This Week in Magic: Friday, August 8th

Posted on August 8, 2025

A Magic: The Gathering Documentary Releases

?IGNITING THE SPARK, The Story of Magic: The Gathering!?

My feature-length documentary streams NOW on Amazon, AppleTV, Pluto, Vudu, YouTube On Demand & many more!

Please spread the word & support indie film! Thanks!

#MagicTheGathering #MTG #WizardsOfTheCoast #Wizards #IndieFilm #documentary

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— Negative Agent (@negativeagent.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 3:33 PM

A Magic: The Gathering documentary, mainly detailing the game's early days, was released this week! The documentary, titled Igniting the Spark: The Story of Magic: The Gathering, was first shown at GenCon last week. There it won an award for best documentary at the event.

I had a chance to sit down and watch it myself since it was released and I found it excellent. You'll hear many stories about the forming of Wizards of the Coast, the early successes and pitfalls of Magic, the start of organized play, and a little talk about Commander as well. Many WotC employees past and present make appearances, as do many content creators, pro players, coverage team members, and more.

Check with your favorite rental streaming service (all available options here) and watch it sometime soon! It's a worthwhile venture that's worth your support!

Drive To Work Gets A Search Engine

An amazing new resource for Magic enthusiasts/designers/etc was just released:
drivetowork.browse.show

It's a search engine for every one of @maro254.bsky.social's Drive to Work episodes -- you can type any phrase, such as "for those who don't know", and it will return every* time...

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— Magic Data Science (@mtgds.bsky.social) August 4, 2025 at 11:56 AM

In case you hadn't heard about it by now, Magic's head designer Mark Rosewater has a podcast called Drive to Work. He's been giving 30(ish) minute bite-sized lessons on game design for nearly 13 years and it boasts over 1200 episodes. It's fantastic content for anyone to dive into to learn about Magic and game design, but now you can take it deeper if you'd like!

The website browse.show has developed a search engine for the entirety of the Drive to Work podcast. You can search to see when a word or phrase has ever appeared throughout the whole 13 years of episodes. This is excellent if you're looking to listen to what MaRo has to say about particular topics throughout the game's long and storied history. Check it out and learn a thing or two about the game we love to play!

Wizards Releases A Cosmic Synthwave Playlist

Here's some chill #MTGEternities music to listen to as you float through the cosmos.

? youtu.be/rXxR7j3Q5TA

Art by Ricardo Bessa

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— Magic: The Gathering (@magic.wizards.com) August 4, 2025 at 12:00 PM

I am nothing if not a sucker for a good synthwave playlist and Wizards delivered a fantastic one to celebrate the release of Edge of Eternities! This came out almost two weeks ago, but was making rounds this past week via social media. Synthwave is fantastic for giving that space-like vibe and the selections here are excellent. This comes on the heels of a similar lo-fi playlist from Aetherdrift and original soundtracks for both Streets of New Capenna and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.

In addition to the linked playlist above, I've also gone ahead and compiled all the tracks into a Spotify playlist for those who prefer that platform to YouTube.

Decklist of the Week

Izzet Cauldron | EOE Standard | Nammersquats, 1st Place MTGO Standard Challenge

Sorceries (4)
4 Winternight Stories

Enchantments (4)
4 Proft's Eidetic Memory

Artifacts (4)
4 Agatha's Soul Cauldron

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Izzet Cauldron is quickly taking a fairly dominant position in the post-rotation metagame. The powerful deck may have lost its excellent finisher in Voldaren Thrillseeker, but the deck can perform just fine without it. It snowballs out of hand fast and crushes its opponents under an avalanche of power and value. It's already taken down multiple MTGO challenges and thus far shows no signs of slowing down. If you're looking to play Standard, give the deck a try or look for a way to best it - if you can!

Paige Smith

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YouTube: TheMaverickGal