I was tempted to release this article when it was announced that this series was going to happen, full of raw emotions and personal thoughts. However, what felt more appropriate was to delete that article, to wait a few weeks and then consume all the news again and come at it with a level head and give all the information in one place and to give my thoughts at the end.

What We Know

I did the easy work for you, the amount of click bait and repeating news I went thought was eye-rolling. But I’ve put my reporter hat on to just give facts that are backed up, I will be citing everything, and you will be able to find all the references at the bottom of the article listing with numbers to help.

A lot of the information we know came via a Netflix announcement/press release (1).

The Russo Brothers Are Connected

The Directors of Avengers: Endgame are confirmed to be executive producers. Within the Press release they said “We have been huge fans and players of Magic: The Gathering for as long as it has been around, so being able to help bring these stories to life through animation is a true passion project for us,” said Joe and Anthony Russo(1).

It Has A Promising Crew

Henry Gilroy (Star Wars Rebel & Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Jose Molina (The Tick & Agent Carter) will both be lead writers as well as co-executive producers (1). Also on the writing team, we have Mairghread Scott (Guardians of the Galaxy TV series) and Diya Mishra (Grandfathered) (2,3). Yoriaki Mochizuki (The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part & Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) will serve as supervising director and co-executive producer (1). Hanna (@hypherrr) seems to be the character designer (4), I have reached out to them at the time of writing and will update if confirmed.

We also found out from the press release that “Todd Makurath, Eric Calderon, and Dave Newberg serving as producers, and Mike Larocca and Isaac Krauss serving as executive producers.”(1)

Several Companies Are Connected

It goes without saying, but Netflix, Wizards of The Coast, Hasbro’s Allspark Animation, Octopie Studios & Bardel Entertainment have all been connected to the show (1).

It's Animated

Its been confirmed that Bardel Entertainment (Rick and Morty & Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny) will be doing the animation on the series (1). Octopie Studios will be overseeing the production of the series, their CEO Issac Krauss said “Our goal is to not only tell a compelling story leveraging Magic: The Gathering’s incredible body of work but to also push the medium and perception of storytelling through animation. This series will cross the genres of suspenseful thriller, horror, and drama with deeply developed characters the likes of which are not often seen in animation.” (1)

Wizards Seem To Be Doing This Due To Their Recent Success

Chris Cocks President of Wizards of The Coast said that “ More fans are enjoying Magic now than at any time in its 25-year history thanks to the enduring popularity of the tabletop game and our latest release War of the Spark, as well as the incredible success of our new digital game, Magic: The Gathering Arena.” (1)

It’s A New Story

Currently, the information we have been given is that it will be an “all-new storyline” that will “expand on the stories of the Planeswalkers, which are Magic’s unique magic-wielding heroes and villains as they contend with stakes larger than anyone world can hold.”(1)

They Have Been Trying To Make Something For Years

Within an interview with Polygon, Jeremy Jarvis the franchise team director for Magic: The Gathering went into details regarding the process that they have been going through to get this to the place it is today.

When looking for potential partners Jarvis has three key things he's looking for which is “One, I want to feel that they respect the IP, Two, I want to feel like I, as a creative, am being heard, that at least the better of my ideas are getting through, and they’re not just being pooh-poohed.” “three, I want to feel challenged, because if I don’t leave that room feeling challenged, why are there other people in the room?”

We also know that Wizards are still being involved “This is not a ‘kick it over the fence’ licensing deal,” “We have skin in this game, and the people that have been working to make the characters, make the worlds and bring them to life with the existing mediums that people know”.

It gives the impression that the series will be following a character or group, “[Magic] is very character-centric,” Jarvis said, “and we talked about some of the places that we believe would be best brought to life by animation, about the characters we believe that would be best served by animation.” And unlike its contemporaries “This is not going to be Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokémon where you’re literalizing gameplay aspects. We developed this library of wonderful characters and wonderful places and impactful events, and we’re going to be bringing that to life in a new way.”

You can read the full article by Polygon here: https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/7/18657021/magic-the-gathering-netflix-animated-series-interview

My Thoughts