Summertime is built for play—and with The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ Prerelease and Launch Party events on the horizon, you'll want to be sure new players and long-time fans have no shortage of opportunities to play at your store in the months ahead.

Today, we're running through a high-level overview of the next few months of Magic events you can schedule over the summer.

June Events

Starting This Week: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ Prerelease

Dates: June 16 - 22

Promo support: 30th Anniversary promos, allocated prize support Set Boosters

Prerelease for any Magic set can be one of the most exhilarating events at your store—your community has come together to get their hands on the newest cards in person for the first time, and maybe some have brought along friends or family to join the fun.

Schedule Prerelease events all week starting Friday, June 16 at noon and reward players for pre-registering with the 30th anniversary promos. You're welcome to distribute them randomly or as additional participation prizes, too—whatever works best for your community.

While players are in your store for Prerelease, don't forget to hand out flyers for the Magic Celebration event in July! Plus, you can use our Prerelease Planning Guide for additional reminders and tips on how to prepare for the big day.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ Launch Party

Dates: June 23 - 25

Promo support: March of the Machine promo packs, Welcome Boosters, Bring-a-Friend promos

Launch Party takes place on release weekend, and it provides your players with another opportunity to come into your store and celebrate Limited play with Booster Draft or Sealed events. For any players who missed out on Prerelease, have them sign up for your Launch Party.

Additionally, you might use the Launch Party to encourage fans of The Lord of the Rings to drop by and learn to play Magic through the lens of familiar faces and places.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ Commander Nights

Dates: June 26 – August 31

Promo support: March of the Machine promo packs, Welcome Boosters, Bring-a-Friend promos

You can support your Commander community with a series of Commander Nights events at your store—these events are typically weekly, with a rotating list of rules and achievement-based prizes for your players to strive toward during their games.

Achievements are tracked all season long, and you can reward players with prize promo packs at your discretion. The Commander Nights Achievements are available on the marketing materials page.

July Events

Update: To ensure as many stores as possible in the EMEA region have their promotional materials on hand for the event, the Magic Celebration Event has new dates: July 14 – 16. You can reschedule your event in Wizards EventLink using our new event template. If you’ve already scheduled, be sure to also cancel your existing event.

In addition, dice sets may be delayed to certain stores across the EMEA region—if your dice sets do not arrive in time for your event, you may issue an IOU to eligible participating players to return to pick up their dice set once they arrive at your store. As a reminder, WPN stores should expect to receive 30 sets of dice; WPN Premium stores should expect to receive 90 sets. Dice sets will require assembly with the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ dice bag before distributing to players.

Magic Celebration Event

Dates: July 7 – 9

Promo support: See the event page for full promotional support details.

The Magic Celebration Event brings The Fellowship and The Gathering together in a massive way—between expansive promotional support for players who join with a Wizards account and the easy onboarding that Jumpstart allows, this event is meant to invite everyone to the party, from your newest players to your most experienced.

In addition to your in-store flyers and printable signage, you'll find plenty of ready-to-use materials to advertise the event on your social media on our marketing materials page.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ Commander Party

Dates: July 21 – 23

Promo support: Event promo

At a Commander Party, players will gather around a table to experience Commander with a special set of augmented rules. For The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™, players will each have the opportunity to wield one of the Rings of Power. At the event, you'll have Play Aids for each table to remind them the abilities that come with each ring.

First, players will pick a Faction card, choosing to ally with one of four different races from the books: the Elves, the Hobbits, the Dwarves, or Gondor & Rohan. Each race has a special ability printed on their respective Faction card, so give players time to read the abilities before starting your event timer.

Every WPN store will receive Commander Party materials, including a quantity of the promo, Lifecrafter's Bestiary based on your community size.

August Events

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ Store Championship

Dates: August 5 – 13

Promo support: Participation promo, Top 8 promo, Winner promo

Store Championship is a structured in-store tournament that follows many Magic releases, and The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is no different, with a Store Championship event during its season as well. These events can be a taste of competitive play for your community, leading into larger events like Regional Championship Qualifiers.

Store Championship events run as Booster Draft or Sealed must use Draft Boosters from the most recently released set; in this case, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™. Otherwise, the event must be run using the Modern format.

At Store Championship events, you'll have 3 categories of promos:

• Participation: Gifted Aetherborn
• Top 8: Eidolon of the Great Revel
• First Place: Saruman of Many Colors

WPN Premium stores receive an extra set of the Top-8 and Winner promos in non-foil with their store’s name printed on the card. Both versions of each should be provided to qualifying players.

That sums up events for the summer—what are you waiting for? You can schedule all the above right now in Wizards EventLink. By scheduling early, you give your community more visibility into your event schedule and more time to preregister.