In case you haven’t been keeping up, about two weeks ago the members of the Dungeons & Dragons team responsible for D&D and D&D Beyond as well as Studio X, the team responsible for tabletop Magic and Duel Masters, announced that they had informed Wizards of the Coast of their intent to unionize, following in the footsteps of their Magic Arena colleagues who successfully formed UWOTC-CWA earlier this year.
And, to the surprise of I think no one, last week Wizards of the Coast, in a letter that was shared with www.wargamer.com’s Timothy Linward, declined to voluntarily recognize the unionization of D&D and Magic. United Wizards of the Coast announced this first on their formerly-known-as-Twitter account last Wednesday.
The refusal to voluntarily recognize the union on the part of Wizards of the Coast is unsurprising because it’s the same decision they made earlier this year with respect to the Magic Arena unionization. In both cases, as Linward reports, this means that the issue is put before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a secret ballot vote.
The Arena team passed that vote by an impressive 83% majority.
We don’t know what happens within the closed doors of Wizards offices, but the highlights of the unionization statements call out some obvious, and less obvious, concerns. Among the unsurprising ones are fair wages and career growth, job security, healthcare access, remote and hybrid work support, and protections against the use of generative AI.
The surprising one for many was full ownership of the works they create outside the office. Yeah, Wizards is claiming full ownership of anything its studio members make outside of their time at work.
Maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising after the incredibly anti-competitive attempt Wizards of the Coast made to update the Open Gaming License for Dungeons & Dragons last year. After all, these are the moves of a corporate entity looking to use its weight in the industry to quash competition. The efforts on the part of the creatives to push back and form a union is in direct conflict with that corporate desire to maximize profitability.
And so, the union is rejected, and now it goes to a secret vote.
These votes aren’t always successful, despite how wretched the working conditions within may be. Just look at the failed attempts to unionize numerous Amazon warehouses.
Support from fans has been overwhelming for the studio members looking to unionize. Over the weekend, on social media, UWOTC announced that their petition now had over 42,000 signatures in support of unionizing. While it’s more than attended the last MagicCon (according to UWOTC’s post) it’s also significantly less than the 50 million people who play Magic the Gathering according to Hasbro’s financial reports.
Whether or not the union is successful remains to be seen, but this is arguably one of the largest and almost certainly the most recognizable tabletop studio to make the attempt. Succeeding here sets a precedent for other companies’ employees to follow suit.
With Magic getting closer to the $2B revenue mark (it was at $1.7B in 2025) and brand recognition higher than it’s ever been for both Magic and Dungeons & Dragons, Hasbro will report its quarterly earnings for Q3 on Tuesday this week, and the unionization could be a topic of discussion for investors on both sides of the issue.
Rich Stein (He/Him) has been covering Magic: the Gathering since 2012 and playing since 1995. His favorite expansion is Apocalypse and his favorite card is Pernicious Deed. He thinks Universes Beyond are just swell and that the greatest Magic Story was Jace and Vraska on Ixalan. He’ll be at MagicCon Atlanta in a few weeks if you want to hear more of his bad opinions. But here’s a great opinion: support the Wizards of the Coast employees in their epic quest to unionize!