Blaming an unspecified “vendor,” Wizards of the Coast has admitted that generative AI was used to create a marketing image it posted earlier this month. Now it’s offered a mea culpa, while also reasserting its stance against the use of AI art in its products.
The specific incident occurred on Jan. 4, in a now-deleted post on X from the official account for Magic: The Gathering. The post was meant to advertise the upcoming release of Ravnica Remastered, a new set that collects and reprints almost 300 cards that all have to do with one of Magic’s best-known settings, the world-city of Ravnica.
The promotion featured an image of several Magic cards, shown against the background of a sort of Victorian laboratory (below, via Ghost Archive). Fans immediately spotted several telltale inconsistencies in that background image that suggested it might’ve been made with generative AI, such as warped numbers on a pressure gauge.
While Wizards initially claimed the image had been made by a human, the company reversed course on Monday morning and offered an apology of sorts.
“As you, our diligent community, pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative,” a Wizards representative wrote on Twitter.
Wizards had previously established that it requires creative contributors to its other products, such as Dungeons & Dragons, to refrain from using generative AI to “create final products.” It alleges that the Jan. 4 image slipped through the cracks due to the art coming from an unnamed vendor, rather than its pool of contributing artists, and announced that the company plans to update its rules for marketing partners in order to prohibit the use of generative AI.
This is the latest AI-driven controversy for Wizards of the Coast, following several issues that arose with D&D over the course of 2023. This included the accidental inclusion of art that had been “polished” with AI in August 2023’s Glory of the Giants, and accusations from fans that newly revealed art from 2024’s reissued Player’s Handbook had been made with AI.
