The presale numbers for Magic: The Gathering — FINAL FANTASY back in April already made it the best-selling Magic set in history and now the set appears to be making history for MTG Arena.
Just an hour after Magic: The Gathering — FINAL FANTASY released on MTG Arena and Magic Online (1 PM ET), MTG Arena’s active player count on Steam rocketed past its previous record high of 12,215 in the last week of August of 2024 all the way up to 17,261. The all-time peak continued to climb, going to 17,989 at 4 PM ET.
Notably, these numbers are only coming from users on Steam, so they don’t account for players from the official MTG Arena launcher, on mobile, or on the Epic Games launcher — the program users on Mac use to play. But if players across the spectrum of launchers mimic Steam, Magic: The Gathering — FINAL FANTASY is the homerun Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Hasbro thought it would be.
MTG Arena’s peak player count on Steamcharts.com previously came in the last week of August of 2024, following the release of Bloomburrow, hitting 12,215. The release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm in April of 2025 almost rivaled that peak, falling just below it at 12,119.
While the average number of MTG Arena players on Steam has grown since March, today’s peak is almost double the highest active-player count from May. Will the peak-player count continue to grow or will the game crashing just after 4 PM keep it from going any higher?
