A Math Professor Invented Cardboard Crack

Richard Garfield, a mathematics PhD candidate, walked into Gen Con in August 1993 with a game that would invent an entire genre. Magic: The Gathering sold its initial print run of 2.6 million cards almost instantly. The concept was elegant and devastating: each player builds a deck from a collectible card pool, meaning no two games are alike and the arms race never ends. Players weren't just buying a game — they were buying possibilities, rarity, power, and the intoxicating feeling of opening a booster pack and finding something your opponent didn't have. Within a year, Wizards of the Coast couldn't print cards fast enough. The secondary market exploded. A Black Lotus — one of the original rare cards — would eventually sell for over $500,000. Garfield hadn't just designed a game. He'd designed an economy, a metagame, a lifestyle, and a financial instrument disguised as a hobby. Every trading card game that followed — and there would be hundreds — owed its existence to this mathematician's elegant trap.