Decades before Magic: The Gathering had Fallout cards, Fallout had Magic cards. Well, sort of.
Back in the late 1990s, Magic cemented itself into the public zeitgeist. While it was still niche in some regards, it was a growing juggernaut. Wizards of the Coast opened their own game stores to meet demand. Magic Summer camps were a thing. And, of course, tournaments were broadcast on ESPN 2 and were featured on MTV. It was also everywhere in pop culture...including (technically) Fallout.
In Fallout 2, one of the many quests relies on the player character, he Chosen One, playing a card game. And the name? Tragic: The Garnering. Ad, from how it is described, it loosely follows Magic rules. There are "life points". "Earths" provide mana. It is very much like the game was kept for a few hundred years, but some of the details were changed over time.
Most damning, however, are the card names. Even in 1998, when the game came out, the power nine were well known, and Tragic had heir own version. A few are even mentioned: There is the most powerful card, the Black Dahlia. And another powerful card is the Vox Muby. Of course, these are Black Lotus and Mox Ruby equivalents, but still. They are there. And the game description doesn't even pretend about the price, saying "This is a deck of cards for a collectable card game. Looks like it could be an expensive hobby if you got hooked."
Over the years, Tragic: the Garnering has been somewhat celebrated by fans. You can even get t-shirts with the logo on it. And Fallout has not forgotten it either - in Fallout: New Vegas, the game is even referenced a few times on in-game computer terminals.
Most telling was in 2023. In the Fallout universe, Tragic was created in that year. By coincidence, the first Universes Beyond advance into the Fallout universe happened that year, with many Magic/Fallout products being released the next year.
And fans did not forget. They pushed for a temporary cardback change to Tragic: The Garnering and for it to be referenced prominently. Others simply wanted a card with the card game as an object, similar to how it is treated in Fallout 2. Likewise, a Secret Lair drop in 2026 failed to mention it.
Despite this, Tragic: the Garnering is still well remembered decade later, with many fans still hoping on some sort of crossover or mention in the future.
