Figure skater Amber Glenn went viral during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, partly because she won a gold medal and partly because she outed herself as a huge fan of Hasbro’s popular tabletop card game Magic: The Gathering.
On multiple occasions throughout the games’ TV coverage, the Team USA member was seen opening packs of Magic cards and spoke about her passion for the hobby during interviews.
“Honestly, it wasn’t even promoting,” Glenn tells Variety. “It was like, this is what I do for fun, and I’m gonna be a nerd on international television.”
Following the Olympics, Glenn’s agents got in touch with Magic: The Gathering developer Wizards of the Coast. “And it’s been amazing ever since,” Glenn says during an interview after attending a Wizards event in Seattle unveiling a new collection of cards in support of the Global Fund for Women.
“With Magic, there’s a third space because, for me, it’s like home and the rink,” Glenn says. “And even though the rink, like I have friends, and it’s not like a typical job, that’s work. So going to a local game store where people are just having fun and socializing and enjoying this hobby, whether it’s Magic or board games or D & D or something, I just finally had a third space. Something outside of my everyday training, and that was so new for me.”
A player since 2022, Glenn says she’s amassed quite the card collection in just a few years.
“It was a slippery slope. I just got into it so bad,” Glenn says. “This is embarrassing: I have well over probably 100,000 cards. Now, some of them are worth less than a cent. Like they’re not anything crazy. But I’m huge into it.”
Glenn is far from the first star to be publicly passionate about Magic: The Gathering, the most famous example being Post Malone, who purchased a one-of-a-kind “One Ring” card from Magic’s “The Lord of the Rings” set for $2 million in 2023. He’s also directly collaborated with Wizards on a Post Malone-inspired “Secret Lair” (a limited release collection of a handful of themed cards) drop.
If Glenn goes the same way in her partnership with Wizards, what would she want included in her own “Secret Lair?”
“Oh my god, that is such a question,” Glenn says. “I literally have it in my notes, ‘Come up with something,’ because I have so many directions — you could go this way or this way or this way. I have a dog named Ukkima. But I love playing Yoshimaru. She’s named after ‘Ukkima, the Stalking Shadow,’ but I see her more as — she’s an all-black Schipperke, so she’s like a shadow — but she’s the ‘Ever Faithful Yoshimaru!’ Oh my god, that’d be so confusing. But that’d be so cool.”
She also wants to include nods to her figure-skating career, but not too much: “Of course, there’s people who say do Jeskai [a set comprised of only red, white and blue mana cards]. They’re like, ‘Red, white and blue! America! U.S.!’ I’m like, OK, sure, but I don’t usually play Jeskai, but to each their own. Or having like the gold token, ha ha, get it? Which I do love a good treasure token, I do. I’m like, Ancient Copper Dragon? Is that too much to ask, reprinting? I have to think of logistics so much of, what can we do what can we not?”
She’s also considering an unofficial, joke-style card, The Ice Dancer (a “human athlete” creature type), which was featured during a MagicCon event.
“After MagicCon, someone showed up after to one of the shows because unfortunately I couldn’t attend because I was doing shows with Stars on Ice, or else I would have been there so fast,” Glenn says. “Two days later, someone I guess went directly from the con to one of our shows, and showed up with one of these for me and some collector packs. So sweet, so nice. Of course, I signed stuff and gave it back. And it was just so cool to see that.”
Glenn says that one of her first decks was centered around “Jorn, God of Winter,” and the “snow synergy” element could fit in nicely for her themed deck, “but I don’t want it to be too based off skating because I also want it to be strong queer women.”
On that note, Glenn is taking some inspiration from “Their Magic Is Limitless,” the “Secret Lair” drop that she was on hand to celebrate last week with Wizards. Largely made as a tribute to the women in the Magic community, 50% of the product price for the set is going toward the Global Fund for Women.
“Obviously, ‘Sol Ring’ is a beautiful thing, but you can’t outdo this,” Glenn says, holding up the collection’s specific artistic take on the classic card. “They paid homage to the original Sol Ring with the fire, but instead it’s this beautiful — like, they wanted to have the delicacy for women, but also the power, and it’s just so stunning. I would definitely put all my faith in the art directors here.”
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