MTG Arena Hot Pockets Promotion: Here’s Everything You Need to Know

Food token | Illustration by Chuck Lukacs

If you’ve visited the freezer section of your local grocery or big box retail store lately, you may have done a double take when you noticed Liliana Vess grinning at you from the cover of the “Four Cheese Pizza of the Veil” Hot Pockets. In case you haven’t experienced this surreal moment, it turns out Hot Pockets and Magic: The Gathering Arena have partnered up for some cross promotion.

Regardless of your feelings on Hot Pockets, it’s kind of cool to see that Magic has accrued enough cultural cachet that the brand thinks it can help them sell their products. These boxes offer more than just a way to show off your love of Magic through your frozen food purchases; do also come with a code for in-game rewards in Magic Arena. This gives Magic fans even more of a reason to buy a box if their favorite pyromancing planeswalker wasn’t enough to sell them a pepperoni pizza Pocket.

Whether you were unaware of the promotion or just aren’t completely sure how the whole thing works, I’ll go through exactly what you get from the MTGA codes Hot Pockets is including in your purchase.

What Is MTG Arena Doing with Hot Pockets?

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer | Illustration by Alix Branwyn

When you purchase a box of Hot Pockets that’s marked with Magic’s branding, you’re eligible to receive an MTG Arena code when you provide proof of purchase.

How Long Is the Promotion Running? Is It Over?

This promotion lasts until June 30, 2023, so if you’re reading this before then you still have time to participate. While codes are valid through this date, there’s no guarantee that the boxes of Hot Pockets themselves will be readily available until then. If you’re sold on getting your hands on one, you’ll likely want to go sooner rather than later, especially if you want your pick of flavors/characters.

Hot Pockets Codes

There are a few different rewards you can get with Hot Pockets codes. You can redeem up to five codes, and each new code you redeem gets you a different reward tier. What you get isn’t determined by what box of Hot Pockets you pick up or which Magic character is featured on it. The only exception to this is the Walmart-exclusive Liliana box which has a unique reward and doesn’t count toward your five redemptions.

First Code

After redeeming your first Hot Pockets code, you receive a pre-constructed deck called Vivien’s Hunt, the decklist of which can be found here. All these cards are also added to your collection, including the full-art Forest style from Streets of New Capenna.

Second Code

When you redeem your second code, you receive a unique Vivien avatar pictured below alongside some of the other rewards you can earn.

Third Code

Your third code gets you a deck sleeve style featuring the full art from Vivien, Arkbow Ranger which can be seen in the above picture on the far left.

Fourth and Fifth Code

The fourth and fifth codes you redeem get you the same reward of 2,000 Mastery Pass XP. A slightly underwhelming reward, especially if you don’t pay for the full Mastery Pass.

Liliana Walmart Promo Code

Regardless of how many codes you’ve entered, the Pizza of the Veil Hot Pockets featuring Liliana always get you the same reward, which is a card style for the card Vivien on the Hunt. This is an Arena specific style with new artwork from Chris Rallis that you can only get through this promotion.

What’s Inside the Box?

You might expect a product like this to have a physical code written down somewhere in the actual packaging, but that’s not the case here. The inside of the box is just plain brown cardboard, and of course your Hot Pockets. Instead, you need to take a picture of your receipt and upload it to Hot Pockets’ website. You then receive a promotional code within the next 48 hours at the email address you provide. I received my code within a few hours, but I’ve seen a few Reddit posts saying it took about a day, so times can vary. When you receive your code, you can redeem it on your Wizards account page.

These instructions can be found on the outside of your box. Looking at the box straight on as pictured above, you just want to flip it up and look at the bottom side to find the instructions.

As it says on the box, you need your receipt, so hang onto that. I made the mistake of assuming the code was inside the box and had to go fishing through the trash for mine when I bought these.

My Thoughts

I’ll be honest, when I first learned about the Hot Pockets Magic promotion, I laughed. Partially out of  surprise that Magic was doing this sort of brand deal, and also that they chose Hot Pockets as the brand to do it with. The Magic community has a reputation for being willing to drop hundreds of dollars on a single card, sometimes at the expense of allocating funds to essentials, and I’ve been guilty of that myself from time to time. I just find it funny that Wizards and Hot Pockets decide that Magic fans would appreciate getting a $3 dinner so they could save their money for that sweet, sweet cardboard.

I’m not sure what the general consensus is on this promotion, but my Hot Pockets hot take is that this is not really worth it if you’re just looking for the codes. If you like Hot Pockets and are already buying them, these are fine. But I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. I already had most of the cards in the preconstructed deck, and I’m not planning on buying another few boxes just to get the avatar or the sleeves. There also weren’t very many cards in the deck itself that I’d even have used a wildcard on.

What if I Missed it or Live Elsewhere?

If your local grocery stores aren’t selling these or they’ve sold out, you have the option of buying codes from MTGAcodes instead. That said, they’re currently selling an individual code for $15 and a three-pack of codes for $30. Unless Vivien is your favorite Magic character and you have money to burn, I really don’t advise that you do this.

Wrap Up

Gyome, Master Chef | Illustration by Steve Prescott

If Magic wants to continue doing cross-promotions like this Hot Pockets one, they’ll need to step up their game if they want me to buy into it again. That said, I don’t think something like this is bad on principle. I’ll keep my eye out for any similar Magic offers, and I’ll probably be back here to tell you whether it’s worth it.

Do you think these rewards are worth it? What kind of rewards would you like to see from a promotion like this? Let me know in the comments or on Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing you on the next article!

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