On Wednesday, Wizards of the Coast quietly announced that its Magic the Gathering-themed digital card game Magic Spellsingers was shutting down. To ease the blow for disappointed fans, and in an unexpected windfall for anyone who logged into Spellslingers once and then completely forgot that it existed, the firm is offering 1,500 free MTG Arena gems for anyone with a Spellslingers account.
To claim this bounty in MTG Arena premium currency, you need to have created an account on Magic Spellslingers before March 6. To get the reward, you need to link your Spellslingers account with your Arena account, then log in to MTG Arena at least once before March 25. The gems will be added to your account after March 29.
It’s a few more steps than entering an MTG Arena code, but free entry to a Premium draft, seven booster packs, or a new card sleeve for your MTG Arena deck isn’t to be sniffed at.
It’s a sad end for Magic Spellslingers. The game’s cash shop has already closed, and the servers will shut down permanently on June 4. Spellslingers had the bad fortune to launch just two months before Marvel Snap arrived and utterly dominated the mobile phone market for digital card games. On Steam, it peaked at 1101 players, and has ‘mixed’ reviews.
Spellslingers gameplay is Magic-themed, rather than a simulation of MTG (like MTG Online) or a largely-faithful adaptation (like MTG Arena). In fact it has rather more in common with the design of Hearthstone than it does with Magic. This review by Mana Rant goes into more detail:
Hearthstone is great, and games inspired by it can be successful, such as Warhammer 40k Warpforge or its predecessor Warhammer The Horus Heresy: Legions. But with the Magic fandom already playing on other digital platforms, Spellslingers couldn’t rely on the Magic IP to do any heavy lifting.
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