0 comments
These past few months have been quite busy for Magic: The Gathering. Between the announcement of three Universes Beyond expansions, six sets for Standard in 2025, and other new features for 2025, such as Aetherdrift
and its clear references to works like Akira and Mad Max, the game's community has been debating a lot about the future.
As we move away from the day of the announcements, the cacophony begins to quiet down and this gives us space to better process the information and develop some ideas on the subject - one of them, as I mentioned in another article, is the concern about the lack of a sense of identity that Magic may suffer in the coming years, a crisis that it has already faced since it began to insist too much on tropes like Duskmourn or, let's face it, the Aetherdrift trailer.
Ad
Ideally, Wizards would understand that Universes Beyond is a special product and should be treated as such: three expansions in a year take away the feeling of “being special”, and consequently, make expansions like Final Fantasy, Marvel or any other that comes in the future “just another product”.
That same Wizards, however, is a subsidiary of Hasbro. In the end, it is the one that gives the orders that the Magic: The Gathering design team follows. With three Universes Beyond expansions in 2025, the message is clear: “we are interested in expanding our catalog of partnerships in one of our most profitable products”*.
Universes Beyond will be a bestseller. If there was any doubt about that, just look at how Secret Lair x Marvel drew hours-long lines and sold out as quickly as a single-date international stadium show on Ticketmaster - there's no way to measure the potential that Spider Man has to surpass Lord of the Rings as the best-selling expansion of all time, and Final Fantasy shouldn't be far behind, despite the franchise being in a more niche area, and assuming the third set is Avatar: The Last Airbender, I'm sure it will sell as well as the other partnerships.
Over the past few days, given the certainty of Universes Beyond's success, I've been thinking in reverse: instead of being apprehensive about the idea of three crossover sets and what that might mean for the future, I've been wondering how, given the numbers, it's likely that this will become the "new normal" or, even, that there will come a time when Magic is just one IP in a cluster of brands in a game system - a thought worthy of sending shivers down the spines of any longtime Magic fan who has followed the changes lately.
Magic's identity is the game itself
What defines Magic: The Gathering? The cards? Mana? Planeswalkers? Its ability to build worlds with distinct cultures and stories in its multiverse? What part of it is its sense of identity and unites the entire community around the game?
Before it's anything else, Magic is a set of rules and mechanics written on cardboard pieces that can be combined into a deck of cards to play against your opponents. Whether you play at your kitchen table, on MTGArena on your phone, at a friend's house with Commander, or at a big competitive tournament, the language that you and everyone around you involved in MTG understands are the rules.
When people ask me "how do you play Magic?" my first answer is something like "lands generate mana, you need mana to play your spells, you must defeat your opponent, and cards are used to achieve that goal". Yes, it's very simplistic and there are countless nuances, rules and mechanics in between, but the basic concept of Magic: The Gathering is this concept - this is the first thing anyone needs to understand before playing Magic, from there and with elementary knowledge of the rules (one land per turn, combat phase, draw, etc. - all with the addendum unless a card says otherwise), a person can do whatever they want with Magic and follow any path they want.
Ad
To play Magic, a person doesn't need to understand the concept of what a Planeswalker is, but rather how a Planeswalker card works. It's not necessary to understand what Dominaria is or care about Teferi - that person just needs to like the game, know the rules and have fun. The rest comes from that point, and it's not necessary to consume any complementary product (books, comics, etc.) to keep the person engaged.
Yes, Magic loses a lot of its narrative essence when it leaves aside its own identity and aesthetic: people who like, for example, the romance between Chandra and Nissa and who perhaps got more involved in the game because of them would be disappointed if the game were just a conglomeration of IPs. Narrative arcs, like those of Phyrexia or Urza's Saga, gave the game what it needed to establish itself and hit the market.
But Magic is already 30 years old, it is already consolidated, it is already one of, if not the largest, TCG in the world and the foundation of its pillars was and continues to be the game itself, its set of rules and systems and the way it brings people together.
Hasbro-ification
And while Magic: The Gathering has consolidated itself in this space, the TCG market has never been stronger, both inside the game (MagicCon Vegas was the largest Magic event in history) and outside of it. To mention some recent industry successes, we have Flesh and Blood, One Piece TCG, Lorcana, and a dozen other physical TCGs that emerge every year, in addition to the consolidation of digital TCGs such as the recently launched Pokémon Pocket, which raised approximately US$ 120 million in three weeks.
They all have one or two things in common:
Lorcana is Disney's TCG, One Piece is the most watched manga series in the world, and there is no need to explain what Marvel or Pokémon is, so Hasbro looked at its product Magic: The Gathering, a TCG that had been consolidated for 30 years and that, during that time, had to deal with several card games trying to repeat its successful formula. The company then looked at these potential competitors against one of its biggest sales assets, and the logical reaction was to say: “Look, we have the system, it has been working for 30 years. You just need to give us the brand”.
With the decision to take this stance, the Universes Beyond series was launched, when Secret Lair x The Walking Dead tested the waters, with public approval being recorded as Lord of the Rings became Magic's best-selling expansion and Marvel's Secret Lair was an absolute sales success, and through these, Magic took great strides towards a transformation: some call it Fortnite-ification, but Fortnite was born with this structure - what happens with Magic is a Hasbro-ification.
Think of one of Hasbro's great classics: Monopoly. A quick search led to the discovery that there are game boxes with partnerships ranging from Lord of the Rings and Pokémon to Britney Spears. All Monopoly products share the same set of rules, with just a few personalized nuances in certain products to better fit the proposed theme of the box. Perhaps that's why they are still sold.
Ad
Magic shares this same trait, its rule set is universal. Whatever's on the cards, be it a Phyrexian Obliterator or a Wolverine, Best There Is, fits the way the game works, so anything can go on a piece of cardboard: cards from its own universe, Sauron, Lord of the Rings, even SpongeBob SquarePants.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Ken Troop, senior vice president of the game, gave a statement that sums up Hasbro's philosophy with Magic and how it fits into the mold of what they've done with other products:
“Think of Magic as a canvas. The Magic IP is one of the things we can put on that canvas, but we can put other things on it.”
- Ken Troop
As in the presentation during MagicCon Vegas, it's clear that Wizards/Hasbro is separating Magic: the game from Magic: the intellectual property. The game now belongs to whoever wants to participate in it, from geek culture classics like Marvel to a classic from the youth like SpongeBob SquarePants, and as scary as it may seem to have singers in their products like Monopoly does, they've already crossed that line with Post Malone and Hatsune Miku.
On one hand, the logic sounds like “If we can do it with other products, we can do it with Magic because it sells so well and people are so passionate about the game that it doesn’t matter if we put an outside character in here,” but at the same time, it has a certain air of “if Fortnite did it, Magic can do it” because they both try to appeal to a certain demographic.
But what about Magic as a Competitive Game?
Fortnite was the first game of international relevance to be considered by the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic eSport, and it also has its own competitive structure, which included a World Championship with a prize pool of US$30 million in 2019.
The fact that players can use any character, singer they have ever collaborated with, or a generic skin from the game makes no difference when defining Fortnite as a competitive gaming modality and/or categorizing it as an eSport. So, what would make Magic different in this sense for the public?
Through MTGArena, Wizards tried very hard and enter the eSports universe and failed: its proposal did not attract as many niche players as expected, its game model is not as rewarding to compete if you do not invest heavily in time or money, and the game system is not as intuitive as Fortnite or any other eSport to the point that anyone considers that they can enter the competitive scene - not to mention the several structural flaws in Arena that made even the World Championships and other official tournaments during the pandemic very embarrassing to watch.
With the expansion of its game to other IPs, there are a dozen paths that Magic can follow when we talk about it as a competitive game. On the one hand, it can continue as it is and there will only be a rotation of names and brands that pass through the game in its rotating format, while the other formats, such as Pioneer, Modern or Legacy, only deal with the agglomeration of heroes and fictional characters from other universes in the game.
Ad
If the plan is to turn competitive Magic into the IP cluster that brings together hundreds of thousands of people from different cultures to watch Worlds, that proposal works in the long run now that every Standard set lasts three years. Cloud Strife could, in 2028, be fighting Dr. Octopus, but also Jon Snow, Iron Man, Kratos, Aaang, and a dozen other characters at the tables of a Pro Tour. Another terrifying thought for those who have been in the game for decades, but one that could appeal to a different audience.
What if Universes Beyond starts creating formats?
There is another - perhaps parallel - route that Magic could take from this point when it comes to competitive play. Let's assume that the partnership with Marvel, for example, lasts long enough to release one or more annual expansions for five years. All of them are legal in Standard, but all of them could also be legal in the “Marvel” format.
If Final Fantasy is accompanied, in 2028, by a “Final Fantasy: The Spinoffs”, Wizards is already starting to open the door to transform FF into its own Magic system, with a set coming out every X amount of time to feed the game and thus create a network between all its IPs that feeds each one of them for those who want to play their own segment while offering, through Standard, a way to condense all these universes in one place and create their “tabletop version of Fortnite”.
What if Universes Beyond becomes its own format? With a legality that includes Lord of the Rings and any other brand, but with its own set of rules to make the game more or less coherent with the proposal? How well-received would it be compared to Standard or Pioneer, since certain sets would rotate earlier than others?
Magic beyond the TCG
There is a reason, however, why Wizards/Hasbro shouldn't neglect Magic: The Gathering as an intellectual property or its worldbuilding - the game's universe is rich and has the potential for stories that captivate fans and people who have never heard of the TCG around the world, as long as they are also done outside the game.
Between the Netflix series and the company's plans to expand its investments in digital games after the resounding success of Baldur's Gate 3 (even if it neglects to attribute the success to Larian Studios), there is a lot of potential for Magic: The Gathering outside the colorful cardboard.
Give us a moving story in an episodic series, give us an RPG set in Dominaria and/or the Multiverse where our protagonist is a Planeswalker traveling between worlds, give us the possibility, just like in Baldur’s Gate, to interact with famous characters from the lore, allow those who have never heard of Teferi to establish a bond with him, with his dilemmas and dramas, and give us enough reasons to want to follow little Loot and his journey with Jace and Vraska, or make us relive the famous war against Yawgmoth, in a high-quality experience - whether as a game or animation - of the Urza’s Saga.
Ad
Magic, and the 30 years of history built around it before its “Hasbro-ification”, has incredible and moving stories and characters that could develop their own series of games, animations and other products that would make people care more about the game’s IP, and consequently get to know the TCG both through its crossovers and its rich universe where, at times, we meet again that famous necromancer that we saw in one of the games and/or whose dramas we followed in an episode of the “Origins”stories.
Sailing Uncharted Seas
Honestly, this was perhaps the least objective article I have ever written on Cards Realm. Most of the text exclusively reflects the possibility of the future that Universes Beyond brings by imagining a world where the “Magic” IP ceases to be the main product and exists as complementary - this is the path that Hasbro seems to be following so far.
It is clearer that the path Magic is taking is not very different from those Hasbro has taken with its other products: selling its system and ruleset to whoever wants to insert their brand there.
On the one hand, it is not possible to say that they are wrong because what makes up Magic: The Gathering has to do with the game. The Gathering happens because of it, the union of communities, the passion of those who play the tournaments, the countless strategies and ways of playing the TCG are all fruits of what Richard Garfield presented as a game system in 1993, when “Magic” did not yet exist as a brand with its own identity.
On the other hand, imagining a world where Magic, the IP, ceases to be the core of the game's design and illustration causes apprehension because, although the love for the game is what unites people, it is through its characters and world building that they connect and express themselves through the most varied means: whether it's playing Mono Red Aggro in your Standard tournament, or putting together a Vampires deck for Commander.
Personally, I don't believe that Magic - the lore - will cease to exist because giving up 30 years of stories would also mean cutting off an important part of its roots and would make it difficult, for example, to insert cards that interact with the game's historical creature types and archetypes, in addition to reducing the potential for growth of the Magic: The Gathering brand outside the colored cardboard game - but the future is uncertain, and we are sailing in uncharted waters.
Inicia sesión y únete a la conversación
— Comentarios0
Se el primero en comentar