Jul 17, 2026 · 1 hr 37 min · 12 segments
Join Bryan and Charles as we discuss Limited RCQs with Sam Philliber. Your LGS has just asked you to run a limited RCQ and you haven’t done one before. What should you expect? How do you do a “pool…
Brian PrillamanHost
Sam PhilliberGuest
Charles FeatherHost
We did talk about RCQs when they were first announced about two-ish years ago, maybe a little bit longer.
Um, and we're gonna be talking about team trios, uh, sometime in the near future.
But in this episode we're gonna talk specifically about the limited, or the changes to RCQs that y- that are made when you are talking limited.
Okay? So let's, let's just start out, just in case we've got some, some new listeners.
Uh, the way I describe them, especially to newer players when people walk up and ask me in the store what this event is, is if you wanna make it to the pro tour, this is the very first step.
It is a store level competitive event sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast, where if you win that tournament, you then earn an invite to the regional championship for your region, and then you get to go play in a larger regional championship, and if you do well at that tournament, then you're on the pro tour.
There, there might be a few other ways to get on the pro tour, other events, but this is kinda like the most direct.
Um, now each region, each geo region has one or two, uh, uh, regional championships each season.
Uh, for the US, uh, Star City is our, uh, is the organization that kinda runs the RC program, and through them stores sign up for RCQs.
In Canada, it's face-to-face, and other regions have other, uh, organizers that run the RC.
Sam, why might a, a store want to run a limited RCQ as opposed to a standard or modern RCQ?
One of the huge benefits for limited is that players don't have to bring their own deck, and- So when I'm, when I'm campaigning for a store to try out an RCQ and they say, "Oh, well, nobody here really plays Modern, nobody here really plays Standard, no one in this country plays Pioneer," um, I can point them to Limited and say, "Well, hey, with Limited, you just need about six boxes of whatever set you wanna do." And then if somebody wants to try out a Limited RCQ, then they can, they can try it out without needing anything else other than a pen and their brain.
So that actually, that actually segues kinda into, uh, what, what we need before the event.
Um, so one of the things that I'm really big about is communicating with the store ahead of time and trying to prepare stuff ahead of time.
So one box is equal to five players for the Sealed, um, and that's as of July of 2026, um, because the number of packs in a box has changed.
We did talk about RCQs when they were first announced about two-ish years ago, maybe a little bit longer.
Um, and we're gonna be talking about team trios, uh, sometime in the near future.
But in this episode we're gonna talk specifically about the limited, or the changes to RCQs that y- that are made when you are talking limited.
Okay? So let's, let's just start out, just in case we've got some, some new listeners.
Uh, the way I describe them, especially to newer players when people walk up and ask me in the store what this event is, is if you wanna make it to the pro tour, this is the very first step.
It is a store level competitive event sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast, where if you win that tournament, you then earn an invite to the regional championship for your region, and then you get to go play in a larger regional championship, and if you do well at that tournament, then you're on the pro tour.
There, there might be a few other ways to get on the pro tour, other events, but this is kinda like the most direct.
Um, now each region, each geo region has one or two, uh, uh, regional championships each season.
Uh, for the US, uh, Star City is our, uh, is the organization that kinda runs the RC program, and through them stores sign up for RCQs.
In Canada, it's face-to-face, and other regions have other, uh, organizers that run the RC.
Sam, why might a, a store want to run a limited RCQ as opposed to a standard or modern RCQ?
One of the huge benefits for limited is that players don't have to bring their own deck, and- So when I'm, when I'm campaigning for a store to try out an RCQ and they say, "Oh, well, nobody here really plays Modern, nobody here really plays Standard, no one in this country plays Pioneer," um, I can point them to Limited and say, "Well, hey, with Limited, you just need about six boxes of whatever set you wanna do." And then if somebody wants to try out a Limited RCQ, then they can, they can try it out without needing anything else other than a pen and their brain.
So that actually, that actually segues kinda into, uh, what, what we need before the event.
Um, so one of the things that I'm really big about is communicating with the store ahead of time and trying to prepare stuff ahead of time.
So one box is equal to five players for the Sealed, um, and that's as of July of 2026, um, because the number of packs in a box has changed.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
