In the last five years, Magic the Gathering Games have become a little strange. cards featuring characters final FantasySpider-Man, and, in a few weeks, Avatar The Last Airbender are beginning to appear with increasing frequency, becoming a common Friday night Magic The game looks like a match FortniteFor some people, this is a welcome change, allowing Magic To attract new players and excite existing players with the properties they know and love. But others believe this attention to licensed sets comes at their cost. MagicIdentity, quality and longevity.
Depending on who you talk to, Magic Crossover sets have existed since the early days of the game, with the Arabian Nights set released in 1994. But modern thought started in 2020 MagicSecret Layer product of. Originally, Secret Layer products were not complete sets or even original cards. current Magic The cards were redesigned with new art from popular artists or IPs and sold at a premium as collector’s items. However, with the walking dead secret lair, Magic Publisher Wizards of the Coast decided to create an entirely new card set within Robert Kirkman’s zombie universe – and it destroyed.
“On the Wizards’ side, it was a slam dunk,” said Shivam Bhatt. mtg Content creator and former mtg Consultant who has been a player for most of the game’s 30-year history. “Make six cards, sell a billion of them, and you get a chance to get people into the game.”
from there, Magic Expanded on that formula, from six-card Secret Layer drops to developing entire decks for the game’s Commander format. Setting this new family of cards apart from the cards set within MagicWithin their own storytelling universe, Wizards of the Coast called these crossovers the Universe Beyond, or UB. These experiments sold so well Magic It was decided to expand again to complete sets, starting with lord of the ringswhich became at that time MagicThe best selling set of all time. It was official: UB was a hit, which was a good thing for Wizards’ parent company, Hasbro.
Emma Partlow said, “Ultimately, the reason Universe Beyond exists is because Hasbro is a dying company.” mtg Content editor at TCGPlayer, one of the largest resources and retailers for collectible card games. “But if you add in Wizards of the Coast they’re breaking records every quarter, they’re one of the only things keeping Hasbro afloat.” (Hasbro’s Monopoly Go!Often at the top of the list of most downloaded mobile games, it is second.)
Due to these successes, WotC progressed so much on Universe Beyond that it started causing concern among people MagicMain player base of. Magic is a highly stratified game with different formats in which it is legal to use different sets of cards. These separate sets were arranged on two different release tracks: standard and supplemental. On the Standard track are all sets that are legal in the Standard format – the main competitive format. Magic – and forms its core mtgAnnual release schedule of. Supplementary tracks are sets that are for different formats such as Commander and Modern.
Up to this point, Universe Beyond has largely been kept on the supplement track, and in 2021, Wizards of the Coast said it will stay there. A blog explaining Universe Beyond reads, “Universe Beyond cards will not be standard legal.” “It’s totally a cool thing that we’re doing in addition to all the other cool things we’re already doing.”
But that calculus changed in 2025 when the first Universe Beyond set was brought permanently onto the standard track. mtgVice President of Design, Aaron Forsythe, explained that the change was essentially meant to give players outside the Standard format a new place to play their cards, but it seems to be coming at the expense of existing Standard players.
“The number one problem with Universe Beyond is [Wizards] It was decided to keep them in the main competitive formats so that they are no longer an opt-in product,” said author, sports journalist and Magic Enthusiastic Aidan Mohr. “You can’t ignore it anymore.”
In 2025, the split between in-universe sets and UB sets was even at three per set. A Ninja Turtles set, a Marvel superhero set, will be released next year. the hobbitAnd star trekFor the first time, the number of UB sets will exceed those in the universe, which may be alienating for players who enjoy Magic To its own distinct storytelling universe. “I think a lot of people are feeling threatened in their area, just because there’s all this advertising coming in Magic”Partlow said.
“I think a lot of people feel threatened in their area.”
There are also concerns about the quality and price of these sets. Whereas final Fantasy was highly successful, but the next UB set, Spider-Man, was not as successful. Like many sports, Magic The sets take years to design and develop. Spider-Man, being a UB set, was originally conceived as a supplemental set, generally containing fewer cards than a standard one. However, the decision to switch from Supplement to Standard required that designers add more cards to fill out the set.
“It felt like it was just thrown together,” Bhatt said. “It felt cheap, rushed and unpleasant.” There’s also the setting of Spider-Man, which, according to Mohr, doesn’t match exactly MagicHigh-spec identity. “Suddenly you have a card that’s like the bagel and the schmear or the guy on the computer,” he said. “This is absolutely strange and anachronistic.”
This protest is affecting the secondhand market of the game. Packs of Universe Beyond cards generally cost a few dollars more than in-universe packs. This cost increases for higher quality products such as collector’s boxes and the secondhand market. Like pokemon card, Magic It has its own speculative market where people buy products in the hope of selling them at higher prices later. But due to the current pace of UB sets and the poor reception of Spider-Man, collectors are also holding back.
“The audience is saying, ‘I’m not going to buy it,'” Bhatt said. “‘I’m not going to pay you $40 or $60 for a Spider-Man collector booster pack, because I don’t care.'”
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Even if Spider-Man didn’t achieve that kind of success final Fantasy Or lord of the rings did, many fans are still enjoying these crossovers. On my personal blog, mtg Lead designer Mark Rosewater wrote, “The reason Universe Beyond has been so successful is that there are many long-time investors, invested in the franchise Magic The players enjoy it.”
Next UB set, Avatar The Last AirbenderWill be launched on 21st November. Based on pre-launch sentiment in mtg Community, this sounds like a set that won’t suffer the same reception or quality issues as Spider-Man. The Universe Beyond is here to stay. When? Fortnite When it first started involving characters like Goku and Naomi Osaka, it was derided as a non-serious cash grab. Now, this is a famous feature of the game that continues to dominate the most played charts. Magic Can get that too.
“In an ideal world, there would be more Magic set compared to the UB set,” Partlow said. “I think that’s the balance [Wizards] Need to strike. And that’s what it needs to do if it wants to retain its core audience.”