Hasbro shareholders drop suit alleging toymaker overprinted Magic: The Gathering card sets

Two Hasbro shareholders who brought a lawsuit against company executives for alleged overprinting of Magic: The Gathering cards have voluntarily dismissed their case in Rhode Island federal court less than a month after the initial filing.

The Feb. 17 filing of a voluntary dismissal concludes for now the case filed by Joseph Crocono and Ultan McGlone, two shareholders who sued on behalf of the toymaker against several members of its executive suite and board, a type of lawsuit known as a shareholder derivative complaint.  

The suit filed on Jan. 21 in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island alleged that, from September 2021 to October 2023, Hasbro executives like CEO Chris Cocks made misleading remarks to shareholders about its printing strategy for Magic: The Gathering. The eldest of the “Big Three” trading card games in the U.S, Magic has enjoyed an active player base since its premiere in 1993 and continues to comprise the lion’s share of profit for Wizards of the Coast, which became a Hasbro subsidiary in 1999. 

The suit named Cocks and 13 other executives as defendants. It alleged that under Cocks’ leadership, Wizards and Hasbro printed too many Magic sets, weakening confidence in the brand while also buying back its own stock at a temporarily inflated price — ultimately leading to a $55.9 million loss in 2022. 

This supposed breach of fiduciary duty, the lawsuit originally alleged, cut across several areas. 

“Hasbro’s strategy with regard to printing Magic cards was not as carefully thought out as portrayed,” the suit read. “[The] Company was in fact printing a volume of Magic sets which exceeded consumer demand…the Company was overloading the market with Magic sets to generate revenue and to offset shortfalls within the Company.”

Shareholders sue Hasbro over allegedly printing too many Magic: The Gathering cards

One of the suit’s more shocking illustrations of alleged problems with Magic production was a 30th anniversary sold only online for $999. Made primarily for collecting rather than official tournament play, the 30th Anniversary Set reprinted one of the earliest sets, Beta, and Wizards claimed publicly that the set had sold out less than an hour after its release — a feat disputed in the suit, which cited former employees who said they were shown images of the anniversary product in a Texas landfill, suggesting the company had artificially inflated its positive reception and sales.      

According to the complaint, the plaintiffs chose the shareholder derivative route for legal action because they did not believe the company’s board would adequately address their concerns, and that any pre-suit demands made of the board would be futile. Seven board members were named defendants in the complaint.

Neither Hasbro nor attorneys for Crocono and McGlone responded to multiple requests for comment from Rhode Island Current.

The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled again. Recent news from the soon-to-be-Massachusetts-based toy company, however, may have damaged the crux of the lawsuit’s arguments.

Hasbro’s Feb. 10 release of its 2025 Q4 earnings showed the company, and Magic specifically, is far from hurting financially. In fact, Magic broke its own records and fiscal year 2025 was its best yet, with 59% growth in revenue compared to the previous fiscal year. 

Magic’s “standout performance,” according to a company press release, grew revenue by 45% for Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment, which the company in turn cited as a major reason its overall revenue grew by 14% across the year. 

Overall, Hasbro generated $393 million in dividends for shareholders in fiscal year 2025. 

CEO Cocks told shareholders in prepared remarks during a Feb. 10 earnings call that Magic’s revenue growth is backed by a broad and active network of players. Cocks said there are more than 10,000 hobby and card retailers worldwide which participate in the Wizards Play Network, which sanctions and regulates official tournament play. The CEO noted this was an increase of 20% year-over-year.   

“Taken together, this reinforces our confidence in Magic’s long-term growth,” Cocks said. “We are building a system of play with multiple entry points, product types, and engagement paths, and that system is positioned to continue driving growth into 2026 and beyond.”

Hasbro plans to relocate its Pawtucket headquarters to Boston by the end of the year.

Andrew Spacone — the former deputy general counsel and head of the litigation group at Textron Inc., and now a professor at Roger Williams Law School who teaches students about mergers, acquisitions and securities regulation — previously reviewed the case for Rhode Island Current and commented on the latest development over email.

Did that earnings call and its lucrative news possibly preclude the lawsuit’s chances of success?

“Who knows for sure, but this news undercuts the alleged harm (reduced value) to the company caused by the alleged fiduciary duty breaches,” Spacone wrote. “Put another way, the theory for the lawsuit appears to have evaporated.”