Friday Night Magic is a format of tournaments, held on Friday nights in gaming stores and associations all across the world. They are designed to be a beginner-friendly introduction to organized play. To make it easier on newer players, FNM tournaments are run at Regular rules enforcement level, which is the least stringent REL. This is used to encourage players to learn the correct way to play, readying them for stricter tournaments. Prior to December 2014, Friday Night Magic tournaments can be one of four formats: constructed, booster draft, sealed deck, or Two-Headed Giant. The Two-Headed Giant format varies by month, but is usually sealed deck. In the revision on October 2014, starting from 2015, all sanctioned format and most of the casual formats can be used in FNM. As an incentive to encourage regular participation in FNM, every month Wizards of the Coast releases new promotional premium cards to be distributed at FNM events. These tournament-legal promos, which are reprints of older cards legal in Standard, sometimes acquire substantial secondary market value if there is enough demand for the card. FNM foils are distributed only through FNM events. Wizards instructs stores to give out the cards according to the following guidelines, which was obligatory until December 2014:
Winning Prizes - A copy of the current month's promotional card is awarded to the winner and runner-up of the tournament.
Door Prize - Two copies of the promotional card are awarded at random to players who didn't place first or second.
Depending on the location, other prizes are offered. Some game stores will hand out store credits.
After the inclusion of casual formats in event revision in October 2014, beginning from January, 2015, FNM foils are given to shops based on their WPN-levels instead of the number of FNM events held each month. Core level stores receive 5 FNM foils per week, while Advanced store receive 10, and Advanced Plus stores receive 15. The guidelines for prize distribution are no longer obligatory but only recommended. Shop may set up their own guidelines on how FNM foils are distributed in each events.
