The Zendikar Rising Championship is adapting the rule that any player reaching 12 match wins during the tournament immediately advance to the Top 8 and get removed from future pairings in Swiss rounds.
This sparks joy with Magic Pro League member Brian Braun-Duin, who has been a proponent against tournament structures that can give players incentives to make draws or even take losses.
"I've been begging for them to adopt a structure like that for years. I wrote articles on ChannelFireball back in 2016 about doing that. Finally! I love that," Braun-Duin says on the Bash Bros Podcast.
He has previously argued that intentional draws and concessions should be against the rules, and even proposing draws should be worth zero points.
Since the Championship gets played online, and players have individual clocks, Magic Esport has added the rule that there will be no draws during the Swiss rounds. If a player doesn't win before their timer runs out, they lose the match.