The year?

2022.

The first set of the year for Magic: the Gathering releases, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty with a huge positive reception.

The set would set records and herald a banner-year of profit for WotC, as they continued to build the Phyrexian story line with interesting cards and evocative flavor with the following Streets of New Capenna set.

As with any set, there are stories published leading up to the set release and plenty of lore-building to generate excitement. But one new aspect of all of this flew relatively unknown under the radar: official MTG set soundtracks.

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Official Soundtrack

MTG’s first venture into soundtracks starts with their return to the beloved Kamigawa plane, where they tapped a wide range of talent tethered by Jonathan Young.

Some of the better tracks include:

• Path to Victory (highest stream count)
• Shadow of Boseiju

The less ambitious instrumental songs, like the latter seem less ‘cheesy’ as many of the lyrics hype storylines rather than conveying anything of substance.

Streets of New Capenna Official Soundtrack

The MTG team tapped talent from Sapphire, Jonathan Young, Annapantsu, and more to fill out 13 songs. There are both voiced and instrumental versions, totaling an hour and thirty minutes for the entire soundtrack.

This effort is tighter and frankly better than the Kamigawa soundtrack

Some of the standout tracks include:

• Old Money
• Nails & Kneecaps
• Deal You Can’t Refuse

You may recognize a few of the songs from promo videos during the New Capenna release, but most players didn’t know the songs were from an entire Magic soundtrack.

The soundtrack is on-point with the lore, and even references a few cards. But, it never had a song crack more than 2 million listens, an underwhelming result for an IP as popular as Magic: the Gathering.

The Bottom Line

Are the soundtracks full of bangers that you’ll add to your regular rotation? No, and probably not.

But they are worth checking out and sharing with your pod/game night friends for the novelty.

We’ll probably look back on the early 2022 sets as ‘peak magic’ as far as commercial success goes. Investment in projects like soundtracks still made sense, even if it wasn’t followed up.