Leagues, an ongoing tournament where participants can play meaningful matches of Magic on a less strict schedule, are returning to Magic Online. Today's announcement stated that leagues will be introduced into the client on August 26th with open participation for Constructed Leagues beginning in mid-September.

Leagues were missing from the Version 3 Client, which was introduced in April 2008. Shortly thereafter an announcement were made about their return. Many such announcements followed.

Leagues, formerly Limited Sealed events, will be constructed for their initial re-launch. The current plan, detailed in the announcement article, shows that there will be a slow roll out process to help ensure stability with the new offering.

But what about Sealed leagues?

The lack of Limited Leagues was a shock the Magic Online community. Chris Kiritz addressed the shift in the article:

In an effort to get a quality Leagues experience delivered sooner, we changed course from the more complex Sealed Deck League to the simpler Constructed League. This allowed us to focus on key League functions and performance without worrying about deck building, adding cards to a deck mid-League, and running multiple stages that Sealed Deck Leagues include. This saved both development and testing time. It also allowed us to double down on load testing and make sure we can support the large number of players we want in each League.

After seven years Leagues are returning to Magic Online but not in the form anyone expected. Progress has been made, slowly.

Are you excited for League play or were you hoping for more?