The first Magic Invitational card took five years to produce -- largely because the winner didn't stay in contact with Wizards of the Coast about it.
From the late 1990s to the mid 2000s, Magic Invitational Tournament winners got a special prize: getting to appear in the art of a Magic: The Gathering card.
As we previously noted, originally called Duelist Invitational, the Magic Invitational Tournament came to be as Rosewater’s personal baby project. Essentially, every year Wizards of the Coast gathered it’s star pro Magic players and set them loose in a round-robin where everyone plays each other styled tournament. While the games bounced from format to format, every player would suggest cards. Then, once they won, they worked with Magic R&D and had a card out eventually with them in it.
While the first card to come out in the style was officially in 1998, it was supposed to be earlier. See, in 1996, Swedish player Olle Rade won the Pro Tour in Columbus, with a Tournament victory following up. He was then allowed to have his own card for the next available set....only to fall off the map. Rade's original card suggestions were rejected by Wizards and, rather than keep up, Rade just stopped responding.
Flash-forward to 2001: Rade came back into professional Magic and ran into Mark Rosewater at an event. Rade asked if he could still have his card. Rosewater, amazingly said yes, although Wizards had a slight caveat. Back in 1996, Rade had long hair.Since Rade now had a shaven head, they only agreed that he could be in the card if they gave him long blonde hair as originally planned. He accepted, and although four years too late, Sylvan Safekeeper appeared with what looks like Rade in a wig as a wizard riding a spider:
The card was illustrated by Pete Venters.
Amazingly, the card proved to have a long shelf life, being reprinted (albeit with different artwork) in sets ranging from Commander 2014 to Modern Horizons 3.
To this day it remains legal in pretty much everything outside standard and pioneer, and is still seen as a good opening card to play thanks to the shroud ability and costing just a single mana.
And it's all thanks to Rade somehow bumping into Rosewater at a Magic event and asking what ever came of his card. For context, today for a player to get on a card, it's almost impossible unless you do something huge for the game (like Post Malone) or manage to pursuade an artist to include you.
It would, however, be ill-advised to ask a designer or Maro to be on your own Magic card.
