Magic: The Gathering's next big collaboration brings PlayStation's biggest world to the tabletop, with secret lair drops inspired by the Ghosts duology from God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon and Sucker Punch. It marks another major gaming crossover with Magic: The Gathering, following June's record-breaking Final Fantasy set.
Just after the release of Ghost of the Rams, we spoke with Sucker Punch's creative director Jason Connell, as well as Wizards of the Coast's Jacob Covey, Steve Sunu, and Annie Sardelis, to learn how Sakai's world is being reimagined in card form.
They share how the brush meets the blade, and how Sucker Punch's involvement goes far beyond simple recognition. What’s even more exciting is that IGN has also received exclusive early access to the Atsu card for Yotei Ghost, joining the upcoming PlayStation superdrop.
“Once we established the basics, it was a super collaborative process” – Jason Connell, Sucker Punch
cardboard ghost
“Part of the fun of working with a game studio is the shared fandom we have – they usually have one or three Magic fans around them, and we have a group of fans of their games on our team,” explains WOTC Art Director Jacob Covey.
Speaking of Sucker Punch, there's even some tournament play going on within the development team.
“About 10 to 12 people play each month, mostly in Commander form,” Jason Connell explained. “Some people who come into the office regularly have decks on their desks in case they get emotional.”
As for how to make that happen, conversations started a while ago with Wizards looking to do a PlayStation collaboration.
Exclusive: Atsu, Soul of the Yotei – Secret Lair x PlayStation – Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast.
“Ben Jafari [a manager at WOTC] We worked hard to not only make this happen simultaneously across many different studios, but to do it on the same timeline,” Covey revealed.
“We knew we wanted to work with these iconic PlayStation properties, so it was difficult to narrow it down to just a few.”
Cornell said that initial discussions then fed back to the Sucker Punch team, and it became clear that the two Ghost games would be a perfect match.
“Between Sucker Punch and PlayStation, it was clear that Ghost would be a perfect fit as one of the featured series, so once they reached out, it just came together naturally. We're really excited about the idea.”
friction? “The Soul of the Rams” has not yet been released to the public.
throw a punch
“Our conversations with Wizards of the Coast started before the Ramsfoot announcement, and we acknowledged that it might be frustrating on the Wizards side that we had to be so secretive,” he recalled.
“We kept saying we had a good idea for a secret card, but then said we couldn't elaborate on it yet, and thankfully they were such great partners that they reworked the schedule so that we could have information and art for Atsu after the game was announced last year, even though the rest of the cards were already locked by that time.”
“We knew the game was going to be released around the time Yotei Island was released, so it felt like a perfect fit to try and get her into the mix, and we’re glad it worked out.
“Our goal was to be truly grounded in the Ghost universe while giving it a unique flavor” – Jacob Covey, WOTC
As for the card design, the Sucker Punch dropped by Secret Lair is partially a fusion of Jin Sakai and Atsu, the two protagonists of the two games.
“Sucker Punch believed in us artistically and helped us stay true to their carefully constructed universe, filled with its own untold story,” Covey said.
“Our goal is to be truly grounded in the Ghosts universe while giving it a unique spin that focuses on how the characters and settings relate to the Magic ecosystem and gameplay.”
“We had some great early conversations with the Wizards team, including in the initial opening where we just explained the gist of Ghost of Tsushima and sent over some material from the game,” Cornell added.
Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima – Secret Lair x PlayStation – Image credit: Wizards of the Coast.
“We explained what we thought were important to capture and even discussed some specific artist names and our overall style. It was really fun learning about their process, meeting the artists, writers and directors who were responsible for all the different parts of making the cards.
“Once we established the foundation, it was a super collaborative process. While the actual writing and artist selection was done on the Wizards side, we had plenty of input and opportunities to provide feedback, and went through multiple rounds to make sure everyone was happy with the overall look and mechanics of the cards.”
One of the ways Wizards and Sucker Punch helped Sakai get into Magic was by incorporating the duality of his fighting style in Ghost of Tsushima, where he was torn between samurai combat and the more secretive “ghost” path.
“Jin Sakai is about a warrior torn between two identities – a glorious samurai and a shadowy ghost,” Cornell explains.
“From the beginning, I wanted to capture both ways of encountering encounters in Ghost of Tsushima…” – Annie Sardelis, WOTC
“Wizards of the Coast captures this well with the stand-off ability, which represents his swordsmanship, while Ghost emphasizes his stealth and ability to strike fear into his opponents. The other Secret Lair cards Wizards of the Coast curated for this release help showcase his journey supporting this theme: tools of conflict, sacrifice, and shifting control, echoing King's struggle between tradition and survival.”
“From the beginning, I wanted to capture both approaches to encounters in Ghost of Tsushima,” explains WOTC Senior Game Designer Annie Sardelis.
“I incorporated elements of Magic's classic expression of the lone warrior skill, providing bonuses only to a single attacker. Since combos and “unblockable” are phrases we see time and time again on Magic cards, I added these words to help my colleagues become familiar with what I wanted. Flavor words, like flavor text, can help provide creative definition to the rules text, and we ended up keeping them.”
PlayStation Pantheon
Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair x PlayStation Superdrop. Photo credit: Wizards of the Coast.
In addition to “Ghost of Tsushima” and “Sheep's Foot”, there are also series themed on the Greek and Nordic stories of “God of War”, as well as two series of “Horizon Forbidden West” and “The Last of Us”.
However, despite its hybrid of gods and robot dinosaurs, it was Naughty Dog's gritty post-apocalyptic story that posed Sadlis' greatest challenge.
“The toughest challenge I signed up for was the four ‘Survivor’ pairings from the ‘Last of Us’ series,” she explains.
“I think it's important to represent all the playable characters in the story, but I also want your Commander game to feature the Infected. Figuring out how to generate Fungus Zombie tokens on characters who canonically fight them is tricky!”
“Any player can craft Infected Tokens with cards like Ellie, Brick Master and Abby, Ruthless Soldier repeat Dragon Hunt to create more and more tokens. Once that’s figured out, the rest are designed to complement the Token/Sacrifice strategy – hopefully inspiring mixing and matching between the two drops!”
As for Commander, it's Magic's most popular format, and I wonder which of the new PlayStation cards would be ideal for commanding 100-card decks.
“If you're sitting across from me, I guess you can expect me to have an Aloy, Meridian Savior deck or a Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima deck on me,” said WOTC Senior Product Designer Steve Sunu.
“All of these designs by Annie Sardelis are fantastic, and Aloy and Jin especially feel like they were designed specifically for players like me. Annie is an incredible designer, and we're lucky to have her lend her talents to these new Magic designs.”
Magic: The Gathering's Secret Lair x PlayStation Drop on October 27 at 9 a.m. PT at Secret Lair Official Website.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in the tech, gaming and fitness sectors, having worked for Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and more. He was a huge fan of Magic: The Gathering and other trading card games, much to the dismay of his wife.
This article also includes contributions from IGN Senior Business Editor Robert Anderson.