Every so often a Magic is put out a card where the name 'Maro' is part of the title.
A few years ago, Magic Untapped told you all about the Mirage-introduced Maro card. In a nutshell, the Mirage expansion back in 1996 had an open card slot, with a 'summon nature spirit' card being designed by Mark Rosewater. His internal handle, MaRo, was on the design. The team loved it so much that Maro became the official name and continued on for many reprints to the present day.
As the flavor text stated "No two see the same Maro."
Even the name 'maro cards' survive to this day and refers to a card that cares about your hand size.
However, for Magic designers, using the name 'Maro' in a card title quickly became sort of a running gag for them, memeing the early name placement. And, for decades, this has been a recurring thing, especially with Mark Rosewater becoming essentially the face of the company.
Most notably this was seen in 1999 with Urza's Legacy. In a card that could have simply been called Multani, Sorcerer was Multani, Maro-Sorcerer:
However, Multani proved to be too powerful, and as of 2026, has never been reprinted, continuing on a legacy of Maro cards being a bit too powerful.
Amazing, another Maro-Sorcerer would appear in 2005 in Saviors of Kamigawa. This time around it was Molimo, Maro Sorcerer.
This one was powerful too. As the card states "Trample (This creature can deal excess combat damage to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking.) Molimo’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of lands you control."
Unlike the other Maro Sorcerer, Molimo has been reprinted several times, the last time being in 2023 as part of Commander Masters.
And that's Maro cards in a nutshell. They come out either new or reprinted just often enough to make new and old players alike stop and think "wait - is that the name Maro in a card?"
Rosewater himself has spoken on the original card name before, but otherwise hasn't really commented on the odd group of sorcerers named after him. Nonetheless, the cards remain just one of the little flairs showing the fun side of Magic, as well as proof as to how much the developers are willing to get away with in a given set. Especially since they literally put their bosses name on a card title and hope that they get away with it.
