One of the biggest mysteries in Magic: The Gathering history has been solved.
For more than thirty years, there had been one mystery in Magic that Richard Garfield had worked hard to hide - what the original Proposal card art looked like. While the whole story can take an article to cover within itself (which you can read here), the basics of it is that, in 1993, Magic creator Richard Garfield proposed to his then-girlfriend Lily Wu and had a special card created for the event. In total only nine were made and, for 32 years, the card art was never made public. Only family members, the artist, and Magic employee Dave Howell had cards (albeit Hoover's was stolen at some point).
The details of the art was known, as who the artist was (the venerable Quinton Hoover). But as for the art itself? Never seeing the light of day. Only a handful of cards were made and it was even a hard card to play - during a night of games to try to get her to propose to him, it took four matches until he even drew it. And for decades, the original art was a secret.
Until 2025 that is. During an auction preview in early November, Heritage Auctions put up a wedding invitation for Garfield's Wedding up. A bit esoteric for some, but it drew the attention of fans. What was a curiosity soon became a huge event, as many discovered that the invitation showed off that long-elusive art.
Overnight, one of Magic's greatest secrets was undone. To date, Garfield hasn't commented on the reveal, but as Lily is now his ex-wife, it probably doesn't bother him as much. And to be fair to everyone who knew the secret, no one told. It was an auction house that did it with an errant invitation that had it on there.
While leaks are common and have been spoiling what cards there are early since the 90s, an accidental reveal decades after the fact is pretty rare. Some celebration cards took awhile for the art or card to be shown, but the original Proposal cards managed to last almost as long as the game itself. Fans were excited at the reveal, especially since an unknown Hoover piece was finally brought to the light of day, while others lamented that a longstanding secret was revealed.
There are many other Magic mysteries still out there, but of the biggest ones has finally been solved.
