For this week’s episode of “Strictly Business,” Selection was on the bottom at MagicCon 2026 in Las Vegas, a conference centered not round slight of hand methods, however Hasbro’s hit buying and selling card recreation Magic: The Gathering.
The three-day occasion featured 25,000 attendees partaking in a number of actions, all the pieces from a headliner panel that includes the MCU’s Paul Bettany unveiling a primary take a look at a brand new “Marvel Super Heroes” collaboration with Magic, to a “Cat Lair” adoption accomplished in partnership with a Vegas-based kitten rescue. On the heart of the conference is one occasion that solely an elite few partake in: the professional tour, which splits a prize pool of $500,000 among the many high Magic gamers from world wide.
And whereas MagicCon has solely been round since 2023, the pro-tour portion has been going sturdy since 1994, simply after the cardboard recreation was first launched.
James Coletta/Wizards of the Coast
“So the Pro Tour has been around for like 30 years. Just about as long as the game; they started up almost immediately after Magic caught on,” MagicCon present supervisor Brandon Owen mentioned. “I got hired [in 2022] to create Magic Con. It had never existed. So I got to do the very first one and see it from its ideation to where it is now and hopefully onward. The idea was they wanted to have something that has the pro tour… It all grew around, we’ve got this pro tour, people watch it and everything, what can we build around it?”
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Made by Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast (which can be the model behind Dungeons & Dragons), Magic: The Gathering has elevated in recognition in recent times with 2025 marking the sport’s strongest 12 months ever with $1.7 billion. And whereas Magic has begun collaborating with outdoors manufacturers like “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “Final Fantasy,” the Magic is a sizzling commodity by itself within the leisure trade with an animated Magic collection within the works at Netflix and a live-action movie arrange at Legendary with director Matt Johnson (who was again stage on the conference this 12 months the place he was assembly with pro-tour gamers for analysis).
Wizards of the Coast’s head designer for Magic: The Gathering, Mark Rosewater, and principal Magic designer Gavin Verhey mentioned the challenges of main the model because it grows past the sport – and sport – they as soon as knew.
James Coletta/Wizards of the Coast
“There’s this dual idea of making sure all the different things are addressed and it’s a challenge,” Rosewater mentioned. “One of the things that’s really hard is Magic is so many different things to so many different people, but every magic set has to talk to everybody, in some way.”
Through the conference, the Wizards crew unveiled first seems at their upcoming collaboration units for Marvel super heroes and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” in addition to MTG’s unique IP assortment, “Reality Fracture.”
“There’s never been a time in Magic history where so many eyes are on it and it’s grown so much in the past handful of years,” Verhey mentioned. “We are truly acutely aware of how many people we’re trying to design for because the voices are always louder.”
“Strictly Business” is Selection’s weekly podcast that includes conversations with trade leaders concerning the enterprise of media and leisure. (Please click here to subscribe to our free newsletter.) New episodes debut each Wednesday and will be downloaded at Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud and extra.
