'Magic: The Gathering' Retires DCI and Planeswalkers Points to Players Chagrin

Wizards of the Coast has just announced the retiring of the Planeswalkers Points system for Magic: The Gathering tournaments. In a blog post on the Magic website, Wizards writes that your DCI number and the website that lets you track your tournament process back decades will be taken offline on May 27. Planeswalker Points were introduced in 2011 and earned by competing in tournaments, tracking how much you play and win.

For future in-store tournaments or events, players will need to download the Magic companion app and create a Wizards account to track their progress—which is currently needed to play Magic: The Gathering Arena. Players do not need to to have the app to play in a store tournament or have internet access. They can sign-up for a Wizards account directly with a retailer or can sign-up as a guest, but then will not be able to have their progress tracked.

The Grand Prix tournaments at MagFest will continue to use DCI numbers until 2021.

"A little piece of Magic history is going away—but the future is bright and more connected across platforms." the post said.

DCI, or Duelists' Convocation International, has been the official sanctioning body of Magic tournaments since it was created in 1993. Generations of Magic players have had DCI numbers and being able to go back decades to see how you placed in a tournament has always been a unique and useful tool. Some stores have had access to the Wizard Event Reporter software, allowing users to add their tournament rankings from their local comic shops to their overall DCI account.

Magic: The Gathering players have been responding on reddit and Twitter to the removal of the archival with either disdain or acceptance. "There's no new functionality and significant lost functionality, how do you frame a strict downgrade as adapting your technology to be more modern," wrote one reddit user. "If it reliably and conveniently runs tournaments, that's new functionality. (Wizard Event Reporter) will not be missed," wrote another.

Brian Kibler, professional Magic and Hearthstone player, tweeted that this change is a "huge mistake" and "deleting the play history of everyone since the beginning of Magic seems like a mistake to me." Other Magic personalities, like Brian David-Marshall who runs the Top 8 podcast, worries about the legacy of the platform.

There are a few ways you can go about saving your DCI tournament history before the May 27 shut down. On the DCI website, you can download a PDF of your history on a computer by clicking to print the page in your browser and selecting the destination as "Save as PDF." You can also link your account at MagicStats or the ELO Project to keep track of your Magic history.