While Magic: the Gathering has been going strong for nearly thirty years, few announcements to the game have been as controversial as Universes Beyond. A new offshoot of Magic, Universes Beyond refers to crossovers between Magic: the Gathering and other preexisting IPs and franchises.
Unlike the My Little Pony and Magic: the Gathering charity crossover, Ponies: the Galloping which utilized silver-bordered cards, technically not legal in any formats, Universes Beyond cards are black border, and will be playable in a variety of Magic's most popular formats.
As a variety of information about Universes Beyond has recently been unveiled, today we're going to go over everything you need to know about this new Magic crossover system.
8 Are The Dungeons & Dragons Sets Part Of Universes Beyond?
While Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering are indeed two different games, the recently released Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and the announced Commander Legends: Battle for Balders Gate are not part of Universes Beyond. This is due largely in part for the fact that Wizards of the Coast owns both games, allowing them to cross these franchises over with ease.
While Magic only now recently received D&D cards, D&D has been receiving Magic content for years now through books such as the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.
7 Secret Lair: The Walking Dead
A controversial release of last year, Secret Lair: The Walking Dead introduced several mechanically unique cards from The Walking Dead via a limited time only Secret Lair release.
Though this Secret Lair predates Universes Beyond, it has been grandfathered in, and is now technically the first Universes Beyond release, featuring top-down, character-driven card designs.
6 Stranger Things
Following in the footsteps of Secret Lair: The Walking Dead, it has been confirmed that later this year, another limited release Universes Beyond product will be released as a Secret Lair, featuring characters from the Stranger Things franchise.
While few details such as a release date or what cards will be included have been expanded upon, we do know that like Secret Lair: The Walking Dead, it will feature character-focused black-bordered cards that will be legal in eternal formats like Commander.
5 Universes Beyond And The List
Starting with the aforementioned Secret Lair: Stranger Things, while these mechanically unique cards will initially be exclusive to their respective Universes Beyond products, they will be added to "The List," at a later date. "The List" is a large assortment of cards that have a chance of appearing in any set booster pack.
With a similar approach to the Godzilla alternate art cards in Ikoria, rather than sporting their crossover characters and art, the versions of these cards that appear in "The List" will be reskinned to fit within settings of Magic.
4 Warhammer 40,000
Another confirmed Universes Beyond release on the Horizon is a Magic: The Gathering Crossover with the popular tabletop war game, Warhammer 40,000. Rather than coming in the form of Secret Lairs, this Warhammer Crossover is slated to release some point within 2022 as themed Commander decks.
While many other Universes Beyond products will be following the online-only purchase structure of Secret Lairs, these decks will be available anywhere Commander decks are already sold.
3 Street Fighter
Slated to be one of the first video game crossovers with Magic, the Iconic Street Fighter fighting game series will be getting the secret lair treatment. As a game featuring a wide range of iconic characters, it can be assumed that this Secret Lair will feature mechanically unique cards for many characters from the game's roster.
Currently, the only confirmed character that will be appearing is Chun Li, who will fittingly utilize the "multi-kicker" mechanic.
2 Fortnite
Another planned video game crossover via Universes Beyond, Magic is set to receive a Secret Lair that will be themed around Fortnite.
Easily the most polarizing of these scheduled releases, the planned Fortnite Secret lair is distinct from the other scheduled Universes Beyond products, as rather than featuring brand new mechanically unique cards, it will be made up entirely of reprints of already existing Magic cards, all given a new Fortnite-themed coat of paint.
1 Lord Of The Rings
At the moment, the final planned Universes Beyond product that is known about is a crossover with J.R.R Tolkein's genre-defining Lord of the Rings franchise. By and large the Universes Beyond product with the largest plans, rather than receiving Secret Lairs like many other planned crossovers or Commander decks like Warhammer 40,000, the Lord of the Rings is set to get its own entire complete set.
Not scheduled to release until 2023, while this set is not planned to be legal in Standard, it will indeed be black-bordered and legal in eternal formats including Modern, Legacy, and Commander, bringing a wide range of characters, spells, and artifacts of Middle Earth to Magic: the Gathering.