rapp – Magic Streamer and host of The Loregoyfs podcast
- MTGNerdGirl – Pro player and streamer
- Meghan Wolff – Magic writer and host of Good Luck High Five podcast
- Dana Fischer – Cosplayer, Elf aficionado, and youngest player to ever make Day 2 at a GP
- The Asian Avenger – Streamer and content producer at MTG Goldfish
- Melissa DeTora – Former pro player and current Magic R&D member
- Brad Nelson – Member of the MPL and 2010 Player of the Year
- Brian Braun-Duin – Member of the MPL and 2016 World Champion
- Ryan Spain – Host of Going Optimal and former Magic designer
- Ashlen Rose – Magic cosplayer and streamer
- Graham Stark – Member of LoadingReadyRun
- Tappy Toe Claws – Magic cosplayer and streamer
- April King – Magic content creator and Queen of Cube
- Matt Anders – 2018 Community Chalice Winner
SeriousFun Children’s Network
All our players will be competing to raise funds for SeriousFun Children’s Network. The mission of SeriousFun is to create opportunities for children with serious illnesses and their families to reach beyond illness to discover joy, confidence and a new world of possibilities, always free of charge. SeriousFun provides children from all over the world with a chance to have amazing camp experiences while benefiting from high-quality medical care in a safe, supportive environment. Since the first SeriousFun camp opened in 1988, they have delivered more than ONE MILLION life-changing experiences to kids living with more than 50 medical conditions, and their family members! We’re so proud to work with them and to help them support children and families in need.
With each $2,500 we raise, we can give a life-changing session at camp for one child. For more information about SeriousFun, please visit their about us page to learn more about the life-changing work they do every day.
Get Involved!
This whole event is a way for us to say thank you to our wonderful community and bring us together for a common cause. Want to get involved? Be a part of the conversation with #CKChalice all month to see what our competitors are doing, and donate to their campaigns at Chalice2019.causevox.com.
And of course, be sure to tune in on October 27th to watch the Chalice unfold!