For a decade, there was a very unique Magic: The Gathering tournament series for younger players that handed out scholarships as a prize.
Depending on whom you ask, having teens and other youths playing Magic has been seen as a major positive. Pretty much every Magic player encourages it, even if they are beat by them during a match. Many players help teach younger players, especially if they are parents or other family of them And, these days, non-profits like MagiKids help bring about the game to kids in a school setting. The general message is clear - the kids are all right, as long as parents are good with it.
However, for about ten years, Wizards of the Coast actually advanced this idea even further with an entire junior series.
Known as the Junior Super Series, this tournament for those below the age of 15/16 ran from 1997 to 2007. It then lasted one more year as the Magic the Gathering Scholarship series. These were all pretty much run like any local/regional tournaments, albeit with a bit of cash on the line. First of all, any player who entered got an exclusive card, which were all alternative art cards or special foil cards. Players who won matches bot booster packs. And if you won the regional? A $500 scholarship and a spot at the Junior Super Series Championship.
For everyone lucky enough to go, scholarship money was in serious play, with each championship boasting of giving out $100,000 or more in scholarships. However, in 2007, things changed, the max age was changed to 18, with the championship getting a name overhaul to the Magic the Gathering Scholarship series. But this only lasted one year, as the Great Recession forced Magic to axe this, and instead integrate younger players back into regular play. While kids and teens lost an exclusive tournament and potential money, it did offer a chance to face adult players and see how their skills matched up, with younger players more inexperienced playing and deck building actually surprising many older players as something more unconventional that they had not been expecting.
Today, the legacy of the JSS lives on. Many of those players in the tournaments are now on the pro level, having honed those skills in earlier competitions. And those special foil cards? They are worth a lot. A JSS Elvish Champion can go for $50 nowadays, with a JSS Serra Avatar going for $35. And for the winners, it meant they had part of college paid for, or at least books paid for, all thanks to the tournaments.
While the tournaments are gone now, it still made a system where an 11-year-old Magic whiz can beat a 35-year-old who has been playing for decades....and everyone being okay about it.
