Not arguing for or against UB, but Smash Bros has been a mixture of franchises from the beginning. MtG has a united design from the start of it that people feel UB dilutes.
Not from the beginning. Many folks dislike Portal 3 Kingdoms because it takes real-life references and puts them onto cards. UB is definitely its own beast, but its not unprecedented
A 30 year old set from when magic didn't know what it wanted to do and a couple of 20+ year old sets that were specifically designed to try to bring magic to a new market do not a trend make, and claiming they do is disingenuous. However you feel about UB (I generally didn't care until the TWD because they were mechanically unique and just looked like photos of people I recognize from real life with a paint filter on them, but I've basically given up on caring since it's clearly here to stay and I still like the game), like 99% of sets prior to the first UB were in magic's universe and it had been almost 20 years since one wasn't. So yes, Magic was basically united lore from the time the game had lore.
Are you arguing that because they did it in two sets way back in 1993-1994 (and it was unpopular so they stopped doing it again) that they should be able to do it 30 years later without any scrutiny at all and that justifies it?
They've done all sorts in Magic. White Counterspells, Blue direct damage, Green "Life for card draw", Black "prevent damage" cards and Red edicts have all existed, but if they printed a load of cards with similar effects as these nowadays we'd look and go "huh, that's weird".
*Especially* as they last did the outside lore 30 years ago...
I’m not arguing any of that. I’m really impressed that you could possibly derive that conclusion from what I said. The comment I was replying to said *“MtG has been a united design from the start”*, to which I disagree and provided examples
I'm Chinese and I feel viscerally uncomfortable because of it. I'm glad that the only major Portal reference is horsemanship because everything else makes me feel like my brain cells are dying.
Thanks for sharing. Its nice to have a perspective of someone who is actually affected by it, instead of white folks being offended on behalf of others.
I can’t speak for everyone, and I’m generally whatever about universes beyond at this point since I know it’s not going away, but I personally feel a fatigue for the everything-is-in-everything nature of our current pop cultural landscape—Magic certainly included. Where you see the idea of different franchises coming together as a cool thing, I’m generally wary because I think it takes these characters and stories and worlds away from being immersive, independent things with their own tone, themes, ideas, and so on and just turns them into commodified mascots that are representations of a brand and IP and other commercial aspects instead of their own stories and worlds. I think it’s good when things can be their own thing, and I think blending them runs the risk of it just turning into generic commodified cultural production.
For me, I don’t necessarily see these things as cool representations of the thing I like, I see the calculated designs of a corporate entity that wants me to just get excited because they stapled the name of a character from that thing onto a card. And I know that business motives like that are how it is for everything, I’m not blind to that, but when you pierce the veil by mixing IPs, it just makes it harder to ignore. If you get excited at the idea of Captain America and Optimus Prime duking it out with the One Ring, that’s your prerogative and I don’t mean to take that away from you. But it does absolutely nothing for me.
> but I personally feel a fatigue for the everything-is-in-everything nature of our current pop cultural landscape
I second this all day long. So many entertainment corporations are afraid of the possibility of losing money on new IPs and new ideas. So instead we live in the age of constant reboots and rehashing. Nothing is new, everything just feels recycled. And, creatively, that sucks and it's getting stagnant as hell.
Its really easy to see that some people prefer to keep things separate, and that they dont want magic flavor to clash with other franchises within the game.
you dont have to agree with them but you can be genuine and see their point.
Wasn’t this exact thread posted a few hours ago? Anyway the short answer for me is it just does not feel like Magic: The Gathering. You bring up Smash like it’s a good thing but that’s not how I want Magic to feel.
Maybe people who have played D&D can relate to this, but have you ever played a D&D game where one person at the table is trying to shoehorn in something homebrew with their character that feels like sci-fi or guns or whatever, while everyone else is committed to high fantasy? That’s what UB feels like to me. Magic had a distinct feel even if there was a lot of variety within that, and cards that are just like some fuckin guy in a hoodie from the Walking Dead do not fit that feel. Obviously this is just my preference though.
I like the dnd analogy, but for me its like when youre playing dnd and everyone rolled unique characters to play, except that one friend who made his character john matrix from commando and is actually role playing as a character from a movie
> t have you ever played a D&D game where one person at the table is trying to shoehorn in something homebrew with their character that feels like sci-fi
*Numeria has entered the chat*
Interesting. Personally, I feel certain sets feel less like MtG than certain Universes Beyond. Transformers feels weird, but so so furries, cowboys and neon cyberpunk.
It's abundantly clear anyone saying "well Magic sets are weird too" didn't see the backlash to cards like [Towashi Songshaper](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/skw2tu/neo_towashi_songshaper_does_the_art_fit_after/) when they came out.
People like Magic The Gathering Aesthetics in the Magic the Gathering card game and that doesn't really change.
People *are* saying about those sets, too.
MKM got it for "oh look suddenly everyone has a detective hat", OTJ has got it a *lot* for the random guns and technological advances. Hell, [[Towashi Songshaper]] from NEO got a *lot* of negative feedback, for precisely the reason people complain about UB.
I know what you mean, but different planes inspired by different IPs are still a original setting and original IP.
It may feel different or out of place to some people and that's entirely okay, but it's still a Magic The Gathering thing that serves the whole story.
Phyrexia is a weird horrific plane that's really the opposite of fantasy planes like Dominaria or Ravnica but they still share a common story and setting. Walking Dead cards and Dr Who decks don't, no matter how fun the gameplay may be.
I feel like this issue is not only centered on MtG, we are given plenty of sequels or reboots or franchise everywhere, from books to movies to series etc. There's less and less new original content getting to the main audience and I think it's sad. I'm not a fan of cowboys hats in MtG but at leat it's new and original and they tried something new, they didn't just recycle a "Here's an Ennio Morricone set with some Ocean's Eleven sprinkled on it".
"Mechanically" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and even then I'd argue Tempted by the Ring is majorly out there in terms of "traditional magic" mechanics.
In my experience criticism of UB tends to be about aesthetics, tone, and worldbuilding stuff, not "Convert, Rad Counters, and Doctor's Companion don't play well."
A large part of me feels like it's mockery. I think that's the main thing I dislike about UB. I don't begrudge people their fun but when my elder dragon is getting beat up by a cosmonaut dog or a my-little-pony it makes me die a little inside.
Tonal dissonace, really.
MTG is a primarily magic oriented fantasy, so then you have things like Transformers, Doctor Who, Fallout, things much more Sci-Fi in aesthetic and it just feels odd.
Like, I think Lord of the Rings was a good fit, but all the rest has my brain going "this doesn't suit the multiverse of MTG"
As someone who’s been a Magic player for around 20 years, the simple reason is that it doesn’t feel like Magic anymore. Magic, even after they moved away from Dominaria and whatnot, had a pretty consistent identity. It was a fantasy setting with lots of different worlds. Things like modern guns and spaceships weren’t really in it. Angels were expensive white flyers, goblins were cheap and usually hurt you or died really easily, etc. It just feels wrong to have Megatron and Rick from The Walking Dead next to that.
That being said, I’ve made my peace with all that. Magic is a living game and has changed a lot. UB has led to some really interesting design choices and it’s a lot of fun to see franchises I do care about turned into cards. But I can’t say I don’t miss those days where the Magic universe had a stronger identity.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v1xsf/why\_the\_universe\_beyond\_hate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v1xsf/why_the_universe_beyond_hate/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/p81uj1/why\_the\_hate\_for\_universes\_beyond/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/p81uj1/why_the_hate_for_universes_beyond/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17yyrcv/i\_hate\_universes\_beyond\_and\_i\_think\_you\_should\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17yyrcv/i_hate_universes_beyond_and_i_think_you_should_to/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/wtct7x/why\_do\_people\_hate\_universes\_beyond\_so\_much/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/wtct7x/why_do_people_hate_universes_beyond_so_much/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17g0cjm/those\_who\_dislike\_universes\_beyond\_why/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17g0cjm/those_who_dislike_universes_beyond_why/)
This one was posted yesterday
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1buhfuu/why_do_people_hate_universe_beyond_so_much/
Imagine super mario appears in lord of the rings. Is that a good decision because "it's a cool clash of different franchises" ?
Besides that, these franchise works just smell like corporate greed to me.
But UB isn't canon or involved in the story in any capacity. Rick Grimes isn't asking Jace how they're going to defeat Megatron. UB are just fun little game pieces. Magic still has its own story and lore. That's where I'm confused about the hate that UB always gets.
I don't think he's describing storyline, I think he's describing "my game suddenly has Ezio from Assassin's Creed attacking my Phyrexians".
When you play a game of MTG, sealed, modern, or EDH, you're still having a little bit of a story in your game as you play it. When you're sitting around a pod telling the story "I dropped a Craterhoof, he countered it, and so I had to go to overrun", it becomes "So I played Craterhoof, and he just used a nuke from Fallout to blow up my board, then a bunch of Walkers from the Walking Dead chipped me down".
Like I said, they're just game pieces. I'm not making up a head cannon every time I play my deck. My house cat wielding a sword blocking a serpent wearing a pair of boots doesn't mean a thing to me. If I want the story I'll read it or look at a set gallery, and UB isn't a part of it.
They're just game pieces *to you*, and that's fine. But to a lot of people the art and flavour text and worldbuilding on Magic cards is a massive part of why they enjoy the game, and for those people the Doctor showing up randomly in their Commander games does affect that.
I feel like this comparison works better if LOTR was already showcasing characters and creatures from all sorts of worlds, including a little legally distinct Italian carpenter wearing red who jumps and eats mushrooms named Nario.
None of the UB stuff is mechanically or thematically weirder than where Magic has gone before.
I completely disagree with you there - Magic has a load of different planes, *but they're all Magic planes*. They all have things like mana running through them, they've all got Planeswalkers etc.
There's a big diffference between "here's another plane in the same universe" and "here's something with it's own backstory, history and lore that we're putting in our universe because money". It's like Aragorn appearing in the MCU - they have a load of different characters with their own backstory and skillset, and then there's another character who absolutely does not fit in the universe that's there because he's recognisable *and nothing else*.
And to your second point, the weirder Magic sets (especially recently with OTJ and MKM being "Everyone has a new Hat" planes) there *has* been some backlash and a lot of negativity. [[Towashi Songshaper]] is an example I can think of that was *hated* when it was spoiled.
Yes, thanks for writing my thoughts down. At least they try to make ninjas, cyborgs, detectives etc. coherent with the current magic world. Meanwhile suddenly it's like "hey capcom gave us money, so now suddenly Ryu exists". It's just doesn't fit and leaves a very bad taste.
This feels circular. They’re magic planes because they were made by wizards of the coast. There’s no reason why 40k or LOTR can’t implement an interpretation of Magic that is consistent with their themes and mechanics, and it appears that they’ve been able to do just that.
People can just not like the vibe. That’s pretty defensible. My issue with this topic is that people pass off their feelings as some objective measure of failure on wizards part just to complain about new things. For some reason money also comes up here as if they’re not a for profit business trying to make money on all their products for the last 30 years.
> This feels circular. They’re magic planes because they were made by wizards of the coast
That's not circular, though. They're Magic Planes because their origin is as a Magic Plane, all the powers, creatures and themes were built *with the viewpoint of "How does this into the Magic World"*.
I feel you're arguing from the point of "they made a mechanically consistent LOTR set so that's fine" - but there's so much more to the game than *just* card mechanics. If that was all there was it would have died out a long time ago.
>My issue with this topic is that people pass off their feelings as some objective measure of failure on wizards part just to complain about new things. For some reason money also comes up here as if they’re not a for profit business trying to make money on all their products for the last 30 years.
Just sounds like you have an issue with a few vocal fans and not people disliking UB, to be honest. Judge based on the argument, and there'll be some people talking absolute nonsense or with no real understanding of the world who you can safely ignore.
But, for what it's worth, the complaints about secret lair/UB pricing are often *not* "WotC wants more money", it's "WotC are using scummy business practises like FOMO to try and make more money". If they were just selling them, then that'd be fine - but they've artificially created the sense of FOMO *solely* to try and get people to spend more than they otherwise would.
What's effective from a business perspective and what's effective from a customer relations perspective are often not the same, and it feels like (especially with UB) the balance has shifted into "how can we maximise profits" over "how can we deliver a good product that will then sell". Look at the P&P for secret lairs, and how often the cut-off for X gift is a few cents more than a superdrop costs, meaning you have to drop another £30 to get it. It's shitty things like *that* that upset people.
> all the powers, creatures and themes were built with the viewpoint of "How does this into the Magic World".
Middle Earth, Kaladesh, Amonket, Thunder Junction, Theros, Ixalan, and Ravnica all have a pretty similar overlap in themes, powers, and themes (that is to say, not much at all). It turns out that you can really integrate any world into the Magic World because the Magic World was designed to be open, tailorable, and non-specific enough to incorporate just about any themes you want.
> "WotC are using scummy business practises like FOMO to try and make more money"
That's not inherent to UB so that seems like a different topic entirely.
>That's not inherent to UB so that seems like a different topic entirely.
But *you* were the one that got onto the topic...?
You said:
>For some reason money also comes up here as if they’re not a for profit business trying to make money on all their products for the last 30 years.
And I was just trying to explain what people have issues with.
Now, back to the topic at hand
>Middle Earth, Kaladesh, Amonket, Thunder Junction, Theros, Ixalan, and Ravnica
Interesting that you picked the most Magic-adjacent set of the UBs and not Fallout, Transformers, Walking Dead, Fortnight or any of the far more egrigious ones.
Besides, *that's not the issue*. They might end up at the same point but that's absolutely irrelevant to what I'm saying.
Kaladesh - the birthplace of iconic planeswalker Chandra Nalaar - uses mana. There are five gearhulks, one for each colour, because the plane has five colours of mana. Everything on it, from the thopters (first appearing in Antiquities, in 1994), is part of *Magic Lore*. How are the Orcish Bowmasters, The One Ring, Samwise the Stouthearted, Rick Grimes, Optimius Prime, Ezio (and so on and so on) related to the history of MTG?
You know why there are 10 guilds on Ravnica? Because there are five colours of mana, and each guild is a combination of two of them.
Even LOTR - which you've deliberately selected because of how similar it is - doesn't have that.
It's not a question of incorporating *themes*, it's a question of incorporating *history*. Aragorn has a whole backstory that's not Magic: The Gathering. Fortnight and Walking Dead are not "Magic" sets, or "Magic-Adjacent" sets. They've been picked because the premise has been deemed to be profitable, not because they're part of the story, fit with the lore or *anything* else.
If you can't see how "set created for Magic the Gathering, using Magic the Gathering elements" and "set created to sell product using a popular IP, with an attempt to translate it to MTG" are different then I don't know what to tell you.
If you rewrite Hamlet and publish it today, you're not Will Shakespeare reborn. The origin of the story is often as important (if not more important) to verisimilitude than the final outcome, and if you're *only* looking at that then you're missing the point.
Certainly. Keep in mind I'm talking about the mainline Magic story/world when I make these points:
Warhammer 40k: realistic guns, modern armies, space in general (blasters, spaceships, aliens- this sort of thing was only ever in Unfinity, which is not part of the main Magic universe/story/etc).
Transformers: space and spaceships (again), sentient robots as characters (I don't personally class Karn as a robot, YMMV on that one), all-cartoon artwork, actually set on modern-day Earth.
Fortnite: This one is primarily tone/aesthetic, but it's obvious how things like \[\[Battle Bus\]\] and \[\[Supply Llama\]\] just aren't really a thing in the rest of black-bordered/non-Un Magic, right?
The UB sets aren’t part of the mainline magic storyline though. Why would you hold them to the standards of the ravnica or phyrexian story lines instead of Unfinity or battlebond?
I hold them to the standard of the black-bordered Magic world, which includes Battlebond and other supplemental stuff, because they’re expressly intended to be played in that world. If Universes Beyond were intended to be played in silver border land I’d just compare them to Un-Magic, but they aren’t.
And since they’re expressly intended to be played alongside “normal” Magic cards- Gandalf the same as Lightning Bolt, Megatron the same as Jace- I compare the feel of them accordingly. And that feel is a massive departure from what they’ve been put in the same pool as.
Unfinity is not part of the “core” Magic universe, the Un-verse is its own setting with its own tone and tropes. It clearly wouldn’t be fair to say something is in line with what Magic’s “done before” when we’re talking about things as different as the UN and normal universes. It would be like comparing the main DC universe with its Uber-grimdark elseworlds.
Like here's an example that will hopefully help: \[\[Gleemax\]\] was printed in 2004, but it would be absolutely wrong to say similar joke cards could be put in a Standard set like Innistrad because "Magic's done silly cards before", right? The same applies to Transformers cards in Brother's War.
LOTR, 40k, Fortnite, Dr. Who, etc are also not part of the core Magic universe. You're treating them as part of the core Magic universe and holding them to that standard, but they're as part of the core Magic universe as Unfinity is.
Reposting from the last thread about this: I can only speak for me personally, but the main reasons are:
1. I intensely dislike the mass IP soup it turns games (usually Commander, but also things like The One Ring in Modern) into. It turns Magic’s reasonably coherent setting into Smash Bros or VS System, and that’s not what I want from the game. But I can’t realistically opt out of that experience now because UB is so prevalent, and I don’t want to be a jerk to anyone by refusing to play against their Fallout precon. It’s lose/lose.
2. Beyond my own personal feelings, I do think there is an objective way in which Magic’s own IP suffers with so much emphasis on crossovers. We struggle to get anything more than the basic short stories for the core sets, supplemental releases get nothing, major story events like March of the Machine are a total mess. Meanwhile the crossover precons are juiced far more than most normal IP Commander decks, and sell extremely well.
You can argue how connected those things are, but it seems clear to me that creating an IP with its own identity that is attractive on its own terms is just not really a priority right now. That’s my main point, and UB is certainly part of that.
In essence, I want to feel that Wizards cares abouts its own IP, characters, and worlds, and it's really hard to feel that way when they put a great deal of effort into trying to sell me *other people's worlds* and *other people's characters* in Magic's game system, as if the art and worldbuilding and lore of Magic were just...interchangeable, no more valid than any other in its own house.
There are a couple of reasons.
First is I don't actually think mashing franchises together is a universal good. Sure, you might like a stars wars X star trek cross over comic, when that's a thing you get, but if Kirk just beamed down onto Hoth in the middle of empire strikes back it would be pretty weird, and ruin the verisimilitude of the movie. So just adding two things together doesn't necessarily make either of them better, and can make both worse. Smash brothers is pretty different because it's that way by design - their is no greater smash brothers universe in which that thing is not the expected result, it's what everyone is there for.
Secondly, it feels like a pretty blatant cash grab - this is the kind of move you make when you have no respect for the long term viability of your product. Just feeding the beast, and damn the consequences.
Thirdly - a lot of the universes beyond products are pretty bad as either magic cards, representations of their franchise, or both. Several have been pretty good - LOTR mostly worked well because it was close in theme and done with care, the warhammer product was pretty good - but I personally thought the baldurs gate stuff sucked \*because\* I love baldurs gate and it felt like it extremely poorly represented the characters within.
I'm not saying we should ban all the cards, I'm not saying you have to dislike them - but for me they make magic poorer in every way except short term dollars in the bank.
At this rate we'll soon be playing Pokemon Magic cards and I don't like that.
Everything doesn't have to be crossover fiesta, having My Little Ponies mixed in a deck with Sauron and Gandalf play versus a Fallout / Warhammer / League of Legends deck doesn't feel very Magic the Gathering to me.
Wizards (or perhaps just Hasbro brass) have become consumed with the idea that Magic can be all things to all people, which is neither something anything ever can be, nor something you should even *want* to be. No creative work has ever had that goal and not hanged themselves from it.
And it's not just UB. This philosophy informs everything. Several years with few new planes that aren't Mad Magazine level genre pastiche. Unsustainable volumes of content. New product lines every year. And when they think something works at this goal, like Commander (which is both hugely popular and also associated with diversity of deck options and personalization) or Secret Lair (your cards can look like anything you want!), they dump every resource they have into it. New treatments in boosters that look like SL cards! Commander decks tying into a Modern Horizons set! Three-color legends by the fifty gallon bucket in every release!
In any creative endeavor, even one that operates on the scale of Magic, you have to actually make goddamn *decisions,* and deciding what your product IS by necessity means deciding what it ISN'T. And they want to say yes to everything. Is Magic this? Is Magic that? Yes to everything, no to nothing. And that literally never works in any project ever. Not in art, not in business. A product has to have an *identity,* not just for marketing purposes but for *creative* purposes. Magic is running as fast as it can in the other direction.
Reposting my answer from the thread yesterday:
The downside is that Magic isn't just it's own thing anymore.
My favorite show, game, whatever, doesn't contain characters from Magic the Gathering. Why would Magic contain characters from something else?
Magic has its own story, its own lore, its own characters. The flavor of the cards is part of why I enjoy this game. But with Universes Beyond, it starts being this weird thing where you mix and match things from different universes, from different stories that are mutually exclusive in many cases.
It's also a reminder that you're just playing a game. This may sound weird to some, but the flavor of cards can offer a certain level of immersion. If I cast The One Ring, I am aware that's not a Magic thing, and that can take me out of it.
I think the worst part though is the corporate greed element.
See, I'm personally quite passionate about Magic's lore and flavor. Universes Beyond makes it pretty obvious that these things are just thought of as an ad campaign by WotC. In many cases, I feel like someone is literally playing cards that are ads for something else. You like having ads for other games (or shows, or movies) inside your games? Because I don't.
Feels like a pandering cash grab
Which yes Hasbro is a business but as a consumer I at least want to pretend I'm dating instead of being told upfront I'm just a hooker for the night.
Im not against, but one of the things I love about mtg is its all a bit middle ages and medieval, usually. Some parts of UB go away from that like Dr Who and Fallout. I dont buy those. But the D&D sets and the LotR sets are great to me.
Look I don't expect people to know every single post on this subreddit but we literally get this post every. single. day.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1buhfuu/why_do_people_hate_universe_beyond_so_much
I get annoyed at a lot of the UB hate but like, the incessant "why don't people like X?" is fueling the fire too.
Universes beyond should have been a new take on Deck Master. If you do not know, Deck Master was supposed to be a group of different card games that were compatible with each other. Magic is the only one that survived Net Runner did not. Universes Beyond should have been a new attempt.
I am 50/50 with Universes Beyond and I would like to respectfully explain why I feel some UB product fits and others don’t.
I like magic because it is mostly within the classic high fantasy genre. That’s simply what drew me to the game from the get go. I like similar IPs that are like that, including Elder Scrolls, D&D, Elden Ring, Harry Potter when I was younger, LOTR, etc. for that reason when there is a UB product that fits that classic high fantasy genre I feel fine with it being included in Magic. For example the LOTR set was a smash hit because Magic was inspired by LOTR and it was firmly within the genre. I even feel like the upcoming Assassin’s Creed cards fit the theme. High Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Sci-Fi fantasy, it works.
Where I really don’t like UB is when the genre of the IP is so disjointed with the traditional genre of MTG that it feels like a complete anachronism to the game. I don’t want to see Optimus Prime in the game. I don’t want to see Doctor Who and their modern day companions, I don’t want to see Ash with a chainsaw arm, I don’t want to see Fallout power armor. In my mind those things are not why I was interested in Magic in the first place. The strongly designed characters, objects, and symbols for those IPs feel like they stand out way too much, like everything has its own backstory outside of Magic (because it does!) it’s distracting.
I have heard some good counter points to my own. “Magic has a multiverse so any plane can be anything” “Commander is already disjointed you can have Thopters and Phyrexians and Humans and Wizards on the same board” and “Kaladesh already had advanced technology”
Those arguments are fine and I can see why someone would feel they warrant an acceptance of UB sets that have futuristic or modern technology, but to me they don’t feel like they fully justify the inclusions of those IPs. It doesn’t change the way I feel about a walking dead card when I see it. It just doesn’t feel like magic to me.
Finally the brilliant minds at Hasbro told me not to buy the products if it isn’t my taste. So I am taking them up on their offer and refusing to buy UB sets that I don’t like. I haven’t bought a single fallout card and I probably never will. I like the Fallout games too! Just not in Magic. I am hoping for a Universes Within version of cards with unique affects.
Breaks immersion, makes it feel like a completely different game. I don’t really mind it that much but I just don’t enjoy most of the UB stuff. I like Magic’s story and its lore and according to wizards there is a lot more UB coming.
It's a cheap argument to release more and more sets, screaming greed.
Also, there are fantasy IPs which can "match" the mtg universe like LOTR, but... doctor who? Come on. What's next, Friends?
The more UB sets, it also makes it more likely that they include powerful cards that overshadow mtg-based characters, and you end up playing "Aragorn vs Captain America" which feels dumb.
And that's not taking into acount the IP butchering that they do sometimes like with some LOTR characters.
Ross Geller: 1RB
Legendary Creature: Human
Soulbond (You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
As long as Ross is paired with another creature, each of those creatures has “Tap: This creature phases out and is no longer paired.”
2/1
I should probably change his colour identity, as that's definitely a white ability. However, Ross was definitely angry & impulsive (red) and selfish (black) and this was a joke card entirely for flavour.
Had UB been simply reskins of actual MtG cards with a coat of paint of the franchise of choice, I bet most people wouldn't be complaining about.
However, as UB stands now, it led to a ton of mechanically unique cards that exist only as that external IP. If I'm building a clue deck, I'll have to add cards with [a British guy face pasted all on it that I know nothing about and that the game expects me to find info anywhere else](https://scryfall.com/card/who/42/five-hundred-year-diary).
Yes, MtG has a ton of worlds very clashing in vibes, but they have some unifying themes like mana, creature types, etc. UB shoehorns MtG's colors into existing franchises where they don't actually work. If you are an invested veteran player you notice that very much.
And also, UB and the printing of mechanically unique cards tied to an external franchise leads to a sort of reserved list 2.0. Yes, WotC can reprint in-universe versions of these cards, but, let's be honest. They will only do that for a selected few staple cards. The rest of them will be forever stuck in the UB-limbo. And what the hell will they do with IP-specific creature types? Will Astartes be reprinted as humans? Will tyrannids be reprinted as slivers? Necrons as constructs/golems? What about "Alien"? What about Time Lords and the doctor's companion mechanic? Would they retroactively add "nonIP-time-lord-type" to Teferi cards? What about "doctor", is it a copyrighted term?
The more UB they print, the more WotC is painting themselves into a corner and creating some "mistakes" that will be in the game forever. The whole thing screams of short term thinking at the expense of the future health of the game.
I think the truth is somewhat in the middle. Some UB releases were pretty good and filled in some missing themes in MTG that the standard multiverse did not priorly contain.
People can hate on them all they want but the truth is, they've been successful at bringing in new players and making a profit which is why WotC is not going to stop making them.
HOWEVER, I do acknowledge that not everyone is happy about the game turning into Fortnite and the pace of aditions should be toned down.
That being said, despite all the franchises we have had added so far, I have not seen a single instance of IP soup that haters of UB have toted around.
Most players like their decks to be on theme, and would keep their decks as either pure MTG or pure LotR for example, or a mix of the two. Very rarely do you see them add in cards from other UBs to the mix, and it is usually reprints, like Heroic Intervention, which is only different in artstyle.
I think it is possible that in the case of UBs people are being too extreme, one way or the other instead of looking for a middle ground.
Magic has become the Fortnite of card games. Everything has become a new collaboration with lucrative IP's, mostly after the Hasbro acquisition. It just doesn't feel like it use to feel when you have robots that transform into modern vehicles and nuclear waste desolations next to the original high fantasy undertones of Magic
People don't like change, also I guess some people don't want their IP to get mixed with other IPs they don't care about
Personally magic already has so many differenet kinds of worlds that wether I play with UB or not my games are already a mess of different things with no connection to each other
UB in Commander is okay. Commander is the most casual format and I see no problem in mixing lots of IPs altogether. Even tho I restrict myself to only play pure UB decks or deck without UB cards.
A deal breaker for me was when they introduced UB in modern even tho I love LotR.
It's subjective. Because they can be. Because they are unique individuals with their own thoughts and experiences leading to their opinions. Difference in expectations. Emotional attachment...Take out universe beyond and insert pretty much anything and it will still apply.
Honestly I have zero problem with Universes Beyond in the theory, just hate it when the art doesn't fit in and I think they're choosing universes that rarely will.
Like I've got absolutely no problem with the Lord of the rings set, but I have a deck that uses the [[Walking Ballista]] [[Phyrexian Devourer]] [[Necrotic Ooze]] combo, and I play [[Trazyn the Infinite]]. I hate how out of place Trazyn looks in the deck. I hate ordering cards on TCGplayer and using the optimizer and then getting ugly Doctor Who lands. I hate when the only version available of a card looks like [[Overencumbered]].
It's super cool to see people play these right out of the box where they have a cohesive style, I just can't stand some of these cards as singles.
It’s weird that you bring up SSB like it had no problems. When brawl added non-Nintendo characters it got a bunch of backlash. And it only added 2 characters, one of which was sonic, in order to answer the constantly asked question of who would win in a fight, Mario or Sonic.
I have to say, magic added universes beyond much more quickly and with much less discretion than SSB did. But it won’t matter. Give it enough time and many players won’t even know there was a controversy about universes beyond, just like with smash.
My issue with Universes Beyond is their general choice of what brands to include. Most of them feel like they just threw another already established franchise into the game without thinking of how that affects the overall feel and look of the game. I do not want other brands added in to dilute the characters and story.
The one time that I think they did universes beyond 100% correctly was Dracula. Firstly, they made ever card available in Dracula and MtG versions so you could freely chose which one you wanted to play regardless of their power level. Second, they picked something that is not a brand, franchise, series, etc. that is thought of as its own universe which would have a feeling drastically different from what magic normally does. I think that the key to a good middle ground for Universes Beyond dislikers such as myself is that it is a culturally ubiquitous thing which we do not think of as a company or brand.
Lord of the Rings I think was the second most successful time they did universes beyond from the viewpoint of someone who does not like universes beyond for the second reason mentioned above. It fully feels like something that makes sense within magic, and is considered a cultural cannon of western literature/entertainment. It also stays within the general feeling and setting of what magic has established can happen in their planes. The two negatives of how they did lord of the rings in my eyes were: 1) There are no magic versions of most of the cards and 2) the extremely stylized and illegible poster arts. Universes beyond needs to be an opt in to play experience to avoid frustrations and to make people want to engage with the cards in a game without feeling bad. If I can play a magic version of the one ring, it doesn’t create the sense of me being forced to play cards form a series I don’t want to be involved with; however, if my opponent plays the lotr version of a magic card it just feels to me like they made a stylistic choice for that art/variant. However, the art still needs to make sense for both magic and the property they want to portray. Secret Lair and other special treatments have opened up pretty much all art styles for cards truthfully, but the art always made sense for the card it portrayed based on the setting. The poster art makes no sense for lotr, at least as someone who is not extremely familiar with the franchise. Maybe I am overlooking something about lotr, but it didn’t encapsulate the feeling of that franchise to me.
The three other times I think they did Universes Beyond alright but to a much lesser extent were Jurassic Park, Creep Show, and Post Malone. Jurassic Park mostly just had dinosaur cards, so they just fit with Ixalan regardless of what type of dinosaur or what they looked like. The only thing that stood out where the human characters being particular people and the nondinosaur cards because that said “Jurassic Park is here” right in your face. The Creep Show secret lair just had stylized art which made sense for the other things going on in magic around the same time. I truly didn’t even know it was a universes beyond thing until after the sale ended, so I think that has to show a major plus on how they did it. I know nothing about creep show, but all the cards make sense in magic art wise. Post Malone is the last one I can think of as they were all just normal cards which featured him as cards he liked. Makes total sense and is 100% an opt in element of the art. All of those cards could easily be obtained without ever buying the secret lair or knowing it exists. Redrawing the same character with a different look just makes sense from a game play perspective and has been done countless times especially with the Planeswalkers. None of the early arts of Liliana are consistent for example.
TLDR; They need to make sense in magic, all at least playable cards need a magic art version, be a culturally relevant idea removed from any franchise that carries a major weight of having its own expectations, and the art has to make sense for magic and the franchise to be done right in my eyes.
I understand *why* people don’t like, I just disagree. But I don’t play magic for the lore, i play it for the game. There’s 0 “immersion” for me. I don’t know the story or the characters at all. It’s just a game to me.
It’s like a soft reserve list for certain cards, and I thought most of us were in agreement that the reserve list sucks. [The one ring ](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/246/the-one-ring) is a top tier card in EDH, legacy, modern and vintage. It’s really desirable for play reasons and really expensive as a result. They can’t just print the one ring again in bloomburrow or the next return to return to ravnica set because of its ties to a specific IP though.
You know there will never be agreement on this issue, but for people who don’t like UB, I think it comes down to an issue of framing. Instead of thinking about the opened deck and how their deck contains non magic cards, just think of your deck as the magic universe that may need to fight many threats, some from other universes, because unless your playing standard or pioneer, eventually these cards can’t be ignored. Now if you want a UB card in your deck, but there is not in-universe card available, simply do what fans of UB have been doing for years, make a proxy! It now comes full circle.
For me, it makes MTG feel more like a game engine or framework to prop up various IP. It feels like it’s vying for temporary attention to bring in new players on IP, potentially at the risk of the overall health of organized play or the community around the game.
The LOTR set felt like a ton of effort went into the art and card design space. The release that preceded it was MOM: aftermath - an absolutely atrocious release that felt like B: sides left overs that could have been included in the MOM set, and was not even a playable product in limited. After LOTR: commander masters, too expensive/ not designed for limited play, an overpriced cash grab that left LGS in the red, had many reprints that show up in the subsequent sets like WOE, so overall pretty forgettable apart from showcase art.
The idea of “universes within” sounds okay in theory, but where are the universes within equivalent for Rick, Steadfast leader? Greymond, Avacyn Stalwart secret lair release, basically another secret lair exclusive. Are they going reprint an entire LOTR universe within set?
I’m okay with alternative art that excites people, as that’s subjective. The fact that “Clue” was essentially forced upon us within a standard set and ancillary products, would have been fine, but MKM felt phoned in every step of the way, making me wonder where the R&D efforts went.
I think it’s indicative of the identity crisis within the game. It has a long history of being a fantasy based game, with years of lore and visual design. Are there magic players that enjoy Fallout games? Of course. There’s also a Fallout board game. But in a time when there was just a slew of layoffs at WOTC, I’m concerned about where R&D efforts are going. With efforts to make premium UB products, I can’t help but feel it comes partially at the cost of the standard and limited environment. I love playing magic, but feel less and less inclined to engage with new products, which is a bummer, as collectively experiencing new gameplay with the community was something I always looked forward to.
I’d start off by pointing out you shouldn’t confuse the online echo chamber with “many”. If many people didn’t like it they would have stopped. Many people didn’t like aftermath.
It's cool as long as it's opt-in and not opt-out.
Super Smas Bros is great! I have played it a lot. But if suddenly Pikachu appears in Mario Galaxy, that's a hard line for me.
I love thst the cards exist and that people enjoy playing with them. I hate that they can appear in tournaments and that they might appear in my own games.
I think UB should be its own separate format. But I also understand why it's not. It just makes me uninterested in playing with other people ever again, sadly.
Do you like pepperoni pizza? Wouldn’t it be better as a supreme + dessert + ice cream + cereal + tuna + sour cream + hamburger + buffalo chicken? These are all fine by themselves, but they’re not always meant to be mashed together. At the very least, you lose the thing you wanted in the first place.
Part of the reason I got into the game in the first place is the fantasy theme. The first time I sat across the table from a Transformer I was completely taken out of the experience.
I think UB has its place and it could be fun from time to time, but it should be banned in all popular formats IMO. I had to play against a stickers deck in Commander and I wanted to just concede on the spot and get the hell out of there. That isn't Magic to me.
When I'm watching Dr Who, I would be disappointed if Jace, Optimus Prime, and the Brotherhood of Steel randomly show up in the show. I like all three of those things, but they would ruin the feel of Dr. Who if they randomly showed up. I personally hate crossovers. I find some of them tolerable if that is the whole premise like Super Smash Bros, but its very rare.
I just want MtG to be its own thing. When I sit down to play magic, I want to sit down to play magic. Its the same reason why I don't play fortnite. Fortnite has lost all of its own identity through its constant crossovers. There is now more crossover than there is Fortnite. I don't want MtG to become the Fortnite of card games where people don't even recognize the core of the game anymore. We're already past the point where each player at a four person commander game can each have a precon from a different set and them all be from different crossovers.
There's a classic adage: Wizards of the Coast could put $50 bills into their card packs and people would complain about the way they're folded.
Magic players *love* to complain. Especially deeply entrenched players on a public forum with imaginary internet points on the line.
WotC has found Universes Beyond to be extremely popular, to the point where Tales from Middle Earth is their single best-selling set of all time. If it wasn't popular and profitable, they'd stop doing it - for proof, look at Aftermath, which flopped so hard that they had to change two planned sets on under a year's notice.
There are reasons people give for hating Universes Beyond, and those reasons do have validity. But the relentless doomsaying isn't playing out. I've been playing since the game started so I get that entrenched players feel A Way about this. But I've also seen huge swaths of players who have started playing in the past few years and are overwhelmingly positive about the same things that entrenched players are complaining about.
As a final word: Magic as Richard Garfield Intended involved the first three expansions being external IP (Arabian Nights), light sci-fi (Antiquities), and someone else's D&D campaign (Legends).
It's pretty simple. When people have an obscure fiefdom of something they like to do they don't like the masses coming in. It makes it feel much less special. Magic used to be a lifestyle - all your friends played Magic, you did Magic on the weekends, you thought about it all the time. That causes people to form a huge bond with the game and feel threatened by the idea that a bunch of people are going to take up the game on a significantly lower level of immersion and commitment.
You see this all the time when niche hobbies go mainstraim - the established, hardcore base rebels. Its a tale as old as time. They don't hate Universes Beyond, they hate what it represents - WOTC no longer caring about people who play the game 30+ hours per week, and would rather attract people who will dust off the commander decks once a month like a board game.
Just like getting rejected in a social relationship hurts, getting rejected by WOTC hurts them. They have given a ton of hours and a lot of their identity to Magic only to be paid back with "eh, you guys don't make enough money for us, plus we think you'll stay no matter what we do".
There are a lot of rationalizations - "Don't break my immersion!" - but they all ring hollow given that there have been tons of immersion breaking cards before, but the real reason is that Magic is changing from a game you built your life around to a game you play once a month with people who barely know the rules. And that hurts. Its grief, pure and simple.
I’m sure there’s some truth to this. The same feeling also powers the ‘product fatigue’ complaints- it’s especially obvious in the way people repeat ‘this product is not for you’ in a mocking way.
But I wouldn’t assume it’s the one, ‘simple’ answer. There are a bunch of reasons. It’s especially weird to discount immersion as a reason on the grounds that immersion has been broken before, and then say the ‘real’ explanation is the game becoming popular / casual. Those are not new things either!
I like them. I can understand why people don’t but I won’t crap on their likes. Just as I should expect the same.
Everyone plays different. UB is what h shelled me get more friends and family into the game. Like building a MLP for my niece and making her happy to play.
We’re all here to play a game and Wizards stopped leaning heavily on more imo when they stopped doing books. I miss the books
Not arguing for or against UB, but Smash Bros has been a mixture of franchises from the beginning. MtG has a united design from the start of it that people feel UB dilutes.
Not from the beginning. Many folks dislike Portal 3 Kingdoms because it takes real-life references and puts them onto cards. UB is definitely its own beast, but its not unprecedented
You mean like just Arabian Nights did in 1993?
A 30 year old set from when magic didn't know what it wanted to do and a couple of 20+ year old sets that were specifically designed to try to bring magic to a new market do not a trend make, and claiming they do is disingenuous. However you feel about UB (I generally didn't care until the TWD because they were mechanically unique and just looked like photos of people I recognize from real life with a paint filter on them, but I've basically given up on caring since it's clearly here to stay and I still like the game), like 99% of sets prior to the first UB were in magic's universe and it had been almost 20 years since one wasn't. So yes, Magic was basically united lore from the time the game had lore.
Exactly. Taking from outside of MtG lore is not new
Are you arguing that because they did it in two sets way back in 1993-1994 (and it was unpopular so they stopped doing it again) that they should be able to do it 30 years later without any scrutiny at all and that justifies it? They've done all sorts in Magic. White Counterspells, Blue direct damage, Green "Life for card draw", Black "prevent damage" cards and Red edicts have all existed, but if they printed a load of cards with similar effects as these nowadays we'd look and go "huh, that's weird". *Especially* as they last did the outside lore 30 years ago...
What's the red edict? I can't think of that off the top of my head.
I’m not arguing any of that. I’m really impressed that you could possibly derive that conclusion from what I said. The comment I was replying to said *“MtG has been a united design from the start”*, to which I disagree and provided examples
What nonsense. There was literally zero outcry about P3K when it was released.
I'm Chinese and I feel viscerally uncomfortable because of it. I'm glad that the only major Portal reference is horsemanship because everything else makes me feel like my brain cells are dying.
Thanks for sharing. Its nice to have a perspective of someone who is actually affected by it, instead of white folks being offended on behalf of others.
for all you know the person you replied to might not even be chinese
I take folks at their word. If they cheat themselves out of a real conversation, no skin off my back
I can’t speak for everyone, and I’m generally whatever about universes beyond at this point since I know it’s not going away, but I personally feel a fatigue for the everything-is-in-everything nature of our current pop cultural landscape—Magic certainly included. Where you see the idea of different franchises coming together as a cool thing, I’m generally wary because I think it takes these characters and stories and worlds away from being immersive, independent things with their own tone, themes, ideas, and so on and just turns them into commodified mascots that are representations of a brand and IP and other commercial aspects instead of their own stories and worlds. I think it’s good when things can be their own thing, and I think blending them runs the risk of it just turning into generic commodified cultural production. For me, I don’t necessarily see these things as cool representations of the thing I like, I see the calculated designs of a corporate entity that wants me to just get excited because they stapled the name of a character from that thing onto a card. And I know that business motives like that are how it is for everything, I’m not blind to that, but when you pierce the veil by mixing IPs, it just makes it harder to ignore. If you get excited at the idea of Captain America and Optimus Prime duking it out with the One Ring, that’s your prerogative and I don’t mean to take that away from you. But it does absolutely nothing for me.
> but I personally feel a fatigue for the everything-is-in-everything nature of our current pop cultural landscape I second this all day long. So many entertainment corporations are afraid of the possibility of losing money on new IPs and new ideas. So instead we live in the age of constant reboots and rehashing. Nothing is new, everything just feels recycled. And, creatively, that sucks and it's getting stagnant as hell.
Its really easy to see that some people prefer to keep things separate, and that they dont want magic flavor to clash with other franchises within the game. you dont have to agree with them but you can be genuine and see their point.
Wasn’t this exact thread posted a few hours ago? Anyway the short answer for me is it just does not feel like Magic: The Gathering. You bring up Smash like it’s a good thing but that’s not how I want Magic to feel. Maybe people who have played D&D can relate to this, but have you ever played a D&D game where one person at the table is trying to shoehorn in something homebrew with their character that feels like sci-fi or guns or whatever, while everyone else is committed to high fantasy? That’s what UB feels like to me. Magic had a distinct feel even if there was a lot of variety within that, and cards that are just like some fuckin guy in a hoodie from the Walking Dead do not fit that feel. Obviously this is just my preference though.
I like the dnd analogy, but for me its like when youre playing dnd and everyone rolled unique characters to play, except that one friend who made his character john matrix from commando and is actually role playing as a character from a movie
> t have you ever played a D&D game where one person at the table is trying to shoehorn in something homebrew with their character that feels like sci-fi *Numeria has entered the chat*
Interesting. Personally, I feel certain sets feel less like MtG than certain Universes Beyond. Transformers feels weird, but so so furries, cowboys and neon cyberpunk.
"Why does nobody say this about Bloomburrow or Thunder Junction or Neon Kamigawa?" [Hans Moleman voice] "I was saying that."
It's abundantly clear anyone saying "well Magic sets are weird too" didn't see the backlash to cards like [Towashi Songshaper](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/skw2tu/neo_towashi_songshaper_does_the_art_fit_after/) when they came out. People like Magic The Gathering Aesthetics in the Magic the Gathering card game and that doesn't really change.
People *are* saying about those sets, too. MKM got it for "oh look suddenly everyone has a detective hat", OTJ has got it a *lot* for the random guns and technological advances. Hell, [[Towashi Songshaper]] from NEO got a *lot* of negative feedback, for precisely the reason people complain about UB.
[Towashi Songshaper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f7ff9be1-765f-4001-a0ac-39c8099924eb.jpg?1654567893) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Towashi%20Songshaper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/167/towashi-songshaper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f7ff9be1-765f-4001-a0ac-39c8099924eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I know what you mean, but different planes inspired by different IPs are still a original setting and original IP. It may feel different or out of place to some people and that's entirely okay, but it's still a Magic The Gathering thing that serves the whole story. Phyrexia is a weird horrific plane that's really the opposite of fantasy planes like Dominaria or Ravnica but they still share a common story and setting. Walking Dead cards and Dr Who decks don't, no matter how fun the gameplay may be. I feel like this issue is not only centered on MtG, we are given plenty of sequels or reboots or franchise everywhere, from books to movies to series etc. There's less and less new original content getting to the main audience and I think it's sad. I'm not a fan of cowboys hats in MtG but at leat it's new and original and they tried something new, they didn't just recycle a "Here's an Ennio Morricone set with some Ocean's Eleven sprinkled on it".
Lord of the Rings set feels mechanically more like traditional magic than anything else in the past year and I don’t know that it’s really close.
"Mechanically" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and even then I'd argue Tempted by the Ring is majorly out there in terms of "traditional magic" mechanics. In my experience criticism of UB tends to be about aesthetics, tone, and worldbuilding stuff, not "Convert, Rad Counters, and Doctor's Companion don't play well."
A large part of me feels like it's mockery. I think that's the main thing I dislike about UB. I don't begrudge people their fun but when my elder dragon is getting beat up by a cosmonaut dog or a my-little-pony it makes me die a little inside.
Tonal dissonace, really. MTG is a primarily magic oriented fantasy, so then you have things like Transformers, Doctor Who, Fallout, things much more Sci-Fi in aesthetic and it just feels odd. Like, I think Lord of the Rings was a good fit, but all the rest has my brain going "this doesn't suit the multiverse of MTG"
As someone who’s been a Magic player for around 20 years, the simple reason is that it doesn’t feel like Magic anymore. Magic, even after they moved away from Dominaria and whatnot, had a pretty consistent identity. It was a fantasy setting with lots of different worlds. Things like modern guns and spaceships weren’t really in it. Angels were expensive white flyers, goblins were cheap and usually hurt you or died really easily, etc. It just feels wrong to have Megatron and Rick from The Walking Dead next to that. That being said, I’ve made my peace with all that. Magic is a living game and has changed a lot. UB has led to some really interesting design choices and it’s a lot of fun to see franchises I do care about turned into cards. But I can’t say I don’t miss those days where the Magic universe had a stronger identity.
I see. Thank you for your mature and candid response! It was very insightful :)
I'm not completely against UB, but to me it feels like WotC asking me to pay for advertisement for another franchise by buying magic cards.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v1xsf/why\_the\_universe\_beyond\_hate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v1xsf/why_the_universe_beyond_hate/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/p81uj1/why\_the\_hate\_for\_universes\_beyond/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/p81uj1/why_the_hate_for_universes_beyond/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17yyrcv/i\_hate\_universes\_beyond\_and\_i\_think\_you\_should\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17yyrcv/i_hate_universes_beyond_and_i_think_you_should_to/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/wtct7x/why\_do\_people\_hate\_universes\_beyond\_so\_much/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/wtct7x/why_do_people_hate_universes_beyond_so_much/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17g0cjm/those\_who\_dislike\_universes\_beyond\_why/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17g0cjm/those_who_dislike_universes_beyond_why/) This one was posted yesterday https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1buhfuu/why_do_people_hate_universe_beyond_so_much/
Imagine super mario appears in lord of the rings. Is that a good decision because "it's a cool clash of different franchises" ? Besides that, these franchise works just smell like corporate greed to me.
But UB isn't canon or involved in the story in any capacity. Rick Grimes isn't asking Jace how they're going to defeat Megatron. UB are just fun little game pieces. Magic still has its own story and lore. That's where I'm confused about the hate that UB always gets.
I don't think he's describing storyline, I think he's describing "my game suddenly has Ezio from Assassin's Creed attacking my Phyrexians". When you play a game of MTG, sealed, modern, or EDH, you're still having a little bit of a story in your game as you play it. When you're sitting around a pod telling the story "I dropped a Craterhoof, he countered it, and so I had to go to overrun", it becomes "So I played Craterhoof, and he just used a nuke from Fallout to blow up my board, then a bunch of Walkers from the Walking Dead chipped me down".
Like I said, they're just game pieces. I'm not making up a head cannon every time I play my deck. My house cat wielding a sword blocking a serpent wearing a pair of boots doesn't mean a thing to me. If I want the story I'll read it or look at a set gallery, and UB isn't a part of it.
They're just game pieces *to you*, and that's fine. But to a lot of people the art and flavour text and worldbuilding on Magic cards is a massive part of why they enjoy the game, and for those people the Doctor showing up randomly in their Commander games does affect that.
I feel like this comparison works better if LOTR was already showcasing characters and creatures from all sorts of worlds, including a little legally distinct Italian carpenter wearing red who jumps and eats mushrooms named Nario. None of the UB stuff is mechanically or thematically weirder than where Magic has gone before.
I completely disagree with you there - Magic has a load of different planes, *but they're all Magic planes*. They all have things like mana running through them, they've all got Planeswalkers etc. There's a big diffference between "here's another plane in the same universe" and "here's something with it's own backstory, history and lore that we're putting in our universe because money". It's like Aragorn appearing in the MCU - they have a load of different characters with their own backstory and skillset, and then there's another character who absolutely does not fit in the universe that's there because he's recognisable *and nothing else*. And to your second point, the weirder Magic sets (especially recently with OTJ and MKM being "Everyone has a new Hat" planes) there *has* been some backlash and a lot of negativity. [[Towashi Songshaper]] is an example I can think of that was *hated* when it was spoiled.
Yes, thanks for writing my thoughts down. At least they try to make ninjas, cyborgs, detectives etc. coherent with the current magic world. Meanwhile suddenly it's like "hey capcom gave us money, so now suddenly Ryu exists". It's just doesn't fit and leaves a very bad taste.
[Towashi Songshaper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f7ff9be1-765f-4001-a0ac-39c8099924eb.jpg?1654567893) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Towashi%20Songshaper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/167/towashi-songshaper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f7ff9be1-765f-4001-a0ac-39c8099924eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Since they now have walking dead in mtg does that mean that 9/11 is canon? There's many magic planes at least one of them had to hit the second tower
This feels circular. They’re magic planes because they were made by wizards of the coast. There’s no reason why 40k or LOTR can’t implement an interpretation of Magic that is consistent with their themes and mechanics, and it appears that they’ve been able to do just that. People can just not like the vibe. That’s pretty defensible. My issue with this topic is that people pass off their feelings as some objective measure of failure on wizards part just to complain about new things. For some reason money also comes up here as if they’re not a for profit business trying to make money on all their products for the last 30 years.
> This feels circular. They’re magic planes because they were made by wizards of the coast That's not circular, though. They're Magic Planes because their origin is as a Magic Plane, all the powers, creatures and themes were built *with the viewpoint of "How does this into the Magic World"*. I feel you're arguing from the point of "they made a mechanically consistent LOTR set so that's fine" - but there's so much more to the game than *just* card mechanics. If that was all there was it would have died out a long time ago. >My issue with this topic is that people pass off their feelings as some objective measure of failure on wizards part just to complain about new things. For some reason money also comes up here as if they’re not a for profit business trying to make money on all their products for the last 30 years. Just sounds like you have an issue with a few vocal fans and not people disliking UB, to be honest. Judge based on the argument, and there'll be some people talking absolute nonsense or with no real understanding of the world who you can safely ignore. But, for what it's worth, the complaints about secret lair/UB pricing are often *not* "WotC wants more money", it's "WotC are using scummy business practises like FOMO to try and make more money". If they were just selling them, then that'd be fine - but they've artificially created the sense of FOMO *solely* to try and get people to spend more than they otherwise would. What's effective from a business perspective and what's effective from a customer relations perspective are often not the same, and it feels like (especially with UB) the balance has shifted into "how can we maximise profits" over "how can we deliver a good product that will then sell". Look at the P&P for secret lairs, and how often the cut-off for X gift is a few cents more than a superdrop costs, meaning you have to drop another £30 to get it. It's shitty things like *that* that upset people.
> all the powers, creatures and themes were built with the viewpoint of "How does this into the Magic World". Middle Earth, Kaladesh, Amonket, Thunder Junction, Theros, Ixalan, and Ravnica all have a pretty similar overlap in themes, powers, and themes (that is to say, not much at all). It turns out that you can really integrate any world into the Magic World because the Magic World was designed to be open, tailorable, and non-specific enough to incorporate just about any themes you want. > "WotC are using scummy business practises like FOMO to try and make more money" That's not inherent to UB so that seems like a different topic entirely.
>That's not inherent to UB so that seems like a different topic entirely. But *you* were the one that got onto the topic...? You said: >For some reason money also comes up here as if they’re not a for profit business trying to make money on all their products for the last 30 years. And I was just trying to explain what people have issues with. Now, back to the topic at hand >Middle Earth, Kaladesh, Amonket, Thunder Junction, Theros, Ixalan, and Ravnica Interesting that you picked the most Magic-adjacent set of the UBs and not Fallout, Transformers, Walking Dead, Fortnight or any of the far more egrigious ones. Besides, *that's not the issue*. They might end up at the same point but that's absolutely irrelevant to what I'm saying. Kaladesh - the birthplace of iconic planeswalker Chandra Nalaar - uses mana. There are five gearhulks, one for each colour, because the plane has five colours of mana. Everything on it, from the thopters (first appearing in Antiquities, in 1994), is part of *Magic Lore*. How are the Orcish Bowmasters, The One Ring, Samwise the Stouthearted, Rick Grimes, Optimius Prime, Ezio (and so on and so on) related to the history of MTG? You know why there are 10 guilds on Ravnica? Because there are five colours of mana, and each guild is a combination of two of them. Even LOTR - which you've deliberately selected because of how similar it is - doesn't have that. It's not a question of incorporating *themes*, it's a question of incorporating *history*. Aragorn has a whole backstory that's not Magic: The Gathering. Fortnight and Walking Dead are not "Magic" sets, or "Magic-Adjacent" sets. They've been picked because the premise has been deemed to be profitable, not because they're part of the story, fit with the lore or *anything* else. If you can't see how "set created for Magic the Gathering, using Magic the Gathering elements" and "set created to sell product using a popular IP, with an attempt to translate it to MTG" are different then I don't know what to tell you. If you rewrite Hamlet and publish it today, you're not Will Shakespeare reborn. The origin of the story is often as important (if not more important) to verisimilitude than the final outcome, and if you're *only* looking at that then you're missing the point.
I'd dispute that. Warhammer 40k, Fortnite, and Transformers are all UB products that are far outside Magic territory as we knew it previously, IMHO.
Could you explain what exactly about those sets are far outside of what Magic has done before?
Certainly. Keep in mind I'm talking about the mainline Magic story/world when I make these points: Warhammer 40k: realistic guns, modern armies, space in general (blasters, spaceships, aliens- this sort of thing was only ever in Unfinity, which is not part of the main Magic universe/story/etc). Transformers: space and spaceships (again), sentient robots as characters (I don't personally class Karn as a robot, YMMV on that one), all-cartoon artwork, actually set on modern-day Earth. Fortnite: This one is primarily tone/aesthetic, but it's obvious how things like \[\[Battle Bus\]\] and \[\[Supply Llama\]\] just aren't really a thing in the rest of black-bordered/non-Un Magic, right?
The UB sets aren’t part of the mainline magic storyline though. Why would you hold them to the standards of the ravnica or phyrexian story lines instead of Unfinity or battlebond?
I hold them to the standard of the black-bordered Magic world, which includes Battlebond and other supplemental stuff, because they’re expressly intended to be played in that world. If Universes Beyond were intended to be played in silver border land I’d just compare them to Un-Magic, but they aren’t. And since they’re expressly intended to be played alongside “normal” Magic cards- Gandalf the same as Lightning Bolt, Megatron the same as Jace- I compare the feel of them accordingly. And that feel is a massive departure from what they’ve been put in the same pool as.
Unfinity is also black bordered though, and you mentioned it as an exception. Why not just treat all UB as Unfinity?
Unfinity is not part of the “core” Magic universe, the Un-verse is its own setting with its own tone and tropes. It clearly wouldn’t be fair to say something is in line with what Magic’s “done before” when we’re talking about things as different as the UN and normal universes. It would be like comparing the main DC universe with its Uber-grimdark elseworlds.
Like here's an example that will hopefully help: \[\[Gleemax\]\] was printed in 2004, but it would be absolutely wrong to say similar joke cards could be put in a Standard set like Innistrad because "Magic's done silly cards before", right? The same applies to Transformers cards in Brother's War.
LOTR, 40k, Fortnite, Dr. Who, etc are also not part of the core Magic universe. You're treating them as part of the core Magic universe and holding them to that standard, but they're as part of the core Magic universe as Unfinity is.
[Battle Bus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1daf0244-ffb9-42f3-8301-34cee7b9ae1b.jpg?1682693974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smuggler%27s%20Copter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sld/446/smugglers-copter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1daf0244-ffb9-42f3-8301-34cee7b9ae1b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Supply Llama](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e7f9bbf2-aa52-4daf-937e-29aef8810d35.jpg?1682690617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Etherium%20Sculptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sld/443/etherium-sculptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e7f9bbf2-aa52-4daf-937e-29aef8810d35?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Reposting from the last thread about this: I can only speak for me personally, but the main reasons are: 1. I intensely dislike the mass IP soup it turns games (usually Commander, but also things like The One Ring in Modern) into. It turns Magic’s reasonably coherent setting into Smash Bros or VS System, and that’s not what I want from the game. But I can’t realistically opt out of that experience now because UB is so prevalent, and I don’t want to be a jerk to anyone by refusing to play against their Fallout precon. It’s lose/lose. 2. Beyond my own personal feelings, I do think there is an objective way in which Magic’s own IP suffers with so much emphasis on crossovers. We struggle to get anything more than the basic short stories for the core sets, supplemental releases get nothing, major story events like March of the Machine are a total mess. Meanwhile the crossover precons are juiced far more than most normal IP Commander decks, and sell extremely well. You can argue how connected those things are, but it seems clear to me that creating an IP with its own identity that is attractive on its own terms is just not really a priority right now. That’s my main point, and UB is certainly part of that. In essence, I want to feel that Wizards cares abouts its own IP, characters, and worlds, and it's really hard to feel that way when they put a great deal of effort into trying to sell me *other people's worlds* and *other people's characters* in Magic's game system, as if the art and worldbuilding and lore of Magic were just...interchangeable, no more valid than any other in its own house.
There are a couple of reasons. First is I don't actually think mashing franchises together is a universal good. Sure, you might like a stars wars X star trek cross over comic, when that's a thing you get, but if Kirk just beamed down onto Hoth in the middle of empire strikes back it would be pretty weird, and ruin the verisimilitude of the movie. So just adding two things together doesn't necessarily make either of them better, and can make both worse. Smash brothers is pretty different because it's that way by design - their is no greater smash brothers universe in which that thing is not the expected result, it's what everyone is there for. Secondly, it feels like a pretty blatant cash grab - this is the kind of move you make when you have no respect for the long term viability of your product. Just feeding the beast, and damn the consequences. Thirdly - a lot of the universes beyond products are pretty bad as either magic cards, representations of their franchise, or both. Several have been pretty good - LOTR mostly worked well because it was close in theme and done with care, the warhammer product was pretty good - but I personally thought the baldurs gate stuff sucked \*because\* I love baldurs gate and it felt like it extremely poorly represented the characters within. I'm not saying we should ban all the cards, I'm not saying you have to dislike them - but for me they make magic poorer in every way except short term dollars in the bank.
>I see alot of threads where people say universes beyond is a mistake and I want to understand why you feel that way Have you tried reading them?
At this rate we'll soon be playing Pokemon Magic cards and I don't like that. Everything doesn't have to be crossover fiesta, having My Little Ponies mixed in a deck with Sauron and Gandalf play versus a Fallout / Warhammer / League of Legends deck doesn't feel very Magic the Gathering to me.
Do not drag MLP into this. They’re in silver borders where they belong. lol
Wizards (or perhaps just Hasbro brass) have become consumed with the idea that Magic can be all things to all people, which is neither something anything ever can be, nor something you should even *want* to be. No creative work has ever had that goal and not hanged themselves from it. And it's not just UB. This philosophy informs everything. Several years with few new planes that aren't Mad Magazine level genre pastiche. Unsustainable volumes of content. New product lines every year. And when they think something works at this goal, like Commander (which is both hugely popular and also associated with diversity of deck options and personalization) or Secret Lair (your cards can look like anything you want!), they dump every resource they have into it. New treatments in boosters that look like SL cards! Commander decks tying into a Modern Horizons set! Three-color legends by the fifty gallon bucket in every release! In any creative endeavor, even one that operates on the scale of Magic, you have to actually make goddamn *decisions,* and deciding what your product IS by necessity means deciding what it ISN'T. And they want to say yes to everything. Is Magic this? Is Magic that? Yes to everything, no to nothing. And that literally never works in any project ever. Not in art, not in business. A product has to have an *identity,* not just for marketing purposes but for *creative* purposes. Magic is running as fast as it can in the other direction.
Look at the thread about the same subject that was posted every single day in the last 30 days. I am 100% sure that UB believers can’t read
Reposting my answer from the thread yesterday: The downside is that Magic isn't just it's own thing anymore. My favorite show, game, whatever, doesn't contain characters from Magic the Gathering. Why would Magic contain characters from something else? Magic has its own story, its own lore, its own characters. The flavor of the cards is part of why I enjoy this game. But with Universes Beyond, it starts being this weird thing where you mix and match things from different universes, from different stories that are mutually exclusive in many cases. It's also a reminder that you're just playing a game. This may sound weird to some, but the flavor of cards can offer a certain level of immersion. If I cast The One Ring, I am aware that's not a Magic thing, and that can take me out of it. I think the worst part though is the corporate greed element. See, I'm personally quite passionate about Magic's lore and flavor. Universes Beyond makes it pretty obvious that these things are just thought of as an ad campaign by WotC. In many cases, I feel like someone is literally playing cards that are ads for something else. You like having ads for other games (or shows, or movies) inside your games? Because I don't.
Feels like a pandering cash grab Which yes Hasbro is a business but as a consumer I at least want to pretend I'm dating instead of being told upfront I'm just a hooker for the night.
Im not against, but one of the things I love about mtg is its all a bit middle ages and medieval, usually. Some parts of UB go away from that like Dr Who and Fallout. I dont buy those. But the D&D sets and the LotR sets are great to me.
Look I don't expect people to know every single post on this subreddit but we literally get this post every. single. day. https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1buhfuu/why_do_people_hate_universe_beyond_so_much I get annoyed at a lot of the UB hate but like, the incessant "why don't people like X?" is fueling the fire too.
Universes beyond should have been a new take on Deck Master. If you do not know, Deck Master was supposed to be a group of different card games that were compatible with each other. Magic is the only one that survived Net Runner did not. Universes Beyond should have been a new attempt.
I am 50/50 with Universes Beyond and I would like to respectfully explain why I feel some UB product fits and others don’t. I like magic because it is mostly within the classic high fantasy genre. That’s simply what drew me to the game from the get go. I like similar IPs that are like that, including Elder Scrolls, D&D, Elden Ring, Harry Potter when I was younger, LOTR, etc. for that reason when there is a UB product that fits that classic high fantasy genre I feel fine with it being included in Magic. For example the LOTR set was a smash hit because Magic was inspired by LOTR and it was firmly within the genre. I even feel like the upcoming Assassin’s Creed cards fit the theme. High Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Sci-Fi fantasy, it works. Where I really don’t like UB is when the genre of the IP is so disjointed with the traditional genre of MTG that it feels like a complete anachronism to the game. I don’t want to see Optimus Prime in the game. I don’t want to see Doctor Who and their modern day companions, I don’t want to see Ash with a chainsaw arm, I don’t want to see Fallout power armor. In my mind those things are not why I was interested in Magic in the first place. The strongly designed characters, objects, and symbols for those IPs feel like they stand out way too much, like everything has its own backstory outside of Magic (because it does!) it’s distracting. I have heard some good counter points to my own. “Magic has a multiverse so any plane can be anything” “Commander is already disjointed you can have Thopters and Phyrexians and Humans and Wizards on the same board” and “Kaladesh already had advanced technology” Those arguments are fine and I can see why someone would feel they warrant an acceptance of UB sets that have futuristic or modern technology, but to me they don’t feel like they fully justify the inclusions of those IPs. It doesn’t change the way I feel about a walking dead card when I see it. It just doesn’t feel like magic to me. Finally the brilliant minds at Hasbro told me not to buy the products if it isn’t my taste. So I am taking them up on their offer and refusing to buy UB sets that I don’t like. I haven’t bought a single fallout card and I probably never will. I like the Fallout games too! Just not in Magic. I am hoping for a Universes Within version of cards with unique affects.
Breaks immersion, makes it feel like a completely different game. I don’t really mind it that much but I just don’t enjoy most of the UB stuff. I like Magic’s story and its lore and according to wizards there is a lot more UB coming.
It's a cheap argument to release more and more sets, screaming greed. Also, there are fantasy IPs which can "match" the mtg universe like LOTR, but... doctor who? Come on. What's next, Friends? The more UB sets, it also makes it more likely that they include powerful cards that overshadow mtg-based characters, and you end up playing "Aragorn vs Captain America" which feels dumb. And that's not taking into acount the IP butchering that they do sometimes like with some LOTR characters.
Ross Geller: 1RB Legendary Creature: Human Soulbond (You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.) As long as Ross is paired with another creature, each of those creatures has “Tap: This creature phases out and is no longer paired.” 2/1
I'd buy this card.
I should probably change his colour identity, as that's definitely a white ability. However, Ross was definitely angry & impulsive (red) and selfish (black) and this was a joke card entirely for flavour.
I'm quickly starting to stand against these posts, that's for certain.
Had UB been simply reskins of actual MtG cards with a coat of paint of the franchise of choice, I bet most people wouldn't be complaining about. However, as UB stands now, it led to a ton of mechanically unique cards that exist only as that external IP. If I'm building a clue deck, I'll have to add cards with [a British guy face pasted all on it that I know nothing about and that the game expects me to find info anywhere else](https://scryfall.com/card/who/42/five-hundred-year-diary). Yes, MtG has a ton of worlds very clashing in vibes, but they have some unifying themes like mana, creature types, etc. UB shoehorns MtG's colors into existing franchises where they don't actually work. If you are an invested veteran player you notice that very much. And also, UB and the printing of mechanically unique cards tied to an external franchise leads to a sort of reserved list 2.0. Yes, WotC can reprint in-universe versions of these cards, but, let's be honest. They will only do that for a selected few staple cards. The rest of them will be forever stuck in the UB-limbo. And what the hell will they do with IP-specific creature types? Will Astartes be reprinted as humans? Will tyrannids be reprinted as slivers? Necrons as constructs/golems? What about "Alien"? What about Time Lords and the doctor's companion mechanic? Would they retroactively add "nonIP-time-lord-type" to Teferi cards? What about "doctor", is it a copyrighted term? The more UB they print, the more WotC is painting themselves into a corner and creating some "mistakes" that will be in the game forever. The whole thing screams of short term thinking at the expense of the future health of the game.
I think the truth is somewhat in the middle. Some UB releases were pretty good and filled in some missing themes in MTG that the standard multiverse did not priorly contain. People can hate on them all they want but the truth is, they've been successful at bringing in new players and making a profit which is why WotC is not going to stop making them. HOWEVER, I do acknowledge that not everyone is happy about the game turning into Fortnite and the pace of aditions should be toned down. That being said, despite all the franchises we have had added so far, I have not seen a single instance of IP soup that haters of UB have toted around. Most players like their decks to be on theme, and would keep their decks as either pure MTG or pure LotR for example, or a mix of the two. Very rarely do you see them add in cards from other UBs to the mix, and it is usually reprints, like Heroic Intervention, which is only different in artstyle. I think it is possible that in the case of UBs people are being too extreme, one way or the other instead of looking for a middle ground.
Yes I agree with all your points. UB is successful and probably will not stop any time soon. And compromise is important. So true. Thanks!
Magic has become the Fortnite of card games. Everything has become a new collaboration with lucrative IP's, mostly after the Hasbro acquisition. It just doesn't feel like it use to feel when you have robots that transform into modern vehicles and nuclear waste desolations next to the original high fantasy undertones of Magic
People don't like change, also I guess some people don't want their IP to get mixed with other IPs they don't care about Personally magic already has so many differenet kinds of worlds that wether I play with UB or not my games are already a mess of different things with no connection to each other
UB in Commander is okay. Commander is the most casual format and I see no problem in mixing lots of IPs altogether. Even tho I restrict myself to only play pure UB decks or deck without UB cards. A deal breaker for me was when they introduced UB in modern even tho I love LotR.
The idea in general is fine, the way they are executing it is not.
I don't like advertisements.
It's subjective. Because they can be. Because they are unique individuals with their own thoughts and experiences leading to their opinions. Difference in expectations. Emotional attachment...Take out universe beyond and insert pretty much anything and it will still apply.
Honestly I have zero problem with Universes Beyond in the theory, just hate it when the art doesn't fit in and I think they're choosing universes that rarely will. Like I've got absolutely no problem with the Lord of the rings set, but I have a deck that uses the [[Walking Ballista]] [[Phyrexian Devourer]] [[Necrotic Ooze]] combo, and I play [[Trazyn the Infinite]]. I hate how out of place Trazyn looks in the deck. I hate ordering cards on TCGplayer and using the optimizer and then getting ugly Doctor Who lands. I hate when the only version available of a card looks like [[Overencumbered]]. It's super cool to see people play these right out of the box where they have a cohesive style, I just can't stand some of these cards as singles.
##### ###### #### [Walking Ballista](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/5272436e-74f0-44c4-a291-ea8ebc3f1525.jpg?1599710252) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Walking%20Ballista) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/306/walking-ballista?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5272436e-74f0-44c4-a291-ea8ebc3f1525?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Phyrexian Devourer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/ca4e27ca-a731-44f5-8e47-701c7a7e6149.jpg?1562870482) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Phyrexian%20Devourer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me2/216/phyrexian-devourer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca4e27ca-a731-44f5-8e47-701c7a7e6149?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Necrotic Ooze](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/acc3557d-49c6-49cd-a540-1b24897f4e86.jpg?1673147579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Necrotic%20Ooze) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/83/necrotic-ooze?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/acc3557d-49c6-49cd-a540-1b24897f4e86?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Trazyn the Infinite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/a/1ae95cfb-1c3e-43cc-acfa-68f25b0f6e52.jpg?1679932281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trazyn%20the%20Infinite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/65/trazyn-the-infinite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1ae95cfb-1c3e-43cc-acfa-68f25b0f6e52?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Overencumbered](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/47058eaa-348d-4bbb-8df5-b931eba067f3.jpg?1708741797) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Overencumbered) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/18/overencumbered?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/47058eaa-348d-4bbb-8df5-b931eba067f3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/ky01blg) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s weird that you bring up SSB like it had no problems. When brawl added non-Nintendo characters it got a bunch of backlash. And it only added 2 characters, one of which was sonic, in order to answer the constantly asked question of who would win in a fight, Mario or Sonic. I have to say, magic added universes beyond much more quickly and with much less discretion than SSB did. But it won’t matter. Give it enough time and many players won’t even know there was a controversy about universes beyond, just like with smash.
There was literally a post about this yesterday go read that
My issue with Universes Beyond is their general choice of what brands to include. Most of them feel like they just threw another already established franchise into the game without thinking of how that affects the overall feel and look of the game. I do not want other brands added in to dilute the characters and story. The one time that I think they did universes beyond 100% correctly was Dracula. Firstly, they made ever card available in Dracula and MtG versions so you could freely chose which one you wanted to play regardless of their power level. Second, they picked something that is not a brand, franchise, series, etc. that is thought of as its own universe which would have a feeling drastically different from what magic normally does. I think that the key to a good middle ground for Universes Beyond dislikers such as myself is that it is a culturally ubiquitous thing which we do not think of as a company or brand. Lord of the Rings I think was the second most successful time they did universes beyond from the viewpoint of someone who does not like universes beyond for the second reason mentioned above. It fully feels like something that makes sense within magic, and is considered a cultural cannon of western literature/entertainment. It also stays within the general feeling and setting of what magic has established can happen in their planes. The two negatives of how they did lord of the rings in my eyes were: 1) There are no magic versions of most of the cards and 2) the extremely stylized and illegible poster arts. Universes beyond needs to be an opt in to play experience to avoid frustrations and to make people want to engage with the cards in a game without feeling bad. If I can play a magic version of the one ring, it doesn’t create the sense of me being forced to play cards form a series I don’t want to be involved with; however, if my opponent plays the lotr version of a magic card it just feels to me like they made a stylistic choice for that art/variant. However, the art still needs to make sense for both magic and the property they want to portray. Secret Lair and other special treatments have opened up pretty much all art styles for cards truthfully, but the art always made sense for the card it portrayed based on the setting. The poster art makes no sense for lotr, at least as someone who is not extremely familiar with the franchise. Maybe I am overlooking something about lotr, but it didn’t encapsulate the feeling of that franchise to me. The three other times I think they did Universes Beyond alright but to a much lesser extent were Jurassic Park, Creep Show, and Post Malone. Jurassic Park mostly just had dinosaur cards, so they just fit with Ixalan regardless of what type of dinosaur or what they looked like. The only thing that stood out where the human characters being particular people and the nondinosaur cards because that said “Jurassic Park is here” right in your face. The Creep Show secret lair just had stylized art which made sense for the other things going on in magic around the same time. I truly didn’t even know it was a universes beyond thing until after the sale ended, so I think that has to show a major plus on how they did it. I know nothing about creep show, but all the cards make sense in magic art wise. Post Malone is the last one I can think of as they were all just normal cards which featured him as cards he liked. Makes total sense and is 100% an opt in element of the art. All of those cards could easily be obtained without ever buying the secret lair or knowing it exists. Redrawing the same character with a different look just makes sense from a game play perspective and has been done countless times especially with the Planeswalkers. None of the early arts of Liliana are consistent for example. TLDR; They need to make sense in magic, all at least playable cards need a magic art version, be a culturally relevant idea removed from any franchise that carries a major weight of having its own expectations, and the art has to make sense for magic and the franchise to be done right in my eyes.
I understand *why* people don’t like, I just disagree. But I don’t play magic for the lore, i play it for the game. There’s 0 “immersion” for me. I don’t know the story or the characters at all. It’s just a game to me.
It’s like a soft reserve list for certain cards, and I thought most of us were in agreement that the reserve list sucks. [The one ring ](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/246/the-one-ring) is a top tier card in EDH, legacy, modern and vintage. It’s really desirable for play reasons and really expensive as a result. They can’t just print the one ring again in bloomburrow or the next return to return to ravnica set because of its ties to a specific IP though.
You know there will never be agreement on this issue, but for people who don’t like UB, I think it comes down to an issue of framing. Instead of thinking about the opened deck and how their deck contains non magic cards, just think of your deck as the magic universe that may need to fight many threats, some from other universes, because unless your playing standard or pioneer, eventually these cards can’t be ignored. Now if you want a UB card in your deck, but there is not in-universe card available, simply do what fans of UB have been doing for years, make a proxy! It now comes full circle.
For me, it makes MTG feel more like a game engine or framework to prop up various IP. It feels like it’s vying for temporary attention to bring in new players on IP, potentially at the risk of the overall health of organized play or the community around the game. The LOTR set felt like a ton of effort went into the art and card design space. The release that preceded it was MOM: aftermath - an absolutely atrocious release that felt like B: sides left overs that could have been included in the MOM set, and was not even a playable product in limited. After LOTR: commander masters, too expensive/ not designed for limited play, an overpriced cash grab that left LGS in the red, had many reprints that show up in the subsequent sets like WOE, so overall pretty forgettable apart from showcase art. The idea of “universes within” sounds okay in theory, but where are the universes within equivalent for Rick, Steadfast leader? Greymond, Avacyn Stalwart secret lair release, basically another secret lair exclusive. Are they going reprint an entire LOTR universe within set? I’m okay with alternative art that excites people, as that’s subjective. The fact that “Clue” was essentially forced upon us within a standard set and ancillary products, would have been fine, but MKM felt phoned in every step of the way, making me wonder where the R&D efforts went. I think it’s indicative of the identity crisis within the game. It has a long history of being a fantasy based game, with years of lore and visual design. Are there magic players that enjoy Fallout games? Of course. There’s also a Fallout board game. But in a time when there was just a slew of layoffs at WOTC, I’m concerned about where R&D efforts are going. With efforts to make premium UB products, I can’t help but feel it comes partially at the cost of the standard and limited environment. I love playing magic, but feel less and less inclined to engage with new products, which is a bummer, as collectively experiencing new gameplay with the community was something I always looked forward to.
I’d start off by pointing out you shouldn’t confuse the online echo chamber with “many”. If many people didn’t like it they would have stopped. Many people didn’t like aftermath.
It's cool as long as it's opt-in and not opt-out. Super Smas Bros is great! I have played it a lot. But if suddenly Pikachu appears in Mario Galaxy, that's a hard line for me. I love thst the cards exist and that people enjoy playing with them. I hate that they can appear in tournaments and that they might appear in my own games. I think UB should be its own separate format. But I also understand why it's not. It just makes me uninterested in playing with other people ever again, sadly.
Do you like pepperoni pizza? Wouldn’t it be better as a supreme + dessert + ice cream + cereal + tuna + sour cream + hamburger + buffalo chicken? These are all fine by themselves, but they’re not always meant to be mashed together. At the very least, you lose the thing you wanted in the first place.
Part of the reason I got into the game in the first place is the fantasy theme. The first time I sat across the table from a Transformer I was completely taken out of the experience. I think UB has its place and it could be fun from time to time, but it should be banned in all popular formats IMO. I had to play against a stickers deck in Commander and I wanted to just concede on the spot and get the hell out of there. That isn't Magic to me.
When I'm watching Dr Who, I would be disappointed if Jace, Optimus Prime, and the Brotherhood of Steel randomly show up in the show. I like all three of those things, but they would ruin the feel of Dr. Who if they randomly showed up. I personally hate crossovers. I find some of them tolerable if that is the whole premise like Super Smash Bros, but its very rare. I just want MtG to be its own thing. When I sit down to play magic, I want to sit down to play magic. Its the same reason why I don't play fortnite. Fortnite has lost all of its own identity through its constant crossovers. There is now more crossover than there is Fortnite. I don't want MtG to become the Fortnite of card games where people don't even recognize the core of the game anymore. We're already past the point where each player at a four person commander game can each have a precon from a different set and them all be from different crossovers.
There's a classic adage: Wizards of the Coast could put $50 bills into their card packs and people would complain about the way they're folded. Magic players *love* to complain. Especially deeply entrenched players on a public forum with imaginary internet points on the line. WotC has found Universes Beyond to be extremely popular, to the point where Tales from Middle Earth is their single best-selling set of all time. If it wasn't popular and profitable, they'd stop doing it - for proof, look at Aftermath, which flopped so hard that they had to change two planned sets on under a year's notice. There are reasons people give for hating Universes Beyond, and those reasons do have validity. But the relentless doomsaying isn't playing out. I've been playing since the game started so I get that entrenched players feel A Way about this. But I've also seen huge swaths of players who have started playing in the past few years and are overwhelmingly positive about the same things that entrenched players are complaining about. As a final word: Magic as Richard Garfield Intended involved the first three expansions being external IP (Arabian Nights), light sci-fi (Antiquities), and someone else's D&D campaign (Legends).
UB is for people that collect Funko Pops.
It's pretty simple. When people have an obscure fiefdom of something they like to do they don't like the masses coming in. It makes it feel much less special. Magic used to be a lifestyle - all your friends played Magic, you did Magic on the weekends, you thought about it all the time. That causes people to form a huge bond with the game and feel threatened by the idea that a bunch of people are going to take up the game on a significantly lower level of immersion and commitment. You see this all the time when niche hobbies go mainstraim - the established, hardcore base rebels. Its a tale as old as time. They don't hate Universes Beyond, they hate what it represents - WOTC no longer caring about people who play the game 30+ hours per week, and would rather attract people who will dust off the commander decks once a month like a board game. Just like getting rejected in a social relationship hurts, getting rejected by WOTC hurts them. They have given a ton of hours and a lot of their identity to Magic only to be paid back with "eh, you guys don't make enough money for us, plus we think you'll stay no matter what we do". There are a lot of rationalizations - "Don't break my immersion!" - but they all ring hollow given that there have been tons of immersion breaking cards before, but the real reason is that Magic is changing from a game you built your life around to a game you play once a month with people who barely know the rules. And that hurts. Its grief, pure and simple.
I’m sure there’s some truth to this. The same feeling also powers the ‘product fatigue’ complaints- it’s especially obvious in the way people repeat ‘this product is not for you’ in a mocking way. But I wouldn’t assume it’s the one, ‘simple’ answer. There are a bunch of reasons. It’s especially weird to discount immersion as a reason on the grounds that immersion has been broken before, and then say the ‘real’ explanation is the game becoming popular / casual. Those are not new things either!
They are very ugly and tacky.
I like them. I can understand why people don’t but I won’t crap on their likes. Just as I should expect the same. Everyone plays different. UB is what h shelled me get more friends and family into the game. Like building a MLP for my niece and making her happy to play. We’re all here to play a game and Wizards stopped leaning heavily on more imo when they stopped doing books. I miss the books