Not long after the Preview Panel at MagicCon: Las Vegas revealed the Box Topper version of The One Ring in the upcoming Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit™ set, fans quickly pointed out the similarities in the art to a previous printing of the card.
The new reprint with art by Dan Frazier clearly had a background from the iconic Magic artist, but the actual ring in the illustration looked shockingly like the ring in the borderless version of The One Ring from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth from 2023. Magic players took to social media claiming something was fishy, with others posting comparisons of the art of each card with the Marta Nael illustration from the original set flipped to match Frazier’s new piece. The ring was a match, though the inscription in the original ring was removed.
Just a day after the controversy flooded social media, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) officially responded in tandem with Frazier. Frazier’s reply apologized for painting over Nael’s illustration without “making it my own” while WotC, like Frazier, apologized to Nael and noted the digital version of the card will have both Frazier and Nael’s names on the artist credit and Nael will be compensated for the work.
WotC also recognized the failure of not catching the issue through editing or reviewing the art, stating “we made mistakes in our process to not catch the error.” Many pointed out in response that almost any amount of due diligence in reviewing Frazier’s piece should have led to seeing the similarities in his piece and Nael’s.
Donato Giancola, another high profile artist known for Magic illustrations who stopped creating art for Magic a couple years ago, made a post on Facebook where he calls this situation “another example of the failures of Hasbro in their mismanagement of the Magic: The Gathering brand.” His post details in the issues around creating Magic art for Universes Beyond products and calls the contracts to make art for UB sets as “exploitive.”
Giancola explained that Hasbro and WotC require work-for-hire, digital only art contracts for Universes Beyond sets, which means artists can’t create any original art for these pieces (he lists objects like sketches, thumbnails, or any physical painted/created works) nor can they create aftermarket prints, playmats, artist proofs, or other material to sell later. Giancola says this has made it harder to earn a living as an artist and posits that this leads to artists not putting in the same effort level when they know they can’t recoup their time after the initial contract. He also points toward lack of quality control leads to cut corners in all aspects of art creation, direction, and production.
In another post, Giancola guessed Frazier had no real say in the final piece which led to Frazier’s agent (Mark Aronowitz) commenting “He did not. After several changes requested we never saw this version.” Aronowitz also commented that he looked forward to returning from the MagicCon to see Frazier’s final piece, which he had not seen. He noted Frazier got “so frustrated” with WotC making him change stuff.
This isn’t the first time Magic illustrations have been in the news recently. In 2024, Giancola called out Fay Dalton for plagiarizing his art from a 1990s book cover that appeared on the card Trouble in Pairs. After his allegation, WotC announced it wouldn’t work with Dalton in the future.
In 2023, WotC cut ties with David Sondered after his illustration of Wayfarer’s Bauble from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander plagiarized art from another artist’s painting.
Notably, WotC’s response didn’t use the word “plagiarism” or state they would stop working with Frazier.
