Highly awarded · 2 organizations

Magical Athlete

Richard Garfield, Takashi Ishida · CMYK · 2024

Draft a team of fantasy characters with unique special abilities, then race them through a simple track. Each character breaks the rules in a different way — the wizard teleports, the dragon flies, the merchant bribes. The character interactions create hilarious emergent moments.

Players

2–6

Time

30 min

Ages

Difficulty

Light

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Why you'll like it

Character drafting creates genuine strategic decisions
Special abilities create hilarious interactions
Accessible to children and adults equally
Fast 30-minute games encourage rematches
The roster of characters provides high variety

Why you'll love it

Recognized by 2 award organizations, including the ATTA (2026 winner) and the Dice Tower (2025 winner).

Each racer has a power that bends the rules
Light, chaotic racing with lots of laughs
Drafting your team adds a bit of strategy

How it plays

Magical Athlete is a light, chaotic racing game. Each player drafts four racers from a pool of 36, and each racer has a unique power that bends the rules.

Before each race, everyone secretly picks one of their racers. On your turn you roll a die and move, and racers' powers trigger constantly, pushing, swapping and leapfrogging each other. Only the first two finishers score. After four races, the player with the most points wins.