Magic: The Gathering…
“I’m rarely at a loss for words,” says Saffron Olive on the hive of scum and villainy formerly known as Twitter, “but I honestly have no idea what to say about the Dwight from the Office Secret Lair drop.”
Others have eagerly stepped in to fill the gap. Over on the MagicTCG subreddit, HiroProtagonest says, “I don’t wanna associate with someone who’d buy merch for The Office”, though in another thread Raevelry says, “This is so bad its circling back to being funny Like, this is a HIGH QUALITY shitpost cringe, its almost impressive, all of these fit his ‘lore’, they’re well drawn, amazing lore text”.
Secret lairs are mini-sets containing a handful of cards a regular Magic expansion wouldn’t have room for. A lot of them present alternate art, with guests like Junji Ito invited to present their own take on iconic cards, though since the best-selling Walking Dead secret lair back in 2020 they’ve often been crossovers. While more thematically matching crossovers like Final Fantasy tend to get full-size sets, secret lair crossovers provide a space for something smaller and often a bit more light-hearted, like Hatsune Miku or Monty Python.
And this is how now Dwight from The Office arrives in Magic. As announced in a roundup of October’s secret lairs, he’ll be getting his own six-card “drop” alongside fantasy artist Kieran Yanner, Iron Maiden, Jaws, and Furby. You might expect the Furby cards to attract the most controversy, but apparently it’s Rainn Wilson as a muscular farmer holding a giant turnip on a reskin of the Swords to Plowshares card that crosses the line.
Admittedly I’ve never seen the American version of The Office, but I’m struggling to have an opinion about this. Magic did a Fortnite-themed secret lair in 2021, so complaints about “Fortnite-ification” are a bit late to the party, and as someone who has read a bunch of Magic comic books and short stories I don’t think the sanctity of the game’s official setting is really worth preserving. I’m just going to shrug and move on with my day if that’s OK with you.