Dannyalcatraz said:
I don't know that it could be fully developed- so much of that game would be (in D&D terms) epic...it lends itself better to something like Primal Order...or Everway...or even the non-WotC product Exalted.
The epic part does not mean that it cannot be done in d20. A campaign setting that focuses on epic play might be fun.
Besides, it doesn't have to have epic player characters. They could start low and work their way up. I don't know about Magic's premise and back story, but I think there are some individuals there that started small.
I guess in Magic the card game, you are some great warlord or something to fight others of your ilk? The RPG doesn't have to put you into such a prestigious position - not at first.
You could sell it as playing Great Magic Warlords (or whatever it is you're supposed to be in the card game) in the making (you could always suggest the alternative rule of starting way up as big wigs, especially for more experienced Magic RPG players).
Magic would not be the first CCG that got a roleplaying game afterwards (and there's also lots of card games that came after their respective RPGs): Legend of the Five Rings started as a card game (and still continues), but about 10 years ago, they made an RPG set in the world of Rokugan. IMO, that one's one of the greatest game worlds ever, the game sounds very great, too. It's now in its third edition, and had a phase of d20 books during its own second edition (with the exception of the Campaign setting, all those books were for both the L5R native rules and for d20).
And in the L5R RPG, you don't play a great general or clan champion, either (at least not at first - it's of course always an option for later if the GM should so choose). You usually start as a minor Samurai (the caste, not the character class of katana-wielding warriors, though they're also present, of course) there. In the Card Game, you play a powerful warlord or something, I think.
In fact, the outcomes of the big L5R CCG tournaments determine how the storyline continues. Say, as backdrop for this or that tourney is a grand battle where most of the clans fight against the united forces of the Shadowlands and a minor clan that has been tainted.
If a player representing one of the clans should win, his clan will be the one most responsible for the imperial forces' victory over the tainted beasts. Should a Shadowlands player win, the Empire will have a major setback (and if a tainted clansman wins, his clan will rise to prominence within the shadowlands power structure).
But it could be!
Just like 3.X, I don't forsee them making Philosophies dissapear from the Clerics...and if they try to appease a broad base of D&D gamers, those M:tG deities and demigods would be presented as options or exemplars of "X" kind of divine figure.
The problem is: many roleplayers don't really like card games. And if now the story of one of those card games poaches on their RPG's grounds, they'll probably be petered off big time.
For those, there should be a M:tG-free D&D environment (as there should be a FR-free environment for FR haters and an Eberron-Free game for Eberron haters).
It would be fine as a campaign setting,though - or maybe its own d20 RPG!