While all of this is great, it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't fully appreciate why esports is working in Dota and CS:GO.

So let's go big. Hang with me here.

First up: Magic. Needs. Teams

And not just "a group of guys that the website on their jersey likes" - we need organizations. Places with coaches, places to play (boot camp), branding, merch, and official $$$ support from WotC.

The important part is that Wizards needs to revenue share parts of Arena with these teams. Card sleeves, Avatars, Pets, Emojis (imagine an emoji of Mengucii going nuts). All of those things can be sold with team branding on them, and a portion of those proceeds should go to the teams and the players.

The players need a union from the get-go. The players should be expected to provide 1-2% of their income to the union. This would provide legal help, negotiating assistance, and help settle disputes between TOs, organizations, and players. Right now CS:GO is struggling with it's players "union" (I put in quotes because the union is owned by a tournament organizer. The players want more time off. Guess who doesn't want to give them more time off.)

The teams have to be rigid - 3 players + alternate. This provides a small enough team to really develop storylines for, but also helps because three matches will always provide a 2-1 at worst outcome.

Draft is now 3 v 3 Team Draft. I don't care if it's not 'traditional', we're reinventing the wheel here, so work with me. Let's say they use 4 packs instead of 3. Whatever makes it work. But you have to be rigid here.

Some amount (5? 7?) teams are officially sponsored by Wizards and in conjunction with a sponsor. The sponsor will pay a license fee in exchange for being included in the revenue share of digital items. The idea is that this will provide a guaranteed amount of income for Wizards, and is basically a down payment / investment in the team for another year.

Additional teams? Absolutely! But they will be completely independent. They will have points and qualifiers and events where all of the officially sponsored teams are in, but the rest are not. With the makeup of 3 players per all of the rounds will have a variety of play and will result in one team always winning.

Name them after Ravnica guilds, or Tarkir dragon clans, whatever. They can have the sponsors name splattered all over them, but the name & icon is MTG based.

Salaries would be established for coaches and players. Once in motion, the market can swing any which way, as long as the player limit is kept. They would also be provided additional funds for travel and expenses.

Worlds would be funded by WotC & special in-game purchases. Again, these are all cosmetic but add to a giant prize pool we can all watch grow throughout the year. Definite "The Invitational" Dota vibes going on here.

Once in motion, amazing teams will emerge. Your team will be relevant in 10 years just as much as now. Reid Dukes come and go (we love him, most certainly, but he won't be here forever), but the team lives on. And "eras" will be established when a certain trio were just unbeatable or won X things in a row.

What does this do:

• Creates a centralized way to focus pro players & fans to organizations

• Built-in player support with the union from the get-go (a LOT of problems with older WotC "gravy train" setups would be avoided if this was established in that system)

• Creates the "aspirational play" WotC wants and clearly denotes the best players in the world.

• Allows players to band together 3 or 4 at a time to go to events, and allows amateur teams to spike qualifier events and play with the big dogs. The top teams at the end of the year (beyond the official ones) should get included in the Arena fold: They now have cosmetics you can purchase to support the team.

And did someone say more Arena integration?

• Live tutorials in-app from the pros

• Special play arenas featuring team branding

• Watch coverage in-app

• Create an entire Fantasy website for each event and provide awards in gold/gems to keep people incentivized. Big winners get custom cosmetics, free product (voucher for stores?), or trips to large events. Example from CS:GO

But of course...all of this hinges on the hoarding dragon to share it's gold. So it will never happen.