The first Magic: The Gathering expansion promo video was a doozy.
These days, the Magic expansion promotional video is the stuff of legends. From Bloomburrow's 80s style cartoon to Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty's anime to Lorwyn Eclipsed making a complete rock ballad featuring Jim Henson company muppets, Magic puts a lot of time and effort into them.
But this also extends into early Magic, back before the days of digital animation and high budgets. Early Magic promos were pretty cheap. Actors from the early ones told of literal shoestring budgets and regular clothing being altered on the spot to look more "fantasy". And in 1995, Magic had the two worlds collide.
Ice Age was coming out, and Wizards of the Coast wanted to not only show what a different location this expansion would be in, but how in would corrolate with other sets. Ice Age was to be the expansion that broke the mould, where you could play just Ice Age cards seperately, or combine them with cards from previous releases. Plus, the storyline was becoming more important, with the brother's war in particular being highlighted.
They needed a video to show all that. But they also didn't want to spend a ton of money to do it. That meant live action actors with darkest sets to hide any flaws in the makeup. For those who have seen it, enjoy the trip down memory lane. For those who haven't, well, take it all in. You can only see it for the first time once:
Check it out on YouTube.
Yes, this is something they actually did. The special effects and the overall look look straight out of the 70s. And yes, decades later, this has been ridiculed to death. But at the time, it crossed off all the boxes for Wizards. And, to an extent, it today reminds players of cheesy old fantasy shows that helped influence the game early on. So, despite being cheap and a bit strange, it totally works.
To this day, the early promos aren't really talked about by Wizards very much. the 1997 promo linked above is only really known because one of the actresses later made it big in Hollywood and she later talked at length about it. But they go to show how far Magic has gone nowadays in terms of quality.
So when you watch the next official expansion promo video, remember that no matter how odd it is, THIS is where they started. With extremely odd live action that looks like it was filmed with a Super 8.
