Hasbro Wants to Double Wizards of the Coast Staff Size

by Cody Perez in General | Jul, 26th 2019

It seems that the immense popularity and success of Magic: The Gathering is leading to great things for creator Wizards of the Coast. Hasbro is reportedly planning to double the Wizards of the Coast staff size in the next five years or so, which is a welcome change all around for everyone involved.

Why Wizards of the Coast Staff Size Will Be Doubled

This is no surprise after all since Magic is one of only two properties from Hasbro that is actually profitable at this time; the other being the board game Monopoly. This was quite astonishing when it was revealed since the company also owns the insane properties like My Little Pony and Transformers.

Given that this beloved card game is so profitable for the company, it’s no surprise then that Hasbro will want to capitalize on that and reward the team for their efforts by expanding the Wizards of the Coast Staff size. This also is a positive expansion for fans of the game, too.

If the team grows in size, then that means that it will be able to do much more for the game itself in every way possible. Adding a few staff members is one thing but doubling the entire Wizards of the Coast staff is another. From a glance, that could mean double the possibilities even if it doesn’t end up like that in reality.

Regardless, this is fantastic news for all of us as the card game looks to have a bright future ahead of it at this rate. This is in large part due to a massive resurgence in both the tabletop physical cards and the digital game as well. Just recently, the physical card game has seen an increase of 12 percent in sales overall.

In terms of the different versions of the game, the physical cards is still the most profitable but that could change in the future. The still fairly new and currently in open beta video game version of it called Magic: The Gathering Arena is in second place in terms of profits, despite being newer than the established Magic Online game.

The Future of MTG Arena

Hasbro knows this, though, and announced that the open beta for MTG Arena will not last too much longer. The beta phase of the game will be coming to an end soon as the game will be set to launch as a full release within the next four months or so.

It isn’t too surprising to hear this either since we already knew the plans for the game were for it to launch as a full release game sometime in 2019. Regardless, it is important for players to know that this is still the case and the open beta phase will come to an end sometime this year, likely in the fall or winter.

After all, the game launched last year in the fall so a year of open beta testing seems like plenty of time in beta to us, especially with so many of the recent changes that have happened as well as the plans for the future. Recently, the launch of the Magic Core Set 2020 expansion brought with it the Mastery System.

The Mastery Pass is a seasonal pass of sorts, similar to that of Fortnite and other online games. It offers plenty of new rewards for players to collect like the elemental cat pet. Pets are a new cosmetic reward that you can collect that comes with its own set of problems.

Players quickly found that spamming the pet during matches causes issues for the opponent to the point of forcing disconnects and the like. That issue has since been mostly addressed but it does show that this is still very much an open beta experience at this time.

Beyond that, though, there is more on the way for the game that will bring it closer to being ready for a full release. There is a new mode that will be exclusively coming to Arena called Brawl in the future, presumably near the release of the next expansion Throne of Eldraine.

That mode will be similar to that of the Commander mode that many players know and love with the exception of having only Standard cards in the match format. This will allow players to try out a new way of playing with the new cards that will release with the fall expansion.

Players can look forward to the fall expansion Throne of Eldraine in a couple of months when the tabletop physical cards release on October 4. The prerelease will be a bit before that on September 28 and 29. The digital version of the expansion is expected to happen prior to the official release date.