For the past 10 months, I've been working diligently to compile trivia for the 2025 Magic Crossword. At time of writing, I've got a little over 200 clues ready to go. But that's just not enough! To help make this puzzle the biggest and best it can be, I'm opening submissions to the whole Rodeo community (and beyond)! If you've got obscure Magic knowledge that you want to make it onto the Crossword this year, you can submit it here!
Just so we're all on the same page, though, the 2025 Crossword is going to have a little bit more narrow criteria (at Ben's request). The hope with these clues is that it's all about stuff that's on Vintage-legal Magic cards. Theoretically, if you had a perfect knowledge of every single version of every single Vintage-legal card, you'd be able to answer every clue here.
Some notable things this excludes that were on the 2024 puzzle:
• Anything about digital-only cards
• Anything about Un-cards or other cards that aren't legal to play (Sorry
Deb Thomas fans)
• All story and lore related clues that you can't learn from art or flavor
text
• Stuff related to marketing materials
• Anything about tournament history
There's a bunch of stuff this does of course include though, such as:
• Artwork easter eggs and details
• Odd interactions or unique card effects
• Anything about card names and flavor text
• Quirks of wording or errata between printings of cards
• Color shifts, strictly-betters, and ability references
• Weird promos or other obscure prints
• Anything else you can learn by looking at a Magic card!
Here's some examples of clues from last year that would be good fits, to
give you some insipration:
• "Printed with four creature types at once." (PRIESTOFGIX)
• "Snowblind is the only card to contain this word in its rules text."
(WHICHEVER)
• "Clone that Lin-Sivvi can find." (FLESHDUPLICATE)
• "Has Storm Crow in the middle of it." (MINDSTORMCROWN)
• "Its only reprint features Post Malone." (LESHRACSSIGIL)
If you do have a clue that would normally not fit, that doesn't mean it's unusable. Try to find some way to make that information additional supporting info, rather than the entire clue: For example, if I was trying to rewrite "Card from Tempest that shares a name with a Pokémon TCG Stadium card." (ANCIENTTOMB) from last year, I might say "Card from Tempest that was reprinted as a Stellar Sights card, and that shares a name with a Pokémon TCG Stadium card." The clue is still completely guessable just from knowing it's from Tempest and Stellar Sights (REFLECTINGPOOL is too many letters), but the Pokémon info adds a bit of extra fun trivia.
If you're not sure whether your clue fits or not, just submit it! There's no harm after all, and the borderline cases can often lead to the best clues. I of course reserve the right to rewrite or modify clues as I see fit to make the best puzzle possible, especially if it's a borderline case that I want to turn into a workable clue. But I'll always credit you if I use any derivative of your submission. Submitting a clue is also obviously not a guarantee that it'll make it in: Try not to take it personally if yours doesn't make the cut.