The debate over third-party franchises in MTG has raged for years now, but the issue just came to a head with head designer Mark Rosewater suggesting that those who don't like Universes Beyond should either adapt or leave the game behind.
In response to a fan expressing concern over how Rosewater responded to previous complaints about Universes Beyond, the designer writes on tumblr that there are only three paths forward for fans of the best card games: they must either accept the change, find like-minded players who don't want to use crossover sets, or "walk away" from MTG altogether.
"None of those is inherently easy," Rosewater says after comparing some fans' dislike of Universes Beyond to his own struggle in adapting to the player-led Commander format. "I really do understand your pain." However, he warns that there's no going back to how things used to be; the genie's out of the bottle.
"This just isn’t the way the game or the world works. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s just not going back in," he suggests. "Whether you like or dislike Universe Beyond, it has fundamentally changed the nature of what the game is. It’s taking the game to a whole new level, in both scope and awareness, much like Commander forever changed how people saw and interacted with the game."
At the time of writing, there are 11 main Universes Beyond sets so far - Star Trek, The Hobbit, Marvel Super Heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy, Assassin's Creed, Fallout, Doctor Who, and Lord of the Rings. That number increases by a significant amount when you include Secret Lair drops and sets introduced before the Universes Beyond label (such as Warhammer 40K).
Fans on reddit are taking issue with that comparison to Commander, though. As pointed out by user Anubara in the thread's most upvoted comment, "there's a difference between 'I don't like commander, so I will continue playing 60 card formats and not interact with commander', and 'I don't like universes beyond, but it's legal in every format.'" Many seem to be in agreement; KARLWHEEZER says that "the issue is that it really is unavoidable at every level of magic aside from draft and cube," while others criticize how Commander is an opt-in format compared to Universes Beyond now being available across most major playstyles.
For what it's worth, I understand the frustration. While it looks like a cool set, it'll be jarring to see the likes of Captain Kirk in November's Star Trek (which features ultra-rare cards signed by actors) beating up dragons. Yes, we had the sci-fi Edge of Eternities last year, but that was designed from the ground up to be a part of the MTG multiverse – it shared a lot of design language with Magic mainstays. By contrast, Star Trek, TMNT, and the rest can feel sort of… thematically tacked on, as it were, despite having a lot of love put into them both mechanically and in terms of overall design. (I'll argue with anyone who says they're phoned in, because that's simply not true.)
Still, I also understand where Rosewater is coming from. There's no denying how popular Universes Beyond is, and as he says, you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube now; it's too much of a success for that. As such, I suppose we've got no choice but to find a way to live with a world where Universes Beyond make up 50% of annual MTG releases.
What do you think? Is Universes Beyond pushing you away from MTG, or are you all in on crossovers?
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