Magic The Gathering doesn’t necessarily seem like a game made for crossovers at first. It takes its lore very seriously, and is always grounded in its fantasy ideals. However, the basic mechanics that make up Magic cards are flexible. Themes associated with each of its five colors are great ways to categorize fictional characters from all kinds of different sources. As a result, there’s lots of Magic the Gathering cards representing characters from totally different IPs. Not all of them are legal in most forms of play, but they’re definitely all worth appreciating, especially when Wizards of the Coast creates unique and funny designs to match the source material.
Not every crossover gets particularly flashy. Magic‘s crossover with The Walking Dead last year featured some fairly straightforward card designs that wouldn’t have felt out of place in a proper Magic set, so long as the characters got new names. Some crossovers take the opposite route and get as odd and flashy as possible. That brings to mind the handful of My Little Pony cards that Magic once produced. Out of all the game’s crossovers, a few in particular stand above the rest in terms of themes, design, and charm.
For those who don’t know, Wizards of the Coast’s parent company is toy company titan Hasbro. Back in 2017, Magic the Gathering made an appearance at HasCon, a fan event meant to celebrate Magic the Gathering and Hasbro’s other products. Two of those products are the Nerf foam dart gun series and the Transformers franchise. It’s pretty easy for Hasbro to arrange internal crossovers for Magic and these other IPs. Plastic toys might seem hard to cross over with trading cards, but Magic‘s developers did a great job and produced a couple amusing and perfectly playable cards.
Grimlock was chosen to represent Transformers in this crossover. Grimlock is generally known as the leader of the Dinobots, a faction of Transformers who turn into dinosaurs instead of vehicles. Grimlock is a really efficient and aggressive creature, and happens to fit very well into Dinosaur decks. Nerf‘s card isn’t as practical as Grimlock, but it’s pretty hilarious.
The card encourages its user to pack the biggest Nerf gun they have available when playing a game of Magic in the hopes of blasting the other player’s deck away with a deluge of foam darts. Nerf War might not fit into any deck in particular, but it’s a pretty hilarious break from Magic‘s normal rules, and the flavor text parodying Nerf‘s motto is delightful.
When Magic the Gathering‘s Ikoria set was revealed, it was obvious that the developers were taking heavily inspiration from kaiju movies. The plane of Ikoria is all about humans trying to survive in a world where animals adapt at lightning speed and frequently mutate into towering monsters of all kinds. With that in mind, it’s more than appropriate that Ikoria received a Godzilla crossover.
Many of Ikoria‘s most noteworthy creatures were reskinned as various monsters from Godzilla movies, including three different versions of Godzilla itself. Although these classic monsters didn’t get cards specially designed for them, the cards that Wizards of the Coast chose to assign to them were largely very appropriate. On top of that, the art for these cards is fantastic, perfectly capturing the power and majesty of the kaiju that are allies and enemies to Godzilla.
Technically speaking, Magic the Gathering‘s big Dungeons and Dragons crossover hasn’t happened yet. However, the entire set dedicated to Wizards of the Coast’s famous tabletop RPG is easily the biggest and most ambitious crossover the company has ever attempted. It’s one thing to dedicate a couple fun promotional cards to an IP, but now Magic‘s developers have more than two hundred cards to come up with for the crossover. Dungeons and Dragons is such a rich IP that the upcoming Forgotten Realms set is sure to be breathtaking. Finally players can see Magic incorporate creatures like beholders, illithids, mimics, and so much more.
Technically there has been one crossover between these two tabletop games before. Wizards printed a joke card called the Sword of Dungeons and Dragons, an Equipment card inspired by a list of powerful Magic sword Equipments. This Sword is actually pretty strong even though it’s a joke card, producing free Dragons for the user. Even though the Sword is a gag, it teases themes that’ll surely come to play in the Forgotten Realms set. This is a crossover that seems like it’s a long time coming, seeing as Magic has been invited into Dungeons and Dragons before. The inverse is worth looking forward to.
Magic The Gathering sets are available now in game shops and digitally in Magic: The Gathering Arena.
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