Hello again everyone; and apologies for my absence the last month and a half. I should hopefully get my remaining Kaldheim articles written shortly, but I saw the announcement on Thursday and decided the only way to work through my thoughts on the matter were to sit down and write this out.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about: two days ago, an article was posted on comicbook.com alerting people that Hasbro – who owns Wizards of the Coast, who makes the game we all love to play – was set to make an announcement later today at an investor’s meeting confirming more crossovers into Magic: the Gathering, the two works being Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40,000. The article further mentioned that Hasbro is planning on reshuffling its organizational system to make WOTC a Hasbro division as compared to the Hasbro subsidiary it currently is. (More on that in a bit.)
Despite the fact that article had a link to a Wall Street Journal article that beat comicbook.com to the news release, and hoping this was a very poorly-timed April Fool’s joke, I checked Reddit – my main source of Magic news, aside from WOTC’s own article archive – to find both r/magictcg and r/edh losing their goddamn minds.
It wasn’t a joke.
Now, let’s roll back the camera a bit. (And if you don’t want to deal with thinking about the Godzilla or Walking Dead cards, just jump down to the next section.)
Godzilla, Forgotten Realms, The Walking Dead, and Sliding Slopes
For anyone keeping up with Magic over the past year or so, you probably remember the spoiler season and subsequent release of Ikoria just over a year ago, in April 2020. In the announcement livestream for Ikoria, Godzilla-themed cards that had been leaked in the prior days were confirmed to be real, made in cooperation with Toho Corporation – the owners of the Godzilla intellectual property, or IP – to honor the genre which helped lay the groundwork for Ikoria. (The very first article talking about this on r/magictcg can be found here.) Later, as part of the ‘Collecting ___’ articles that WOTC has been doing for each new set, these cards were further expanded on:
This was generally received well by the player base on social media: while some were wary even then of bringing outside IP into Magic, the fact that the IP was both extremely relevant for Ikoria – its arguable that the ‘giant monster’ genre wouldn’t exist in its current form without the work that Godzilla and his fellow monsters did to pave the road – and that the Godzilla cards were ‘reskins’ of other cards helped smooth many people’s feathers.
Right: The Godzilla Monster Series ‘reskinning’ of Luminous Broodmoth.
Then came Zendikar Rising’s reveal livestream, and some of the updates it brought. One of which, as this kind redditor pointed out in their notes for all the details and was later confirmed by WOTC in their own article, was a Walking Dead Secret Lair.
Aside from the controversial status of the Secret Lairs from the very start, and the fact that this would be the first Secret Lair involving non-Magic IP aside from a set of Godzilla-themed basics done for the Godzilla Monster Series, this too wasn’t enough to really drive people into a furor.
No, it was the news that the cards would be mechanically unique – or that they would be black-bordered, and thus legal in sets such as Legacy and Commander – that did that.
From Reddit to Twitter to the few Magic players that are active on Tumblr because Mark Rosewater is active there and willing to respond to questions, players exploded into over the matter.
If you somehow managed to avoid the arguments, let me sum it up like this: due to both the card’s mechanically unique status and the Secret Lair’s inherent ‘you can buy these during this window of time and never again’ status, any cards which managed to do well in a format would thus immediately make artificial scarcity for other players trying to get their own hands on the cards to even the scores. If a Daryl card – ugh, it hurt to write that – proved to be a game-changer in Modern, everyone else would be trying to get a playset for their own decks; however, because there would be a far smaller window of time to get these cards, anyone trying to get the cards later would need to deal with small pickings and collectors willing to charge through the nose.
And, more importantly, this wasn’t going to be a one-off: it was going to happen over and over again, because if this sold well – as it did – then Hasbro would know it would be a way to make more money. If you want to keep up, and the new cards are strong enough to need to be kept up against, you either need to a) give in and buy the cards b) be subject to the secondary market or otherwise just fight against the new cards with what you can more easily obtain or c) not play their game by no longer playing Magic.
(If you’d like to read more about this, I also wrote a post on the Walking Dead Secret Lair back in September 2020, looking at it in context not only with other limited promo products like the Buy A Box cards but as well as the historical case of Nalathni Dragon and the 1994 Dragon*Con.)
The third strike, showing that this was not coincidence or happenstance but a true pattern, was when WOTC announced their lineup for 2021’s sets and confirmed a set centered in D&D’s Forgotten Realms.
Just what this might entail hasn’t actually been expanded on: as this will be a full set taking the place of a Core Set, it is subject to the same information release schedule as a normal set, and thus we won’t know more about just what this set entails for quite a few months. Hell, even at the moment the set is still just listed to release sometime in ‘2021 Q3’.
All we can say is that this new set will not be a part of the new Universes Beyond brand, thanks to today’s announcement.
For context, the Godzilla cards were announced approximately ten months ago, while the Walking Dead cards were announced five months ago (as were the Forgotten Realms cards, though they aren’t to be released for a few more months). And now, here we are with Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40K, as well as Universes Beyond promising even more crossover products.
Sliding slopes, indeed.
What We Know About ‘Universes Beyond’
If you were hoping that this would be the end of it, that smashing the Imperium of Man and Middle-Earth right into the middle of Magic would be the final crossover before things returned to normal…I’m so, so sorry.
This is only the beginning.
Now, there were two important parts of the announcement: how easily-accessible the cards of this new brand would be/how the cards are going to be printed in comparison/contrast with the three examples we’ve had to work with so far, and their legality in Magic’s varying formats.
What is their accessibility: From the sounds of it, quite high. A commander deck for Warhammer has been confirmed, and it sounds like Secret Lairs will still be happening both in the vein of the Walking Dead lair and like the Godzilla-themed basics; and so were the ‘reskins’ used by the Godzilla cards in Ikoria itself. However, I’ve read the article over and over and don’t see explicit confirmation of any full sets at this time (keeping in mind the Forgotten Realms set is confirmed to not be part of this brand). It’s unlikely to expect to not see a full set, either for these two IPs or for whatever else is dragged into Magic, but for the moment a full and entirely non-Magic-IP does not look to be announced.
What is their legality: Not Standard-legal, at the very (and probably only) least. However, given the fact that both Godzilla and Walking Dead cards are still legal in any/all sets they’d otherwise be allowable in – Vintage, Legacy, and Commander for the Walking Dead cards; and all formats for the Godzilla cards – it’s fair to assume that when we can eventually return to in-person games of Commander, you might sit down across from someone playing a deck helmed by Legolas.
Now, due to the fact it sounds like we won’t be seeing Universes Beyond cards until 2022, it’s extremely likely there’s more we have yet to learn, not only in clarifying legalities for some formats but other ‘well, that sucks’ technicalities or facts for our new paradigm. But, it is what we know at the moment.
Universes Beyond’s Failed First Attempt: The ARC System
As I found out myself during the writing of this article – thank you u/eienshi09 for letting me know – Universes Beyond isn’t first time an attempt was made to bring outside IP into Magic, and I’m not talking about the examples from the last year. No, I’m talking about the ARC System.
In 1998, five years after Magic first started being released, three new card games were released by Wizards of the Coast: a game called C-23 based on a comic book by Jim Lee, a Xena: Warrior Princess game based on the namesake show, and a Heracles: Legendary Journeys game based on the Heracles show. Each game had four card types – Resource, Character, Combat, and Action – and was branded as “a simplified Deckmaster system.”
If you’re wondering why that sounds familiar…
While not compatible with Magic itself – those aforementioned card types aren’t the most compatible with Magic’s pre-existing card types, even in 1998 – the games were all meant to be fully compatible with one another, allowing you to shuffle up your Xena and Heracles cards and play against someone whose cards were a mix of C-23 and Xena cards. However, as you might expect from the fact this is probably news to everyone, the ARC system did not do as well as hoped, and was discontinued shortly thereafter.
(If you’d like to hear more about the ARC System, Mark Rosewater did a podcast episode back on the Arc System in 2015, episode #272, which I’ve linked for your ease here.)
Except, now it looks like the ARC System’s long-lost child has come home to roost, rebooted with full Magic rules and fully compatible with Magic: the Gathering itself.
So…now what?
The Reactions Thus Far
(Note: while most of my caption hyperlinks worked fine, but for some reason two of my links refused to properly work and I’m forced to just include the full link-address.)
The reactions to the news about Universes Beyond, as you might expect or have already seen on your social media site(s) of choice, has covered the range from ‘time to sell my cards and quit’ to ‘I can tentatively be on board with this’ to ‘time to meme’.
First off, the obligatory memes, because if we can’t do anything about this we might as well laugh about it.
Beyond the laughter, there’s a lot of wariness about how Universes Beyond might impact the aesthetics and overall immersion of your usual Magic game.
Despite all the disapproval or wariness, there are those who are on-board with this new development.
While a feels-bad for me due to caring quite deeply for the design and story in Magic – as this blog’s very name might suggest, I do plan on talking about the lore of Magic at some point even if it’s not happened yet – I do find this an interesting take on the matter.
And despite whether you’re happy or angry with the announcement, I think you’ll agree u/teamdiabetes11 summarized the matter quite well:
The biggest takeaway from people’s reactions seems to point, rather than fears of more TWD-style ‘limited runs of mechanically unique cards’, more towards the potential dilution of Magic’s aesthetic.
As many, many people have pointed out in numerous Reddit threads talking about the Universes Beyond announcement, Magic already has its own aesthetic. Even accounting for the variation between sets such as Indian-steampunk Kaladesh, Gothic horror Innistrad, and the aforementioned big monster Ikoria, bringing in numerous outside works can both be immersion-breaking as well as potentially providing weird interactions between the non-Magic IPs preexisting language and Magic’s mechanical terms.
Of course, there are numerous retorts you can have to this, ranging from ‘there is the variation between planes, why is non-Magic IP any more immersion-breaking?’ to ‘Magic already has both alternate arts on cards and a heavy subculture of card alterations’. And for some people, bringing up those questions and pointing out those truths might be enough to assuage their feelings about the matter. And for others, it won’t be.
Universes Beyond & Beyond Magic
So, we’ve seen the steps that led up to this, we’ve looked at the announcement itself and what little we know of what Universes Beyond will look like, and we’ve touched on people’s initial reactions. Now what?
Well…that truly is the question: what comes after this? And I do mean that for fans, for WOTC and/or following Magic products, and for Magic as a whole.
For WOTC/following Magic products: I’m leading with these two because of what I mentioned near the start of this article. With the restructuring of WOTC to be a Hasbro division instead of a Hasbro subsidiary, Hasbro will have more say in the day-to-day operations of how Magic is produced. Considering Hasbro has been big on trying to double its revenues from WOTC/Magic from 2018-2023, and the crossover products – and perhaps the Secret Lairs themselves – can be seen as stemming from said desire for more revenue…
If the theory of Secret Lairs and crossover products is truly due to Hasbro’s desire for doubled revenues – as compared to actual decisions by WOTC executives and designers – then it’s fair to assume that Universes Beyond will not be the end of it. Just what that might look like is up in the air – we already know they’ve hinted at doing more TWD-style Secret Lairs, which will likely both sell well and be immensely controversial – but it’s fair to prepare for further degradation in Magic’s narrative/mechanical consistency in favor of trying to do something to net more money.
Beyond this, I question what this might do not only in terms of things like the Reserved List – which some people have mentioned as finally being eliminated in favor of reprinting the cards to net Hasbro even more money – but also with things ranging from banned/reserved lists for varying formats, to the ways bigger tournaments are organized and what type of prizes – cash or otherwise – they’ll provide.
For the playerbase: It’s unlikely that this truly kills Magic. It’s actually likely some fans of the Walking Dead fell into Magic due to the Secret Lair, and it’s equally likely that fans of Lord of the Rings or Warhammer 40K – not to mention whatever the inevitable future crossovers are – help bring in some of their preexisting fanbase. Thus, more players will come in to generate revenue for Hasbro, and you’ll still be able to go into your local game shop to find some people to play with: Magic itself will continue on.
However, the impact on the enfranchised playerbase is anyone’s guess. I saw a handful of people on Reddit and Twitter talking about Universes Beyond being the thing that’s finally going to get them to sell their decades-old collection and move on to another hobby, just as I saw such proclamations in the face of the Walking Dead Secret Lair and any of a dozen other things that have happened in Magic over the last few years. How many actually follow through with that is anyone’s guess, and the total number of people who’ve left due to disagreement with recent – or ‘recent’ – developments in regards to Magic is also unknown. However, it’s safe to assume that a greater-than-average amount of people who’ve been playing for 5/10/15 years, who’ve stuck around through all the changes, will finally be selling off some to all of their collections and moving onto new interests. New players may be coming in, but they might be matched by the older players going out.
It’s the nature of people to come and go in any hobby, but how much the current and coming numbers will match that usual average…well, if anyone does a study on the matter I’d definitely be interested to see what it says.
For Magic itself: People have been complaining about the state of Magic for a while now, and for the life of me I can’t tell how much is the usual ‘there are always complaints from someone about something’ and how much is actual legitimate problems. I only play Commander anymore so I don’t know how well or how disastrous formats like Standard/Modern/Legacy have been in recent years as compared to the past, other than the complaints I see on social media that I can’t substantiate through my own experiences; and I’ll definitely agree with some complaints about the state of the accompanying Magic stories, but as I started in 2012/with Return to Ravnica I don’t have a sense of how the state of stories following the introduction of the Gatewatch are compared to pre-Mending stories like the Weatherlight Saga.
That said, I think the impact will both be as much as you/your play group let it impact you…and will also still be a definite change from the way things were before this on the grander scale.
While Standard itself sounds to be spared from whatever is coming, Modern and Legacy might have to deal with more cases of ‘mechanically unique cards with limited windows to obtain them’, which is likely to cause problems as some cards inevitably prove game-changing. In addition, as tournaments – from Friday Night Magic to the Grand Prix – use the rules set by WOTC, it won’t matter your opinion on the Universes Beyond cards; if the rules say they’re legal you need to put up with seeing and playing against them.
For Commander, the matter is even more complex. For those who predominantly play at local game stores, any issue you have with Universes Beyond products and their non-Magic IP cards will be null and void in face of however the Rules Committee ends up voting on the matter. Even for smaller playgroups, where Rule 0 and the social contract have greater precedence for letting people change rules as they see fit – from rulings on proxies or alters, to houserulings on what cards are or are not banned, to letting traditionally non-legal commander choices such as Chromanticore be a playable commander – there might be dissension on how to deal with the Universes Beyond products. Do you choose to let them be played, or ban them from the group, or try and institute some policy regarding how many you have per deck?
For some groups, which barely or never go to their local game store, this is just yet another thing to houserule to their own specifications as they’ve probably been doing the entire time the group has been going.
And for others…well, it’s going to be a brave new world for Magic in 2022, from dealing with the new products to dealing with all the new players to seeing how many of the old guard players are still around when the dust settles.
[EDIT: Changed ‘Modern and Commander’ in context of the Walking Dead cards to ‘Legacy and Commander’, as the cards are banned in Modern.]
The Rambling Vorthos 