MTG players in Japan get nostalgic exclusive crossover

❘ Updated: 2023-08-10T18:48:14

MTG players participating in Japanese Friday Night Magic events will potentially get exclusive promos with a blast from the past crossover.

The Japanese side of Magic: The Gathering has all the cool art. While Secret Lairs are great, there’s something about seeing recognizable artists participating in your favorite game. During War of the Spark, MTG released special Planeswalker cards that had art from Yoshitaka Amano, Final Fantasy’s artist. More recently, Junji Ito had his own Secret Lair with his unique black and white takes on some classic cards, and Elesh Norn from All Will Be One.

However, now Wizards of the Coast are bringing back a name not many have heard for a few years. Duel Masters is a manga about card games. The difference between it and Konami’s Yu-Gi-Oh!, is that the original game that it spawned was co-designed by some of Wizard’s developers. It differed a little bit, but Wizards and Tomy eventually shut the game down. They did revive it, but this too was canned.

However, the manga is still running and is apparently popular enough to tickle the nostalgia senses of Japanese MTG players. Between September and December, four promo cards with Duel Monster art will be up for grabs. Based on our own Friday Night Magic experiences local game stores should end up getting enough to hand them out to their customers.

MTG’s promos have always been a mainstay of Friday Night Magic, the weekly event that stores run. Some players on Twitter are already planning their next big hunt on eBay, while others lament that the cards aren’t being printed here.

MTG gets Duel Masters promos in Japan

The Japanese promos will be the following cards:

Nicol Bolas
Earthquake
Serra Angel
Pouncing Jaguar

All four of the cards are from Magic’s history, with Pouncing Jaguar not seeing a reprint since 1999. Serra Angel and Earthquake regularly see reprints in various sets, with Earthquake just appearing in the 30th Anniversary and Lord of the Rings packs.

Nicol Bolas is obviously the chase card here, with the archvillain of the Magic universe offering an incredible re-usage of his Duel Masters appearance.

The cards won’t be available over in the West for the time being but expect to see them appearing on auction sites very soon.