If you thought the Magic: The Gathering money-printing machine was going to peak with last year’s record-setting Final Fantasy crossover, think again. Wizards of the Coast’s collectible card game just had another standout quarter thanks to sets like The Hobbit and Reality Fracture, leading Hasbro to report 15 percent revenue growth year-over-year. How long before they just rename the entire toy company MTG, Inc.?
Wizards of the Coast reported $367 million in operating income from the quarter, the majority of which came from Magic: The Gathering. That in turn accounted for over 66 percent of Hasbro’s overall operating income last quarter. That number jumps to roughly 90 percent when you look at the last nine months. Yes, Hasbro owns everything from Hot Wheels and Transformers to Play-Doh and Peppa Pig, but that’s not where the money is coming from anymore.
It’s coming from people spending hundreds of dollars on boxes of booster packs that contain cards called things like The Queen of Dale and Ajani Resolute. Wizards’ full year earnings have been buoyed even further by big licensed tie-ins like Marvel’s Avengers and the upcoming Star Trek Universes Beyond set coming in November. And while many diehard fans continue to accuse Hasbro of diluting Magic‘s legacy by overprinting and releasing too many sets a year, the 2026 expansions have generally been really strong.
I for one definitely thought Magic-mania would have started cooling off in 2026, but there’s no slowdown in sight at the moment. It’s especially interesting to compare the rise of MTG to the ongoing speculative bubble around the Pokémon TCG. MTG is mostly for playing, whereas the energy in Pokémon-land is primarily around hunting rare chase cards and building up valuable collections. The result has been a hobby battered by vultures and scalpers. MTG has the opposite problem. People complain that reprints and set churn are devaluing cards.
For people who just like draft nights and playing Commander with friends, the MTG money-printing machine has mostly been beside the point. Still, I’d personally enjoy having one or two fewer sets released each year. I don’t think the Hasbro C-suite and shareholders feel the same way.