WotC Announces Magic's 25th Anniversary Birthday Celebration Events

Is it odd to celebrate a trading card game's birthday? Not when it's the original.

Today, Magic: The Gathering creator Wizards of the Coast announced worldwide worldwide events in honor of the game's 25th anniversary.

Each of the six events (five Grand Prixs and Indianapolis's Gen Con) will feature famous MtG community personalities and artists. For the foodies out there, we've also been promised cake. But that's not the most exciting part of today's announcement. You might want to sit down for this next part.

Each birthday event will host Rochester drafts of both Limited Edition Beta and Unlimited.

These sets contain some of the game's most iconic, powerful, and valuable cards, including Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Demonic Tutor, Fastbond, Hypnotic Specter, Serra Angel, Lightning Bolt, and the original dual lands. (Note: Unlimited is composed of the same cards as Beta. The key difference: Unlimited is a white-border set, while Beta is a black-border set.)

The Rochester Draft format is a fun throwback to the game's early days. It's similar to today's Booster Drafts with an important deviation: everyone drafts from the same pack. Players simply open one pack, set all the cards face up on the table, and select a card one at a time. In this format, players might very well select the equivalent of a few thousand dollars with their first picks.

These 25th anniversary birthday bashes will be held from June to August in Las Vegas, Singapore, Barcelona, São Paulo, Chiba, and Indianapolis. Attend them if you can. And don't forget to bring a birthday gift!

Kyle Massa is a writer and avid Magic player living in upstate New York with his fiancée and their two cats. When he's not writing, you'll find him down at the East Greenbush Flipside store jamming booster drafts. For more of Kyle's work, visit www.kyleamassa.com or follow him on Twitter @mindofkyleam.