Top 10 Times Magic: the Gathering Showed Up in Pop Culture 

More of a mention than actually showing up, but in Brooklyn 99, Jake Peralta who is Andy Samberg's character mentions that he once tried to sneak out to play a Magic tournament as a kid but got stuck in the window.

The irony of being told about pop culture by Seth is not something I can easily get over...

There's an entire currently running manga that uses Magic the Gathering as the backdrop for their coming of age story. It's called "Destroy All Humankind They Can't Be Regenerated" (or in Japanese Subete no jinrui wo hakai suru. Sorera wa saisei dekinai). It's mostly about a nerdy Junior High student learning that the popular student council president girl at his school secretly plays Magic. It takes place in 1998-2000 and is full of references to that era (mostly Japanese pop culture) and has a TON of Magic references. The main character often will react to things by making poses from magic art for example and they reference a lot of the meta stuff that was big at the time. Give it a go it's pretty decent.

I remember watching the South Park MTG episode before really getting into the actual game itself. I really appreciate how accurate they got the hype when spells just start getting cast in rapid succession.

Norah from Queens S1E4 “Paperwork” has Norah lamenting how she peaked in 7th grade when she won a Magic tournament and she goes through the actual turn of how she won.

There is a manga called "Destroy All Of Humanity. It Can't Be Regenerated"

I watched the Haunted Mansion movie recently and in it, Eddie Murphy’s son has a magic poster in his room. I think it was the 7th Ed. Thorn elemental art.

One of my favorite references is in the show "the blacklist" when Reddington calls in a drone strike on a prison in Kuwait, and when asked how he did that, he responds with "I won a rather high stakes game of Magic: the Gathering recently". I died XD

When I saw the cock magic episode for the first time, shortly after first airing, I gathered with buddies for magic night and put it on. We laughed so hard than played out usual commander. So good

That workaholics one gets me every time. I just remember seeing it randomly on tv and being like 'omg... I can't believe I know every card they just said....'

There was also an episode of "Home Improvement" which had Magic the Gathering Cards in pretty plain sight at one point in Jonathan Taylor Thomas's room. I remember seeing that when I was really young and was probably the first time I ever saw MTG on Television.

"I won it in a particularly high stakes game of Magic: the Gathering." - Blacklist Apparently Raymond Reddington plays for ante.

You missed Silicon Valley. Gilfoyle is a big MTG player and has card and boxes of Magic on this desk through most seasons of the show

In the movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" the actor Toby Kebbell (Drake Stone in the film) is a Magic Player

Speaking of MTG finding its way into other places, did you know that the roguelike The Binding of Isaac also features cards such as Giant Growth, Ancestral Recall, and Chaos Orb in it? I always thought that was neat.

The magic the gathering episode of South Park is like the WOW episode, its not a one off gag and in a mocking fashion but it shows they did research and knew it was before hand going into. I can respect and appreciate that they did that and probably played themselves

"I floop the pig" - Adventure Time

guy on the right in zombieland seems to be playing chillbringer, verity circle, and senate courier, back has sylvan brushstrider

Idk why but Seth popping up at the beginning is hilarious to me. Love the editing and video as always!

Nice! Next do the Top 10 Pop Culture references in Magic cards!

On Daybreak, a Netflix show, they mention MTG several times and you can see a kid who values his binder more than anything.

This is actually kinda cool, I've seen some of these before, cool to see them in a list! Edit: Until date night let's you cast muldrifter with a panharmonicon on the battlefield...

In the show Daybreak, about teens in a post-apocalyptic world, one of the characters who lived at the mall has a stash of magic cards in his locker, while he and the protagonist were going to the school, they did an impromptu mental magic game. Loved that scene

Loving the new content! Keep up the great work :)

I got to help out a translator friend who wrote the Swedish subtitles for that South Park episode. She needed the Swedish terms where they existed as well as some other knowledge about Magic lingo.

Really enjoyed this, I had missed quite a few of these references!

In Fresh Off the Boat there is also a Magic reference. The youngest of the three brothers is wondering why every one of his friends is changing their personality after time. A flashback is starting where you can see him and his friends were playing multiplayer Magic, eventually commander. After everyone was getting 2 damage one kid's card is fallen off the table. At the moment a friend grabbed his fallen card, the friend was pretty bright and normal. After he put it back on the table you can see how his whole facial expression has changed. Now he's grim and tells the others that he's tired of the crap and prefers to go to the lake because it's cooler.

Love this video! I believe in an episode of the show “The magicians” they talked about black lotus which was pretty neat!

I read a book once where two characters were gonna play mtg, except one had a nicol bolas deck and the other had mogg tribel, perfectly balanced

I am a film maker and in both of my films I have people playing MTG :)

That was really fun to watch!

There are also cameos of MTG in the movie Sorcerer's apprentice and in the Netflix show Daybreak (first in 1st episode we see a binder, and in the 8th we have it mentioned (I'm not gonna spoil how))

Cool stuff, thanks!

Epic! What a fun video thx!

What a fun video. Seinfeld and Spiderman had MTG references! Who knew?

There is 2 episodes of Home Improvement where in Randy and Brads room there is a MTG binder on the desk with a pile of a cards and then what looks like a hand made poster with MTG staples to the front of it.

Thank you for this

In an episode of Awkwafina is nora from queens, she describes playing in a Kamigawa tournament! Naming several cards from Champions of Kamigawa!

Seth's mom is going to give him grief for that naughty South Park talk...Lol *Thanks for the Content* !

The cock magic episode of SP is legendary! Cracked up the first time I saw it so many times!

I would love to see a second video, because as the comments suggest, there are a lot more references to Magic. For example, in Cobra Kai, there are multiple instances of Magic references, such as a kid wearing a shirt that says “I’ll tap that” with the mana symbols

Yooo the South Park one really takes me back. Who could forget the absolute unit that was Gadnuk, Breaker of Worlds, a rooster so good at the game that he'd never lost a match, or even one health. So I guess not only was he playing against a lot of mill decks, but he's also never cracked a fetch land in his life. Impressive! O:

Great idea, thanks

There's a scene in Orphan Black where one character makes the bold claim "Rare cards are all well and good, but really you should be running dark confidant and time walk in all your decks". Yeah, I have a spare 5k for all my decks.

Adventure Time had a pretty thinly veiled mtg reference, 'I floop the pig.'

I know there was a MTG reference in the show The Blacklist. One of the main characters says “I recently won a pretty important game of Magic the Gathering” after he (if I remember correctly) blows up a terrorist base with a military air strike drown that’s flown by a guy a local game store type place

Very cool idea for a video!

Like the new content idea! Next we need Seth's top ten anime, whatever he thinks anime is.

There's an episode of Silicone Valley that has a lot of Ixalan merch and product just randomly scattered around.

Here are the others I know of: It's mentioned by name in two episodes of MST3K, Devil Doll and Terror from the Year 5000 (like the ones on this list, neither time was very flattering); there are thinly veiled version in Hey Arnold! (Where it's portrayed as an addictive threat to childhood innocence) and Craig of the Creek (which is actually not a bad portrayal). And the most self-referential mention I know: It appears in the first Magic novel Arena, where it's how non-magic users pass the time between watching magic users do it for real.

The South Park was actually got me back into the game. I switched from Yugioh because of the long wait for the English dub of Arc-V and one of my favorite archetypes (Battlin’ Boxers if anyone is interested) taking a big hit from Master Rules 4 and the introduction of Link Monsters. Seven years later I play both (I decided to get back into Yugioh after discovering the Gouki archetype and me being a huge wrestling fan) but Magic is my primary TCG.

I'd like to hear "Tooth and Nail, entwined, for Bottle Gnomes" worked into a show. :D

awesome video

There was a scene in "Hawaii Five-0" where the actor Masi Oka talked about, that he was on a Magic the Gathering tournament.

Fun stuff! One small correction. In the Chuck reference, Chuck doesn't fake his own death, nor is he challenged to a game of Magic. Casey, one of his government handlers, played by Adam Baldwin, does/is. Chuck is played by Zachary Levi, the same actor who later played Shazam. One of my favorite book references to Magic is in the Lightbringer fantasy series. The main character plays a card game that is clearly modeled after MtG with his grandfather, a powerful politician who uses the game to teach the mc strategy/tactics, and to assert dominance over him, since the grandfather always wins!

In "The Big Bang Theory" there is a poster for MTG in the background in the comic book store during one of the first seasons. It's the poster w/ a bunch of the gatewatch on it before they were the gatewatch.

In one of the episodes of Goosebumps, a kid is reading a magazine and you can see the advertisement of Mtg in it. The Cartoon Network show “Clarence” has the kids playing a card game thats similar to MTG. The show Storage Wars, a father and son find a storage that has a binder in it and they sell an unlimited mox or lotus at a convention.

Came here to see if Workaholics made the list very well done and entertaining thank you

I bring back that sound, the kind that makes you go 0:46 ;) the south park episode was so good !

Home Improvement had a few shots in Brad's room where they showed cards taped to the front of his desk

There a quite a few episodes of Home Improvement that had episodes with the sons’ rooms where you can see magic cards taped to desks and walls.

I would see myself as a delver of secrets mixed with a rummaging goblin. Always looking for new brews to play, and constantly sifting through my ever growing collection to find the parts to a new deck.

This is your best video

In Home Improvement, Brad had a few oversized cards all over his room, including an oversized Shatter

That last South Park scene almost made me spit my noodles.

There was one cinema movie a few years back where MtG has made an appearance even there was a screen with Atog from Revised. The movie is "Hillbilly Elegy" from 2020.

All of them that was great to know that I got to watch

The roosters is SP throwing spells all around is what Garfield intented for MtG

This is just Seth's clapback for the commander crew making fun of him for not knowing pop culture.

There is a more recent one in Nora from Queens, I can't remember the episode but she literally explains how she won a game citing card names 😂

In addition to having a whole episode based on the game back in the 90s there were commercials with the south park kids promoting the game, too

Silicon Valley has a scene where Gilfoyle (one of the show's characters) has a box of magic cards on his desk.

I cant remember which show it is now but there was one where there were cards thumbtacked to the wall. Including original Elspeth.

I watched an old episode of Home Improvement not that long ago, the kids had MTG cards on the desk in their room.

Another good mention is in the blacklist the character is Raymond Redding and he mentions how he won a predator drone off of someone in a high stakes magic the gathering game then it scene changes to a lgs in dc with them in it. Really an out of nowhere thing but it was a central part of the mission kinda made me chuckle

In the new apocalyptic tx series of netflix where only children lives (don't remember the name), one guy before dying to other people ask to save and store his magic collection

The movie Hillbilly Elegy show Lord of the Pit and Atog, with Atog actually mentioned by name by one of the characters.

Pleeeeeaseeeee make these more often 😁😁

In a recent episode (2021) of one of those US hospital programmes a young boy in the hospital needed entertaining so they gave him some magic cards to play with one of the nurses. If I remember correctly, it even showed them playing part of a game in the background of a scene and when his mum came to see him he wanted to tell her all about the magic cards he'd been playing with (the scene swiftly ended so we didn't get to hear what he said, unfortunately). If you're wondering about my vagueness, it was my girlfriend watching it... I only paid attention because I heard MTG get mentioned haha.

The cock magic episode is unironically one of the best modern South Park episodes

Did brewers kitchen do the editing? I can see it in the intro before I've even seen the 10 pick lol

Degrassi: Next Class had a bunch of episodes showing people play Magic: the Gathering. One kid's birthday party was a Magic Tournament.

Check out the episode "Bring Out Your Beasts" from Craig of the Creek. While the name Magic the Gathering isn't used, the episode to is clearly a reference to early days to Magic the Gathering, including Ante as a plot device. And the cards used have a same frame style as the original card layout. It's really worth checking out.

There was a pretty large cameo in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, one of the villains had a pretty sizable collection lol

Clicked on the video hoping to see the workaholics scene. Was not disappointed.

What makes the Workaholics segment even better is that Blake Anderson is huge Magic fan in real life.

I loved how South Park talked about what type of mages their are like control

Cool video

The reboot of Fright Night has a Garruk poster in one of the bedrooms, Chicago Med has a sick kid that tries to teach MTG to some adults and even mentioned Jace's ultimate and Amulet of Kroog, and in 9-1-1 Lone Star some dude's son mentions that he likes Magic and his father thinks he's talking about magic tricks.

They mention a MTG tournament on a recent SNL skit with Billie Eillish.

The 1st Fright Night remake with Anton Yelchin used it. Opening scene on the floor as the camera pans back and later a stand up of Lilliana is in Ed's bedroom.

In "The New Adventures of Old Christine", her brother, Matthew, has Magic stuff plastered all over his walls at their mom's house. It shows up in a couple episodes.

There's also an episode of FX's Atlanta where Donald Glover's character is running around town with Darius trying to earn money and at one point ends up in a warehouse where there's a crew of guys huddled around a table playing Magic

The new game show The Chase had a Magic: the Gathering-related trivia question in the cash builder segment of the show for 1 of the contestants (he got it right). Not as big a deal as the top 10 here but still fun.

The Blacklist S07E04, around the 30 minute mark. Raymond Reddington (James Spader), as a bomb drone flies overhead shooting a missile at an enemy compound in Kuwait, says: “I won a rather high-stakes game of Magic: The Gathering recently, and I’ve called in my chits”. Cracked me up, and definitely should be on this list imho.

It also is mentioned in the Comedy Series Brooklyn Nine-Nine in S04E17 where Andy Samberg (Jake Peralta) mentioned sneaking out of the house to go see a MTG Tournament.

Wasn't a direct shout out but in Home Improvement later seasons the youngest son's front of the deck had a bunch of cards glued to the front. Craw Wurm was my favorite at the time. I remember seeing it and was like 0.0

Pretty cool

They were teasing me about this game a while ago. Richard Garfield is a BOSS.

MTG was used in a reference on the show Blacklist as well.