Magic: The Gathering/Hasbro

From left to right: the Serra Angel, Kamahl, the Lord of Atlantis, the Sengir Vampire, Ernham Djinn, and Shadow Mage.

## Product Information

### Year(s)

2003

With the *Magic: The Gathering* series now in their possession, Hasbro thought it could jump straight ahead into manufacturing action figures based on their newly acquired IP; but not without sacrificing a toyline that an independent company was working super hard on and resulted in prototypes of theirs that barely marked the level of quality most people were expecting.

## **Summary**

I've already discussed this in another article, but to make a long story short, Resaurus acquired Wizards of the Coast in October 1999; meaning they now had full ownership of the *Magic* card games. Though to make things awkward, another company named Resaurus was working on a toyline for the series and led to some legal behind-the-scenes drama. Though a damning email from a WotC employee revealed that the Resaurus dead was dead as the license was brought back under the Hasbro umbrella. While it kind of makes sense from a business perspective as Hasbro is much a larger entity with more resources than Resaurus, many saw this as a lethal blow to an independent toy company that was already struggling to stay in the game.  Nevertheless, now that the Columbus toy company was out of the picture, Hasbro was free to produce their own line of action figures based on the MTG license and in 2003, they unveiled prototypes for their first planned series.  The only characters to carry over from the Resaurus license were Serra Angel and Ernham Djinn; though bare in mind, their designs were completely different from this time around. Everyone else in this line was all new and the two other characters that were based on "time-honored cards" include the Lord of Atlantis and Sengir Vampire. The last two characters, based on the *Odyssey* expansion, include "Kamahl, Pit Fighter" and Shadowmage Infiltrator. Each set would've been packaged in blister cards and were to have come with a random exclusive *Seventh Edition* card. The fanbase's reactions to Hasbro's prototypes were almost mixed to negative as many of them criticized their smaller appearance and almost cheap-looking sculpts, and that it was not worth putting the Resaurus line out of commission when they had much better looking models to offer.

Had the first series been released, Hasbro would've done a second wave of *Magic: The Gathering* action figures with more cards to offer and one of the characters that would've been included among the "iconic" characters was Akroma, Angel of Wrath. According to one of the designers, Akoma was deemed as a good opportunity for the lineup, despite female figures doing poorly in the traditional market - usually left for "shortpacks;" figures done in a much smaller number meant to be highly collectable. Series 2 was never released, though she was especially vetoed as the designers didn't like the design of her card. Despite all the tremendous power she had, Akoma wasn't deserving of the "iconic" card category and they felt she wouldn't interest anybody with a mundane appearance.

## **Final Verdict**

Despite Hasbro still owning the *Magic: The Gathering* license which continues to sell trading cards each year, and with the exception of miniatures that come packaged with expansion sets, not a single action figure been produced by Hasbro since their 2003 attempt; no exact reason has been given on why it was cancelled to begin with. While some fans have pined over their cancellation for years, those that were crushed over Resaurus could only see it differently as an act of righteous punishment for Hasbro after what they did to their license. Neither of the prototypes that Hasbro made have resurfaced and its unlikely that Akroma ever made to either concept art or model stages, along with the rest of Series 2. Interestingly, the order pages for Series 1 can still be found on online sites like StarStore and Entertainment Earth, though the former has been derelict since 2009 while the latter specifically states that its an "Information Page" only. Regardless, Hasbro's MTG series will remain: **LOST**.

## **External Links**

* Hisstank.com (Originated 2011, September 7). *Magic the Gathering ?*. Online thread.
* Rosewater, M. (2006, June 12). Angels Among Us. The official *Magic: The Gathering* website.

## **References**

1. ↑ http://www.toymania.com/news/messages/266.shtml
2. ↑ https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Magic\_figures#Hasbro