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These days, if you enter a brick-and-mortar store that sells Magic: The Gathering cards, chances are they also sell Dungeons & Dragons books or figures, too. That's because there's a significant overlap between the communities for both games. I mean, where else can I indulge in my affinity for rats without actually, you know, creating a rodent infestation within my own home? Within a hypothetical American high school where bullies pick on nerds for having nerdy interests, there isn't much of a difference between Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. 

That said, it can be easy for millennials like myself and the Duffer Brothers to forget that Dungeons & Dragons predates Magic: The Gathering by nearly twenty years. It's a fact that Gen Xers like my brother, who grew up in the 80s playing D&D just like the Stranger Things kids, won't let us forget. But the Duffer Brothers, like so many other millennials who got hooked on trading card games as children, almost made the anachronistic mistake of having the Stranger Things characters play Magic: The Gathering before the game was even created. 

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Matt Duffer shed light on the moment when the brothers realized that Magic: The Gathering wasn't around in the 1980s. "We were like, ‘Shit, the kids in the show can’t be playing Magic: The Gathering; it hasn’t been invented yet,'" Matt Duffer said while laughing. "My brother and I played D&D. We just weren’t particularly great at it."

Magic: The Gathering wasn't invented until 1993, while Dungeons & Dragons was first published in 1974. The overarching architecture of Magic: The Gathering was clearly influenced by Dungeons & Dragons, like so many other games, whether tabletop or video, that were created in its wake. And who knows, maybe after the events of Stranger Things season 5, Mike and the Hawkins gang ended up becoming Magic: The Gathering players. 

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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