Netflix has revealed the first look at Planeswalker, its animated series based on Magic: The Gathering, and confirmed it will debut in 2027. The series is made in partnership with Hasbro Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast, with Terry Matalas as showrunner and the pyromancer Chandra Nalaar at the center of the story. Netflix posted the first footage earlier today at 12:00 PM MST and followed it 5 minutes later with the series synopsis. Check out the official post down below:
Wizards of the Coast also presented the series during its MagicCon Atlanta preview panel today, where it showed early development footage, concept art and storyboard animation featuring Chandra and the leonin Planeswalker Ajani Goldmane.
What Planeswalker Is About
The official synopsis calls Planeswalker "an epic fantasy saga from the world of Magic: The Gathering" that "chronicles the fierce clash between formidable mages known as Planeswalkers." It continues, "At the center of this struggle for power and survival burns Chandra, a volatile pyromancer hunted for her gifts, and haunted by her past."
In the synopsis, Chandra and a group of the game's best-known Planeswalkers face "an insidious force." They have to master their abilities, survive dangerous alliances and fight their own inner demons to stop a war that threatens their existence, and it ends with the line, "As the line between victory and annihilation grows thinner, a single spark determines the fate of thousands of worlds."
The Team Behind The Series
- Showrunner: Terry Matalas (Star Trek: Picard, VisionQuest)
- Co-showrunner: Cindy Appel (Star Trek: Picard, VisionQuest)
- Supervising director: Patrick Osborne, the Oscar-winning director of the Disney short Feast
- Executive producers: Matalas, Appel, Osborne and Gabriel Marano
- Co-executive producer: Lauren Chavez-Myers for Hasbro Entertainment
- Producer: Daisy May West (The Twits, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight)
- Animation studio: DIGIC Pictures
Matalas told Netflix, "We have the ability to bring these characters to life in ways that the audience hasn't seen before. It's really exciting." Appel pointed to the size of the source material: "It is such a vast world. What we have to go off of are thousands of cards." Matalas said each card "is a window into this incredible world" and described the job as "worlds-building."
Netflix's behind-the-scenes sneak peek adds that every plane in the show exists in "their own pocket universe that comes with culture, design language, architecture," and that the team is "making the filmmaking style different, depending on where it is." West, who describes herself as a Magic: The Gathering fan, called the project "really fun to bring something incredibly special to life." Netflix's sneak peek is below:
Who Chandra Nalaar Is
Chandra is a fire mage from the plane of Kaladesh, later renamed Avishkar. She was one of the 5 Planeswalkers printed as the first planeswalker cards in the Lorwyn set in 2007, alongside Ajani Goldmane, Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess and Garruk Wildspeaker. The 2016 Kaladesh set took the story to her home world, where she found her mother, who had been presumed dead.
Magic: The Gathering was created by Richard Garfield and released by Wizards of the Coast in 1993 as the company's first trading card game. In a match, each player takes the role of a Planeswalker, a mage who can travel between planes, and casts spells and summons creatures from a deck of cards. Wizards' parent company Hasbro reported that Magic passed $1 billion in revenue in its 2022 fiscal year.
The Long Road To Netflix
Netflix first announced an animated Magic: The Gathering series in June 2019 with Joe and Anthony Russo attached. In August 2021, the Russos revealed that Brandon Routh would voice Gideon Jura and that the show was aiming for 2023, but the brothers and writers Henry Gilroy and Jose Molina later left the project. Netflix restarted development in September 2024 with Matalas as showrunner and Hasbro Entertainment producing, and the series was previewed at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2025. Planeswalker is the 1st official title for the restarted show.
The card game itself has stayed busy. Magic's Star Trek cards were covered in Magic: The Gathering Reveals Its Star Trek Cards, Including Beam Me Up And Signed Actor Cards, and the latest Secret Lair releases in Magic: The Gathering Reveals Two Reality Fracture Secret Lair Drops, With Work From Classic Artists Returning.
Which Planeswalker would you most want to see join Chandra in the first season of Planeswalker?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.