[16][17] Land, enchantments, artifacts, creature and planeswalker cards are considered "permanents" as they remain in play until removed by other spells, ability, or combat effects.

[20][21] Most sanctioned games for Magic: The Gathering under the Wizards Play Network (WPN) use the based Constructed format that require players to create their decks from their own library of cards.

[31] A large variety of formats have been defined by the WPN which allows different pools of expansions to be used or alter deck construction rules for special events.

Larger tournaments with hundreds of competitors from around the globe sponsored by Wizards of the Coast are arranged many times every year, with substantial cash prizes for the top finishers.

[69] Frequent winners of these events made names for themselves in the Magic community, such as Luis Scott-Vargas, Gabriel Nassif, Kai Budde and Jon Finkel.

[75] There were several ways to qualify for a regional Player's Tour, including local store events, accumulating points at Gran Prix/MagicFests, and winning on Magic: The Gathering Online.

[77] According to several players from the MPL, the messaging they received was that competitive Magic would no longer be supported as a full-time, high-paid esports profession.

[79] Richard Garfield had an early attachment to games during his youth: before settling down in Oregon, his father, an architect, had taken his family to Bangladesh and Nepal during his work projects.

Garfield had been seeking publishers for the title, and his colleague, Mike Davis, suggested the newly formed Wizards of the Coast, a small outfit established by Peter Adkison, a systems analyst for Boeing in Seattle.

[80] Garfield also began to set the narrative of the game in "Dominia", a multiverse of infinite "planes" from which players, as wizards, can draw power from, which would allow for the vast array of creatures and magics that he was planning for the cards.

[83] Garfield has stated that two major influences in his creation of Magic: the Gathering were the games Cosmic Encounter,[84] which first used the concept that normal rules could sometimes be overridden, and Dungeons & Dragons.

The company had already committed to completing The Primal Order rulebook, aimed to be compatible with most other role-playing systems on the market, which most investment was drawn to.

[107] The Core Sets began to be released annually (previously biennially) in July 2009 coinciding with the name change from 10th Edition to Magic 2010.

For the first few years of its production, Magic: The Gathering featured a small number of cards with names or artwork with demonic or occultist themes, in 1995 the company elected to remove such references from the game.

[133] A special three-card set based on characters from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (another Hasbro brand) was sold as both physical product and digital items within MTG Arena to support the Extra Life charity.

[134] The "Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths" set released in April 2020 included 16 kaiju monsters from Toho as promotional cards, such as Godzilla.

[164] Greg Gorden reviewed Magic: The Gathering in White Wolf #38 (1993), rating it a 4 out of 5 and stated that "Small game companies struggle along until they get their breakout product.

"[166] Marcelo A. Figueroa reviewed the game in a 1993 issue of Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer, noting both positives and negatives, stating that, "despite all of its flaws, it's as endearing as Star Fleet Battles".

By combining the collecting and trading elements of baseball cards with the fantasy play dynamics of role-playing games, Magic created a whole new genre of product that changed our industry forever.

[Chris] Cocks said Magic accounts for a 'meaningful portion' of that, with KeyBanc estimating the game's contribution is already more than $500 million—including both the physical cards and the nascent digital version.

[172][173] Brett Andress, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, predicts Magic: The Gathering Arena adding as much as 98 cents a share in incremental earnings to results by 2021 (which is at least a 20% boost).

[192] Its popularity often was associated with addictive behavior similar to gambling through the allure of gaining new cards in booster packs and expansions, and due to this, Magic: The Gathering has been sometimes called "cardboard crack" by both fans and critics.

The original master set includes miniatures that represent the five Planeswalkers Gideon, Jace, Liliana, Chandra, and Nissa as well as select creatures from the Magic: The Gathering universe.

Magic: The Gathering Arena, introduced in 2019, is fashioned after the free-to-play Hearthstone, with players able to acquire new cards for free or through spending real-world funds.

The Duels series did not feature full sets of Magic cards but selected subsets, and were initially designed to couple a challenging single-player experience with an advanced artificial-intelligence computer opponent.

[224] Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment have started beta tests for Magic: Legends, a massively multiplayer online action role-playing game for personal computers and consoles.

[225] The title was cancelled ahead of its full release in 2021; executive producer Stephen Ricossa explained that the game's creative vision had "missed the mark".

[242] In June 2019, Variety reported that Joe and Anthony Russo, Wizards of the Coast, and Entertainment One (then-owned by Hasbro) had teamed with Netflix for an animated Magic: The Gathering television series.

[250][251] In September 2024, Netflix announced the series has restarted development with Terry Matalas as showrunner and Hasbro Entertainment as production studio.

Wizards of the Coast, which owned the rights to Magic: The Gathering, took active steps to hinder the distribution of the game and successfully shut out PGI Limited from attending GenCon in July 1998.