Renton, WA – It’s been one week since domineering parent of nerd happiness Hasbro acquired the Seattle-based Lattice Pharmaceutical. Lattice declared bankruptcy last year, a decision brought on by the massive crash in it’s stock value after allegations that it’s CFO, Michael Wassan, was a collective hallucination shared by his co-workers. In a recent memo Hasbro stated the reason for the acquisition as, “Lattice Pharmaceutical manufactured all our glue. We have a great need for the glue. Now the glue may flow more freely for our use. Now it may flow directly into us.”

And with Lattice comes its controversial practice of administering psychological supplements to all of it’s staff members. This practice, which began in the 1970s when no one cared, has already had noticeable impact inside the Research and Development Department of Magic, a game for adults who enjoy the sensation of smelling cardboard. Mark Rosewater, the leader designer of Magic spoke to me while rapidly spinning in a computer chair:

“I’m so excited, SO EXCITED, to unveil the newest idea we’ve done before: the return of you make the card! This time we are giving you not just a play-experience, no, we’re giving you a play-state-of-mind. You! It’s all you! You are free! I Disenchant your Shackles I cast Updraft and you are free and I will draw the card in my next life!” He then presented me with this before vomiting violently into a nearby Avengers-themed garbage pail:

“Think about it! No more leaks, you are your own spoiler season! Ten in a pack because of as-fan! As-fan!”

Under this new school of thought, R&D member Ken Nagle, normally confined to the closet with the paper shredder, has been allowed to roam the building and grounds. I caught up with him on the roof where he stared blankly into the sun, a seagull nesting comfortably in his mouth: “What if no-color was a color? What if that void in us, the thing we were always missing, was the absence of the absence of something? What is it like to play in this world? How might we escape it? Spike is too powerful for his own good. Johnny is too clever. Only Timmy, so large, so trample, Timmy might free himself through his hunger more more. He might pay the mana to escape the void, and like me, his food will come to him.” Then he sucked the seagull down his throat, comically burping a single white feather, and raised him arms in elation.

Perhaps no one has felt the effects of the merger more sharply than former head of R&D Hakim (formerly Aaron Forsythe). I found Hakim, hair grown long, meditating in a nearby park: “I left because I was sick. I was making possessions that owned people. But that’s not how it should be, man. Belief matters more than truth. Every moment, belief in imaginary things alters lives while truth sits unnoticed and waits. But I believe in the truth. And now my possessions nourish me.” With that he produced a Black Lotus, dipped it in a half-eaten container of cream cheese from a nearby garbage can, and jammed it into his mouth with a grotesque smacking sound. He declined to comment further only saying, “Steve Jobs is my Richard Garfield”, before drifting off into the air and waving goodbye to a distant Ken Nagle, still perched on the roof, sniffing the air.

Beyond R&D other divisions of Magic have realigned their thinking. Promotions as begun work on a Nerf Batterskull, Organized Play has declared that the format for GP Tonopah will be Mental Magic, and Magic Online has been replaced with a copy of the 1991 classic Myst. When asked if it saw these changes as a positive development Hasbro only commented, “If Magic fails we still have Kaijudo. The cards all smell the same.”