MTG has embraced Universes Beyond as the default new normal for future Magic: The Gathering sets. For 2025, a whopping three out of the six tentpole set releases will be UB sets.
Universes Beyond has become so popular that MTG even reduced Universes Within set releases in 2025 from four sets to three to accommodate an additional UB set release. These new Universes Beyond sets will also be Standard-legal, meaning third-party IP franchises will be an integral part of Magic at every format level, from Pioneer to Modern and Commander.
Some MTG players want to play Magic for the Universes Within flavor of the game. They like the aesthetic and the cohesiveness it may bring, or at least the storytelling that is unique to MTG. But now, these players will have to play with Universes Beyond products, or at the very least, against them.
This led a frustrated MTG player to ask Mark Rosewater, head of design at Magic, the following:
Question: You often say something akin to “If you don’t like something Magic has done, don’t build a deck with it”, but that ignores the actual problem. If I don’t like something in the game, I don’t want to PLAY against it either. I can’t control what other people play but if the things I detest keep getting made, and at a higher and higher power level, the idea of just not putting them in my own personal deck doesn’t solve anything. This is doubly true with things that are competitive or exclusively with strangers, ie Arena or FNM.
via Blogatog
As we can see, players are frustrated that they can no longer ignore fourth-wall breaks from pop culture into Magic lore while playing in virtually any format.
MTG Head of Design Mark Rosewater says MTG players need to get used to playing against Universes Beyond cards. Here is his full response:
Let’s me try to approach this from a slightly different vantage point. One of the core things about Magic is that it constantly reinvents itself. Much like how we design the game, it iteratively adapts.
That means we try something and then the audience, the collective whole of all the players, gives us feedback. Note, for the rest of this answer, I’m going to use the word “players”, but I’m using that word to mean the totality of everyone playing. If it’s something players like, we make more of it. If it’s something players dislike, we make less of it. If players despise it, we don’t do it again.
My example for the last point was ante. For those unfamiliar, ante made you play an extra card exiled from the game which the winner permanently took from the other player if they won. The game started with ante as a core part of the rules. Originally, it was the default. You had to opt out of it.
Players hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. I remember, whenever you would meet a stranger, you had to start by saying “no ante”. It didn’t take long for the game to reject ante. Eventually, we even banned all the ante cards in every tournament format.
Part of the social contract of playing Magic is agreeing to experience what the players want in the game. Yes, you can build your deck however you wish, but other people get to do the same.
This means if something exist in any volume, it exists because the players want it to exist. If the players didn’t want it, like ante, the will of the players would force it from the game.
A common note I get on Blogatog is “I don’t like thing X. Can we please remove thing X from Magic? Thank you.”
My answer is always some form of this: The players (again the totality of the players) have said that this is something they want in the game. It’s now part of the game because people want it to be.
This means being part of Magic means to signing up to anything the players have said they wanted. I keep focusing on how you can control what you play with, but yes, part of being in the Magic ecosystem is the agreement that each player gets to play with the parts of the game they enjoy most.
So, let’s talk Universes Beyond. The reason we tried it in the first place was because we had data that made us think players would like it. That’s what R&D does. We extrapolate based on player feedback and try new things.
The players will embrace or reject it. If they embrace it, we’ll make more. If they reject it, we make less of it. If they reject strongly, we might never make it again. Look at March of the Machine Aftermath. The players hated it, and we excised it from our future plans (surprisingly quickly, by the way).
Why are we making more Universes Beyond? Because the players are saying loudly that they want it to be part of the game. The best selling Secret Lairs of all time are Universes Beyond. The best selling Commander decks of all time are Universes Beyond. The best selling large booster release of all time is Universes Beyond. It’s not “sets” because we’ve only ever released one.
It’s not just sales. We do market research. Market research also strongly says players want Universes Beyond. Note, each individual player wants specific ones, but the collective data is they want it.
We also look at data about what creates the biggest online discussions. Universes Beyond rules supreme there as well.
I could go on and on. There are many metrics we look at to reflect the will of the people, and Universes Beyond is crushing it in (almost) every metric.
My point is Universes Beyond follows the pattern of every new thing we’ve tried. We try it in small samples and then increase its usage as the players show acceptance.
Why do you have to play against it? Because, by being a Magic player, you accept the will of the people. You accept that part of being a member of the community is allowing the community, as a whole, to dictate what the game is.
It doesn’t want ante, but it definitely wants Universes Beyond.
That’s why you have to play against it.
via Blogatog
That was quite an in-depth answer from Rosewater. The main gist of his response is that MTG players have voted with their wallets that they want more Universes Beyond products. They started by printing a little bit of it, and every time, the product sold magnificently. The reason why MTG players have to accept that they will ‘have to play against it’ is because most Magic players want to buy, own, and play with Universes Beyond products.
According to Rosewater, if Universes Beyond products didn’t sell well, they would have stopped printing them almost immediately, just as they did with Aftermath-style sets.
So, as long as Universes Beyond continues to set records at selling new products, players in virtually all formats should expect to play against it, whether they want to or not.
The focus on Universes Beyond products has created some interesting side effects, though, such as the growing popularity of formats like Premodern, which don’t allow new sets to be played.
If enough MTG players don’t want to play with Universes Beyond sets, they can create their own fan-made formats that don’t include them. After all, the Commander format was originally a fan-made format and is now the most popular in the game.
Keep following MTG Insider for more Magic news, including future Universes Beyond announcements.
ALSO READ: MTG Removes Block Ordering From Combat in Major Rules Update
