Have you played Magic: The Gathering? Then you were – or maybe you’re still playing and still are! – part of one of the most popular gaming phenomena and a phenomenal success that celebrates 30 years today. It’s a story about the instant success of a game like no other before. And a few chapters of this story about billions of dollars and millions of fans were even written in Czech.
You have a deck of selected cards. These represent fantastic monsters, mystical magic, heroic warriors or powerful artifacts. Each has its own special effect written below the illustration with different effects on the game. Some allow you to gain magical energy to play more and more powerful cards, others directly help defeat your opponent. You can get the basic ones for a few crowns. Others are so rare that their price climbs into the millions of dollars. And even professional players play for millions in tournaments.
Magic: The Gathering is simply a huge business that revolves around players, fans and collectors. Still, it remains a unique card strategy. “It’s a great game. Relatively simple, but at the same time complex. It also gives a person room to be creative. It will help with the development of logical thinking and the English language. And I think it’s very focused on the social component. However, the word gathering in the title also means a meeting or a gathering,” says one of the best Czech players, Ondřej Stráský, for CzechCrunch.
I am the fifteenth highest paid player in history. Thanks to Magic, I came up with about ten million.
Exactly thirty years ago, the author posted Magical Richard Garfield his work to the world. He was a Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game enthusiast, PhD holder in mathematics, and until then an amateur board game designer. It all came together in Magic. Garfield, together with the then still small game publishing house Wizards of the Coast – which today is part of the giant Hasbro and has D&D under its thumb – was also well aware of the potential that the product hid in itself. A game that you can almost endlessly expand with new cards in the future? This was practically unprecedented – and most importantly, it sounded promising!
On August 5, 1993, at the Gen Con conference, the biggest American holiday of all tabletop gamers, Garfield presented his game to the widest gaming public. It was preceded by two years of development. In addition, shortly before Gen Con, Wizards went on a promotional mini-tour of specialized stores. A slow start was soon replaced by skyrocketing interest from distributors and players alike. “We watched it grow before our eyes. When we arrived at one store where maybe fifty people were waiting, we felt like rock stars.” he recalled Peter Adkison of Wizards of the Coast a few years ago.
But the big premiere at Gen Con was the real culmination of their efforts. They sold out all 2.5 million cards before the event ended in a few days. At the same time, the cards for the massively popular event did not arrive at all at first. The shipment was delayed by a day. So when the truck arrived, there were eager buyers everywhere. “They asked us if we wanted to help. We also started selling right away, I was writing receipts and cashiering people,” Adkison stated. And they really involved the customers in the unloading of packages. By the way, the current year of Gen Con is going on – it has been owned by Adkison for many years.
Two months later from that fateful August, Garfield and Adkison definitely knew they had created a phenomenon. They celebrated ten million “magic” sales. The supply was far from keeping up with the demand. The first reprint came, then the first expansion inspired by the Arabic stories of One Thousand and One Nights. Countless others followed over the course of thirty years. Here stylized in classic fantasy, other times in horror or steampunk, or created according to licensed brands, for example Lord of the Rings. Four years after the release, Wizards had sold two billion cards, got a patent for their game, and was soon bought by Hasbro for $325 million, under which they still generate huge money today.
The only card worth fifty million and the Czech world champion
That mention of The Lord of the Rings is not accidental. The latest set of Magic with this theme these days brought another historical entry in the rich history of the cult game. In addition to the gaming aspect, Magic: The Gathering is also a collector’s item, where the cards that were released in the most limited numbers have an astronomical price. And in one single deck combining Magic: The Gathering and The Lord of the Rings, there was a special card of the Ring of Power, around which JRR Tolkien’s books revolve. There is no other but this one.
A few weeks ago, a lucky man named Brook Trafton found the most valuable Ring. A few days ago, rapper and passionate collector Post Malone bought it from him for an amount exceeding two million dollars, i.e. around 50 million crowns. He thus set a record price for a Magic card. And even for the second time. Last year, the musician spent roughly a third of the amount for a rare Black Lotus card signed by an artist who created an illustration for the valuable and rare piece.
They say you can’t quit Magic completely. So far it’s confirmed to me.
There’s just a lot of money going around Magic. But not only (although primarily) in the sale of cards. The well-thought-out and sophisticated game quickly gave rise to award-winning competitions. Last year’s World Championship in Magic: The Gathering attracted competitors for prize money in the amount of 250 thousand dollars. In the upcoming, already twenty-ninth year, which will start in September, half a million will be played. In addition to the most prestigious tournament, dozens of others are organized every year. Outside the professional scene, estimates speak of more than forty million members of the card cult.
And since Magic is a worldwide phenomenon, it will not surprise anyone that Czech and Slovak players also participate in the competition. Last year, Jakub Tóth took third place in the world championship, which earned him twenty-five thousand dollars, around half a million crowns. A year earlier, and in her place, Ondřej Stráský, the only Czech player who devotes himself fully to MTG, finished. And in the early days of the game, the Czech Republic even had a world champion. In 1997, Jakub Šlemr became the world champion, but he later changed the magic cards to poker cards.
From high school to the best Magic players
“The whole community knows each other well. Ondra Stráský, Ivan Floch, Standa Cífka and Jan Kotrla are some of my best friends. Thanks to them, I can play Magic fairly well,” Jakub Tóth lists the most famous Czech and Slovak players of today for CzechCrunch. “Ivan coached me absolutely excellently for the last tournament. I worked with Standa for several years. And Ondra and I are currently planning how we will prepare and live in Vegas for the World Championships,” supplies.
Ondřej Stráský also confirms the closeness of the home players: “Ivan is my roommate, I was at Kuba’s wedding now. But the Czech professional community is relatively small. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to make a living playing Magic anymore, Wizards of the Coast has stopped supporting the competitive scene so much.” While Stráský is a completely professional player, Tóth is also professionally engaged in equity trading. This reminds us that although Magic: The Gathering contains elements of chance, it is a thoughtful, sophisticated game requiring strategy.
“I’ve always felt that these activities connect well with each other,” compares the game and risk management or financial analysis. Both players, who still have a few years left to reach their thirties, but are otherwise connected by their path to Magical. They got into the game as teenage high school students. Tóth then qualified for a big tournament in Hawaii at the age of fourteen. Stráský headed to the same destination a few years later. It was the first big step to the professional scene for both of them.
A sample of cards from the Lord of the Rings themed expansion for Magic: The Gathering
“I’ve won something like a hundred thousand dollars in my career, the all-time money list now shows me 160th. But for me it’s more of a hobby. Most of the money fell on flights, accommodation and experiences. Which is great,” says Jakub. But at Ondrej’s list of the highest-paid Magic players shows almost half a million dollars, over ten million crowns at today’s exchange rate. “I am the fifteenth highest paid player in history, from the Czech Republic, just behind Martin Juza. With a good result in the Vegas tournament, I could surpass him.” he says. Brazilian magician Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa reigns in first place with a million dollars.
The interesting thing is that the professional players themselves are not the owners of any expensive collections of rare cards. “I practically don’t own any, I usually borrow them for tournaments. In general, I sometimes find it a bit crazy how much some cards cost. But it’s largely a collector’s game. But the whole saga with the Ring seems to me to be brilliant marketing. Even considering Post Malone ended up getting it,” means Stráský. Tóth confirms his words: “I have a few cards, but I usually put the more expensive ones into circulation. As for the rare Lord of the Rings card, I feel a slight disapproval of the lottery aspect of randomly finding it in a deck, happy that it will generate viral interest around the game again.”
Also read Lord of the Rings joins Magic. A Ring card is released in a single copy of The Lord of the Rings and Magic joins forces. A single Sauron’s Ring of Power will be hidden among the millions of cards
However, it is not only the players who are doing well, but especially the publishers. For the year 2022, sales from Magic even exceeded a billion dollars. Thanks to this, Wizards of the Coast showed a slight increase compared to other Hasbra divisions, whose turnover, on the other hand, decreased by nine percent. Although MTG does not bring only positive news to its owners. Overwhelming the market with too much new card volume has earned Hasbro a downgrade from Bank of America. By the way, Wizards’ actions regarding Dungeons & Dragons and somewhat shady plans with the license of the upcoming new edition also received criticism.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Richard Garfield conjured up something unique. Magic: The Gathering has turned from an idea in the head of a genius into a hugely powerful and well-known brand that has also seen several video game adaptations, books, comics and crossovers to other tabletop games. For example, in the form of extensions that allow you to play adventures from the fantasy world of Magic in the aforementioned Dungeons & Dragons. And, of course, it inspired countless successors and imitators, both paper and computer. However, take a look at Pokemon cards or digital Hearthstone, for example.
I am extremely grateful to Magic. He made me the person I am. I would highly recommend him to everyone.
Alone Magic of course it has undergone changes over the years. “Just in the fifteen years I’ve been playing, he’s developed a lot. In the past, game design was more focused on professional gaming, currently it is more focused on people who play for fun. That doesn’t sit well with me as a competitive player, but it’s clear to me that I’m in the minority,” describes Stráský. However, the players have changed over the years. Well, at least some. “Since the start, I’ve gone through almost all phases, from the desire to win at all costs to today’s point, when I’m trying, but the primary thing for me is the trip and my friends. Although it may sound a bit ‘cheesy’,” Tóth adds his view.
Even thirty years after its premiere, Magic: The Gathering simply has an unmistakable charm that is not easy to dispel. As Jakub Tóth says, p magic it is said that it cannot be completely finished: “And so far it is being confirmed for me. I was fairly certain that my last professional tournament was in Barcelona eleven years ago. But somehow it pulled me back in and we have the World Championships in Las Vegas in a few weeks.”
His card counterpart feels the same way, although he no longer sees his own big game future. “But I’ve thought that several times in the past. And it was usually followed by success that extended my career. Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to just sit down in a pub with my friends and play, after all, Magic has turned into work for me and it has a different dynamic. But still, I’m extremely grateful for the game. She made me the person I am. I would highly recommend her to everyone.” concludes Ondřej Stráský.
2023-08-05 07:26:07
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