Players Confused and Underwhelmed by Latest Wave of Tournament Promos

Last updated on June 4, 2025

Melancholy | Illustration by Lars Grant-West

When Outlaws of Thunder Junction released in April 2024, there was one burning question on everyone's mind: What exactly was Laughing Jasper Flint laughing at? That question has now been answered, and it turns out he's been laughing at you, dear Magic player, this whole time. He must've known he was going to end up as a 2025 Regional Championship Qualifier promo card; what else could possibly have the lizard outlaw cackling so damn hard?

Needless to say, people are not happy about the recent RCQ promo announcement.

Double Duds

According to an official announcement by WotC's tournament organizers, participants in the third round of 2025's Regional Championship Qualifiers will be rewarded with one or both of the jaw-droppingly bad promos above. You see how far down Laughing Jasper Flint‘s jaw is? Multiply that by at least three times, and that's how outlandishly bad these choices are.

To be clear, the card art is sweet. Not sure what Bonnie & Clyde are doing hanging out in the background behind Jasper Flint, but all props to Dan Black and Ed Repka on the art here. It's just the card choices are so… irrelevant. You thought The Year of the Hat was over? Think again, readers. Remember how positively people reacted to “Oops All Cowboy Hats” last April? Well the boot-scooting ain't over yet, y'all.

What Exactly Is Wrong Here?

Shoot the Sheriff | Illustration by Fariba Khamseh

Look, free cards are free, so it might seem like a lot of hubbub to get hot and bothered over tournament promos for an event that has cash payouts and invites to even bigger tournaments at stake. Except, they're not exactly free.

These aren't door prizes for finding a parking spot at your local Chuck E. Cheese. RCQs cost money. They require travel. They require skill, and effort, and practice. They're the only means some players have of even trying to make it into the competitive Magic scene. And that means attending multiple RCQs in a season, which in turn means a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. Many players rely on their entry promos to help offset that cost. And while Wizards of the Coast doesn't owe their players an expensive promo to help cover expenses, it costs them nothing extra to at least make the promo something exciting or playable.

To be fair, some of the other promos announced for other tournaments this upcoming season aren't as bad, and at least attempt to hit on cards played across different formats. No one's jumping out of their seat for a promo Get Lost, but the card sees Standard play. The only play Shoot the Sheriff sees is whatever games happen at the bottom of bulk boxes when the humans aren't around to see it.

Laughing Jasper Flint is just downright disrespectful though. The card sees zero serious Standard play, it's worth about $1 a pop, and worst of all, you have to do well at an RCQ to even get one. You have to make Top 8 of an expensive, competitive, many-round tournament, and the promo gifted to you for doing well is literally laughing in your face. He's not even the best card in Standard with Jasper in its name.

The Bigger Picture

Laughing Jasper Flint | Illustration by Francis Tneh

Again, free is free, but this latest batch of promos demonstrates some sort of dissonance between the players and whoever out there makes the decision on what cards end up as promos.

There's a good chance that these promos were decided on a while back so art could be commissioned for them and they could be printed and distributed in advanced. And it's possible that Promo Paul had an inkling that these two Outlaws cards were going to be big players in Constructed. Shoot the Sheriff gets a bit of a pass, because the Doom Blade variants often do see significant play. But no one who takes Constructed all that serious had Laughing Jasper Flint on their bingo card of Standard role-players.

The problem is that the promo is a huge incentive for people to join RCQs in the first place. If you scrub out of the event (or hey, if you do well!), at least you might walk away with a cool new card for your collection. But lately it seems like the promo choices are either completely random, or intentionally weak or undesirable cards. People were already displeased with last season's Fauna Shaman and Prosperous Innkeeper promos, and the latest batch is arguably worse.

So what do players want to see? No one's actually expecting a $50 participation promo, but at the very least it feels like the promos should be something playable and relevant to the format. Even if it had to be OTJ cards, it would make much more sense to see Slickshot Show-Off, or Outcaster Trailblazer, or Caustic Bronco on the list. You know, cards that actually see play, even if they're not tier 1. That way the people who miss out on the big prizes still get something they can actually play or sell.

@Noe_leal_jr on X highlights a point that's been made about tournament enthusiasm. Promos aside, many players have a waning interest in tournament Magic right now, a lot of which stems from prize payout and player incentives. Good, playable promos are a way to get more people in the door, but Wizards seems to be avoiding this for some reason.

As @fireshoes on X says: “Incentivize people to play your damn events. It's not that hard.” And he's right, there's literally nothing stopping them from creating desirable promos; they either just don't have a pulse on what's actually being played in tournament Magic, or there's a conscious effort to dumb down promos for these events.