Accretion in magnetic CVs from an observational perspective

The census of XMM-Newton observations of polars will be presented. The spectral evolution through high and low states, the physical structure of the accretion region, and the spectral energy distribution of the accretion process will be discussed based on the large body of archival data and detailed multi-wavelength campaigns of key objects.Gaia parallaxes will be used to derive luminosities, the first time for a large subset of MCVs and update the X-ray luminosity function. An outlook is given on the expected results from eROSITA all-sky surveys beginning 2019 and detailed X-ray spectroscopic observations with ATHENA.