Transformers cards are coming to Magic: The Gathering

(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)

Since the Unicron-sized toy company Hasbro owns both Magic: The Gathering and the Transformers, maybe it's not the strangest thing in the world that the robots in disguise will soon be appearing in Wizards of the Coast's collectible card game—at least from a brand synergy viewpoint. (In fact, there was a convention-exclusive Grimlock Magic card available at HasCon 2017.) During Hasbro's recent PulseCon it was revealed that 15 double-sided cards representing characters like Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Arcee, and Goldbug will be appearing in Magic: The Gathering. They'll be spread throughout booster packs for upcoming expansion The Brothers' War, a retelling of a classic Magic storyline from 1994 that will have its global release on November 18. 

On one side the Transformers cards depict characters in their robot forms, and on the other as vehicles or stereos or whatever. Each card will be printed in two art styles, one looking like the 1980s cartoon, and the other resembling the recent Transformers: Shattered Glass comic books, which are set in a kind of mirror universe where the Autobots are the bad guys and the Decepticons are the heroes.

IGN has a preview showing six of the Transformers cards, which feature two new mechanics. There's More Than Meets the Eye, which lets them be cast transformed for a different price, and Living Metal, which means Transformers in vehicle mode don't need to be crewed like regular vehicle-type artifact cards. It notes that these cards will only be legal in the Commander, Legacy, and Vintage formats.

The NME reports that Outright Games is working on a Transformers videogame based on Earthspark, an animated series coming out on Paramount+ in November. Outright previously published Transformers: Battlegrounds, a turn-based squad tactics game that was released on Steam in 2020. The new game is scheduled to come out on PC in 2023.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

Read more
Lightning from Final Fantasy 13
Thanks to the upcoming Final Fantasy set, Magic: The Gathering is getting a fishing minigame
A blue dragon rises into storm clouds
Wizards of the Coast throws a bone to players who miss vanilla Magic: The Gathering with a dragon-themed set called Tarkir: Dragonstorm
The cast of Avatar: The Last Airbender prepare to be turned into Magic cards
Magic: The Gathering's last set for 2025 will be Avatar: The Last Airbender
Magic: The Gathering is being turned into a live-action movie as the beginning of 'a multimedia universe'
A punk rides a motorbike out of an explosion as its back wheel falls off
Magic: The Gathering's interplanar Wacky Wheels set is good actually
A snakewoman holding a sickle
Magic: The Gathering's Tarkir: Dragonstorm set isn't just about dragons
Latest in Strategy
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
Civilization 7 Great Britain - Modern Civ art (via YouTube)
As Civilization 7 struggles to keep up with Civ 5 player counts, a new patch is coming tomorrow with still more UI changes and gameplay tweaks
Battle Brothers
Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets 'a bucket load of fixes' and free new content
King wielding his axe against would-be assassins in Norland.
Medieval colony sim Norland is getting a 'damn big update' that completely overhauls the game's mechanics: 'We're rolling out some radical changes to the core gameplay'
Age of Empires 2
Former Age of Empires 2 dev claims Microsoft demanded its first expansion should have a Korean faction, because 'StarCraft sold 3 million copies in Korea'
Endless Legend 2 Kin faction reveal
It's turtle time: Endless Legend 2's first faction is the fortification-loving Kin of Sheredyn
Latest in News
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
A woman wearing a VR headset with dramatic, colourful lighting across the background
'World’s smallest LEDs' could lead to accurately lit screens with 127,000 pixels per inch and much more immersive VR
The NES themed 8BitDo Retro mechanical gaming keyboard on a blue background
I love the 8BitDo Retro C64 keyboard but I'd pick its cheaper NES-themed model near its lowest price ever during Amazon's Big Spring Sale