Magic: The Gathering/Trivia

• Banned in China: For a while, it was illegal in China to depict human skulls in artwork, and some cards' art had to be modified to accommodate the Chinese regulations.
• Fan Nickname: Many cards. See Fan Nickname/Tabletop Games.
• Follow the Leader: Magic was the "leader". See the Collectible Card Game and Trading Card Lame articles for those who followed.
• He Also Did: Mark Rosewater, Head Designer of Magic R&D, was a writer for Roseanne for a short time before he worked at Wizards of the Coast. This fact has become something of a Running Gag in his weekly column on the official website.
• Official Fan Submitted Content:
  • Magic has held a "You Make the Card" event three times, allowing players to submit and vote on cards that would eventually become Forgotten Ancient, Crucible of Worlds, and Vanish Into Memory.
  • The now-discontinued annual Magic Invitational tournament invited the game's top players to compete for the chance to submit their own custom card to the game and get their face featured in its artwork.
• Promoted Fanboy: Many current members of the R&D team that creates the game started off as regular players. Notably, contestants in the Great Designer Search received internships in R&D as a reward for winning a card design competition, and are now full-time employees.
• Throw It In: Mindless Null, Zendikar's much-maligned three-mana 2/2 creature with a drawback, was originally intended to cost two mana. Due to a typographical error, its mana cost was accidentally increased by 1. R&D decided to stick with the mistyped version, and the rest is history.
• Trope Namers:
  • Blood Knight: Blood Knight.
  • Strategy Schmategy: From the Unglued card Strategy, Schmategy, a great example of the trope in action.
  • Protection From Editors: There aren't any cards with this exact ability, but it's derived from the "Protection" keyword.
• What Could Have Been: When making the first true expansion, Arabian Nights, the idea was tossed around that cards from different sets would have different card backgrounds to determine what set they were from (Arabian Nights's was going to be purple with gold accents). The change was averted at the last minute, seeing how the different card backs--as deck protectors weren't that widely used yet--would help players fix their decks. Instead, we were given the expansion symbols that appear on the right side of the card between the art and the text box. And the rest is history.
• Working Title: Every set has a codename that the designers and developers use before the final name is decided. Normally, each three-set block gets a three-word phrase (a practice that began with Mercadian Masques); for example, Ravnica, Guildpact, and Dissension were Control, Alt, and Delete, respectively. Some other codenames:
  • Lights/Camera/Action (Scars of Mirrodin block)
  • Shake/Rattle/Roll (Innistrad block)
  • Rock/Paper/Scissors (Shards of Alara block)
  • Bacon/Lettuce/Tomato (Mirrodin block)
  • Zendikar block's codenames were Live, Long, and Prosper in a Shout-Out to Star Trek.
  • Time Spiral block was Snap/Crackle/Pop, a reference to Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal.
  • Lorwyn block is an interesting case: the codenames Peanut, Butter, and Jelly had already been chosen when it was decided that the block would consist of two mini-blocks. Rather than rename Jelly, the two blocks became Peanut/Butter and Jelly/Donut.
  • The codename for Tempest was "Bogavhati", which led to an in-joke when the character Vhati il-Dal was named after the set's Working Title.
  • Interestingly, up until Alliances, each set's code name ended up being its final name as well.