Magic the Gathering

1993collectible card gameclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Magic: The Gathering is the collectible fantasy card game invented by mathematician Richard Garfield and released by Wizards of the Coast on August 5, 19931. Built around planeswalkers casting spells and summoning creatures, it kicked off the entire trading card game category and became a decades-long staple of geek culture that spawned online adaptations, tournament scandals, and internet lore.

card game memesgamingfandom discourse memesnostalgia memes

Overview

Magic: The Gathering, or MTG, is a fantasy card game where two or more players duel using decks of creatures, spells, artifacts, and enchantments, with each player starting at 20 life2. You can win by dropping an opponent's life to zero, decking them out so they can't draw, or forcing a concession, with older sets even including a defunct 10-poison-counter kill condition2. The rarest cards became genuinely valuable, which is a big reason the game hooked collectors as hard as it hooked players3.

The game's flavor centers on 'planeswalkers', wizard characters who summon creatures and hurl spells at each other, giving it a Dungeons & Dragons-adjacent tone that carried into novels, video games, and a long-running competitive tournament scene1. Its cultural footprint online is huge too, with r/magicTCG hosting hundreds of thousands of members and the official channels racking up millions of followers1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tabletop (Wizards of the Coast)
Creator
Richard Garfield
Date
1993

Magic: The Gathering was invented by Richard Garfield, a doctoral candidate in combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, in the early 1990s1. In 1991, Wizards of the Coast CEO Peter Adkison saw the prototype and green-lit a commercial version, and the game shipped to the public on August 5, 1993, simply under the name Magic1.

Wizards was a small role-playing game company at the time, but the launch put it at the front of the new collectible card game category almost overnight3. The company was acquired by Hasbro in 1999, by which point MTG tournaments were already being organized worldwide3.

How It Spread

The game blew up in comic shops and schools through the 1990s, and by the 2000s Wizards was pushing MTG online3. On June 24, 2002, Magic: The Gathering Online launched as a digital adaptation letting players duel over the internet, and by February 2007 it had more than 300,000 registered users1. In February 2018, Wizards said more than 20 billion cards had been printed between 2008 and 20161.

Hollywood took notice too. On January 13, 2014, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that 20th Century Fox had acquired the screen rights from Hasbro, hiring X-Men producer Simon Kinberg to shepherd a planned franchise pitched in the same league as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings3. Wizards of the Coast president Greg Leeds and Hasbro's Brian Goldner were attached as producers3.

The game also generated its share of internet moments. On August 29, 2011, Gizmodo intern Alyssa Bereznak published 'My Brief OkCupid Affair With a World Champion Magic: The Gathering Player' about a date with pro player Jon Finkel, and the piece drew 892,775 views within days and a wave of backlash from the MTG community4. Years later, on February 23, 2019, Autumn Burchett became the first non-binary trans player to reach the Top 8 of a Mythic Championship, and clips of their reaction spread through Twitch, Reddit's r/magicTCG and Twitter, where their winning tweet pulled more than 5,400 likes in 24 hours1.

How to Use This Meme

A standard MTG game has each player draw from a personal deck (the 'library') and spend mana to cast creatures, spells, artifacts, and enchantments at their opponent2. Common ways to lose include hitting zero life, being unable to draw a card, or conceding when the board state is hopeless2. Newer formats retired old rules like the 10 poison counter kill, but the basic 20-life duel is still the shape most players recognize2.

Frequently Asked Questions

Magic the Gathering

1993collectible card gameclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Magic: The Gathering is the collectible fantasy card game invented by mathematician Richard Garfield and released by Wizards of the Coast on August 5, 19931. Built around planeswalkers casting spells and summoning creatures, it kicked off the entire trading card game category and became a decades-long staple of geek culture that spawned online adaptations, tournament scandals, and internet lore.

card game memes gaming fandom discourse memes nostalgia memes

Overview

Magic: The Gathering, or MTG, is a fantasy card game where two or more players duel using decks of creatures, spells, artifacts, and enchantments, with each player starting at 20 life2. You can win by dropping an opponent's life to zero, decking them out so they can't draw, or forcing a concession, with older sets even including a defunct 10-poison-counter kill condition2. The rarest cards became genuinely valuable, which is a big reason the game hooked collectors as hard as it hooked players3.

The game's flavor centers on 'planeswalkers', wizard characters who summon creatures and hurl spells at each other, giving it a Dungeons & Dragons-adjacent tone that carried into novels, video games, and a long-running competitive tournament scene1. Its cultural footprint online is huge too, with r/magicTCG hosting hundreds of thousands of members and the official channels racking up millions of followers1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tabletop (Wizards of the Coast)
Creator
Richard Garfield
Date
1993

Magic: The Gathering was invented by Richard Garfield, a doctoral candidate in combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, in the early 1990s1. In 1991, Wizards of the Coast CEO Peter Adkison saw the prototype and green-lit a commercial version, and the game shipped to the public on August 5, 1993, simply under the name Magic1.

Wizards was a small role-playing game company at the time, but the launch put it at the front of the new collectible card game category almost overnight3. The company was acquired by Hasbro in 1999, by which point MTG tournaments were already being organized worldwide3.

How It Spread

The game blew up in comic shops and schools through the 1990s, and by the 2000s Wizards was pushing MTG online3. On June 24, 2002, Magic: The Gathering Online launched as a digital adaptation letting players duel over the internet, and by February 2007 it had more than 300,000 registered users1. In February 2018, Wizards said more than 20 billion cards had been printed between 2008 and 20161.

Hollywood took notice too. On January 13, 2014, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that 20th Century Fox had acquired the screen rights from Hasbro, hiring X-Men producer Simon Kinberg to shepherd a planned franchise pitched in the same league as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings3. Wizards of the Coast president Greg Leeds and Hasbro's Brian Goldner were attached as producers3.

The game also generated its share of internet moments. On August 29, 2011, Gizmodo intern Alyssa Bereznak published 'My Brief OkCupid Affair With a World Champion Magic: The Gathering Player' about a date with pro player Jon Finkel, and the piece drew 892,775 views within days and a wave of backlash from the MTG community4. Years later, on February 23, 2019, Autumn Burchett became the first non-binary trans player to reach the Top 8 of a Mythic Championship, and clips of their reaction spread through Twitch, Reddit's r/magicTCG and Twitter, where their winning tweet pulled more than 5,400 likes in 24 hours1.

How to Use This Meme

A standard MTG game has each player draw from a personal deck (the 'library') and spend mana to cast creatures, spells, artifacts, and enchantments at their opponent2. Common ways to lose include hitting zero life, being unable to draw a card, or conceding when the board state is hopeless2. Newer formats retired old rules like the 10 poison counter kill, but the basic 20-life duel is still the shape most players recognize2.

Frequently Asked Questions