What's bad for Magic is that Wizards are flooding the market with an insane amount of products. Just like Disney seem to release a new Star Wars show every other week, WotC has released so many sets in the past two years that I doubt I could even name them all. UB is just a symptom of their attempt to milk every single bit of money possible out of their IPs as fast as they can.

I will say that, as a Warhammer fan, I bought my first cards because of the 40k Orks Secret Lair, but that wasn't enough to get me to get *into* the game. For that, it took a coworker inviting me to a game store after work and letting me borrow his deck for a game. The excitement of nearly defeating my opponents (I did not succeed) with only 1 HP left hooked me. Naturally, the Zurgo HelmSmasher/Ghazghkull Thraka from the Secret Lair was my first Commander, but I credit people and gameplay to why I am into the game today.

One set of Universes Beyond a year would be good, the issue is they've diluted things so much that nobody, except for the person reading this and myself, cares about the actual MTG storyline or characters anymore.

LOTR is what brought me into the game. Dropped 2k opening day and now I'm 15 commander decks deep and counting lol

The game has gotten crazy and makes it really hard to determine power levels as well as new players feeling swamped. Many people play for years and still are confused by how many different things take place in the game.

Rick is an absolute treasure. Unfortunately his wife passed away at a young age to cancel, Rick left acting to be a full time father. An absolute treasure

I wouldn’t have gotten into magic if it wasn’t for the DnD sets and wouldn’t have been introduced to commander without my brother getting the Warhammer sets. Great for introducing new players into MTG

I mean, it’s also important to reference the reprintability of these cards? Like they won’t renew the cost of the license to randomly reprint the one ring or Gandalf down the road when it needs to be.

They need to make Happy Days universes beyond, so we can get a literal shark jumping mtg card

It killed my 20+ year love of building decks, seeing the divide that and caused and being a part of the problem having buying into the secret lair hype when it was new I am sick to my stomach seeing this happen. I can imagine it would be less impactful if it was like 1 set a year but now they are opening the flood gates

I actually got back into magic after quitting in the mid 90s due to the Lord of the Rings and Final Fantays announcement. I don't mind the Marvel one since Overpowered was a card game I played after Magic and it would be neat to see that come full circle.

I think so, the power level compared to regular sets is just too much and I’m also personally not a fan of outside of magic properties being represented in the game

@24:55 - Omniverse : the global aglomeraation of everything -verse. This is the word you were looking for !

24:00 I’m new to magic the LOTR set got me hooked into magic bc I love the movies. I know little about old MTG but it seems simpler compared to now a days how much text/mech/cost the game is. But I love that I came around to learning about it.

Got into magic because of the Warhammer 40k sets, since i love the lore behind it. I love the suggestion of a Witcher and Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring set would be amazing. Also hoping for a Cosmere set at some point especially since Brandon Sanderson is such a huge MTG fan.

MTG has become the Smash Bros of card games. IMO, the best magic felt was the 2-Set Block design during the BFZ/OGW era. Honestly, I’d love to go back to 3-Set Blocks and have longer more self-contained stories on different planes. For me, the actual best designed Block was OG Innistrad. Innistrad was a setup and intro to the plane (and kinda the original set that started the War of the Spark story if you think about it), Dark Ascension gave us more background about why Innistrad was in shambles as well as setting up why Lilliana was on Innistrad in the first place, and Avacyn Restored was a finale of Lilliana’s goals of killing Griselbrand.

I started playing magic in 2000, stopped after New Phyrexia. I saw an advertisement for the Street Fighter Secret Lair and thought it was cool, figured I’d add it to my collection but it became the spark that got me back into playing. It’s a way different game today than I learned 23 years ago. I have mixed feeling about the Universes Beyond stuff, it is kinda immersion breaking but at the same time I may wind up refinancing my house when the Final Fantasy one drops because FF is my favorite video game franchise and I can’t wait to play it in my favorite card game. So I guess I agree, it’s complicated and I fully get it that some people don’t like it. Play what you like, enjoy your game how you want because at the end of the day that’s why we play in the first place.

The moment they released Rick, I was sounding the alarm that we would end up where we are now.

I got into magic around Dominaria United, so about a year ago. I'm just to the cross overs and I like them for the most part. Having a lot of Gandalfs is indeed offputting. Leave it at 1-2 maybe a third as a precon commander (or have the second version as a precon commander). Overall I love the possibility that Magic gives for IP's outside of gaming or specifically the card game genre to be recontextualized as card game pieces. The power creep with LotR or making the precons like dr. Who better than regular set precons is kind of scummy to me though (but i still have to build the master multiplied that card is so sick). As long as they balance it fairly and don't do it too much (which it very much looks like they're going to sadly) i'm a big fan.

As a Whovian, the Doctor Who sets are what drew me into MTG, I managed to get a friend who's an avid Dr Who fan to get into it, and recently I got another friend into it because of Lord of the Rings sets. I see and understand your point of view of how these Universes Beyond IPs are more financially motivated than anything else but I don't think I would have gotten into the game without UB personally, and now after playing for about 2 months, I wish I'd had gotten into Magic sooner.

My biggest problem with these universes beyond cards are the new cards created for the release, that then go on to become must have cards. (The One Ring, Ancient Copper Dragon, Everyone Lives!) With these being collabs, what is the actual likelihood of reprints for these cards?

I agree with you. We don't need commander decks with every set.

I wonder how much getting the MTG audience into other IPs is a factor in UB - I would never have gotten into Dr. Who without the introduction to the characters I got through the card previews and wanting to build around Me, the Immortal

Quick example but I think relevant: *Universes Beyond is the only reason I got into Magic again* after over 20 years of not playing at all: I just always loved the Baldur's Gate franchise and decided to just get a bundle for it almost on impulse and how I'm back at collecting quite a bit. There's always going to be a lot of arguments against Universes Beyond especially on the most egregiously non-lore-friendly offerings but end of the day if it brings in potential new customer that's almost always more valuable than just appealing to keeping the current ones exclusively.

I am totally agreed with descriptions of actual fire lines to manages pulls and the improvisation of the doctor... Unless manage to play silver coin and be as well brave and noisy get you to play in good and God shape. But nights playing basic decks on ward tournaments is a belief. You just have one choice in life. Try your best or go home. Even if you lose you are there. That is why my silver new never played izzet commander wich is my first came for my reason until I did the stats. Wich is not easy and talking and walking this happens and after 4 years I have manage to return to play with some aswrll commander friends and I am so satisfied. With pleasure I can receive your asks to see my deck. Probably I did just show some moves... Or probably I did open so much windows and who knows. Thank you!

Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle books also would make for excellent Universes Beyond content but its clear that WOTC will prefer bigger IP’s for its contracts.

I used to play 12 years ago. Once I heard that there was going to be a Fallout Commander set, it drew me back in. The only issue I have with MTG is that there are way too many sets coming out. You need to be super rich in order to play this game. I totally understand the use of proxies when you are brewing a new deck.

Universe beyond : LOTR really brought me back to magic. It's been a long way since then to rebuild part of my old collection, but now i'm up to 15 commander decks! I did really enjoyed cooking around lotr themes, I started with the 4 precons and got them all upgraded, I builded Gandalf the White, Sméagol, Helpfull Guide, Samwise, Frodo and 2 versions of Sauron. I'm still working on Bilbo and a third version of Sauron/Lord of Nazguls. I had Breya from 2016 that I upgraded almost cedh level. The overrall power level of this stuff is insane! I had to start powering down a few decks to precon level...because not everyone is invested in the game as I do! In overall I believe that universe beyond add positive to the game, even if i'm not interrested in some of them. *Also got my brother into the game since he experienced the power of Eowyn and Rick Grimes. After all theses years playing with my decks he finally builded his own!

About lore, imagery, quality of artwork, design of carsd and power related to Doctor Who lore... this is a gem! It is not always thematically tied to the characters, BUT the images represent moments and lore of the show that are important to the 60years.. Some like ""River Song's Diary", are deep lore images (it's about a specific episode showing this diary!) and the most amazing power is surely the show-tied powerful card "Garlifrey Stands" , those 2 are barely the tip of the iceberg of "deeper than meets the eye" references in that set. I confirm this as a whovian and card deck building geek = this is a gem of a set ! I will not pardon them if they don't release a 15th Doctor / Ncuti Gatwa deck...

I'm a new player and I love all the alt art cards, all the universe expanded sets, everything they are doing is great in my opinion and I think that for magic to live a long life this is the way

Wondering if Budget Rick Moranis has his own channel… very eloquent and insightful and I’d like to sub… loved you in Little Giants 👍🏼

Not with doctor who, but it was Warhammer 40k that got me really interested into mtg. Now I'm looking at the lotr set for my next deck. I agree that certain ip feels weird in the setting, but overall I'm generally excited for some crossovers and that keeps me interested in the game.

Recently at a games night I sat down at a table and we joked about having a doctor who deck vs a lord of the rings and transformers deck. That laughter soon turned to a feeling of mutual awkwardness that we may have contributed to a negative aspect out of honest intentions to support and play something we enjoy.

@22:42 - the actress of Aria Stark, plays "Me" Ishildr, an eternal. She is the only being standing with the Doctor at the end of time. OP ... her card should be OP. But the show and images show actual people in their roles of the show, some are cartoons. But the precedent has been set with the best Puzzle RPG ever :Doctor Who Legacy. She is in a setting / era that is close to Magic the gathering incidently friends. It fits MAGIC the duo of episodes she is intially seen in. And show how doctor who MIXES with magic and medieval setting !!!

I think one issue is that magic isn't branching out itself to other media. There should be MTG movies, cartoons, anime, manga, a netflix series, new books and graphic novels, and more general merch.

I think the bigger picture problem Magic has is more related to the change in focus of story and stepping away from block formatting. I feel they lost the progression of the story. It no longer feels like the sets work together in a narrative way, the "story" is something that just exists online instead of thru books, flavor text and seeing changes is the major characters. The phyrexian invasion should have been this amazing time, an end of the year extravaganza and eventual celebration of defeating the literal big bag of the magic universe. Instead the set released mid year, the story was only really followable online and if you didn't know about the online story you would be confused about "desparked" Planeswalkers, who lived and died ECT. I feel once they stepped away from block formatting they opened the door for these one of sets to "parody" known universes. Because they weren't using the sets to push the story. I didn't forsee they were going to just print LOTR instead of a parody.

What i would love to know is for the argument that doing transformers brings more players in and so on how long do they stay in the game? If they are in for the transformers will they still be playing or buying new product unless its transformers? How long do they remain in the game basically.

I got into Magic at Ixalan. I thought the way they did Godzilla was cool, but I didn’t like the Walking Dead Secret Lair. I stopped playing Magic after New Capenna because even the commons had a paragraph of text, and I wasn’t down with that. I heard about the Doctor Who set and wasn’t interested until it actually came out. I made my first new EDH deck in two years with Tenth Doctor and Rose. I absolutely LOVE this set. I really like that they have the four decks and the collector boosters with no mechanically unique cards. I don’t know if I am back into Magic, but this is the first Magic product I have bought for myself in like two years. It was a perfectly designed set, and I just love every single card. They need to bring back core sets for new players.

I originally played magic during Scars of mirrodin, playing 40 card standard in college. Since then, I hadn't played or even touched magic cards until the D&D release when a work buddy and I bought a booster box since we were both D&D fans and he played magic. I feel like it CAN draw people in, but it has to be done well. D&D and Lord of the Rings are synergistic in a way most of the UB sets aren't. The sad part is because of the new features on these cards, many are seeing play because it has messed with power levels in casual play

I'll be honest, the moment I heard about the Marvel collab, I immediately jumped into Magic which I haven't touched since the mid 90's (really wish I had the old cards). I had dropped it as it was to complicated for me then. Still feels that way but at least I can watch videos and start learning. But I LOVED collecting Marvel cards and now knowing there will be tie in has be completely hyped. I plan to spend a lot when the Marvel is released and I've been dabbling by buying LOTR and just getting a feel for it all. I don't know how wide spread it is, but I'm someone who is getting roped back in by Wizards. I still may go down the path of collecting more than playing, but it definitely ignited an old love I've had. I'm sad to see the frustrations that people are feeling with the expansion of the universes, I can understand it. Overall though I find it fun as a old but new player.

My buddies got me into magic and I started with a basic precon and I refused to build decks or drop anymore money on cards. Then my friends and I stopped at a card store and that's when I found out about secret lair. I looked through a binder of SLD options that the store had. Then it happened. I ran into The Walking Dead SLD and I am a huge Negan fan and without hesitation I bought it. I went home and my friends had told me that the walking dead cards were legal to play. So then my friend taught me how to build decks on moxfield and EDHREC. Now here I am years later building multiple decks with commanders like Brenard Ginger Sculptor, Rick steadfast leader, Runo StormKirk, Myra the Magnificent, and my top deck that I've put the most money in, Negan the Cold-Blooded. If it wasn't for TWD SLD I wouldn't be as big of a magic fan as I am now.

I was introduced through a coworker while I was playing arena casually a year ago. The universes beyond is neat in a commander setting with all the fun proxy cards that create depth and goofy ideas. I fell in love with the unique lore and the first set to do that was all will be one. I really want wizards to focus on the world they already have built. However quarterly profits to impress investors will always shine higher than creative integrity. Companies like Hasbro want to touch every demographic as possible with the potential to develop regular customers. You see it in every industry now. Fashion and footwear have collaborations with brands that have zero involvement in the industry, just walking billboards. Brand integrity does not insinuate growth and WOTC wants more growth.

I got into commander because of LotR and my wife plays the Dr who precon. I hate the price of the products but I love the game

I will say it’s working to get players into the game which is kinda what you want as a gaming company if you’re not growing you’re dying. My main game has always been yugioh and I got into magic heavy with the Street fighter Secret lair. I’ve been building and upgrading my commander decks based around chun li dhalsim ryu and blanka and I’m planning on building all 8 characters. Safe to say I’m hooked now on playing commander so they did a great job imo

I returned to Magic during the Covid lockdowns after seeing The Walking Dead Secret Lair in my Facebook feed. I quit Magic around Visions and hadn’t played anything other than an occasional cube draft with friends. I have Commander decks for all five characters and Lucille in the 99 for Negan where she belongs. Bought the set and jumped on to KZfaq looking for tips to be greeted by a chorus of bellyaching content creators 🤪. I will say that I have not once had a player give me a hard time for playing my Walking Dead decks.

So I started magic back in 6th edition and played up until the original kamigawa, and I did not get back into it until this year right before the doctor who stuff came out. I got back into it because my stepson our neighbors and things like that play a lot so I have a consistent playgroup so I missed a lot of things coming back into it from when I started. But in that time I will say it does feel like a lot of product has come out just in these past few months and it can be difficult to keep up with for sure but also on the side I really like the universes beyond stuff because it allows me to play a game that I'm enjoying with familiar characters of another IP that I also enjoy. To be honest I'm really excited about the fallout assassin's Creed and final fantasy sets and now I can play with those characters while I'm playing magic which is an awesome thing.

I'm up and down with the new magic cards. I started playing during the Masques block (prophecy was the first booster cards I bought). I played at the end of elementary school and until about HS. I played a lot of sports though and didn't have a ton of friends that played during HS so didn't play too much besides a few games here and there. Got really back into it during Lorwyn but didn't play much standard. Played mainly draft and a group of 8 people or so would a multiplayer format of 60 card decks in college. We would play till about 4-5 in the morning at times. This was around the time of EDH starting to become a thing but wasn't really that popular. Then I moved back to my hometown and didn't have too many people to play with. Would go to the LGS and ran into some old acquaintances and a good friend from HS. we started playing again and they got me into commander. Kinda go off and on when we are able to get games going and life chills out a bit. Have like 7-8 commander decks so not too much money. Started playing a good amount during the new LOTR set which I bought all 4 decks but haven't played all of them. The Riders of Rohan deck is pretty great though. Just upgraded 5-7 cards and it seems to go off pretty consistency.

My friends got into Magic when the Lord of the Rings cards came out. They have been playing 3x a week since and have invested heavily into it. They brought me in a few months ago and the New Cappena world is what grabbed my attention. I am now broke from how many decks I have made since August. Haha My brother recently got into it because of the Dr. Who (and me pestering him). I have another friend excited to get into Magic once the Fallout decks get here. It definitely is bringing in new players, and we are sticking around. The thing that helped us all stay into it is that it was a group of friends doing it together. If we were trying to jump in solo I don’t think it would have happened. So I think these are good ideas but I would love to see them slow down with how many universes they add. My head is spinning with all the new additions. For my top 3 worlds I want to see added: 1. Stephen King’s The Dark Tower 2. RedWall 3. Bloodborne

I actually started the game when i saw the WH40k decks. I was interested before, but those were what made me start collecting cards to boost them. Eventually, I joined a random group to play and now we play once week minimum :) I understand that Universe Beyond breaks the immersion, but in the end you just want to play a deck that you will enjoy playing. You can keep your vanilla goblin deck, while some other dude could play a deck of Carebears haha The more people to share our passion with, the better :) No need for gate keeping, but yes i've noticed those prices going up and i've only started a year ago ish.

old godzilla was hoppin around Tokyo city like a big playground when suddenly....

I only play MTG because of UB. 40K and LotR got me and my friends into the game, and now we love it and get together to play every week. I loved the LotR set so much that I collected a full set of it. They were definitely successful attracting new players with it.

I honestly started playing just because of my friend group, but I happened to start playing one month before the announcement that Doctor Who commander decks were coming to MTG, which got me beyond excited as a longtime fan. I get that universe beyond can be too much but I can honestly say that I'm so happy to be able to play the same card game my friends play and use my favourite IP as well. I completely agree with some of your points though. Certain UB things feel like a quick cashgrab. However Doctor Who UB is genuinely so flavorful and they've managed to meld the MTG mechanics with Doctor Who flavor to make cards that still feels like any other MTG card mechanics wise. If they continue the same trend for other UB products I can totally see MTG becoming a the card game that gets more people into the game

The author of Redwall is Brain Jacques (pronounced Jakes). Best children's series ever

I started my magic journey about six months ago mostly edh and standard, maybe a lack of respect for plains or lore but I really enjoy universe’s beyond, currently foaming at the mouth for fallout, I loved warhammer

I use the OG Portal set from the 90s to teach people how to play ✌️

Thoughts on a never ending story universes beyond set?

I would LOVE a Spaceball secret lair. But it is impossible, it would break a contract. Mel Brooks agreed not to merchandise the movie when he asked Georges Lucas because of Star Wars

I came back to this game because of the lotr set, and while there are meta bending cards the set was very fun, the cards where flavourful and the art (aside from the trippy weird stuff they did with the second special set ) was amazing, from there i learned a bit more about Doctor Who and it seems to be an enjoyable show to watch some day, those are universes beyond and there is no "lore" in a table game of magic (otherwise you should not be saving your Elesh Norn with a Teferi's Protection because that would be lore breaking ) and as long those universes don't splash in the written lore for core sets is all fine, for UB that i don't care like Jurassic Park at least you can get a some buck selling or trading for stuff you actually want.

Only secret lair I've ever bought or cared about was the restless in peace one. With Dan Mumford art for bloodghast, life from the loam, and golgari thug. And screw the rc. They just ban things they don't like.

For silver linings, I think it would be fun to have "Celebrity Commander" ala SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy, where everybody does an impression of the actor depicted by their commander

I am just glad to have a functioning Temur Dragon for a commander. The Dreamer can only do so much

I did get into magic and specifically commander because of the warhammer precons but I’m definitely with you when it comes to wanting the IP’s to be magic adjacent and not marvel, Harry Potter and the like

Dinosaurs and Jurassic Park got me into the game a few months ago, it was Jurassic Park that made me jump in before LCI dropped.

Interesting, we have discussed the same question last year with the warhammer precons. The good thing: New players are into that game. I think without this precons that players would not have stopped by. The sad thing: That kind of player is very quickly losing interest in playing magic.

I only know about Upper Deck Entertainment VS SYSTEM (original, early 2000s, with Marvel and DC sets starting with ORIGINS around 2004-2006) ... and seing this Set as my first ever Magic the gathering set... I feel it looks like a very powerful META creating set... if you with already powerful setups in "mixed variant" rules decks. Not even commander knowledge (I normally built standard VS system decks of 60 cards - often 61 to 79,. sometimes close to a 100, but with 4 of a unique card per deck, NEVER tried commander rule... building a DW universe beyond commander custom deck right now on ebay and with 2 booster packs as gifts this christmas)

I'm not against gold border cards, but the problem is the card back, which is different, its like playing with double faced cards, most of the times you don't notice, but sometimes you can see through because the sleeves are thin and that is like marking the cards, plus, looks awful to have 1 or 2 different card backs XD

I think the worst problem with UB is that the addition of certain chase cards is unnaturally prevalent. The reason i see this as the primary problem is because individuals who play on mechanics are now ultimately forced to grab some of these extremely powerful chase pieces or else lose a lot of deck building power. This is what leads to an apparent hodgepodge feel to decks. UB Fallout is going even further beyond and making some commanders and token styles (Rad tokens) that you simply cannot find anywhere else. You _have to_ assimilate the theme. Because of this approach, we have games where someone could be playing Dr Who vs Transformers vs Lord of the Rings vs The Walkong Dead. It doesn't embolden creativity nor self expression anymore, it is an overly mixed and unbalanced salad which dilutes all of its parts. It looks, feels, and plays like "product placement" over substance.

When Mitch said "Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White," it took every ounce of Eric's willpower not to respond "MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL'S BLACK KNIGHT."

I don't mind the Secret Lairs where its just alternate art. Esp things like the Princess Bride which I thought had some amazing art treatments. What I do mind is the insane cash grab that is selling 5 basic lands with alternate art for 40$. For that much money...and its the most common card possible...you should get enough lands to construct a 60 card deck at the least. As for UB; I think it does kind of make the game cheesy when you have Gandalf fighting Ultramarines and Optimus Prime. Also, with the major IPs, they push cards with OP effects like The One Ring. I have a feeling there is going to be some exceptionally busted stuff in the Marvel UB.

Longtime casual player* here - I just got back into the game more about 3 months ago after falling out of practice for about 7 years. For context, I originally learned how to play at the end of Alara and really started getting used to the lore and all around fantasy vibe thru the Zendikar, Scars, Innistrad, Ravnica, and Theros, before going to college and getting out of rhythm with metas and the allaround story trajectories up until just recently with Caverns. So all these UB properties and such are only being revealed to me thru my now steadier diet of MTG content and so I kindof am getting a taste of what a new player and and old(er) player feels about them. “Theyre cool! (mostly) But also….we already have a crazy complex multiverse that might want to be treated with more sanctity and appreciate from an originality standpoint. How is Urza any different than an Order 1886 Tesla? What happens when the Phyrexians try to take over Cybertron?

Gold border cards are Legal in Commander, though...?

UB, when well designed (which all but the early ones have been), are great. What's the difference between Doctor Who and in-universe MtG space opera (which is coming up)? Or in-universe magic cowboys, or in-universe 80s horror, or in-universe multi-dimensional car race, etc. etc. etc. The IP has always been all over the place. As long as it gives well designed cards that are fun to play with then I'm fine with it. The issue we're facing is product fatigue not a 'dilution' of Magic's identity because Magic has never had a singular set identity.

I think they should have stuck with maybe 10-20 per IP in a Secret Lair drop, but they would either be reprints (such as the Ian Malcolm JP cards) or get non-IP versions like with the Stranger Things "friends forever" partners. I think doing entire sets or Commander series spoils the identity of Magic. They have a really cool universe and characters that IMO are just as interesting as the major IP's. It reminds me of when Lego started making Star Wars and Harry Potter sets, and eventually LotR, Marvel, DC, Jurassic World, and a lot of others. Those kind of pushed out their original castle, pirates, and space themes that were really awesome. Mega Blocks may have done it first and Lego got scared, as if Mega Blocks could ever make a better product than them. Likewise, I really don't see another TCGs outdoing Magic in terms of product quality and longevity.

I think Throne of Eldraine is what started this whole mess. But for real though, and X-Men vs Street Fighter deck sounds amazing. 😁

probably late to this, but: I heard about the LOTR collab with magic on yt/twitter, because you just couldnt avoid it, and I didnt play magic at that time and even then I kinda felt put off by it. It didn't even feel cool to me, but then lost caverns of ixalan released and I saw dinosaurs and I love dinosaurs and friends gaslight me into playing magic with them so I build a Pantlaza deck and had a blast, and now I am lowkey addicted to.. magic, but like, the magic side of magic and not the universe beyond stuff. I also come from a yugioh background so we literally dont get any collabs like LOTR, we get some references at most. But yeah I usually prefer universe within stuff, I can make exceptions tho, like getting a Morgul Blade instead of the shadowspear or a party tree instead of great henge because I am a sucker for full art card. or if I put a merry rohan esquire in my boros deck, it wont be the end of my world. But if a universe within version was to exist I would at least think twice about it

I think the warhammer felt different because there was no new mechanics. It was artifacts/tokens/cascade which are normal things people see and build to interact with. But in LoTR you have ring bearer which people might not even know anything about or gets used wrong. Or Dr Who with Dr's companions and suspend mechanics that people don't usually interact with as much or build around. What if Final Fantasy has a summons sideboard can people be expected to know how to interact with something they don't understand? Fallout with have Rads. When you add new mechanics it's will make everything harder to get the rules understood correctly

I have a Kyler human tribal deck. I didn’t approve of the race changing in the LOTR set and was going to not put any money towards it… then there was Horn of Gondor which was just too powerful not to pick up! I feel like I am part of the problem!

Gunna play a gandelf tribal

You should sell "Make Shivan Dragon Great Again" merch.

I agree a lot. I love seeing some specific title but I feel that could be something I could do as a proxy. I dont want to see all of the specific random titles that don't relate at all to the theme. The worst thing to me is using real actors on cards when it really could just be a factious character on the card. It makes the game a level of strange and not in a good way.

So I am a relatively new player. I came in shortly after the release of LOTR, but not because of it. I was introduced to it because of my DnD group and enjoyed the idea of another high fantasy game where I could lean into my role in the friend group as the “kobold fanatic”. I truly enjoyed the game as I understood it (as a parallel to DnD and in the high fantasy world). I wasn’t turned off by LOTR and thought it was an interesting include and an homage to the role it played in where high fantasy is today. However, it wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea. As I got more and more into the game, I found myself getting more turned off by the universes beyond cards and felt like I jumped onto the new “Fortnite” train, especially when I heard about marvel, fallout, doctor who, and assassin’s creed. I felt like the reason I got into the game quickly began to wither away into another WOTC cash grab. In regards to the number of cards that came out in 2023, it definitely hit me like a bus. I felt like in order to keep up with where MtG was going, I needed to invest slightly in each set. It hurt even more when my LGS started sacrificing the time they allocated for Commander, and re-allocated it for pre-releases. At this point, it feels like at least once every month I show up to my LGS, only to get turned away unless I want to play the pre-release draft. Once I saw the line up for next year, I feel like I’m just going to suffer through this all over again for another year if I want to continue to play commander without a solidified play group. Trying to learn all the cards and all the mechanics that have been released in the past and are being released now has been a challenge, but not something that would turn me away from the game. On the flip side of this, it absolutely kills my mood when I have to be the only player in the pod having to read each creatures effect or what each spell does because I haven’t been exposed to MtG long enough, but I feel like that just has to be the learning curve when jumping into a game that’s been continuously growing for over 30 years. It probably didn’t help that I DID start playing MtG in the commander format, and was told by many veteran players teased that “I must have pissed off my friends if they started me in commander”. All that said, I did come in during the LOTR craze when the 1 of 1 The One Ring search was still going on, and I did push myself to learn to be able to play with friends, and I had a lot of support from them and many other seasoned vets at my LGS. Without this kind of support system, I would have given up on MtG shortly after my first game. I know WOTC is pushing for the LGS’s to host events and tutorial sessions, but at the end of the day it’s the seasoned players with the patience to teach and big community voices like Commander’s Quarters, EDHRECast, and Game Knights who will get new people to continue to play, and WOTC will not be able to replicate that with any marketing or IP they try to push. For that reason, I think the universes beyond bubble will eventually pop (in a couple years) if they keep deviating too much from the heart of MtG, I just don’t know if MtG itself will be the same after it does. Maybe I’m just a new bright eyed and bushy tailed player who doesn’t know his head from his own back end, but that’s just my view on the current state of the game. I’m sure many people will disagree with me on a lot of this, and that’s okay, I don’t know MtG as well as many of you, and I don’t want to claim that I do. So I’m just going to continue to enjoy Commander where and when I can, and hopefully meet some more great people along the way.

My friend knew I loved Doctor Who and wanted to get me into Magic. So he bought me the Timey Wimey deck. When we first started playing it there were so many cards HE didnt even understand. So I have not touched the deck since. Love the cards, but the learning curve turns me off like crazy. However, I grabbed the Merfolk LCI Precon and am having a BLAST with it. I've played magic for 2 months and I can already tell I am not a fan of UB, it adds so many random new mechanics that new and old players dont quite understand and it over complicates an already super complicated game. I love having the doctor who cards, but I doubt I will actually utilize them for long term play.

I liked the LotR set... and I am sure I probably annoy my LGS because I keep building LotR decks, BUT I guess I overlooked the fact that there will be game of thrones mtg cards now, etc. and like I've been reading marvel comics since before magic started and I'm still not excited about the magic cards for them

I... Don't like universes beyond. The only one I sort of connected with was LOTR, which I didn't buy because of the price tag. I play Warhammer, but my faction did not get a deck, so I was ambivalent about the others. I never got into Dr Who, so that set felt straight up alienating to me. The fact that the power level is high means that I now feel I have to get cards from these sets even though I don't care about them and their flavor is sort of wrong when mixing with what I already have.

Can't wait for Mr. Rogers' secret lair drop.

Any of the Brandon Sanderson books would make cool sets.

i like the 40k settings

As an old customer who does not like UB, it creates a better digestable product cycle. Right now, I just play Magic and don't worry about new products till end of Q2 (Modern Horizons). I don't buy Cluedo Manor, the theme park cowboys or whatever it is and the Fallout one and I don't feel like missing out on anything for the first time😊

I started playing magic because of the doctor who set a month ago. My main deck is a capaldi chaos deck

I dont mind crossovers at all. The thing is, wotc is going to up the power levels no matter what. They will print new more powerful cards regardless if it is a crossover or just a new card they thought of. Excited for final fantasy. Building a cloud and sephiroth deck asap.

My problem with Universes Beyond and the idea of bringing in outside players: the decks are good, they're fun, they're flavorful, and they use the most complicated, diverse set of abilities and rules that exist. That's my issue with it. I love Dr. Who, but I'd be hard pressed to hand one of those decks to a new player. I'd hand over one of my simple decks with a simple plan that can hang: Edric, Arcades, those bad boys who I can sum up the PLAN in one line and focus on teaching how we get there with a game.

It subjects me to Dr. Who stuff. So yes.

Universes beyond is what got me into magic so i love it. It brings people who normally never thought to get into it potentially a starting place. I dont think its bad for the game at all, its no worse than the janky stuff ppl play with from older cards and but still hyped for things final fantasy and fallout since thats what keeps it interesting!

I actually got into Magic because of Ikoria and the Godzilla cards back in 2020 and I've kept playing the card game since. I had no interest in magic before then. I only played yugioh and even then I didn't play it all the time like i do magic now. Universe's beyond is literally the reason I fell in love with MTG and still play it to this day.

For those interested, here's Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/otiqfrdeyay5mnk.html

I can say the warhammer decks are what got me into magic.

I started playing paper Magic because of the Lord of the Rings set. Starting with the starter set, then some of the precons, and then collected the Shelob and Sauron decks I found on this channel that are mostly "regular" Magic cards outside of the commander. I was already interested in Magic because I played a free demo on Xbox in 2012 and always kept somewhat interested. However, if it wasn't for the Lord of the Rings set, I probably would not have gotten back in. So I do like these releases and think they bring in some new players. That said, I do think there are way too many universes beyond in quick succession. Outside of Lotr and Warhammer, I'm not really interested in any of the other ones.

I started playing magic in 1994 and quit after stronghold. The 40k cards are what brought me back into the game. Since I picked up the 40k decks we picked up the game night box with 5 mono decks. The game night is what drew in my family and the kids getting into commander. Admittedly I've invested in a few more commander decks. I think there is a hook that lures people into universe beyond because 40k got me. Fallout will get some gamers and younger crowds. At the end of the day it's so a cash grab. As for me I think I'm building 2 pods worth of decks and calling it quits because there's always a power shift. My old ice age burn deck gets wrecked in standard current cards. I have no desire to run competitively and have no idea if anything is banned as it's just for fun.

I think you look very good on a punk. It has to fit magic. This is actually a problem I already have with the Warhammer sets. They don't just exist in their bubble. That's also the reason why I don't have any problems with the DnD and Lord of the Rings sets. I wouldn't have any problems e.g. with a “Game of Thrones” or “The Wheel of Time” set because these IPs fit perfectly. But Doc Who, Transformer, Jurassic Park... Not to mention that there are now simply too many products in a short time.

As a concept, I like universes beyond. In terms of execution, the only ones that I really like so far are Lara Croft and Baldurs Gate/DnD. I'm all for adding flavor to cards but flavor shouldn't override balance or just having too many versions of a major character, and on top of that we're already under heavy product fatigue, so more product isn't the answer. Product Fatigue doesn't just apply to UB, it also applies to commander precons, and just the crazy rotation of sets we have going on. People would buy more product if they got a chance to actually reflect on all the cards in the set before getting MORE previews. I haven't properly looked at Wilds of Eldraine yet because there's so much going on, and I've barely looked at cards in the new Ixalan set. Also remember that MTG started going heavily downhill when Hasbro bought them. WotC is keeping Hasbro alive and Hasbro is being a leech, not caring if the quality tanks or if people get product fatigue as long as it keeps them alive.