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asketchyperson · 7 months

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To[o much] Infinity and Beyond…

Section 1: How we got here

Magic the Gathering is an IP with 30 years of established lore that spans thousands of in-universe years with hundreds of legendary creatures and planeswalkers, all with their own stories to tell. The very concept of planes and planeswalkers (although the status of planeswalkers in the lore seems to be in flux) gives room for new planes with unique characters to be visited at any time, and they can even interact with established creatures across the planes, old and new. The possibilities of the stories to be told are limited only by the creativity of the writing team and the direction they want to take the main story. With the already rich and established lore within its own multiverse, it would be reasonable to assume that Magic would be able to stand on its own without the need for bringing in other brands or IPs. That has not been the direction Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast have gone in over the past few years, however, with the introduction of outside IPs that eventually evolved into the utter takeover that has become Universes Beyond (UB).

I think the first pebble of this avalanche to fall began with the silver-bordered Hasbro IP crossovers Magic made for Hascon 2017.

Initially, these seemed completely harmless and entertaining. Dungeons and Dragons, Transformers and Nerf are all fellow Hasbro owned IPs, and making non-tournament legal cards with these fourth-wall breaking references made for some really cool collectors items. I remember these coming out and how cool I thought they were, the Sword of Dungeons and Dragons in particular. These were very well received, but we had no way to know where this positive reception would lead.

Two years later in 2019, we received the My Little Pony, Extra Life charity promos.

Following a similar formula, these were non-tournament legal promos with another Hasbro IP. It was not for everyone, but it was for a good cause, and opened up Magic to a potentially brand new fan base. Cute, fun, and a harbinger of things to come the following year.

April of 2020 brought Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths, a brand new plane with new characters, mechanics, and marketing strategies. For the first time, booster packs of Ikoria had had the potential of containing a brand new art treatment borrowing from an IP outside of Hasbro: Godzilla

These cards were essentially just alternate art versions of cards that (except for one exception that was later rectified) would have regular, in-universe versions available in the set. The irony of the Godzilla cards is that they gave a perfect blueprint for the non-Magic IP cards, but this blueprint was not used very well after this set. The next and most controversial domino to fall to this point came later that same year.

October of 2020 introduced Universes Beyond via Secret Lair Drop Series: The Walking Dead, and it changed a lot for how other IPs would interact with Magic going forward.

As opposed to the Godzilla re-skins from Ikoria, the Walking Dead (TWD) cards were mechanically unique, black-bordered and therefore eternal format legal, and exclusively available in the Secret Lair for a limited time. This had the Magic community clutching their pearls for a few reasons, the primary of which at the time was the availability of the cards. If any of these cards were extremely powerful or became a combo-piece in any eternal formats, only being available in a Secret Lair would have caused the price of these cards to skyrocket. WotC did acknowledge this and in August of 2023 finally rectified the issue by printing in-universe versions of TWD cards in Wilds of Eldraine, and the cards from the initial Secret Lair drop ultimately did not had much of an impact regardless.

Ultimately, the larger problem Magic players had with this Secret Lair and Universes Beyond as a whole was simple: many Magic the Gathering players do not want other IPs infiltrating their game. This viewpoint has been expressed since the Godzilla cards, and has been voiced again every time a new UB product is announced. It has only been three years since the announcement of UB and I already could not name all of the different releases off the top of my head. In order of release as of October 2023, the following IPs have been used for tournament legal cards: The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Arcane, Street Fighter, Fortnite, Dracula, Warhammer 40k, Transformers (for real this time), Dungeons and Dragons (twice), The Lord of The Rings, Evil Dead (literally had no clue about this one until writing), The Princess Bride, and Doctor Who. These cards have been printed everywhere and in every form from more re-skins, to exclusive Secret Lair drops, to set boosters, to Commander decks, to entire sets or even all of the above! And more IPs are coming with no end in sight. Jurassic Park, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed and Final Fantasy have been announced for a few weeks now, and just today (10/23/2023) we received news that the Marvel collaboration including multiple sets (similar to LotR) is coming soon as well. The amount of just regular, in-universe Magic product being printed is already incredibly difficult to keep up with, and the speed at which new UB sets are announced and released outpaces it easily.

Section 2: No turning back

Despite objection from the player base from day one, Universes Beyond is not going anywhere. These cards are now an established part of game, going so far as the multiple cards from the Lord of the Rings sets becoming (expensive) staples in both Modern and Commander. Almost every Magic product usually takes a couple of years in development before being ready to release, and with more than 10 UB releases already released in just three years, WotC/Hasbro has clearly been hard at work negotiating these deals with other brands (I have not even mentioned the Hot Pocket, Cheez-it and IHOP collaborations but those are far less consequential so far), and there is no evidence this will be slowing down with no real end in sight. If UB had been limited to IPs set in similar settings to Magic, there may have come a time when they simply ran out of different IPs to use, although even then there would have been plenty to work with for a long time. However, the variety of IPs used has shown there is no limit to what IP they may use, so the only thing stopping it would be the deals happening behind the scenes.

Aside from never running out of IPs, the reality is that a lot of these products have been incredibly well designed and ultimately well received. The Warhammer 40k Commander decks were excellent in both design and flavor, and the LotR set was everywhere upon release (I think this would have been the case even if the One Ring 001/001 promo did not happen too!). Despite not using art with characters from the Magic universe, these cards are generally just really good Magic from a design perspective, and the product tends to sell well. Ultimately, Magic is a really fun game, and getting new cards that are well designed and unique is going to get people excited and buying cards.

Section 3: The Good

So if UB is here to stay, what are the consequences? I will start with what I feel like are the good. Firstly, using other IPs to bring new people unfamiliar with Magic is a win for the game as a whole. Having more people playing Magic is good for everyone who plays as it just means there is a higher chance of the game continuing to exist. More fans equals more people buying cards which equals more Magic. I can imagine that a large number of new players may not have been interested, but then their friend showed them the new set coming out that was Warhammer or Lord of the Rings themed, so they gave it a shot with a precon and fell in love with the game like so many of us have. Additionally, a lot of the IPs selected are excellent choices that I know I have enjoyed and many others have too. The Lord of the Rings was executed extremely well, and I am excited to get my hands on a Doctor Who precon as well. We may never know if the good folks designing Magic are happy about the amount of outside IPs being used, but regardless of their opinions, they are putting love and attention into the design of the cards themselves, and that shines through in how fun and balanced most of these products have been. Finally, I would like to point out that Magic fans have been making outside IP alters and fake cards since photo editing became possible, so there has always been large portion of the fan base that has wanted this exact thing.

There is true fun to be had sitting down at a table where the commanders are Aragorn, Negan, Eleven partnered with Jim Hopper, and the 11th Doctor! Wanting to deny other people the fun of playing with their favorite fictional characters within their favorite game is not the kind of energy that should be brought to a table. The game is called Magic: the Gathering, and anything that helps bring more people in that are having fun with the game is a net positive.

Section 4: The Bad

As far as the bad goes, there is no shortage of it, most of it is hypothetical. First and most important for me, the endless spoiler season is only made even more overwhelming by UB. I have not truly paid attention to a spoiler season since Double Masters 2022 because the amount of new cards being printed is just too much to keep up with. I fear the game may move past me the same way Yugioh did right around the creation of Xyz monsters and I simply will stop keeping up with it, while remaining a fan.

Another problem UB will continue to create is availability issues. This was a concern from the beginning with TWD, but those cards were not very powerful and therefore the supply has not been an issue. However, the Lord of the Rings set introduced the One Ring and Orchish Bowmasters, both now staples in Modern and Commander and holding prices well above $30.

This is not a problem by itself, there are lots of cards that are in the price range throughout all popular Magic formats. The key difference is that cards printed in-universe are much easier to reprint into Masters or Standard sets, which can drop the price if they start creeping too high. This will likely not be an option for cards that are set inside a non-Hasbro IP. If the One Ring eclipses $100 per copy, will they have to make an in-universe version of it, and if so, where will it fit in a set? These questions have answers, but it took them three years to finally print the in-universe versions of TWD cards, so how long will we need to wait for a problem like this to be solved?

The final problem I am worried about with UB is the dilution of Magic as an IP itself. Magic is a pretty lucrative business for Hasbro, so much so that other companies are trying to get their piece of the trading card game pie. Pokémon and Yugioh have been around for a long time, but they are mechanically far enough away from Magic that the competition is not exactly direct. However, Flesh and Blood and more recently Lorcana are here now to try to dethrone Magic as the most popular TCG.

Both draw inspiration directly from Magic for gameplay and rules, and both are coming for the roots of competitive 1v1 gameplay that Magic has focused on far less over the past few years. There are aspects to gameplay that these games simply are doing better right now than Magic, and players are gravitating toward these games for good reason. What does this have to do with UB? Well, as more and more IPs get involved in the mix, the brand of Magic gets harder to find. In the example I gave in the previous section, you could feasibly play a game of Magic in which not a single card features art from the actual IP, and for the folks that have played Magic because they enjoyed the world, lore and art, this is fading into the background of WotC’s priorities. If Magic as a brand becomes too diluted, the gameplay has to continue to be head and shoulders above its competitors to remain relevant, and that gap is closing quickly for competitive gameplay. If too many players get disillusioned with Magic and move to other games with more appealing competitive play, Magic as a whole will inevitably suffer. This remains hypothetical and completely dependent on these other game companies continuing to put love and effort into their games, but it could ultimately be the issue that finally puts Magic in second place.

Section 3: The Ugly

Ultimately, this is the least important point in general but the most important point to me, and it is the aesthetic appeal of these UB cards. I despise the UB triangle symbol and the frames in general are not my favorite either. I will always buy a in-universe printing of a card over the UB, and if a card is UB exclusive, it will never go in a deck of mine unless every other card is also in that frame. Overall, I think the art directors on these cards do a really good job of making sure they still largely feel and look like Magic cards, but that does not mean they hit the mark every time.

I have no problem with my opponents using the cards, but it really does just keep me from wanting to use certain cards when they just do not look or feel like they game I love.

Conclusions

Universes Beyond is not only sticking around, but seemingly speeding up in production. If you play Magic, you are going to see these cards unless you are only playing with a personal cube. However, I think the quiet majority of players have received it very positively, and sales continue to be good. UB will expand Magic’s footprint to more people and bring new players, and that is good for everyone who loves the game. That being said, UB is going to require WotC to be extra vigilant of the impact of these cards on the game and ensuring they remain accessible, while also cultivating format environments that can compete with the up-and-coming card games that are dipping into their market share. There are legitimate criticisms to these cards both functionally and aesthetically, but as long as the same love and effort continues to go into the design of these collections to keep them fun and balanced, I think they will help Magic, not hurt it. (I can’t lie, I am stoked to have a Captain America deck one day soon)

#magic the gathering #mtg #gaming #commander #marvel #magic #mtgxmarvel

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