Magic: The Gathering (TCG) Catch-all

Wizard's of the Coast announces Magic the Gathering branching into non-Wizards' owned properties in 2022. They're calling this crossover of properties Universes Beyond and have confirmed Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40,000 crossovers already. While they've done this once in the past with the Walking Dead, they've confirmed that these crossovers won't just be tied to Secret Lairs (i.e. Warhammer 40K Commander decks). They have confirmed that the Universes Beyond cards won't be Standard legal.

I'm curious what other people think about this news.

I'm fine with it existing but I hope they don't print anything I mechanically want in my Draft Cube. I mean, maybe a couple Middle Earth bits wouldn't be too out of place but I'm not particularly keen to run a Leman Russ battle tank or something.

I'm in a spot, maybe like Vargen, where I'm untroubled by this, but also not super excited to be playing a game of Commander where some Walking Dead cards hit the table. And that's before this whole Universes Beyond initiative!

It's weird, I didn't care for all the pearl-clutching about TWD Secret Lair, but when I think about it, I have to admit that I don't want massive immersion breaks in the game.

I do think it's very interested for them to see MTG as a system, since it's clearly withstood the test of time. LOTR fits pretty well, and might not perturb me at all in a Commander game. I am curious about the Warhammer 40k stuff - they said multiple Commander decks, which could be cool, but does anyone really want to see an Elder Gargaroth alongside a Chaos Marine? I don't. And I didn't think I cared about that kind of stuff! It blows my mind that people care about MTG lore, which I consider to be amateurish sh*t.

Enjoying the lore is about focusing on the parts they've done well. They've built up some fun characters in recent years, and the Phyrexians are cool as hell. The world-building is top-notch, both in the art and in the Art Of books. The actual storyline is... usually fine. It took a notable drop in quality once it started attracting the attention of more senior corporate folks though.

Is it just me or does this feel like a FortNite-type grab where they want to put the peanut butter with the chocolate?

I mean, I'm going to be buying the 40K stuff, for sure. Because I'm a sucker. But I'll probably feel bad playing it.

There's going to be a real record scratch when:

Turn 1: Llanowar Elves
Turn 2: Chun Li
Turn 3: Cobra Commander
Turn 4: Dominic Toretto
Turn 5: Cersei Lannister
Turn 6: The Grinch
Turn 7: Yoda
Turn 8: Pikachu

ETA:
https://cardboard-crack.com/post/630...

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Top_Shelf wrote:

Is it just me or does this feel like a FortNite-type grab where they want to put the peanut butter with the chocolate?

I mean, I'm going to be buying the 40K stuff, for sure. Because I'm a sucker. But I'll probably feel bad playing it.

There's going to be a real record scratch when:

Turn 1: Llanowar Elves
Turn 2: Chun Li
Turn 3: Cobra Commander
Turn 4: Dominic Toretto
Turn 5: Cersei Lannister
Turn 6: The Grinch
Turn 7: Yoda
Turn 8: Pikachu

Man, I want to play that game. Except, house rule: you have to narrate your turn. Every turn is its own stupid little ad-lib crossover fanfic.

Player 1 wrote:

Darth Vader's baritone rings through the halls of Hogwarts. "You have learned much, little one." Tap, Force Choke for three damage. That's your blocker down.

Player 2 wrote:

Not so fast: I cast Giant Growth. Vader finds himself crushed against the portrait of the Fat Lady by a wall of orange fur.

"You'll find I'm full of surprises," chuckles Garfield.

Just for kicks I searched Amazon for Monopoly by most reviews to get a sense for which Hasbro licensed "systems" (as they are now calling MTG) sell the most, which is where Hasbro seems to want to go with MTG with their goal of doubling (!) revenue by 2023.

Are these the next Universes on the horizon?

Stranger Things
Lion King
Pixar
Zelda
Game of Thrones
Star Wars
LOL Surprise
"Elections" theme
National Parks
Fortnite

I was pondering the upcoming Lord of the Rings set and had a thought. I'm not really interested in seeing Magic cards that ape Alan Lee and John Howe's concept art from the movies. It's great art and I love the films, but it doesn't excite me. But the thought of a Seb McKinnon Nazgul, or Rebecca Guay painting Rivendell, or John Avon showing me The Lonely Mountain? That notion gets me excited...

Is the LOTR thing going to be a full set that stands on its own and will have its own boosters/drafts? Or is it a Secret Lair kinda thing where it's a handful of cards you mix in with your other cards?

Top_Shelf wrote:

Is the LOTR thing going to be a full set that stands on its own and will have its own boosters/drafts? Or is it a Secret Lair kinda thing where it's a handful of cards you mix in with your other cards?

They've said LOTR is a set, and mentioned Warhammer Commander decks.

Nothing I've heard is clear on whether it's a batch of Commander decks or a set with booster packs. Mark Rosewater keeps using the word "set" and talks about being on the team, and he usually sticks to the big draft sets. However the announcement used language that implied another Commander release by saying we should expect to find it wherever we find those decks.

It's worth noting that Arabian Nights was technically the first set from outside the world of MtG, so it's not like there isn't precedent for all this.

A few of the new chase Mystical Archive cards for the Stryxhaven set:
IMAGE(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/806006167457366067/824714569632317450/SPOILER_unknown.png)
I'm glad that they've decided to put one in each kind of pack (Except theme boosters). I would bet sealed deck events would be a lot of fun with the inclusion of these cards.

Those are gorgeous.

The Japanese language exclusive ones are nice too.

Demonic Tutor:
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/stx/jp_aS3PkVdhjK.png)

Swords to Plowshares:
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/stx/jp_wrxgPxYWTm.png)

They showed a Lightning Bolt too, but it might just be in the video.

Anyway, those show up in all Japanese boosters and in the expensive Collector Boosters in all languages. (They're in Japanese regardless of which language booster you pull them from.)

Saw an Opt one (or what I assume was Opt - I don't read Japanese!).

Coming back to this thread as I'm getting stoked for paper to return.

What are folks' LGS' doing to reopen? Have they already?

My favorite store to support is looking at having in-person in July. There are lots of immuno-compromised folks that visit the store and maybe even staff. They've been highly cautious throughout the pandemic (masks, sanitizer required on entry, using gloves when looking through card boxes) and I'm very glad they are going to make it.

I've never actually played in-person MTG there (spent plenty on boardgames tho!) so I'll be interested to see if I can't get some EDH going...but I'm a bit wary of trying to do that with complete strangers. From everything I've been reading during pandemic (when I really got into EDH the format), it's a real crapshoot trying to marry up power levels and there's lots of hard feelings when decks comp-stomp each other. Plus, I don't know if I'm really up for stereotypical poor social skills gamers (maybe that's changed since I last played Magic 15yrs ago?).

ETA:
Looks like Stranger Things is coming to Magic cards. Still waiting on Burger King.

What was confusing is it appears to be a Secret Lair thing...for a limited time before showing up in packs? My understanding was that the whole value proposition for customers for Secret Lair was oneshot opportunities to get cards. If it's just time-limited, why am I buying those?

Who is in charge of marketing and brand strategy over there?

I believe what they said was that alternate universe Secret Lair stuff would be functionally reprinted with in-universe flavor.

As far as LCGs, mine restarted events with limited attendance (for social distancing) a few weeks ago. They've been doing Sealed rather than Draft for the same reason. The imminent Modern Horizons 2 prerelease will be their first in-store prerelease in over a year. Again, attendance is capped at low numbers, and they're holding something like 8+ events.

I get it, so it's Secret Lair for The Upside Down enchantment with the Stranger Things art of a mall...and then in 6 months those same stats show up on a card called Lost In The Underworld or something and it's got a picture of Liliana.

So maybe they're telling customers to buy the mechanic early, or the licensed art, or the collectible? And then they're making pack players happy with the mechanic half a year later.

That's super convoluted but I could see where they could trick themselves into it making sense? Maybe it could work and this is what folks want. Maybe Magic is so huge now the customer base is really really diversified.

Product for collectors.
Product for fans of other IP.
Product for players that go to LGS on Friday nights.
Product for casuals.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Maybe it could work and this is what folks want. Maybe Magic is so huge now the customer base is really really diversified.

*looks over at Commander*

*looks over at the competitive Standard scene*

*looks over at the hardcore draft junkies*

Magic has had a really diverse audience for years now. This new licensing push is just them leaning into it a little more. They made Wizards of the Coast a division of Hasbro on par with the Toys and Media divisions. That isn’t a growth goal; that was due to the business Magic and D&D are already bringing in.

Wizards of the Coast made an announcement today that the next Un-set, Unfinity, will be a black-bordered(!) set. However, some of the cards will still not be legal in any format, any cards with an acorn-foil stamp fall into this category. Examples of each type:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/images/daily/en_VSg7bbkGOi_v3.png)
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In addition, WotC showed off all of the gorgeous new full art land cards for the set, including two different types of basic land styles and all ten shock lands:

Samples of the Basic Lands:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_tLr5fzY1vG.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_AOa7VX317W.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_A4ZX5ZxqSk.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_1Aw7sHDoGn.png)

Unfortunately, these styles aren't guaranteed in each pack, meaning that there will also be normal-style basic lands in packs as well... Those weren't spoiled.

Samples of the Shock Lands:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_FJ3H0qi6OT.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_OmIdzcIZBp.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_XGa4poYvt4.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_Dd4PoCWbFF.png)

These look like they will be pretty hard to get, only appearing in 1:24 packs (or around 1-2 per draft box), however a single foil version of any given shock land will be included as a box topper sealed within each full box purchase.

Unfinity releases April 1st, 2022.

Eldon_of_Azure wrote:

Unfortunately, these styles aren't guaranteed in each pack, meaning that there will also be normal-style basic lands in packs as well... Those weren't spoiled.

I thought they were. My understanding is the "normal" basics are the ones on the retro sci-fi landscapes that you posted. The rarer basics are the ones that are the view from orbit:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_A4ZX5ZxqSk.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_VEsuoa92sJ.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_VAL4Ik6ED9.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_HKy73ZpHS1.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2021/unf/en_1Aw7sHDoGn.png)

The fancy shock lands are the real chase cards. I think I'm OK with that, given that they print basic Ravnica versions fairly regularly.

I'm kind of sad to see the silver border go, but I understand that they had to switch to the acorn stamp if they were going to mix the really weird cards with the tournament legal stuff.

Vargen wrote:
Eldon_of_Azure wrote:

Unfortunately, these styles aren't guaranteed in each pack, meaning that there will also be normal-style basic lands in packs as well... Those weren't spoiled.

I thought they were. My understanding is the "normal" basics are the ones on the retro sci-fi landscapes that you posted.

I went back and checked the article and discovered that I misread the odds of finding any given land type. I read it as the planetary lands had a 1:7 pack chance, the orbital lands had a 1:4 pack chance, and the shock lands could be found in 1:24 packs. That's how I had assumed that they were skimping out and including normal lands. The actual values are Planetary ~7:10, Orbital ~1:4 (actually listed as 24%), and Shocks 1:24 packs. What isn't entirely clear to me is if one opens into a shock land, whether it is slotted as the rare of the pack or if it takes the place of a basic land.

I am unreasonably excited about this.

IMAGE(https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/blood-for-the-blood-god.png)

That does look fun. We're getting Chaos, Imperium, Tyranids, and Necrons. That last one is mono-black; not sure how I feel about that. I was kinda hoping for an Eldar deck, but I guess they couldn't decide whether or not to give them the creature type Elf or Aeldari (or whatever they're called these days).

There are also some Secret Lairs for the 40k stuff so maybe you'll get some goodies there.

I have almost no knowledge nor experience with 40k but this is definitely an interesting product.

In other Magic news, I've been loving New Capenna. I also loved the last three color set, Khans of Tarkir. My son and I started with prerelease kits and then have periodically added to our collections a booster at a time in a "sealed league" fashion. At a certain point we created 60-card Commander decks from the pools, Commander Legends draft style. I've actually eliminated any duplicates (which are legal in CL draft) from mine to make it a Brawl deck, albeit one drawing on just the one set.

We LOVED Commander Legends 1. Very excited to play CL:BG in a non-pandemic world. CL1 was my favorite set of the last few years, and I assume his as well.

The first Commander Legends had some great ideas and some really fun cards. But drafting it never gave me a deck I was happy with. Some of that was my regular group is 5 people and that's about the worst size for Commander.

I hope the Baldur's Gate Commander draft set that they're previewing now works out better for me. That also has some good ideas. Instead of having Partner commanders, they have commanders that say "choose a background" which let you have an enchantment with the "background" type as a second commander. That keeps the decks focused on one character but still gives you flexibility with your second color.

I liked the Partner stuff well enough, but it does feel way more D&D to have one character with a background. Kudos to Wizards for marrying functionality with flavor here.

I'm excited, but even though I loved both CL1 and AFR, I can't escape the feeling that this set may not be as good as either. I'll certainly give it every chance, but I'm a bit worried that it doesn't look like it has too many cards that will actually be useful to constructed Commander players. CL1 introduced a ton of great cards and reprinted a ton of popular commanders and also staples like Three Visits (which needs more reprints) and Growth Spiral, plus some high dollar cards at mythic.

It is cool that they're serving the Gate deck community here. As someone who played and loved Return To Ravnica block, I'm tempted to build a deck. My itch to be creative and deckbuild has finally been scratched with Commander; for years, with other formats, I was torn between wanting to express myself but wanting to be competitive.

Speaking of marrying functionality with flavor, I feel like they've come up with a better version of Initiative than D&D has...

All the Standard set releases until 2024:
IMAGE(https://scg-static.starcitygames.com/articles/2022/08/7362fd64-schedule.jpg)
The non-standard stuff includes the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks/Secret Lairs in October, a curated Dominaria Remastered set (with cards from over 20 Magic sets & Commander decks) in January, the modern legal Lord of the Rings set in Q3 2023, and a set of Doctor Who Commander decks/Secret Lairs slated for some time in 2023.
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2022/images/daily/lJHZmQGZup.jpg)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2022/images/daily/en_Cs3FsIuegs.png)
IMAGE(https://media.wizards.com/2022/images/daily/llHM3PBL8K.jpg)
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More details about each of these releases can be found here.

It's gotten to be too much.

I'll be doing proxy cards for my EDH decks now.

Enough, Hasbro. You capitalism-ed yourself.