The first full issue was distributed in Fall 1993 as a quarterly magazine[1] to accompany the increasingly popular Magic: The Gathering trading card game.

What initially separated The Duelist from other card magazines of its time, such as InQuest or Scrye, was its detailed pages.

Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield often wrote the quizzical back column of the magazine.

In addition to Magic, it also served as a way for Wizards to introduce players to other products it owned, including the moderately obscure Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and the more popular Legend of the Five Rings.

Magic gradually lost the magazine's focus as it put more emphasis on up-and-coming card games; with Pokémon's immediate North American success, The Duelist was converted into a dual-format publication, with general separate sections for Magic and Pokémon.