In an issue of Variant Chess in 1999, David Pritchard called Magnetic Chess the chess variant of the decade.
Later, he took the title and give it to Hostage Chess. John McCallion in his column in the NOST-bulletin
then had readers vote between these variants - the one vote he received went to Magnetic Chess, making this NOST's Chess Variant of the decade (1990 - 1999). Pritchard also mentioned the game in his book Popular Chess Variants, that appeared early 2000.
Given all this interest in this interesting and challenging chess variant, this invention of Joao Pedro Neto is probably the first chess variant whose first publication was
on the Chess Variants Pages and that found such a wide recognition.