Hasbro is taking a movie magic mulligan.
After several false starts, Magic: The Gathering, the world’s first trading card game, signed a TV and film deal with Legendary Entertainment. Like Legendary’s blockbuster Dune franchise, the cinematic universe would launch with a movie before spawning a streaming series.
Ambitions are one thing — summoning them into existence is another. A decade ago, gossip of a Magic show with Game of Thrones writers attached floated around my local game store. Magic has even splashed into goofy live-action videos and hilariously “cool” MTV spots without ever breaking into the mainstream.
But after the success of movies and shows based on Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Last of Us, I have more confidence that Hollywood may come through on this icon — especially since this game regularly grosses over a billion dollars each year. I can only hope it’s treated with as much fondness and irreverance as Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, another big-screen Hasbro production that didn’t command the box office as it really should have.
I also previewed Aetherdrift — Magic’s latest set that depicts an interplanar grand prix starring ten different racing teams from the far corners of the multiverse.
Magic: The Gathering is no stranger to high-concept pastiche — but since 2024, fans have cruised through a virtually nonstop carnival tour. Formally releasing Feb. 14, Aetherdrift — by turns Mario Kart, Mad Max and Twisted Metal — slams headlong into nearly every racing trope imaginable.
I’ve been playing this trading card game since its comparatively sober origins in the 1990s, when Arabian Nights was the closest it came to crossing over with other “intellectual property.” While I often champion the campy and absurd, I’m on the fence about the visual cacophony of Aetherdrift.
With its cute robots, shark-men and whizbang goblins, it resembles 2017’s Unstable — a set marketed as a joke, far from the hallowed Magic canon. That product felt like a welcome reprieve from serious stories about eldritch abominations and sinister Elder Dragons. Now that looniness has become the norm, it feels as thematically shallow as lucrative tie-ins with Assassin’s Creed or Spider-Man.
Aetherdrift does share another thing with Unstable, however — a surprising depth as a draft format. Gamemaker Wizards of the Coast invited me to test it this week through a Magic: The Gathering Arena digital preview. While riotous fusions may undercut the set’s visual identity, the same philosophy applied to mechanics produces dizzying results.
You can read more about my impression of those mechanics on WBUR.org. I’ll add a note about the refreshing return of a classic here for fellow Magic freaks, however!
Cycling is one of Magic’s oldest keywords — you pay a cost, discard a card with Cycling, and draw a card. I asked the Aetherdrift design team about whether they reprised Cycling because it’s a racing pun (since car wheels rotate — get it?). They did not dignify the question with a response during the preview event I attended. 😅
In all seriousness, the Cycling/discard archetype appropriately resembles the iteration from Amonkhet more than it does the (famously overtuned) version from Ikoria. Nothing Cycles for one generic mana, and there’s no Zenith Flare effect to reward you for stocking your graveyard with Cyclers. I drafted Blue-Red Discard/Pirates and lost nearly every game I played — but I have seen the deck succeed. You just need to hit Scrounging Skyrays and Marauding Makos early.
I’ve been more impressed with Black-based discard and graveyard decks. Black-Green particularly has great removal and pay-offs.
Finally, I have to tip my hat to a lovely piece my colleagues Susan Stone and Julian Ring put together on the 25-year anniversary of The Sims.
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