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In my years working at a comic and gaming shop, I was asked numerous times if the jumbo Pokémon card posters we had hanging in the shop were for sale. It’s led me to believe that some TCG players really love oversized cards, a feeling I can understand as an Absolute Batman fan. Now, would Magic: The Gathering ever consider making oversized cards like Pokémon, if there was a fan demand for it? 

Recently, Magic’s head of design, Mark Rosewater, answered a fan’s question about this on the official MTG website. The fan asked, “Will we ever get a playable game piece that's bigger than a single card, like oversized cards or the triple-faced cards from Duel Masters?” And as it turns out, the answer to this question is multi-pronged. 

Rosewater started off by explaining that Magic still makes oversized cards “on occasion” in “supplemental products.” For instance, in 2020, Magic printed Otrimi, the Ever-Playful in a Commander 2020 pre-constructed deck, as was customary for years for precons. Likewise, Rosewater noted that “We’ve included oversized cards in booster boxes before,” as something you’d get for buying the entire box. 

But when it comes to including oversized cards in individual booster packs, Magic has explored bringing in oversized cards before, but there are a few obstacles that have prevented booster packs with oversized cards becoming a reality. For last summer’s Edge of Eternities set, Rosewater stated that the set was “handed off from vision design with what we called ‘cosmic’ cards. They were twice the size of a normal card.”

But Wizards of the Coast ran into two problems with the Edge of Eternities cosmic cards. “One, the size and scope of Magic print runs, especially premier sets, can make things possible at a smaller scale impossible at the size Magic functions. Smaller print runs, for instance, can print at a single printer. Magic's scope requires it to be printed at numerous printers, all of which need to meet the criteria of what we're asking. A small price increase per card in a small print run can balloon into giant numbers when you get to a bigger scale,” Rosewater wrote. 

He continued, “Two, all printed Magic cards are based on a specific size and shape for boosters. Changing to a different size of booster, at least for normal releases, creates several complex problems.” I would imagine that it would become more expensive to package the oversized booster packs in their plastic wrapping, and that the larger size of the packs would affect the size and shape of the shipping materials used to get Magic products into game shops around the country. But that’s just my speculation. 

So essentially, it isn’t for lack of trying. Rosewater has been open about mechanics and other features in Magic’s past that ended up flopping with fans (remember the stickers from 2022’s Unfinity set?) - he’s even done an entire panel at MagicCon called “The 20 Worst Mechanics of All Time.” All that matters is that an effort was made. 

Whether you are a Commander player, a regular at your local game shop's FNM event, or simply love collecting Magic: The Gathering cards, you've landed in the right place. From Universes Beyond to the furthest reaches of the Magic Multiverse, we've got you covered here at Popverse. 

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