Magic: The Gathering was created by game designer and mathematician Richard Garfield in the early 1990s and first published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993.

Who created Magic: The Gathering?

  • The original designer of Magic: The Gathering is Richard Channing Garfield, an American mathematician and game designer.
  • He pitched the idea to the small publisher Wizards of the Coast after initially approaching them with a different board game concept, RoboRally.
  • Magic debuted at the Gen Con convention in 1993 and is widely regarded as the first modern trading/collectible card game.

Quick Scoop: Fun context

  • Garfield developed the concept while he was a graduate student in combinatorial mathematics, blending influences from games like Dungeons & Dragons and Cosmic Encounter into a new expandable card game format.
  • The game’s success not only launched a massive franchise but also effectively created the entire trading card game genre that later inspired titles like Pokémon TCG and many others.

TL;DR: Richard Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, and it was first released by Wizards of the Coast in 1993.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.