I believe the Godzilla cards _are_ Universes Beyond in all but name, if they’d released even a few months later they’d be Universes Beyond. It’s just a sequencing issue.
@@Crushanator1 That’s true for countless Universes Beyond cards too, as you can see in this video. Most of the new Marvel cards are renamed reprints exactly like that.
Yeah, I think it was purley a timing thing. But, they're also always saying about how they plan things years in advance, so surely a few months wouldn't have made much difference? No idea
@@RedBobcatGamesI think they were a trial run. They wanted to gauge community reception to non magic ip on magic cards. The defense of it was a big green light so they pushed all their other products.
I just hate that they keep trying to shame us out of any sort of critique by saying "oh if you don't like X set it's just not for you, just don't play with it, blah blah blah." It's such a dishonest dodge at this point.
So does that mean in standard events I can chose not to play against it? Does that mean they're going to be okay with shops skipping limited environments the community dosent like?
Ngl not a great take. If a lot more people thought like that then wotc wouldn’t keep making them. The reason they keep pumping these out is cause the cards sell like crazy
@@deohere7647If someone is using cards that you don't like, don't play with them. If you're playing in a competitive setting, it's understood that you're either going to play regardless of what the other guy is running, or concede the match. If you don't want to see UB, find people with a similar pov and play with them.
If the excuse of "this set is not for you, so don't play with it," is used too often, it can too easily become, "our game is not for you, so don't play it."
My personal fear is also there clearly aren't enough relevant and big enough IPs to fuel this mad release schedule of actual UB sets. DnD was obvious and made sense, LotR made a lot of sense too, Final Fantasy I think still fits in, especially since each game could be a plane of its own really, while some wouldn't fit in, others would be perfect for MtG vibes. But after that what's left ? Spider-Man is already a massive stretch to make a set around, and I might want to skip that set, so do they intend on going for every other big franchise ? Should we expect a Dragon Age set, a Dune set, a Wheel of Time set; a Star Wars set ? They should've limited it to one set a year instead of doing a mad rush for short time gains. I think people would accept having one set a year be a relevant "guest" set and it would be this big one year event that people would probably not be so against it. This random assortment of IPs taking half the year is not sustainable, especially whenever the contracts will end... Having to reskin so many cards for reprints is impossible
They wont reskin, and they wont reprint. Not in any affordable way (magic30). I bet we will start seeing something like "Return to middle-earth" sets with essentially the same concepts as the first set put on new cards. Same with the secret lair, just because we did The Mimeoplasm as Slimer, Voracious Apparition, doesnt mean we cant also do every other legendary creature as a version of Slimer, or Gandalf, or Glup Shitto. The bottom of the barrel is gone and the tunnel to the core of the earth will be near infinite.
@@RedBobcatGamesThat just feel like a "I don't really know Spider-Man that well" problem on your end. Which is perfectly fine! But I think you'd surprised how big and large the Spider-Man world can be when you dig into it. Between the villains, the gadgets, the supporting cast, the minions and the heroes, you can easily cover all colors. As for spells, imagine a reprint of fatal push with the death of Gwen Stacy on it, or a few tap spells representing getting webbed up or hung upside down by Spidey. Giant Growth with Sandman on it. Lightning Bolt or Shock featuring Electro. It's not that hard to find a power representing any instant or sorcery spell you might need. Even if you have to dig deep and feature Cardiac to get it.
UB Fallout got me into magic, but now I wish they'd focus more on the original IP. You did it, you got me to care about Liliana Vess! Now make cards with her please!
@RedBobcatGames I am looking forward to the Netflix show. Because when I got into Magic the Gathering, I only knew/know the card game. I have no connection to the story or the Lore. When I tried to read the story of Duskmourn on the magic the gathering website, I fell asleep. I fell asleep in a horror story... that's not a good thing. I'm looking forward to the Final Fantasy Universe Beyond. The racing set and space set don't interest me (yet?).
Why didn't the hot pocket tie-in not have food tokens in the box? That's the kinda cross promotion I want. I "bake into a pie" your guy into a pizza hot pocket token. Imagine the tilt value on a play like that. I think all it was was Gideon (right around when he died) on the product box and maybe some lame code for arena. Cereal boxes have had punch out cardboard crap for the longest time, wth.
I think one of the big things with UB is the fight between Introducting New Players and Keeping Existing Players. New Players bring growth. Existing Players bring stability. What's the point in "bringing new players in" if you don't cultivate an environment in which they want to stay?
SPOT on saying UB segregates the playerbase, that has been one of my arguments against it from the beggining. Before, magic was for everyone even if a set or block wasn’t your cup of tea, now you are encouraged to actively IGNORE entire segments and releases of a game you’re supposed to LOVE. And as we all know, apathy for Entertainment means death.
@@RedBobcatGames I play a lot of these "kitchen sink" card games, they tend to rely on some extremely rare collectible versions of cards to push sales, since the actual players don't generally need more than a booster box or two of their chosen IP to build basically any deck they want. Weiss Schwarz and now Union Arena don't allow you to mix IPs in a single deck. Universus does in standard, but they have a "spotlight" format which is a non-rotating format of whatever IP you pick. Never have i heard from these games or companies, "this set isn't for you". Even the games that should completely segregate their playerbase try to tempt every player with every set via lottery cards, and mtg struggles with lottery cards because collector boosters. Also, for better or worse, those games only have 1 way to play. 1v1, whatever the rules of the game say. Universus has standard and spotlight and some older formats but ultimately its focus is on 1v1 standard gameplay. MtG having to design a bunch of these cards to facilitate commander and standard and probably modern seems... tricky. TL;DR MtG just doesn't seem built to handle splitting their playerbase even further.
@@RedBobcatGames it's the most "polite" way to say "We don't give a fuck about your opinions and preferences, as long as that's just a small % of releases that you would skip". ("polite" ... such a sweetened choice of word .... )
Funny thing is, coming from vanguard, where many products only support a select number of decks, having a bunch of “this product is not for you” was the norm and expected
A little besides the point, but wanted to give an extra credit: Your interview/conversation style is absolutely fantastic and the chemistry between you two was absolutely fantastic. Dunno how exactly prewritten all the topics were, they felt that they were very deliberately and carefully scripted, the topics flowed into one another perfectly and the banter between you two is just excellent. Amazing job on the video, wish I could afford to throw a tip
Honestly, not scripted at all. Well, I say that but I planned out the first half which is basically just a presentation on UB. Made some extra "slides" just in case he had questions. And I wrote down some questions I knew I wanted to ask at the end ahead of time, but once we get to the part where I say something like "So that's all of them, what are your thoughts?" it's all just free-flow from there. But thank you though, I'm glad you enjoyed!
@@RedBobcatGames Wow, amazingly well done. Your work is always such high quality! The community is the reason why I feel sad about the direction WotC or more specifically Hasbro is heading, but hopefully with all the creators giving their voices, things will get fixed
You were right about the vocaloid characters, and creepshow is in fact a horror anthology comic series from Image comics. I wonder if Matt's response to the next universes beyond was rooted in the small sets of secret lairs or if he was grasping it's going to be a 300 card set. I would be very curious how we'd get 300 back to the future themed cards (God knows WotC would try) Also, this conversation reminds me of that investment drama that happened last year where Bank of America downgraded their stock projections for Hasbro for diluting magic as a brand.
@@christopherb501 yes. Thus why I used present tense (as you can tell by the use of is and not was) to describe it, and was referring to the horror anthology series as a whole and not "the graphic novella from Stephen King with no regard to the other issues that were later published"
Oh that's interesting to hear. And yeah I imagine Back to the Future would just be a Secret Lair. THOUGH a full 350 set for a trilogy of movies doesn't seem that far off from something I can imagine them trying
@@RedBobcatGamesI don't think Back to the Future has the elements needed for a full set, or even a full set of commander decks. Yeah, it has three films, but the three films are extremely similar, on purpose.
Dune would actually fit in the Magic universe. Its dark and gritty and somewhat medieval looking. Skyrim would also fit 100%, just like lord of the rings. Even fallout fits. What doesnt fit is spongebob and marvel.
When discussing non-Wizards IP MTG, I think we should remember Portal 3 Kingdoms. It is a set based on the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It has characters and quotes from the novel. The set is basically equivalent to MTG: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, except for a piece of Asian literature instead of European.
Magic seems like it's truly at it's best when it takes advantage of it's own medium rather than copying or adapting others. Lotr fit with its fantasy theme but also the literary references that can be made with flavortext and idyllic artstyles. UB should serve to garnish the design space of Magic, not take it over. What really concerns me for final fantasy is how cards can't really capture the signature media of the franchise: it's music. FF is celebrated not just for its characters but its cinematic approach to video game storytelling. This is achieved greatly by its music, which can't be conveyed by cards aside from a tongue-in-cheek namedrop. Why bother going all-in on a standard legal set when it can't even pander to the reasons people like the franchise in the first place?
To expand on what @watchmeswoocerightin455 said, another example for me is Spider-man. I just don't see how that IP fits comfortably into the 5 colour system of Magic
We can go back even further than P3K: the VERY FIRST EXPANSION was Arabian Nights. The very name of that expansion has a real world location in it. Yes, they later worked that into the lore as a world that just happened to resemble the mythology of the Middle East, but as originally printed, it's the Arabian Nights stories as Magic cards.
Portal 3 Kingdoms is a great example of why this DOESN'T work though. If you play that set it plays completely differently to any other set. In order to make the setting work within Magic they had to awkwardly map each of the 3 factions onto one color (so Cao Wei became black, Dong Wu became blue, and Shu Han became white). Then red and green were left as awkward "utility" colors that don't really have a place in the setting. When a full 40% of the colors of Magic basically don't work within the set and have no identity other than "here's some random stuff that doesn't fit in one of the 3 factions" you know you have a problem. Then you have the problem that the whole idea of casting spells doesn't really fit into a real-world historical setting so the idea of lobbing fireballs and summoning big monsters doesn't really work. And then you have the mechanical issues, particularly flying. The idea of flying was so out of touch with the real-world setting that they had to invent the functionally identical "horsemanship" that does exactly the same thing, resulting in the only full Magic set without any fliers. In other words, Portal 3 Kingdoms really doesn't feel like a Magic set because it's setting doesn't fit with Magic's setting and game structure AT ALL.
!!! Caught a few minutes of this video-and your interactions with Cheesemint, adore it! This is going in to my "tag and shuffle away to my cozy place to watch this with my 100% undivided attention" zone
Godzilla cards were the poison pill of Self Fulfilling Precedent that paved the way for TWD. Simply put: WOTC makes up a precedent in a good way, Godzilla skins you can avoid if you don't want to engage with it, then uses that as precedent to cross the line egregiously. Then uses FOMO to sell out to scalpers and intentionally misses that it sold out because of scalpers, acting like it was real organic demand. Now you have manufactured precedent.
Right now, Magic feels like Bob's Generic restaurant, where they serve everything at once on one plate. Today's special: Duck a L'orange with cotton candy, Doritos, Texas brisket and sushi.And a Big Mac.
Ok! There's another Red Bobcat video, so it's time for another mile-long essay in which I synthesize a new Unified Theory of Magic. Buckle up. It's a long one. This was all good stuff, but there was loads of context and connections that were at the front of my mind that didn't come up (and wouldn't have fit in a reasonable video). In particular I think the contrast between your cosplaying vocaloids and Scooby Doo Assassins Creed examples is the perfect illustration what's missing from Universes Beyond and keeping it from being good art or good. They're taking elements that were good on their own, but not minding if they complement each other, and not assembling them into something greater than the sum of its parts. It's the same thing that differentiates Neon Dynasty from Karlov Manor. Neon Dynasty is a return to a world that had been the setting for a thousand-year prequel. It needed to communicate the passage of entire eras of history, to be both new and old, and so its identity became founded on that idea. Crucially though, it didn't just mix in futuristic stuff: It mixed in Japanese cyberpunk stuff. The old and new halves have their cultural inspiration in common, so people are primed to associate even the completely disparate elements of each with the other, and the conflict between old and new is already baked into the cyberpunk genera. Even the concept for the set is a work of art. Karlov Manor doesn't work because its newer thematic layer doesn't have an in-world millennium to have grown in, nor a common origin with Ravnica's old theme, nor anything to say about the idea of adding a new theme to an existing world. They just wanted to make a detective-themed set, so they put it in a world that had successfully hosted a detective story before. It's like Scooby Doo in Assassin's Creed. You CAN dress him up and interpret him as much as you like, and the better you do it the less damage you'll do, but you still probably shouldn't put him in. In terms of the quality of the product, there's nothing to gain and everything to lose. I think putting Universes Beyond into Magic works just like layering these new generas over Magic's characters and settings. For example, look at the Jurassic Park/World reskins. Whatever you think of them overall, I believe that Ian, Convalescent Charmer is far and away the best of the bunch. Its the one with the most care put into it, simply because it's a reskin of another weirdly seductive shirtless lounging man. Is it a meme? Of course! But Tasigur, the Golden Fang already was. This is finding a way to dress a character from another IP in Magic character cosplay without even changing the imagery of that other IP, and without changing the tone associated with either character. It's a small thing, but it's more clever than it seems and it makes the card a whole greater than the sum of its parts. If you look through the other Jurassic reskins, you'll find that they used a giant t-rex from Magic as the spinosaurus, and a giant spinosaurus from Magic as the t-rex. It's thoughtless junk. Not offensive as such, but still less than the sum of its parts: The leftovers from two things people liked mixed up into a bucket to create tolerable slop. A more complicated example is the UB cards in Brothers War. You'd be mad to think that Transformers cards felt right in that set, or that they had anything to offer it, but d'you know where they would have felt right? Neon Dynasty! It's a colorful set with anime alt arts, an American take on Japanese science fiction media with references to cartoons from the same era, with vehicles and giant robots. Transformers would have looked normal there and there alone, but more than that, including them would have helped to reinforce the identity of the new Kamigawa. "Oh," people would have said "I get it!" If they wanted to put another IP into Brother's War, I think it should have been Warhammer 40,000. That was their chance to show Magic players that Warhammer cards genuinely can belong alongside normal Magic cards. The number of parallels between the tone, aesthetics, themes, events, etc of 40k and the Brothers War beggars belief. I know the production timelines of these things are complicated, but the sets came out in the same year, and they did nothing with any of that. 40K in general did a strangely poor job of finding connections to Magic. Both settings have factions of bizarre comedy orcs and goblins contrasting against often bleak fantasy wars, for example, but those got relegated to a secret lair that tries to make them go in a serious-face Mardu deck instead of updating the weird old Phil Foglio cards that match their personality. Both have elves and dwarves and sorcerers all over the place, but not in the commander decks. Instead an effort seemed to be made to put the least-Magic-like aspects of Warhammer into the decks, like Atalan Jackals of all things (genetically modified half-alien cultists on dirt bikes, for the uninitiated). Genestealer Cults have huge parallels with Phyrexian sleeper agents, but you'd never know that from their commander deck. Necrons have huge parallels with the Dreadhoard, but you wouldn't know that either. Every Warhammer thing gets its own creature type instead of anything to connect it to the wider game to which they're being added. I don't know what the "race" type for Space Marines and Custodians ought to be, but I'm certain it shouldn't have been "vocab test". The result of all this is that the Warhammer cards are good on their own, but they don't capitalize on their existence as a part of Magic. There's wasted potential there, and they'll never fit in as well as they could have because of it. Even IPs that are a more obvious fit for Magic seem to go out of their way to find ways to not gel. Not only do they all have the Universes Beyond frame whether it suits them or not, they get odd mechanics like The Initiative and The Ring Tempts you, that can't really be interacted with by anything else. I think that might be intended to make them play better with each other, like a soft restriction on blending them in too much with your other decks, but in practice it just makes them feel less at home in the game of which they are parts. Foundations Era Standard will be Slop Standard regardless of whether the sets that go into it are good, because they don't pick them to harmonize with the rest of Magic, much less with each other. They're not even going to be able to put the cosplay on the characters, because to fit in they'd need to cosplay as characters for *other* other IPs. This could have been avoided, and as usual the answer is a step back in the direction of blocks: They needed to put complementary sets together in the same year. If we'd had, say, "Neon Dynasty -> Final Fantasy -> Brothers War -> 40k -> Thunder Junction -> Fallout" as a year of Standard sets, that might still have been weird, and it might still have been too many sets, but it could have been made to work by presenting everything in ways that highlight their thematic, mechanical and aesthetic through-lines. It would be a year of the broken promises of progress, technological vaults buried in wastelands, apocalyptic wars, energy guns, etc, but always as a contrast with an older, fading world of nature. You'd have to play up different aspects of each setting for the best effect (no Transformers anywhere, no hiding from the meanings of westerns and cyberpunk), but I hope I've illustrated how that could be done above, and obviously you could do better if you weren't limited to moving around sets they've already made. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Why did you read this? Are you ill?
I'm with you on the Transformer part, oddly enough. That would be VERY thematic, especially for the art itself. Brothers' War was much more ... dark, and foggy, and light-less; somewhere where hope was fading away in the furnace of war. I also agree about Warhammer 40k in toto. "Astartes" are basically "enhanced humans", so ... come on WotC, just make them "Astartes Huma Warrior"! No Angels, okay, but at least __try__ to tie the whole game into Magic! Lots of cards were actually good! I use some of them both in Commander and in 60-cards formats. But ... yes: "just a bunch of cards". As far as I know, there are 2 strong themes: +1/+1 counters and swarms of tokens of various kinds. Nothing more. Uh a bit about attacking! ..... and? And .... I can't see much more ties into M:tG Yeah Yeah, "spells with X in mana cost" ..... Warhammer 40K gave a huge boost on it, to be honest. But .. I still feel WotC felt short on this. Not "the shortest possible", but short indeed. (**I love the following**) Lastly, yes: as you suggested, WotC could have tied all of those IPs, or at least most of them, into the same theme of "Nature annihilation through unbalanced usages of technologies and too many devastating wars." This would also naturally lead (half-intended pun) the lore to either (or both?) resolution(s) to the aftermath of those series of devastations: either/both the comeback of Nature-focused, Celtic-inspired sets which are leading the biological sphere's healing and/or the rising of Eldrazis again to finally engulf and devour the now depleted and defeated World. The former could be a mix of Stronghold (something around that block) and Lorwin, the latter a Zendikar 3.0 (4.0?). But no, obviously FUCK IT. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe WotC couldn't pull this idea off due to the lack of proper _contracts_ with the all IPs' owners to properly establish the lore and, then, plan this whole "fantasy voyage". maybe, IDK I would love a Celtic-themed set ("blocks" are just memories now ....)
@@marcoottina654 Putting together sets from three different IPs of any kind in a year sounds hard enough, I agree, but if they dropped one of them and went down to 5 standard sets a year I bet they could pull it off. They'd also have a less ridiculous schedule and a better than 50% ration for in-universe releases. Mostly the point of that last bit was just that if they grouped up sets they've done recently (or are about to do) by theme instead of by nothing at all, they could build them in ways that make better use of their similarities for creative and mechanics, both to better integrate and use Universes Beyond, and to reclaim a lot of the advantages of a block without actually doing a block, nor replicating the reasons they've given for not going back to them. That specific theme and sequence of sets was just the first version of the idea that came to mind using real sets. They could equally have tried, say, Return to Lorwyn, Eldrain, Bloomburrow, a D&D set, Tales of Middle Earth, and Warhammer: The Old World as one year of Standard. Or all the sci fi stuff, or all the Americana.
I was so sorely tempted to just write "Yes" as a response to all this. But, (and you made many points so this is just sort of addressing the forest rather than the trees) I think Universes Within fixes a lot of this. It's fine to have whatever they want on a UB card, and keep it seperate as long as we get a UW version that ties the mechanics and the theme to an existing narrative. Would that be more work for them? Sure, but that's their job, that's what we're paying them for
@@RedBobcatGames Yeah it was a bit much. It's a lot of stuff I've been thinking about for ages that this video helped crystalize. I really like parts of Universes Beyond but I don't like how its being handled, and that makes things complicated to unpack. The "yes" would have been richly deserved. I think Universes Within can fix some aspects, but not once we're regularly putting UB sets into Standard without otherwise trying to make them fit in. It's a tool for secret lairs an inserts into normal sets, and it can't stop Magic from turning into the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
I will say this: I got into Magic through The Lord of the Rings set. I saw the set and picked up a starter kit and a commander deck. I showed this to my friends who were into Magic, and I after playing with the set, I played draft at a local game store with Brother's War and then Wilds of Eldraine. It was after that that I got hooked into the magic look because I had a friend group that got me sucked into the story and characters. I came in after The March of the Machines, but I went back and read the storyline and got invested in the characters. To WotC, I am what they are looking for. The problem is that it wasn't their marketing that did the job, it was my friends that helped guide me onto that. In a way, I think that is why "Magic the Hattening" is happening, to smooth the on-ramp between people coming in for UB and people getting into the Magic story. In a corporate mind, I can understand the transition from "Look, Final Fantasy fans, we have this" to "Do you also like Star Wars? Here's our take on it with our characters" to "We have this wide multiverse full of different planes for you to explore with an overarching storyline". I think that's what they are going for, but it isn't working because we need people out there to be like my friends and provide that easy transition, but that burden is on the game stores and online personalities.
Just a note, Creepshow, was an anthology movie series in the 80s. They had different directors and writers who wrote up short segments and they'd typically be around 3-5 per film. They also had an ongoing theme in the movies of tying the different vignettes together by a kid reading a comic titled Creepshow.
@@RedBobcatGames It is, I appreciated him a lot as a host and I would like to hear more again about him :D nice collaboration :D and as always, very curated video :D
You should buy albums not just because it supports the artist, but because physical media will be yours while streaming will vanish over time. When Redbox went under many people lost their digital catalogue, when Right Stuff merged with Crunchy many people lost their library, when Netflix purges a show many people lose their access to those shows. Do not depend on media you don't own to exist in the future.
This would have never been an issue if Wizards had made Universes Beyond cards silver bordered or some equivalent, from the get go. Then they could have created new formats in which these cards could be played with alongside all other MTG sets. That way none of the existing formats would have been violated and all the new UB products would have their own special place.
Magic needs an Arcane like show to get people interested in the main cast. The stories and characters are already there, just put them in something that is not a blogpost, or set announcement trailer. Even something like a short animated web series would do wonders for storytelling
How does everyone constantly forget the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set? The first full-release, draftable magic set, I think legal in standard at the time, that came before even LoTR and introduced the memorably controversial Venture Into the Dungeon mechanic? Not sure if it was technically UB but it should at least have been mentioned imo
I wonder if Adventure Time is a licensing issue, as Cryptozooic has the license for the Adventure Time card game based on the in universe card game Card Wars (which was funnily enough clearly a Magic derivative) My bet for what UUB will be is Game of Thrones (as that license has lapsed via Fantasy Flight going bankrupt, and it also hits the sweet spot of "Huh, this would have made a lot more sense 10 years ago" combo of lateness and nostalgia theyre going for)
When I first started magic I didn’t know anything about its own cards, I only knew about warhammer and LOTR. When I first saw normal cards I was like “woah they made a whole lore for this game? Weird” but then I fell in love with them. I think it does I good job of pulling people in. I mean it took me a while to go sit down and look through all the lore but still
Hi. I am a veteran player that fell in love with the OG lore long ago and I wonder: How do people like you, who come from Universe Beyond, experience the lore? And what about the fact that Magic today is a mixture of random pop culture IPs with its own lore just being an increasingly small part of the overall IP? Do you enjoy Gandalph vs Angron vs Spongebob vs Spiderman as this is how you got to know the game in the first place? Because honestly? I hate it. I hate it so much that it killed my love for one of my greatest passions in life. But that is just me. Genuinely curious about your answer.
@@goliathsteinbeisser3547 I started with the Mirrodin block , I'm from 1995 so I was a young teenager at that time. I was magnetized by the lore that I "lost" due to the timing of some years, i.e. by just a bunch of years, and everything that followed was well made, immersive, well characterized and enriched as an Anthology. .... Until after Tarkir, where both I lost interest and I was failing to grasp what the hell was going on in this Universe. Now it's .... "meh", like a draft thrown at the printer
@@goliathsteinbeisser3547 I definitely like the lore after I watched an hour long summary video by spicy8rack. I think there are some cards that fit magic better than others. I think the grittiness of lotr and warhammer with them being more serious ips allow them to fit better than say SpongeBob and Spider-Man. I definitely don’t like the idea of SpongeBob cards that much. I think they need to fit the feel of magic. The problem is there isn’t really any lore for the recent sets since I’ve joined.
The clear preference for universe beyond over native magic has completely pushed me away from the game at this point. They seem to be wanting to kill the Vorthos players from their game, probably in the hope for getting more players who like other IP? But it feels like while some people will stick around, they are probably destroying the long term viability of the game by pissing off their core fan base.
I doubt I'm going to go anywhere for the time being myself. But I will keep putting out videos calling them out for exactly this. And what's mad to me is we could have both! Why does the story have to take a back seat so UB can flourish?
You’d be right if magic players had it in them to quit. Some will but most magic players would buy a magic product if all it contained was an angry wasp. People cry out against ub taking up half of magic but then marvel secret lair comes out and they cry that they didn’t get the cards because it sold out too quickly. Wotc is making the only logical financial decision.
@@tc5589-1 what you’re missing is that these are not necessarily the same players, and I have to wonder how many players who came to Magic because of Marvel will stick around after they stop printing more tie ins.
Kind of in an unusual spot, myself. On the one hand, I absolutely love Final Fantasy. It's the series that got me into gaming in general, and my excitement over having my favorite card game with a series that's near and dear to my heart is like a dream come true. To me. On the other hand, though, I do totally understand and even agree that including outside IPs stifles WotC's need for creativity when it comes to building their worlds or designing cards around their ideas they've been building since 1993. Why do something new when we can fall back on buying the rights to use Marvel, Assassin's Creed, Warhammer 40k, or even Final Fantasy? It just doesn't feel congruent with what Magic is. To be fair, even the past few sets feel like dress-up ( Thunder Junction, Duskmourn, Markov Manor.) Is it weird of me to feel so.. conflicted about this?
They are so different mechanically. I have one idea though to keep the spirit of the card. Pot of Greed 0 mana Legendary Artifact Tap: Sacrifice Pot of Greed, draw two cards. ( Activate only as sorcery speed)
As someone who started playing magic this year, I definitely got into the game because of UB, had a ton of fun with the game and my subsequent decks have been based on the newer in universe sets, which their themes also continued to draw me in (OTJ, Bloomburrow, Duskmourn) and now foundations has now peaked my interest towards standard after being introduced to the game via commander, and I am now even more excited for more Universes Within sets. However, I will say I find the lore kinda, hard to approach? Intimidating maybe? Unsure, im definitley interested in some of the characters, but all I really know is that they travel through different planes and there are different conflicts within/between. I do definitely see the point you guys are making with the player base segregation though. Excuse the mess of thoughts but I do hear what you guys are saying in this video and it was a good watch. One last thought is that I feel UB made magic less intimidating to get into as a new player, for the longest time magic felt like something that was so hard to get into because it was something very unfamiliar with such a long history, and even casual formats like EDH seemed daunting because even though its casual, you would have to find away to make a 100 card deck with these cards and lore that you have no idea or relationship with. With UB it was cool to say "oh hey I like hatsune miku/transformers etc, let me build a deck around this" allowed for that wall to kinda come down, which then allowed me to engage with magic as a whole, and then start to love the game for what it is. That being said, I have no clue where the line is, I think 50% of future sets being UB is INSANE to me and a step in the bad direction, it would be cool if WoTC used their resources to then find way to make the lore more accessible/exciting to new players (maybe animated shorts, webcomics, etc) akin to something like how leauge has done and then have those tie back into the cards(kinda like the animations for bloomburrow they did). As for now I feel like im just resorting to youtube lore videos which are cool! But it would be cool to have a way for WoTC to make a more engaging way to engage with the lore and maybe get new players to appreicate the Universes within more? I could be wrong about a lot of the things Ive said, Ive only been playing for a couple of months, but this is my perspective as a new player
Magic has always been a great game. But in my opinion, every story arc they've ever attempted has been dogwater. I like Magic at its best when it is generic high fantasy. I could be swayed if they write a good storyline. But I've been let down 15+ times
You make a lot of interesting points. And I completely agree about how dense Magic's lore can seem. But WotC don't do the player base any favours in that regard. I always compare it to 40k's lore which is equally as thick, BUT they do such a good job of putting out tie in media than people kind of get a grasp of what's going on. Magic seem to hide their lore or keep it exclusive to blog posts and I find that maddening
@ I completley agree, I just really want them to do MORE it almost feels like WoTC is ashamed of the lore? Or is just afraid of putting in the effort? But regardless hopefully in the future they can find the time (they definitely have the resources) to maybe produce something suplemental to the lore to engage new fans & old.
Yeah magic has that long, rambling style of story that you see in long running comics, and it's often let down by the need to balance sticking to its guns and playing out the lasting consequences of major events with providing instantly grockable jumping on points. They made a set recently called Brother's War, which I think was an attempt to solve part of that problem. It was a recap of the ancient history that had laid the groundwork for the major events of the plot at the time. It didn't sell all that well in spite of being a good set, supposedly because even established players either didn't recognize or care about a generation of characters who hadn't been in the story for actual real world decades.
I like your perspective, i’m all for having commander sets and toher such “precon” products with other franchaises. It helps get new players to the game which cool, but i don’t think it should be HALF of everything Magic is. And with the lore, yeah i got into Magic in 2019 where they just finished a HUGE storyline, and was took a long time to realise what had just happened. I think the cinematic trailers did a lot to make me go “That looks epic, what’s this story behond it?” So yeah i desperately want more support for the lore lol
I think Castlevania is a big possibility, Konami crosses it with everything and i don't think that the fact that they own Yu-Gi-Oh will be a problem for them, considering that they've crossed YGO with another exclusively universes beyond card game (that's now dead) called Dice Masters. Castlevania is basically Innistrad, so it'll be at least a bit easier on the eyes than Spiderman and i would actually be excited for it, with a close-to-equal amount of shame, because it's still a universe beyond.
I think the phrase "tonal whiplash" was very appropriate. The game has came a long ways from "two powerful wizards casting spells at each other." Also, I didn't know just how much UUB had been put out. Wow.
30:22 this is exactly how my partner got into Magic. Tried for a few years to get then into magic but it wasnt until the LotR set that i convinced them to play and only now a few months back are they expanding into magic general with the assistance of Bloomburrow. They unfortunately do not care for the world of magic or care for any of its in universe characters
Very good conversation, actually loved this format! Hope you might continue might do videos like this here and there, I think getting another perspective to compare and contrast is really cool. Also fully agree with what you talked about. I don't think I'll ever be fully on board with UB, but if they could at least put SOME effort into blending it more into the core game it would be at least a little more digestible.
Ooohh, yeah. I'd be into that actually. I really enjoyed... ugh I want to say the Dawntreader arc (?) as a child. I seem to remember thinking Prince Caspian (?) was cool. It's been a while since I read them
My optimistic prediction is that we end up back at 3-block sets, or at least 2-block sets, now that UB can serve the purpose of adding variety. That would allow them to tell a better story and slow down MTG, helping UB players convert to MTG and helping MTG players retain interest. My pessimistic prediction is that 3 UB, 2 UB-like in-house sets, 1 "return to X" is going to be the new pattern, possibly swapped out for even more UB further down the line. The other thing that's relevant to predict is of course what are the UB going to be? It seems to me like 1 full marvel set per year is highly likely at least as they work through the backlog of Xmen, Avengers, etc, just because that's pretty much a guaranteed win financially. The other two, if theres any pattern to them at all, could potentially be "1 western, 1 eastern", or "1 modern/future, 1 medieval". More likely though, just any two random franchises that can be portrayed in a broadly 'fantasy realism' aesthetic. The secret lairs will obviously continue too, and now that UB-in-standard has given permission for crossover products to be mechanically unique, I'm expecting to see quite a few more mechanically unique secret lairs. Then there's the loxodon in the room which is what do they do about anime. It's a massive market, one they've touched on before with a small handful of overpriced cards per year, but one that they also seem to be terrified to commit to, refusing even to hire anime artists for the vocaloid secret lairs, probably because its significant anti-popularity would make it a line too far for a lot of people otherwise tolerant of UB. It's also quite funny to me as someone whose primary mode of entertainment is anime to hear someone call the current set of UB products a "shotgun blast", cos within my sphere of reference it looks like they're hyper-focusing on a consumer demographic I tend to just think of as a single "west-type nerd" group, the same way those people probably see no meaning in distinguishing between subtypes of weeb. The other guy also makes a great point about segregation - this is exactly the problem Weiss Schwarz has. Sets are mutually exclusive, so each individual consumer buys into the set that features an anime they like and completely ignores all of the rest.
Yeah, and this is my concern because you're right. BUT, they're making money so I don't think WotC are going to care about the things you've pointed out
They will eventually have to do an Attack on titan set probably. There's roughly 20 anime they could realistically make a set out of (AOT, Demon Slayer, Jujitsu kaijen, My hero academia, Dragon ball, Naruto, Bleach, Yu-yu-hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Tokyo Ghoul, Stein's gate???, One piece, Sword art Online, Tokyo Ghoul and probably a few others.
@@ussgordoncaptain Nah you ran out fast there, even the marketable anime demographic isn't watching Stein's Gate or Tokyo Ghoul. Demon Hunter, MHA, One Piece, Naruto. That's what you can definitely do. Dragonballs, Bleach, AOT, YYH, HxH and SAO are old now and didn't get refreshed, kids aren't watching them. Maybe AOT a little. Tokyo Ghoul and Steins;Gate kids didn't ever watch, they're aimed at an older audience and they're not action adventure. JJK maybe, it has some popularity but not enough to get onto merch shelves in non-anime-focused stores.
Correction: Street Fighter AND Walking Dead have In-Universe versions, TWD being in Wilds of Eldrain. [Saying this before it is possibly mentioned later.] Edit: Also, Magic is becoming paper Fortnite in terms of crossovers. I hate the vast majority of UBs because they feel so out of place with the majority of Magic, like Dr. Who, Transformers, Jurassic Park, etc.
Fully agree that more of these UBs should have been subtle winks and nods, cosplays, in universe versions of these external IPs. "Here is Jurassic park" gets people into the mechanics, maybe, but really it's a novelty "oh that's neat" for 99.9% of them. Being passionate about Jurassic park and getting "oh this character kind of looks like my favourite Jurassic park dinosaur, this is weird I wonder what their deal is" is far more interesting than "oh my favourite Jurassic park dinosaur got art on this random card game. Where can I find the art?"
Tbh even if they did that most people who buy the card aren’t going to look into the characters being portrayed backstory’s, they just want the card. And I feel it’ll feel odd to see other characters dress as magic characters. They kinda discus this at the end when they talk about Rick Sanchez wearing an assassins creed hood and would he fit in then and I can’t in good faith say he would
I do think it’s just time that anytime that doesn’t like ub needs to find a new game. Magic isn’t coming back. There will be only one or maybe none genuine magic sets each year. Of the theoretically three possible magic ip sets two will be memes, like thunder junction or detective guild, and one real set like bloomburrow.
The good thing is that there's presently a decent number of competitors in the card game market. One Piece, Union Arena, Sorcery and Flesh and Blood are just a few examples off the top of my head.
I have enjoyed what I've played of One Piece myself. But yeah, I think Magic is going in a direction I'm not a fan of at all. Though I'm not going anywhere yet. I hoping making enough noise will force WotC to make some changes. I think Magic can have both UB and a healthy IP of it's own if they just give it a bit more care
@@RedBobcatGames if magic players hadn’t demonstrated which they prefer with their money there would be hope. Even the recent marvel secret lair received criticism for being too hard to get rather than being completely and unapologetically out of theme. Wotc is making the objectively correct financial decision according to sales statistics, and I bet the statistics hold.
@@Mirthful_Midori I’ve been looking a little at that shadow verse one because it has a knock off form of commander, which is the part of magic I play the most.
Im in the crowd that was introduced to magic with UB. Lotr came out at the perfect time when I was living in New Zealand for work and visiting all the touristy film sites. Tabletop games were super popular where I was living and was a great way to meet locals and make new friends. It wasn't the lotr cards that kept me in the game but rather all of the other commanders people were playing and the prospects of deckbuilding. I figured that the cards would make a good souvenir but never expected to fall so hard for the gameplay. It seems wotc is trying to capitalize on cases like myself, but are failing to realize that the game's identity stands on its own and doesn't need the IP treatment once players have been introduced to it.
No, you're right. It's one thing to focus so much on bringing new players in, but i wish they'd do more work to make the original lore and setting interesting enough to keep players around for that once they're here
@@RedBobcatGames I'd be really interested to see a video where you speculate on the color wheel problem in in spider-man. I'm not a die-hard fan but I've seen all the movies and read enough comics to know that the flavoring this time around is gonna be a stretch. Obviously villains are gonna get a black or blue treatment; venom in dimir, black cat in orzhov, the lizard in golgari. But what about all the other spider-men? Spiders are mostly green or black in magic which doesn't really reflect the playstyle I'd expect from an agile superhero. Most spider-men will probably end up in temur colors, which from a gameplay perspective feels bland imo. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the subject!
@@watchmeswoocerightin455I'm not redbobcat, but I love both Magic and Spider-man, so I figured my perspective might be interesting. Basically, while it's very tempting to make every villain black or blue, with a bit of thinking we can actually split them a bit more evenly. The Lizard, for example, doesn't need black. He's not usually portrayed as power-hungry or ruthless, but more like classic werewolf. He's a kind scientist who turns into an animalistic monster. My first instinct would be Simic, but since Lizard tend to be red in magic, you might want him izzet or Gruul. Golgari is more approriate for Scorpion. Kraven is a big game hunter obsessed with finding worthy prey. Perfect for Jund, but you could cut black and leave him Gruul. Venom, at least Eddie Brock Venom, is more Red-Black, being extremely impulsive, revenge focused, and kinda dumb. He could gain white for his more antihero side, making him Mardu. Agent Venom is a Boros soldier, while Carnage is pure Red-Black (and I'm not talking about his costume) The various other symbiote tend to be very loosely defined, so you could have a cycle. Black Cat could be Dimir or Orzhov, since she is a thief (Rogue) with a heart of gold. Depends on what you focus on. Kingpin fits Orzhov to a T, though. As for mono-color, Morbius can be mono-black. Sandman can be mono red. Chameleon mono blue. Rhino mono green or red. Cardiac mono-white (Cardiac is not going to be in the set). As for Spidey, he's Jeskai at core, (Blue for the Science, Red for the large earth, and White for the responsability) and you could have various Non-Peter version alternate between UW, WR and UR. Despite the name Spider-Man, he doesn't usually have anything to do with actual spiders beyond being bitten by one, so there is no need for him to have green or black.
Yeah, I've used LOTR sets as the intro to Magic to my friends and it was a perfect gateway, because it is something they recognise and understand with ease!
@@RedBobcatGamesbut like, what interesting lore has there been left anyway? Like, after how they handled MoM, I don't know if there is anything juicy in the core storyline atm...
Hmm, LEGO has been doing a bunch of stuff with D&D... so could be a Magic LEGO collab coming. Horizon has also been pushing into a bunch of stuff, could have a Horizon Zero Dawn UB set -.- ugh... I really like the machines in Horizon, they could kinda be like anti-Phyrexians but I just hate everything UB and UB adjacent. I love most of the IPs used for UB, but I just don't want them in Magic, nor do I want Magic in them.
Yeah, my feelings are the same. Would be interesting to see how they make Lego work though. Unless they do one of their own brands like... I want to say Ninjago? Or Bioincal? I'm not much into Lego
@@RedBobcatGames I think Ninjago would be too similar to Kamigawa, but Bionicle could be pretty weird. Could also just be like the LEGO Movie, random stuff from everywhere all thrown together... which has become the standard for Magic as well xD
On one hand, I love the sets that have came out for things I enjoy. On the other, I can understand if someone would be mad at me playing my Patrick Star commander full of goblins, transformers, and some Hatsune Miku cards. Ultimately, I’m so glad to see Magic be more than just MtG and becoming a sandbox for all sorts of card game ideas. Please excuse the lack of a better comparison, but it reminds me of let’s say Garry’s Mod, as it gives you all the tools you need to play whatever your mind can conjure with the elements provided. Want a purely land-based game? Make the rules and go! Want to make a game with a 20 card deck limit? Start working on some ideas for it! You are the only thing holding back what the game has the potential for. That being said, it will still be weird regardless that you can have Alexander Clamilton and Hatsune Miku on the same battlefield as Okaun or an Alpha Deathclaw
Okay I think that if there’s confirmed marvel sets, and the set before the UUB is space themed, there’s no way Hasbro and Disney aren’t planning a Star Wars set. I think that’s probably also why they can’t announce it until later, since everyone would FREAK upon hearing the news
If UB was just a gateway for new people to get into magic it wouldn't be so bad, but they've made it the whole point of magic at this point, it's shown in the consistent and continuing drop in the quality and frequency of original magic stories and content, it's hard to stay invested when there's nothing meaningful to invest in.
27:58 I would agree with you if there weren't a conjoining set for these cards that was basically Clue-themed anyway. It makes me wonder...did they do a detective set just for the crossover? What about Ixalan and Jurassic Park? What about Duskmourn and Ghostbusters? Are we going to get Fast and Furious cards with Aether Drift?
Coming from someone who doesn’t know much about MTG lore and is just here for the gameplay: I like UUB stuff, but the crossovers are hit-or-miss. Some make you think, “Who asked for this?” while others are like, “Awesome!” It reminds me of Smash Bros adding 3rd-party characters. Sometimes, people thought non-Nintendo characters were a mistake, but then some ended up being the best thing ever, depending on who got picked. If MTG’s crossovers were all “hits” and avoided the “who asked for this?” picks, I think the community would be a lot more positive about UUB. Smash taught me that it’s all about picking IPs people actually care about. For example, as a Doctor Who fan, even I think it’s a “miss” since the show isn’t as popular anymore (and let’s be real, it’s gotten bad again). Assassin’s Creed feels like another “who asked for this?” since Ubisoft has such a bad rep and not many people care about their games now. On the other hand, Marvel, LOTR, and even Final Fantasy feel like great choices-people are still hyped for those and don’t see those IPs as “mid” or irrelevant. MTG should focus on active IPs that people still care about, not “zombie” IPs that just won’t die. Transformers is a good example-Hasbro keeps pushing it into everything, but it feels like it’s lost its identity. Most fans are just kids who owned the toys or watched the cartoons, and that’s about it. Street Fighter (pre-SF6) had the same problem-it was crossing over with everything instead of focusing on itself. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Ninja Turtles were next for UUB since they’ve been doing crossovers everywhere too. Notice how a lot of these MTG crossover IPs also pop up in Fortnite and other games/media, while barely doing anything on their own anymore. It’s like they’ve become default “crossover fodder” instead of thriving IPs. (just see Transformers, Street fighter & Ninja turtle lists of crossover and why i think the ninja turtles is coming to MTG at this point) : you can see it on Likes/retweets on like Fortnite: 1 of theirs most liked tweets was a picture of Shenron from Dragonball: a still beloved anime to this day vs. tweets when they revealed transformers/ninja turtles/Street fighters and its the same case as MTG basically Also, it’s funny how some anti-UUB MTG players change their tune when one of their favorite IPs gets added. Suddenly, they’re like, “Okay, this one’s fine.” It just proves that MTG needs to stop picking the “misses” and focus on IPs that the general public actually likes. If the crossovers are consistently good, even the skeptics might come around. TL;DR: MTG needs to pick IPs people actually care about instead of dragging in old ones that don’t have the same hype anymore. Focus on what’s popular and relevant, not “Who asked for this?” crossovers. I think that’s one of the main issues.
Good on you for getting the Gorillaz songs! Apparently streaming takes up quite a bit of energy too, so you're saving on that with each song that you just play from what's downloaded.
OOOHHHH, well now that IS interesting. I never thought about that aspect. I burn them to my PC so I play them back that way. I wonder if not having to spin the disc drive is even cheaper because I've copied the CDs? Huh
Obligatory reminder I started on the Assassin Creed set as a new player & im now a huge fan of Phyraxians. Both are my favorite sets to crack packs for. Well maybe not AC lol
Idk. A battleship themed plane where there's giant fleets containing multiple factions in each fleet as they travel across an archipellego plane looking for resources, salvaging wrecks, and getting into battles with one aoher could be cool.
But making it battleship-themed only makes it less cool. You can have a naval set (and you almost already do with Ixalan's Pirates vs. Conquistadors vs. Merfolk) without burdening it with a worthless license.
Very interesting. I personally haven’t got an issue with Universes Beyond, love what you love, but yes, I also believe there is some sort of segregation and a lot of the time people buying these cards probably won’t touch the MTG main universe stuff. And of course Wizards don’t care, they just want the money. I’m not sure if the news was out when you guys discussed this, but they also announced that 50% of their output next year will be Universes Beyond and I’m not keen on that at all. You’re going to see fewer and fewer cards that are actually set in the Magic world. And that kinda sucks. I also wouldn’t be surprised if gets even higher and we see less and less original stuff and it’s all other IPs instead making it as you said, Matt, very, very Funko…
No no, he's talking from the perspective of an Amazon Rings of Power producerer. They can't mention him in the making of the show because they don't have the rights to him (Or at least that's how I understood. I don't actually know much about that show myself)
Played Magic from 4th edition to Mirrodin block, by chance stumbled upon the Dominaria United storyline and bought some fatpacks and stuff and tried to catch up with the story of the phyrexians cause they where the most interesting thing for me back then. What was really hard for me to swallow after almost 20 years was that they crank out so much product nowadays that now I can't afford to stay up to date money-wise AND time-wise (compared to only money-wise as a teen). The release schedule would be exactly fine without the UB, so that's already one point why it shouldn't exist imo. But I'm actually more appalled by the concept of Secret Lair. Wtf, I thought this was a trading card game?!? I probably could live with these being reprints with alternate art, but mechanically new cards in a limited supply queued online sale? No, just NO, WotC might as well call them Scalper's Lair and sell them on Ebay themselves for 5x the price... So, guess I'm out again, the most fun I had with MtG in the last 2 years was probably watching YT videos about the lore and those about the insane business practices of WotC...
Thinking about Foundations and Modern Horizon 3 from this summer, I think an under-discussed point is how WotC keep presenting story agnostic sets as the big premiere editions. Innistrad Remastered will be the same thing next year. The card selection and flavor is pulled from through out Magic story times. So even though Liliana is no longer the apathetic necromancer trying to get out of a demonic contract while wielding the Chain Veil (she's a devoted professor rebuilding her adopted Plane,) WotC is way more interested in depicting the old Lili. Even though the Eldrazi have been defeated, we have new cards depicting them from back in their glory days. Reprints are neat, but mingling past and present events in New sets just muddle the story and pull focus from what's happening now and where characters are currently.
You have to admit that it's a brilliant move from a monetary perspective. Personally, I would have loved for them to invest more resources in promoting the world of MTG with parallel projects featuring original art and lore, like Riot did, for example. But why would they invest time and money in something that isn't guaranteed to work when they can play it safe by bringing in franchises that are already heavily promoted, with minimal effort?
I think there's a large section of the player base that doesn't care for congruity at all, which is rough to admit. I enjoy the flavor, but I've never given a thought to the story. It's tangential to the mechanics, at least for me. New players might be drawn into Magic from other IP, but it's only because it's a chance to engage with a great game in a flavor they enjoy. Whether or not they engage with the Magic story and characters, in my experience, doesn't matter. The game is so good, that it absorbs all other attempts at making competing card games, at this point. If you want to make one, you might as well collaborate with Wizards. In one sense, it's like a colonization of ideas. The outside world has recognized the beauty of Magic, and sought to carve off a small piece for itself. In another sense, it's an awakening for one of the greatest games of all time. All other ideas can be represented through its rules, from Wolverine to Pinkie Pie. I just hope WOTC realizes that people are staying because the game is good, and not because they're especially tied to Spider-Man, or something.
Yeah, I kinda hate Universes Beyond and have managed to keep away from ones that have franchises I like... But a Shivan Dragon with Rathalos artwork might make me open my wallet too
Before I finish watching this. Something tells me they haven't finished deciding what that set is. As much as I wish they didn't push back the in-universe set that was already finished, I hope the unannounced is Milton Bradley or Parker Brothers themed and they get it all done in one go.
I hope goofy goober SpongeBob and Handsome Squidward become playable cards! We truly are living in the best timeline to be blessed with this crossover ❤
I wanted the Crypton Future Media collab with the swath of popular Vocaloids as planeswalkers, Rin and Len still being by far my favorite to this day from since I was a kid. But I decided against it. a big problem I have with many of the Miku Lair artworks are the lack of specifically anime styled artworks. Harmonize, Song of Creation, Miku Child of Song, Thespian Stage, and Command Tower are probably the main artworks I can sit down and feel spoken to as a genuine Vocaloid Fan. The rest have an uncanny valley feel.
For the fallout set- it's got a lot of good reprints and original cards, though some of the flavor theme-wise for the cards don't fully make sense mechanically and/or vice-versa A good example would be the Winding Constrictor in the precon "Mutant Menace". It's a good card in the deck mechanically, and the art is of a mutated two-headed snake, but the enemy never appeared in any of the games. As for one with good flavor and weird mechanics: gotta be Red Death Shipwrecker from the "Science!" Precon. It's a 2 mana (UR) 1/3 legendary Crab Mutant. Where I feel it fails is the rules text- mainly after the goading. "You add {R}". I think it should've said that it costs a red mana and tap it (Fun fact Read Death is the only crab in red)
Hearing the comparison to Funko Pops felt really depressing, since a recent article by Rhystic Studies made the same observation. And I think it's an observation that rings true - shoving different brands and IPs into the template of MtG - which is why it's so depressing to hear it articulated from two independent observers.
For me, I think it will be Star Trek as the Universes Beyond set at the end of the year. I know almost nothing about it but considering they will have all the type lines and mechanics from Edge of Eternities, it makes sense to carry that over. Although I also think something like Harry Potter could be in the works as that has an expansive enough world for an entire set. My dream set would be ASOIAF and I certainly expect that to happen in the next couple of years considering the success of LotR
Next full set crossover could also be Game of Thrones, done similar to Lord of the Rings with their own art direction. Especially being so secretive, I think it is going to be a big one. As for Secret Lairs, Breaking Bad is one that I think will come soon.
I'm fully of the belief that there is room for UB in magic, precisely as a way to get people into the hobby, but not this much room. Some fantasy and sci fi sets, maybe once a year. Occasional secret lairs that are reskins. That would be fine to me. I understand the idea of not wanting it at all, but I am the precise person Hasbro were trying to grab - my friends pulled me into MTG last year by saying "hey, you can play as Inquisitor Eisenhorn from 40k!" and made a commander deck for me. I then pulled in a friend excited to play 'as' Frodo and Sam. We laughed at the idea of astartes being destroyed by hobbits and the story we told through the games. But I did stay, and I did slowly branch out into the rest of the game, I learned about the universes by recognising characters. I watched lore videos. In my case, the key turning point was LCI releasing and then getting obsessed over Ixalan's lore through the lens of Amalia, but the TL;DR is I am more invested now in magic's story than in any crossover for it. However, I'd never have gotten to this point without that gateway drug. So I think the occasional gateway drug is okay, personally, but I'd like it to not be a million miles away thematically, and if it is insane then to keep it to secret lairs.
This is cool. I hope there's more stories like yours. I do fear that the increased focus on UB means less attention to Magic's own IP, because otherwise people like yourself might not stick around if the lore isn't very good. But I guess next year will be the test of that
@@RedBobcatGames This is very true! Agreed I definitely still want less UB. And whilst I know it's a dead horse, but not just less UB - better in-universe theming. I don't know if this has been talked about much, or if this is just me, but card art and theming was THE big bridge that got me to want to go out of my way to learn lore. I mentioned that with Amalia, but also with Phyrexia, and the eldrazi, and such. Evocative, but they don't make it trivial to interpret. That's part of the reason I think the gimmick sets fail, they don't make me ask questions. "Who is this character? Oh it's an outlaw in a cowboy hat. Okay. I feel like I've got the gist now because I've seen this a thousand times before." - I think they managed this a little better with the more fantasy horror elements of Duskmourn. I actually wanted to read the story of Valgavoth only after seeing the gorgeous art. I was disappointed to find it quickly fitting in to typical 80s American suburbia (especially as a fellow Brit) but at least the card theming got me that far. I think this aspect of presentation is huge for getting players into the universe and it's part of the conversation I don't see come up a lot. These new sets don't look to challenge me either. Racing, space? It just feels like a big joke. Ixalan STILL feels like the last serious lore set to me. I really enjoyed the conversation you guys had though! I like the idea of bringing in someone who knows media marketing but is a relative outsider.
Every once in a while, I a Dungeons and Dragons player look into what is happening over at mtg since what Wizards does to mtg tends to also eventually make its way over to DnD in one form or another. Typically, to a lesser extent. Almost every single time I do this, I find another new thing to worry about.
Oh this is fun, cos I keep up to date with what's happening with D&D for similar reasons. Magic circles aren't massively talking about it yet, but I see Elon Musk looming and... oh boy
I'm thinking skyrim is a very safe bet with fallout's release, but this seems surprisingly possible to me too, given naruto's recent tmnt and transformers crossovers.
IMO the other problem with Puresteel Paladin as Ash is that I really don't think Ash is mono white. I'd say he's Boros at LEAST, probably Mardu. MAYBE if you're only looking at the original Evil Dead where he's a bit more of a "pure hero", but beyond that I feel like Ash is basically a heroic (and situationally selfless) version of Rakdos (the color combination, not character) which seems like Mardu to me.
I used to play mtg years ago. The console games got me, and I played a little irl but stopped at some point. I was recently very interested in getting back into it, because of all the card games I played growing up I felt like MTG was the most interesting in terms of mechanics, art, and lore. I’ve been missing it a lot recently, but once I saw all the crossovers, and how they were done, I knew I would ultimately be a “Nope”. It just seemed like the sophisticated flavor and tone of the Magic I was hooked by was being both watered down and overly seasoned at the same time until it became unrecognizable; perverse. Perhaps if they put up a poll on the website where fans could vote on a crossover I wouldn’t see it as a blatant and purposeful quantity>quality corporate greed cash grab. But I’ve seen it too many times in the gaming industry to not see a duck for a duck. It’s sad, because I wish my nostalgia for Magic and the crossovers that make sense tonally was stronger than my aversion for these cheap tricks. But it’s not.
Dnd and thus Baldurs gate were at least considered for being universes within sets and wotc themselves still seems somewhat unclear on it, which is probably why they weren´t called universes beyond.
I believe the Godzilla cards _are_ Universes Beyond in all but name, if they’d released even a few months later they’d be Universes Beyond. It’s just a sequencing issue.
I somewhat agree, but they're also real magic cards with real mechanics. They're more like a Secret Lair alternate art IMHO.
@@Crushanator1 That’s true for countless Universes Beyond cards too, as you can see in this video. Most of the new Marvel cards are renamed reprints exactly like that.
Yeah, I think it was purley a timing thing. But, they're also always saying about how they plan things years in advance, so surely a few months wouldn't have made much difference? No idea
I would be okay if they had a different border like silver border to let you know they are no in universe.
@@RedBobcatGamesI think they were a trial run. They wanted to gauge community reception to non magic ip on magic cards. The defense of it was a big green light so they pushed all their other products.
I just hate that they keep trying to shame us out of any sort of critique by saying "oh if you don't like X set it's just not for you, just don't play with it, blah blah blah." It's such a dishonest dodge at this point.
So does that mean in standard events I can chose not to play against it? Does that mean they're going to be okay with shops skipping limited environments the community dosent like?
Ngl not a great take. If a lot more people thought like that then wotc wouldn’t keep making them. The reason they keep pumping these out is cause the cards sell like crazy
@@deohere7647If someone is using cards that you don't like, don't play with them. If you're playing in a competitive setting, it's understood that you're either going to play regardless of what the other guy is running, or concede the match. If you don't want to see UB, find people with a similar pov and play with them.
If the excuse of "this set is not for you, so don't play with it," is used too often, it can too easily become, "our game is not for you, so don't play it."
Yeah, in essence the argument there is "We're doing this to make money, and if you don't like it just don't play anymore" which really sucks
My personal fear is also there clearly aren't enough relevant and big enough IPs to fuel this mad release schedule of actual UB sets.
DnD was obvious and made sense,
LotR made a lot of sense too,
Final Fantasy I think still fits in, especially since each game could be a plane of its own really, while some wouldn't fit in, others would be perfect for MtG vibes.
But after that what's left ?
Spider-Man is already a massive stretch to make a set around, and I might want to skip that set, so do they intend on going for every other big franchise ?
Should we expect a Dragon Age set, a Dune set, a Wheel of Time set; a Star Wars set ?
They should've limited it to one set a year instead of doing a mad rush for short time gains.
I think people would accept having one set a year be a relevant "guest" set and it would be this big one year event that people would probably not be so against it.
This random assortment of IPs taking half the year is not sustainable, especially whenever the contracts will end... Having to reskin so many cards for reprints is impossible
Yeah, I agree. Especially with Spider-man. I just don't see how it'll fill all 5 colours for a 300+ card set
They wont reskin, and they wont reprint. Not in any affordable way (magic30).
I bet we will start seeing something like "Return to middle-earth" sets with essentially the same concepts as the first set put on new cards.
Same with the secret lair, just because we did The Mimeoplasm as Slimer, Voracious Apparition, doesnt mean we cant also do every other legendary creature as a version of Slimer, or Gandalf, or Glup Shitto.
The bottom of the barrel is gone and the tunnel to the core of the earth will be near infinite.
For Dune, they would have to pay too much I guess.
And the LotR Set was ... in consideration that they didn't gave Sephi an Afro, even hypocrisy.
@@RedBobcatGamesThat just feel like a "I don't really know Spider-Man that well" problem on your end. Which is perfectly fine! But I think you'd surprised how big and large the Spider-Man world can be when you dig into it. Between the villains, the gadgets, the supporting cast, the minions and the heroes, you can easily cover all colors. As for spells, imagine a reprint of fatal push with the death of Gwen Stacy on it, or a few tap spells representing getting webbed up or hung upside down by Spidey. Giant Growth with Sandman on it. Lightning Bolt or Shock featuring Electro. It's not that hard to find a power representing any instant or sorcery spell you might need. Even if you have to dig deep and feature Cardiac to get it.
@@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109 okay but none of that feels like *Magic*
UB Fallout got me into magic, but now I wish they'd focus more on the original IP. You did it, you got me to care about Liliana Vess! Now make cards with her please!
And not just cards, but give us books and video games and everything!
@RedBobcatGames I am looking forward to the Netflix show. Because when I got into Magic the Gathering, I only knew/know the card game. I have no connection to the story or the Lore. When I tried to read the story of Duskmourn on the magic the gathering website, I fell asleep. I fell asleep in a horror story... that's not a good thing. I'm looking forward to the Final Fantasy Universe Beyond. The racing set and space set don't interest me (yet?).
you'll have liliana but riding a car muahahaha
welp, foundations has come just in time then
@@Surfer669 The show is canceled basically.
Why didn't the hot pocket tie-in not have food tokens in the box? That's the kinda cross promotion I want. I "bake into a pie" your guy into a pizza hot pocket token. Imagine the tilt value on a play like that. I think all it was was Gideon (right around when he died) on the product box and maybe some lame code for arena. Cereal boxes have had punch out cardboard crap for the longest time, wth.
That's actually a great idea. I'd be into that
Tokens? They could have made cards that work with food with Hot Pockets on the art!
I think one of the big things with UB is the fight between Introducting New Players and Keeping Existing Players. New Players bring growth. Existing Players bring stability. What's the point in "bringing new players in" if you don't cultivate an environment in which they want to stay?
SPOT on saying UB segregates the playerbase, that has been one of my arguments against it from the beggining.
Before, magic was for everyone even if a set or block wasn’t your cup of tea, now you are encouraged to actively IGNORE entire segments and releases of a game you’re supposed to LOVE.
And as we all know, apathy for Entertainment means death.
Yeah. "This set isn't for you" is a crazy thing to hear from them
@@RedBobcatGames I play a lot of these "kitchen sink" card games, they tend to rely on some extremely rare collectible versions of cards to push sales, since the actual players don't generally need more than a booster box or two of their chosen IP to build basically any deck they want. Weiss Schwarz and now Union Arena don't allow you to mix IPs in a single deck. Universus does in standard, but they have a "spotlight" format which is a non-rotating format of whatever IP you pick.
Never have i heard from these games or companies, "this set isn't for you". Even the games that should completely segregate their playerbase try to tempt every player with every set via lottery cards, and mtg struggles with lottery cards because collector boosters.
Also, for better or worse, those games only have 1 way to play. 1v1, whatever the rules of the game say. Universus has standard and spotlight and some older formats but ultimately its focus is on 1v1 standard gameplay. MtG having to design a bunch of these cards to facilitate commander and standard and probably modern seems... tricky.
TL;DR MtG just doesn't seem built to handle splitting their playerbase even further.
@@RedBobcatGames it's the most "polite" way to say "We don't give a fuck about your opinions and preferences, as long as that's just a small % of releases that you would skip".
("polite" ... such a sweetened choice of word .... )
@@marcoottina654 Along with "there are enough suckers to buy this stuff"
Funny thing is, coming from vanguard, where many products only support a select number of decks, having a bunch of “this product is not for you” was the norm and expected
"I flip patricks home to trigger spongebob's burger flip, dealing 8 damage to each creature and opponent"
A little besides the point, but wanted to give an extra credit: Your interview/conversation style is absolutely fantastic and the chemistry between you two was absolutely fantastic. Dunno how exactly prewritten all the topics were, they felt that they were very deliberately and carefully scripted, the topics flowed into one another perfectly and the banter between you two is just excellent.
Amazing job on the video, wish I could afford to throw a tip
Honestly, not scripted at all. Well, I say that but I planned out the first half which is basically just a presentation on UB. Made some extra "slides" just in case he had questions. And I wrote down some questions I knew I wanted to ask at the end ahead of time, but once we get to the part where I say something like "So that's all of them, what are your thoughts?" it's all just free-flow from there. But thank you though, I'm glad you enjoyed!
@@RedBobcatGames natural chemistry baby
@@RedBobcatGames Wow, amazingly well done. Your work is always such high quality! The community is the reason why I feel sad about the direction WotC or more specifically Hasbro is heading, but hopefully with all the creators giving their voices, things will get fixed
You were right about the vocaloid characters, and creepshow is in fact a horror anthology comic series from Image comics.
I wonder if Matt's response to the next universes beyond was rooted in the small sets of secret lairs or if he was grasping it's going to be a 300 card set. I would be very curious how we'd get 300 back to the future themed cards (God knows WotC would try)
Also, this conversation reminds me of that investment drama that happened last year where Bank of America downgraded their stock projections for Hasbro for diluting magic as a brand.
You do know that Creepshow goes back further, right? I.e. the simultaneous release of the movie and graphic novella released in _'82?_
@@christopherb501 yes. Thus why I used present tense (as you can tell by the use of is and not was) to describe it, and was referring to the horror anthology series as a whole and not "the graphic novella from Stephen King with no regard to the other issues that were later published"
Oh that's interesting to hear. And yeah I imagine Back to the Future would just be a Secret Lair. THOUGH a full 350 set for a trilogy of movies doesn't seem that far off from something I can imagine them trying
@@RedBobcatGames could you imagine the reactions to the third movie? "We heard you liked cowboys in your magic, well surprise!"
@@RedBobcatGamesI don't think Back to the Future has the elements needed for a full set, or even a full set of commander decks. Yeah, it has three films, but the three films are extremely similar, on purpose.
It’s a running joke in my friend group that we’re all just waiting for a Yu Gi Oh UB and the more of these that get released I believe it more
I'm starting to think we'll see it sooner or later too
If not the next set, i'd be shocked if they dont do a Dune set at some point
Oh yeah, that seems like a pick they'd make
Dune would actually fit in the Magic universe. Its dark and gritty and somewhat medieval looking.
Skyrim would also fit 100%, just like lord of the rings.
Even fallout fits.
What doesnt fit is spongebob and marvel.
@@axelbrackeniers5488 If it's literally "Skyrim" and not "Elder Scrolls" I would worldfire myself
@@axelbrackeniers5488comments like this are how UB get made
@@cherry9787 true, i just said skyrim cuz the video was specifically talking about skyrim and not ES.
When discussing non-Wizards IP MTG, I think we should remember Portal 3 Kingdoms. It is a set based on the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It has characters and quotes from the novel. The set is basically equivalent to MTG: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, except for a piece of Asian literature instead of European.
Magic seems like it's truly at it's best when it takes advantage of it's own medium rather than copying or adapting others. Lotr fit with its fantasy theme but also the literary references that can be made with flavortext and idyllic artstyles. UB should serve to garnish the design space of Magic, not take it over.
What really concerns me for final fantasy is how cards can't really capture the signature media of the franchise: it's music. FF is celebrated not just for its characters but its cinematic approach to video game storytelling. This is achieved greatly by its music, which can't be conveyed by cards aside from a tongue-in-cheek namedrop. Why bother going all-in on a standard legal set when it can't even pander to the reasons people like the franchise in the first place?
To expand on what @watchmeswoocerightin455 said, another example for me is Spider-man. I just don't see how that IP fits comfortably into the 5 colour system of Magic
We can go back even further than P3K: the VERY FIRST EXPANSION was Arabian Nights. The very name of that expansion has a real world location in it. Yes, they later worked that into the lore as a world that just happened to resemble the mythology of the Middle East, but as originally printed, it's the Arabian Nights stories as Magic cards.
Portal 3 Kingdoms is a great example of why this DOESN'T work though. If you play that set it plays completely differently to any other set. In order to make the setting work within Magic they had to awkwardly map each of the 3 factions onto one color (so Cao Wei became black, Dong Wu became blue, and Shu Han became white). Then red and green were left as awkward "utility" colors that don't really have a place in the setting. When a full 40% of the colors of Magic basically don't work within the set and have no identity other than "here's some random stuff that doesn't fit in one of the 3 factions" you know you have a problem. Then you have the problem that the whole idea of casting spells doesn't really fit into a real-world historical setting so the idea of lobbing fireballs and summoning big monsters doesn't really work. And then you have the mechanical issues, particularly flying. The idea of flying was so out of touch with the real-world setting that they had to invent the functionally identical "horsemanship" that does exactly the same thing, resulting in the only full Magic set without any fliers. In other words, Portal 3 Kingdoms really doesn't feel like a Magic set because it's setting doesn't fit with Magic's setting and game structure AT ALL.
@@RedBobcatGames wdym? spiderman is clearly blue and red!
!!!
Caught a few minutes of this video-and your interactions with Cheesemint, adore it! This is going in to my "tag and shuffle away to my cozy place to watch this with my 100% undivided attention" zone
Godzilla cards were the poison pill of Self Fulfilling Precedent that paved the way for TWD. Simply put: WOTC makes up a precedent in a good way, Godzilla skins you can avoid if you don't want to engage with it, then uses that as precedent to cross the line egregiously. Then uses FOMO to sell out to scalpers and intentionally misses that it sold out because of scalpers, acting like it was real organic demand. Now you have manufactured precedent.
Yep. And it seems to make them money so I imagine they'll keep doing it too
Right now, Magic feels like Bob's Generic restaurant, where they serve everything at once on one plate. Today's special: Duck a L'orange with cotton candy, Doritos, Texas brisket and sushi.And a Big Mac.
Seeing them all in a row like this is grim
Ok! There's another Red Bobcat video, so it's time for another mile-long essay in which I synthesize a new Unified Theory of Magic. Buckle up. It's a long one.
This was all good stuff, but there was loads of context and connections that were at the front of my mind that didn't come up (and wouldn't have fit in a reasonable video). In particular I think the contrast between your cosplaying vocaloids and Scooby Doo Assassins Creed examples is the perfect illustration what's missing from Universes Beyond and keeping it from being good art or good.
They're taking elements that were good on their own, but not minding if they complement each other, and not assembling them into something greater than the sum of its parts.
It's the same thing that differentiates Neon Dynasty from Karlov Manor. Neon Dynasty is a return to a world that had been the setting for a thousand-year prequel. It needed to communicate the passage of entire eras of history, to be both new and old, and so its identity became founded on that idea. Crucially though, it didn't just mix in futuristic stuff: It mixed in Japanese cyberpunk stuff. The old and new halves have their cultural inspiration in common, so people are primed to associate even the completely disparate elements of each with the other, and the conflict between old and new is already baked into the cyberpunk genera. Even the concept for the set is a work of art.
Karlov Manor doesn't work because its newer thematic layer doesn't have an in-world millennium to have grown in, nor a common origin with Ravnica's old theme, nor anything to say about the idea of adding a new theme to an existing world. They just wanted to make a detective-themed set, so they put it in a world that had successfully hosted a detective story before. It's like Scooby Doo in Assassin's Creed. You CAN dress him up and interpret him as much as you like, and the better you do it the less damage you'll do, but you still probably shouldn't put him in. In terms of the quality of the product, there's nothing to gain and everything to lose.
I think putting Universes Beyond into Magic works just like layering these new generas over Magic's characters and settings. For example, look at the Jurassic Park/World reskins. Whatever you think of them overall, I believe that Ian, Convalescent Charmer is far and away the best of the bunch. Its the one with the most care put into it, simply because it's a reskin of another weirdly seductive shirtless lounging man. Is it a meme? Of course! But Tasigur, the Golden Fang already was. This is finding a way to dress a character from another IP in Magic character cosplay without even changing the imagery of that other IP, and without changing the tone associated with either character. It's a small thing, but it's more clever than it seems and it makes the card a whole greater than the sum of its parts. If you look through the other Jurassic reskins, you'll find that they used a giant t-rex from Magic as the spinosaurus, and a giant spinosaurus from Magic as the t-rex. It's thoughtless junk. Not offensive as such, but still less than the sum of its parts: The leftovers from two things people liked mixed up into a bucket to create tolerable slop.
A more complicated example is the UB cards in Brothers War. You'd be mad to think that Transformers cards felt right in that set, or that they had anything to offer it, but d'you know where they would have felt right? Neon Dynasty! It's a colorful set with anime alt arts, an American take on Japanese science fiction media with references to cartoons from the same era, with vehicles and giant robots. Transformers would have looked normal there and there alone, but more than that, including them would have helped to reinforce the identity of the new Kamigawa. "Oh," people would have said "I get it!"
If they wanted to put another IP into Brother's War, I think it should have been Warhammer 40,000. That was their chance to show Magic players that Warhammer cards genuinely can belong alongside normal Magic cards. The number of parallels between the tone, aesthetics, themes, events, etc of 40k and the Brothers War beggars belief. I know the production timelines of these things are complicated, but the sets came out in the same year, and they did nothing with any of that.
40K in general did a strangely poor job of finding connections to Magic. Both settings have factions of bizarre comedy orcs and goblins contrasting against often bleak fantasy wars, for example, but those got relegated to a secret lair that tries to make them go in a serious-face Mardu deck instead of updating the weird old Phil Foglio cards that match their personality. Both have elves and dwarves and sorcerers all over the place, but not in the commander decks.
Instead an effort seemed to be made to put the least-Magic-like aspects of Warhammer into the decks, like Atalan Jackals of all things (genetically modified half-alien cultists on dirt bikes, for the uninitiated). Genestealer Cults have huge parallels with Phyrexian sleeper agents, but you'd never know that from their commander deck. Necrons have huge parallels with the Dreadhoard, but you wouldn't know that either. Every Warhammer thing gets its own creature type instead of anything to connect it to the wider game to which they're being added. I don't know what the "race" type for Space Marines and Custodians ought to be, but I'm certain it shouldn't have been "vocab test". The result of all this is that the Warhammer cards are good on their own, but they don't capitalize on their existence as a part of Magic. There's wasted potential there, and they'll never fit in as well as they could have because of it.
Even IPs that are a more obvious fit for Magic seem to go out of their way to find ways to not gel. Not only do they all have the Universes Beyond frame whether it suits them or not, they get odd mechanics like The Initiative and The Ring Tempts you, that can't really be interacted with by anything else. I think that might be intended to make them play better with each other, like a soft restriction on blending them in too much with your other decks, but in practice it just makes them feel less at home in the game of which they are parts.
Foundations Era Standard will be Slop Standard regardless of whether the sets that go into it are good, because they don't pick them to harmonize with the rest of Magic, much less with each other. They're not even going to be able to put the cosplay on the characters, because to fit in they'd need to cosplay as characters for *other* other IPs. This could have been avoided, and as usual the answer is a step back in the direction of blocks: They needed to put complementary sets together in the same year.
If we'd had, say, "Neon Dynasty -> Final Fantasy -> Brothers War -> 40k -> Thunder Junction -> Fallout" as a year of Standard sets, that might still have been weird, and it might still have been too many sets, but it could have been made to work by presenting everything in ways that highlight their thematic, mechanical and aesthetic through-lines. It would be a year of the broken promises of progress, technological vaults buried in wastelands, apocalyptic wars, energy guns, etc, but always as a contrast with an older, fading world of nature. You'd have to play up different aspects of each setting for the best effect (no Transformers anywhere, no hiding from the meanings of westerns and cyberpunk), but I hope I've illustrated how that could be done above, and obviously you could do better if you weren't limited to moving around sets they've already made.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Why did you read this? Are you ill?
I'm with you on the Transformer part, oddly enough. That would be VERY thematic, especially for the art itself. Brothers' War was much more ... dark, and foggy, and light-less; somewhere where hope was fading away in the furnace of war.
I also agree about Warhammer 40k in toto. "Astartes" are basically "enhanced humans", so ... come on WotC, just make them "Astartes Huma Warrior"! No Angels, okay, but at least __try__ to tie the whole game into Magic!
Lots of cards were actually good! I use some of them both in Commander and in 60-cards formats. But ... yes: "just a bunch of cards". As far as I know, there are 2 strong themes: +1/+1 counters and swarms of tokens of various kinds. Nothing more. Uh a bit about attacking! ..... and? And .... I can't see much more ties into M:tG
Yeah Yeah, "spells with X in mana cost" ..... Warhammer 40K gave a huge boost on it, to be honest.
But .. I still feel WotC felt short on this. Not "the shortest possible", but short indeed.
(**I love the following**)
Lastly, yes: as you suggested, WotC could have tied all of those IPs, or at least most of them, into the same theme of "Nature annihilation through unbalanced usages of technologies and too many devastating wars."
This would also naturally lead (half-intended pun) the lore to either (or both?) resolution(s) to the aftermath of those series of devastations: either/both the comeback of Nature-focused, Celtic-inspired sets which are leading the biological sphere's healing and/or the rising of Eldrazis again to finally engulf and devour the now depleted and defeated World. The former could be a mix of Stronghold (something around that block) and Lorwin, the latter a Zendikar 3.0 (4.0?).
But no, obviously FUCK IT.
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe WotC couldn't pull this idea off due to the lack of proper _contracts_ with the all IPs' owners to properly establish the lore and, then, plan this whole "fantasy voyage".
maybe, IDK
I would love a Celtic-themed set ("blocks" are just memories now ....)
@@marcoottina654 Putting together sets from three different IPs of any kind in a year sounds hard enough, I agree, but if they dropped one of them and went down to 5 standard sets a year I bet they could pull it off. They'd also have a less ridiculous schedule and a better than 50% ration for in-universe releases.
Mostly the point of that last bit was just that if they grouped up sets they've done recently (or are about to do) by theme instead of by nothing at all, they could build them in ways that make better use of their similarities for creative and mechanics, both to better integrate and use Universes Beyond, and to reclaim a lot of the advantages of a block without actually doing a block, nor replicating the reasons they've given for not going back to them. That specific theme and sequence of sets was just the first version of the idea that came to mind using real sets. They could equally have tried, say, Return to Lorwyn, Eldrain, Bloomburrow, a D&D set, Tales of Middle Earth, and Warhammer: The Old World as one year of Standard. Or all the sci fi stuff, or all the Americana.
I was so sorely tempted to just write "Yes" as a response to all this. But, (and you made many points so this is just sort of addressing the forest rather than the trees) I think Universes Within fixes a lot of this. It's fine to have whatever they want on a UB card, and keep it seperate as long as we get a UW version that ties the mechanics and the theme to an existing narrative. Would that be more work for them? Sure, but that's their job, that's what we're paying them for
@@RedBobcatGames Yeah it was a bit much. It's a lot of stuff I've been thinking about for ages that this video helped crystalize. I really like parts of Universes Beyond but I don't like how its being handled, and that makes things complicated to unpack. The "yes" would have been richly deserved.
I think Universes Within can fix some aspects, but not once we're regularly putting UB sets into Standard without otherwise trying to make them fit in. It's a tool for secret lairs an inserts into normal sets, and it can't stop Magic from turning into the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
No, I agree. And I think the game will be worse for it too
I will say this: I got into Magic through The Lord of the Rings set. I saw the set and picked up a starter kit and a commander deck. I showed this to my friends who were into Magic, and I after playing with the set, I played draft at a local game store with Brother's War and then Wilds of Eldraine. It was after that that I got hooked into the magic look because I had a friend group that got me sucked into the story and characters. I came in after The March of the Machines, but I went back and read the storyline and got invested in the characters. To WotC, I am what they are looking for.
The problem is that it wasn't their marketing that did the job, it was my friends that helped guide me onto that. In a way, I think that is why "Magic the Hattening" is happening, to smooth the on-ramp between people coming in for UB and people getting into the Magic story. In a corporate mind, I can understand the transition from "Look, Final Fantasy fans, we have this" to "Do you also like Star Wars? Here's our take on it with our characters" to "We have this wide multiverse full of different planes for you to explore with an overarching storyline". I think that's what they are going for, but it isn't working because we need people out there to be like my friends and provide that easy transition, but that burden is on the game stores and online personalities.
Just a note, Creepshow, was an anthology movie series in the 80s. They had different directors and writers who wrote up short segments and they'd typically be around 3-5 per film. They also had an ongoing theme in the movies of tying the different vignettes together by a kid reading a comic titled Creepshow.
Creepshow was the original Halloween SL creepshow is an anthology series based off the movies done by Steven King shot by George A Romero.
Oh! Well now I know. Thank you
Oh it was the assassins crees video which i saw of yours first. And now you call him up again for this. Awesome.
He's a good person to ask about this sort of thing, and hopefully entertaining to listen to
@ i actually quite liked how relaxed you both were and how he got you laughing at brief moments. It’s all good.
@@RedBobcatGames It is, I appreciated him a lot as a host and I would like to hear more again about him :D nice collaboration :D
and as always, very curated video :D
Spongebob broke me. I've sold my MtG trades folder to my lgs, and buying into Star Wars Unlimited. No regrets, SWU is such a fun game to play.
You should buy albums not just because it supports the artist, but because physical media will be yours while streaming will vanish over time. When Redbox went under many people lost their digital catalogue, when Right Stuff merged with Crunchy many people lost their library, when Netflix purges a show many people lose their access to those shows. Do not depend on media you don't own to exist in the future.
This would have never been an issue if Wizards had made Universes Beyond cards silver bordered or some equivalent, from the get go. Then they could have created new formats in which these cards could be played with alongside all other MTG sets. That way none of the existing formats would have been violated and all the new UB products would have their own special place.
Magic needs an Arcane like show to get people interested in the main cast.
The stories and characters are already there, just put them in something that is not a blogpost, or set announcement trailer.
Even something like a short animated web series would do wonders for storytelling
How does everyone constantly forget the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set? The first full-release, draftable magic set, I think legal in standard at the time, that came before even LoTR and introduced the memorably controversial Venture Into the Dungeon mechanic? Not sure if it was technically UB but it should at least have been mentioned imo
25:50 the lack of a Adventure Time is kind of crazy, its one of those ones that could actually fit.
I wonder if Adventure Time is a licensing issue, as Cryptozooic has the license for the Adventure Time card game based on the in universe card game Card Wars (which was funnily enough clearly a Magic derivative)
My bet for what UUB will be is Game of Thrones (as that license has lapsed via Fantasy Flight going bankrupt, and it also hits the sweet spot of "Huh, this would have made a lot more sense 10 years ago" combo of lateness and nostalgia theyre going for)
True, but then Marvel has it's own card game too so who knows
When I first started magic I didn’t know anything about its own cards, I only knew about warhammer and LOTR. When I first saw normal cards I was like “woah they made a whole lore for this game? Weird” but then I fell in love with them. I think it does I good job of pulling people in. I mean it took me a while to go sit down and look through all the lore but still
Hi. I am a veteran player that fell in love with the OG lore long ago and I wonder: How do people like you, who come from Universe Beyond, experience the lore? And what about the fact that Magic today is a mixture of random pop culture IPs with its own lore just being an increasingly small part of the overall IP? Do you enjoy Gandalph vs Angron vs Spongebob vs Spiderman as this is how you got to know the game in the first place? Because honestly? I hate it. I hate it so much that it killed my love for one of my greatest passions in life. But that is just me. Genuinely curious about your answer.
@@goliathsteinbeisser3547 I started with the Mirrodin block , I'm from 1995 so I was a young teenager at that time.
I was magnetized by the lore that I "lost" due to the timing of some years, i.e. by just a bunch of years, and everything that followed was well made, immersive, well characterized and enriched as an Anthology.
.... Until after Tarkir, where both I lost interest and I was failing to grasp what the hell was going on in this Universe.
Now it's .... "meh", like a draft thrown at the printer
That recent return to Innistrad I found particularly disheartening
@@goliathsteinbeisser3547 I definitely like the lore after I watched an hour long summary video by spicy8rack. I think there are some cards that fit magic better than others. I think the grittiness of lotr and warhammer with them being more serious ips allow them to fit better than say SpongeBob and Spider-Man. I definitely don’t like the idea of SpongeBob cards that much. I think they need to fit the feel of magic.
The problem is there isn’t really any lore for the recent sets since I’ve joined.
The clear preference for universe beyond over native magic has completely pushed me away from the game at this point.
They seem to be wanting to kill the Vorthos players from their game, probably in the hope for getting more players who like other IP?
But it feels like while some people will stick around, they are probably destroying the long term viability of the game by pissing off their core fan base.
I doubt I'm going to go anywhere for the time being myself. But I will keep putting out videos calling them out for exactly this. And what's mad to me is we could have both! Why does the story have to take a back seat so UB can flourish?
@ you are one of the last Magic content creators I watch because you primarily are calling them out on this nonsense.
You’d be right if magic players had it in them to quit. Some will but most magic players would buy a magic product if all it contained was an angry wasp. People cry out against ub taking up half of magic but then marvel secret lair comes out and they cry that they didn’t get the cards because it sold out too quickly. Wotc is making the only logical financial decision.
@@tc5589-1 what you’re missing is that these are not necessarily the same players, and I have to wonder how many players who came to Magic because of Marvel will stick around after they stop printing more tie ins.
We're clearly getting a Skibidi Toilet set to tie-in with the movie.
havent watched yet, instant like. love red feline guy
Ha! Thank you very much, I hope the video doesn't disappoint
@@RedBobcatGames it very much delivered. very interesting conversation overall. thoroughly enjoyable all the way :)
Well thank you very much
Kind of in an unusual spot, myself. On the one hand, I absolutely love Final Fantasy. It's the series that got me into gaming in general, and my excitement over having my favorite card game with a series that's near and dear to my heart is like a dream come true. To me.
On the other hand, though, I do totally understand and even agree that including outside IPs stifles WotC's need for creativity when it comes to building their worlds or designing cards around their ideas they've been building since 1993. Why do something new when we can fall back on buying the rights to use Marvel, Assassin's Creed, Warhammer 40k, or even Final Fantasy? It just doesn't feel congruent with what Magic is. To be fair, even the past few sets feel like dress-up ( Thunder Junction, Duskmourn, Markov Manor.)
Is it weird of me to feel so.. conflicted about this?
Lets goooo new video by my favorite red cat
I love not complaining about card games for an hour, keeps my brain healthy
We need the ultimate crossover....
MTG YUGIOH!!!!!
I mean at this point, why not?
They are so different mechanically. I have one idea though to keep the spirit of the card.
Pot of Greed
0 mana Legendary Artifact
Tap: Sacrifice Pot of Greed, draw two cards. ( Activate only as sorcery speed)
@@Zthewise
Pot of Greed????
WHAT DOES IT DO??? Nobody knows!
I agree with what you said about the cosplay card arts that is probably the best idea
Yeah, or just Universes Within would be fine too honestly
Great video commenting for the algorithm
As someone who started playing magic this year, I definitely got into the game because of UB, had a ton of fun with the game and my subsequent decks have been based on the newer in universe sets, which their themes also continued to draw me in (OTJ, Bloomburrow, Duskmourn) and now foundations has now peaked my interest towards standard after being introduced to the game via commander, and I am now even more excited for more Universes Within sets. However, I will say I find the lore kinda, hard to approach? Intimidating maybe? Unsure, im definitley interested in some of the characters, but all I really know is that they travel through different planes and there are different conflicts within/between. I do definitely see the point you guys are making with the player base segregation though. Excuse the mess of thoughts but I do hear what you guys are saying in this video and it was a good watch.
One last thought is that I feel UB made magic less intimidating to get into as a new player, for the longest time magic felt like something that was so hard to get into because it was something very unfamiliar with such a long history, and even casual formats like EDH seemed daunting because even though its casual, you would have to find away to make a 100 card deck with these cards and lore that you have no idea or relationship with. With UB it was cool to say "oh hey I like hatsune miku/transformers etc, let me build a deck around this" allowed for that wall to kinda come down, which then allowed me to engage with magic as a whole, and then start to love the game for what it is. That being said, I have no clue where the line is, I think 50% of future sets being UB is INSANE to me and a step in the bad direction, it would be cool if WoTC used their resources to then find way to make the lore more accessible/exciting to new players (maybe animated shorts, webcomics, etc) akin to something like how leauge has done and then have those tie back into the cards(kinda like the animations for bloomburrow they did). As for now I feel like im just resorting to youtube lore videos which are cool! But it would be cool to have a way for WoTC to make a more engaging way to engage with the lore and maybe get new players to appreicate the Universes within more? I could be wrong about a lot of the things Ive said, Ive only been playing for a couple of months, but this is my perspective as a new player
Magic has always been a great game. But in my opinion, every story arc they've ever attempted has been dogwater.
I like Magic at its best when it is generic high fantasy.
I could be swayed if they write a good storyline. But I've been let down 15+ times
You make a lot of interesting points. And I completely agree about how dense Magic's lore can seem. But WotC don't do the player base any favours in that regard. I always compare it to 40k's lore which is equally as thick, BUT they do such a good job of putting out tie in media than people kind of get a grasp of what's going on. Magic seem to hide their lore or keep it exclusive to blog posts and I find that maddening
@ I completley agree, I just really want them to do MORE it almost feels like WoTC is ashamed of the lore? Or is just afraid of putting in the effort? But regardless hopefully in the future they can find the time (they definitely have the resources) to maybe produce something suplemental to the lore to engage new fans & old.
Yeah magic has that long, rambling style of story that you see in long running comics, and it's often let down by the need to balance sticking to its guns and playing out the lasting consequences of major events with providing instantly grockable jumping on points.
They made a set recently called Brother's War, which I think was an attempt to solve part of that problem. It was a recap of the ancient history that had laid the groundwork for the major events of the plot at the time. It didn't sell all that well in spite of being a good set, supposedly because even established players either didn't recognize or care about a generation of characters who hadn't been in the story for actual real world decades.
I like your perspective, i’m all for having commander sets and toher such “precon” products with other franchaises. It helps get new players to the game which cool, but i don’t think it should be HALF of everything Magic is.
And with the lore, yeah i got into Magic in 2019 where they just finished a HUGE storyline, and was took a long time to realise what had just happened. I think the cinematic trailers did a lot to make me go “That looks epic, what’s this story behond it?”
So yeah i desperately want more support for the lore lol
Bro I love your channel so much. you have super based takes, you stick to your topic and you are hecking funneh my dude. keep on rocking!
Thank you very much!
I think Castlevania is a big possibility, Konami crosses it with everything and i don't think that the fact that they own Yu-Gi-Oh will be a problem for them, considering that they've crossed YGO with another exclusively universes beyond card game (that's now dead) called Dice Masters. Castlevania is basically Innistrad, so it'll be at least a bit easier on the eyes than Spiderman and i would actually be excited for it, with a close-to-equal amount of shame, because it's still a universe beyond.
We have already have Dracula cards too in fairness, so yeah I can see this
I think the phrase "tonal whiplash" was very appropriate. The game has came a long ways from "two powerful wizards casting spells at each other." Also, I didn't know just how much UUB had been put out. Wow.
I legit didn’t even know that half of these existed. Jesus.
Yeah, when you look at them stacked up it's rough
I’m really not interested in Universes Beyond. The Warhammer 40K set was good and I approve. But it should never be legal to play in any other format.
No, and yet here we are now
30:22 this is exactly how my partner got into Magic. Tried for a few years to get then into magic but it wasnt until the LotR set that i convinced them to play and only now a few months back are they expanding into magic general with the assistance of Bloomburrow. They unfortunately do not care for the world of magic or care for any of its in universe characters
12:26 ooooh boy, i thought he figured out the kithkin, halfling, hobbit but he didn't know about it Xd
Very good conversation, actually loved this format! Hope you might continue might do videos like this here and there, I think getting another perspective to compare and contrast is really cool.
Also fully agree with what you talked about. I don't think I'll ever be fully on board with UB, but if they could at least put SOME effort into blending it more into the core game it would be at least a little more digestible.
I'll do more of these occasionally, but rarely because honestly editing a 40 minute video in a week nearly killed me haha
@RedBobcatGames Creepshow is a movie that was made by Stephen King and George A. Romero
I'm wondering if the Chronicles of Narnia is gonna make an appearance in Universes Beyond
Ooohh, yeah. I'd be into that actually. I really enjoyed... ugh I want to say the Dawntreader arc (?) as a child. I seem to remember thinking Prince Caspian (?) was cool. It's been a while since I read them
Robo-dog's surprised eyes were unexpectedly funny
My optimistic prediction is that we end up back at 3-block sets, or at least 2-block sets, now that UB can serve the purpose of adding variety. That would allow them to tell a better story and slow down MTG, helping UB players convert to MTG and helping MTG players retain interest. My pessimistic prediction is that 3 UB, 2 UB-like in-house sets, 1 "return to X" is going to be the new pattern, possibly swapped out for even more UB further down the line.
The other thing that's relevant to predict is of course what are the UB going to be? It seems to me like 1 full marvel set per year is highly likely at least as they work through the backlog of Xmen, Avengers, etc, just because that's pretty much a guaranteed win financially. The other two, if theres any pattern to them at all, could potentially be "1 western, 1 eastern", or "1 modern/future, 1 medieval". More likely though, just any two random franchises that can be portrayed in a broadly 'fantasy realism' aesthetic. The secret lairs will obviously continue too, and now that UB-in-standard has given permission for crossover products to be mechanically unique, I'm expecting to see quite a few more mechanically unique secret lairs.
Then there's the loxodon in the room which is what do they do about anime. It's a massive market, one they've touched on before with a small handful of overpriced cards per year, but one that they also seem to be terrified to commit to, refusing even to hire anime artists for the vocaloid secret lairs, probably because its significant anti-popularity would make it a line too far for a lot of people otherwise tolerant of UB. It's also quite funny to me as someone whose primary mode of entertainment is anime to hear someone call the current set of UB products a "shotgun blast", cos within my sphere of reference it looks like they're hyper-focusing on a consumer demographic I tend to just think of as a single "west-type nerd" group, the same way those people probably see no meaning in distinguishing between subtypes of weeb.
The other guy also makes a great point about segregation - this is exactly the problem Weiss Schwarz has. Sets are mutually exclusive, so each individual consumer buys into the set that features an anime they like and completely ignores all of the rest.
Yeah, and this is my concern because you're right. BUT, they're making money so I don't think WotC are going to care about the things you've pointed out
They will eventually have to do an Attack on titan set probably. There's roughly 20 anime they could realistically make a set out of (AOT, Demon Slayer, Jujitsu kaijen, My hero academia, Dragon ball, Naruto, Bleach, Yu-yu-hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Tokyo Ghoul, Stein's gate???, One piece, Sword art Online, Tokyo Ghoul and probably a few others.
@@ussgordoncaptain Nah you ran out fast there, even the marketable anime demographic isn't watching Stein's Gate or Tokyo Ghoul. Demon Hunter, MHA, One Piece, Naruto. That's what you can definitely do. Dragonballs, Bleach, AOT, YYH, HxH and SAO are old now and didn't get refreshed, kids aren't watching them. Maybe AOT a little. Tokyo Ghoul and Steins;Gate kids didn't ever watch, they're aimed at an older audience and they're not action adventure. JJK maybe, it has some popularity but not enough to get onto merch shelves in non-anime-focused stores.
I love your optimistic take! That would be a wonderful result.
Correction: Street Fighter AND Walking Dead have In-Universe versions, TWD being in Wilds of Eldrain. [Saying this before it is possibly mentioned later.]
Edit: Also, Magic is becoming paper Fortnite in terms of crossovers. I hate the vast majority of UBs because they feel so out of place with the majority of Magic, like Dr. Who, Transformers, Jurassic Park, etc.
There are also in-universe versions of the Marvel Secret Lairs that people have already proxied.
Fully agree that more of these UBs should have been subtle winks and nods, cosplays, in universe versions of these external IPs. "Here is Jurassic park" gets people into the mechanics, maybe, but really it's a novelty "oh that's neat" for 99.9% of them. Being passionate about Jurassic park and getting "oh this character kind of looks like my favourite Jurassic park dinosaur, this is weird I wonder what their deal is" is far more interesting than "oh my favourite Jurassic park dinosaur got art on this random card game. Where can I find the art?"
Tbh even if they did that most people who buy the card aren’t going to look into the characters being portrayed backstory’s, they just want the card. And I feel it’ll feel odd to see other characters dress as magic characters. They kinda discus this at the end when they talk about Rick Sanchez wearing an assassins creed hood and would he fit in then and I can’t in good faith say he would
Honestly the more I think about it the more I think Universes Within is the way to go. Just two completely different cards for two different crowds
Glad I learned about proxying very early into my playing days and never spent more than $100 dollars on 'official' product.
Funko the Poppening.
Secret Lair is such a smooth way to try to start transitioning away from FLGS as your purchase point.
Have they released 2Breya yet?
That mashup is good in both name and concept
That miku luka card literally has tinybones in the background
Oh yeah, look at that!
The LotR set did contain that Saga that created Smaug. So it is not entirely just LotR, but that might also just be a cheeky exception
I do think it’s just time that anytime that doesn’t like ub needs to find a new game. Magic isn’t coming back. There will be only one or maybe none genuine magic sets each year. Of the theoretically three possible magic ip sets two will be memes, like thunder junction or detective guild, and one real set like bloomburrow.
The good thing is that there's presently a decent number of competitors in the card game market. One Piece, Union Arena, Sorcery and Flesh and Blood are just a few examples off the top of my head.
I have enjoyed what I've played of One Piece myself. But yeah, I think Magic is going in a direction I'm not a fan of at all. Though I'm not going anywhere yet. I hoping making enough noise will force WotC to make some changes. I think Magic can have both UB and a healthy IP of it's own if they just give it a bit more care
@@RedBobcatGames if magic players hadn’t demonstrated which they prefer with their money there would be hope. Even the recent marvel secret lair received criticism for being too hard to get rather than being completely and unapologetically out of theme. Wotc is making the objectively correct financial decision according to sales statistics, and I bet the statistics hold.
@@Mirthful_Midori I’ve been looking a little at that shadow verse one because it has a knock off form of commander, which is the part of magic I play the most.
@@tc5589-1 Universus looks a bit like commander, but I haven't had a chance to really try it out.
Not getting Gloin's father in thr LotR set was an absolute crime
With Ash not being legendary, I can make my own army of darkness.
Im in the crowd that was introduced to magic with UB. Lotr came out at the perfect time when I was living in New Zealand for work and visiting all the touristy film sites. Tabletop games were super popular where I was living and was a great way to meet locals and make new friends. It wasn't the lotr cards that kept me in the game but rather all of the other commanders people were playing and the prospects of deckbuilding. I figured that the cards would make a good souvenir but never expected to fall so hard for the gameplay. It seems wotc is trying to capitalize on cases like myself, but are failing to realize that the game's identity stands on its own and doesn't need the IP treatment once players have been introduced to it.
No, you're right. It's one thing to focus so much on bringing new players in, but i wish they'd do more work to make the original lore and setting interesting enough to keep players around for that once they're here
@@RedBobcatGames I'd be really interested to see a video where you speculate on the color wheel problem in in spider-man. I'm not a die-hard fan but I've seen all the movies and read enough comics to know that the flavoring this time around is gonna be a stretch. Obviously villains are gonna get a black or blue treatment; venom in dimir, black cat in orzhov, the lizard in golgari. But what about all the other spider-men? Spiders are mostly green or black in magic which doesn't really reflect the playstyle I'd expect from an agile superhero. Most spider-men will probably end up in temur colors, which from a gameplay perspective feels bland imo. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the subject!
@@watchmeswoocerightin455I'm not redbobcat, but I love both Magic and Spider-man, so I figured my perspective might be interesting.
Basically, while it's very tempting to make every villain black or blue, with a bit of thinking we can actually split them a bit more evenly. The Lizard, for example, doesn't need black. He's not usually portrayed as power-hungry or ruthless, but more like classic werewolf. He's a kind scientist who turns into an animalistic monster. My first instinct would be Simic, but since Lizard tend to be red in magic, you might want him izzet or Gruul. Golgari is more approriate for Scorpion.
Kraven is a big game hunter obsessed with finding worthy prey. Perfect for Jund, but you could cut black and leave him Gruul.
Venom, at least Eddie Brock Venom, is more Red-Black, being extremely impulsive, revenge focused, and kinda dumb. He could gain white for his more antihero side, making him Mardu. Agent Venom is a Boros soldier, while Carnage is pure Red-Black (and I'm not talking about his costume) The various other symbiote tend to be very loosely defined, so you could have a cycle.
Black Cat could be Dimir or Orzhov, since she is a thief (Rogue) with a heart of gold. Depends on what you focus on. Kingpin fits Orzhov to a T, though.
As for mono-color, Morbius can be mono-black. Sandman can be mono red. Chameleon mono blue. Rhino mono green or red. Cardiac mono-white (Cardiac is not going to be in the set).
As for Spidey, he's Jeskai at core, (Blue for the Science, Red for the large earth, and White for the responsability) and you could have various Non-Peter version alternate between UW, WR and UR. Despite the name Spider-Man, he doesn't usually have anything to do with actual spiders beyond being bitten by one, so there is no need for him to have green or black.
Yeah, I've used LOTR sets as the intro to Magic to my friends and it was a perfect gateway, because it is something they recognise and understand with ease!
@@RedBobcatGamesbut like, what interesting lore has there been left anyway? Like, after how they handled MoM, I don't know if there is anything juicy in the core storyline atm...
Hmm, LEGO has been doing a bunch of stuff with D&D... so could be a Magic LEGO collab coming. Horizon has also been pushing into a bunch of stuff, could have a Horizon Zero Dawn UB set -.- ugh...
I really like the machines in Horizon, they could kinda be like anti-Phyrexians but I just hate everything UB and UB adjacent.
I love most of the IPs used for UB, but I just don't want them in Magic, nor do I want Magic in them.
Yeah, my feelings are the same. Would be interesting to see how they make Lego work though. Unless they do one of their own brands like... I want to say Ninjago? Or Bioincal? I'm not much into Lego
@@RedBobcatGames I think Ninjago would be too similar to Kamigawa, but Bionicle could be pretty weird.
Could also just be like the LEGO Movie, random stuff from everywhere all thrown together... which has become the standard for Magic as well xD
awsome, thanks mate
You're welcome
Also kind of funny that Kaito is cosplaying as Jace and not as Kaito...
On one hand, I love the sets that have came out for things I enjoy. On the other, I can understand if someone would be mad at me playing my Patrick Star commander full of goblins, transformers, and some Hatsune Miku cards.
Ultimately, I’m so glad to see Magic be more than just MtG and becoming a sandbox for all sorts of card game ideas. Please excuse the lack of a better comparison, but it reminds me of let’s say Garry’s Mod, as it gives you all the tools you need to play whatever your mind can conjure with the elements provided. Want a purely land-based game? Make the rules and go! Want to make a game with a 20 card deck limit? Start working on some ideas for it! You are the only thing holding back what the game has the potential for.
That being said, it will still be weird regardless that you can have Alexander Clamilton and Hatsune Miku on the same battlefield as Okaun or an Alpha Deathclaw
Okay I think that if there’s confirmed marvel sets, and the set before the UUB is space themed, there’s no way Hasbro and Disney aren’t planning a Star Wars set. I think that’s probably also why they can’t announce it until later, since everyone would FREAK upon hearing the news
If UB was just a gateway for new people to get into magic it wouldn't be so bad, but they've made it the whole point of magic at this point, it's shown in the consistent and continuing drop in the quality and frequency of original magic stories and content, it's hard to stay invested when there's nothing meaningful to invest in.
Venom, the Last Dance is in fact.. doing well in the box office.
Sure but that doesn't make it good haha
27:58 I would agree with you if there weren't a conjoining set for these cards that was basically Clue-themed anyway. It makes me wonder...did they do a detective set just for the crossover? What about Ixalan and Jurassic Park? What about Duskmourn and Ghostbusters? Are we going to get Fast and Furious cards with Aether Drift?
Coming from someone who doesn’t know much about MTG lore and is just here for the gameplay: I like UUB stuff, but the crossovers are hit-or-miss. Some make you think, “Who asked for this?” while others are like, “Awesome!”
It reminds me of Smash Bros adding 3rd-party characters. Sometimes, people thought non-Nintendo characters were a mistake, but then some ended up being the best thing ever, depending on who got picked. If MTG’s crossovers were all “hits” and avoided the “who asked for this?” picks, I think the community would be a lot more positive about UUB. Smash taught me that it’s all about picking IPs people actually care about.
For example, as a Doctor Who fan, even I think it’s a “miss” since the show isn’t as popular anymore (and let’s be real, it’s gotten bad again). Assassin’s Creed feels like another “who asked for this?” since Ubisoft has such a bad rep and not many people care about their games now. On the other hand, Marvel, LOTR, and even Final Fantasy feel like great choices-people are still hyped for those and don’t see those IPs as “mid” or irrelevant.
MTG should focus on active IPs that people still care about, not “zombie” IPs that just won’t die. Transformers is a good example-Hasbro keeps pushing it into everything, but it feels like it’s lost its identity. Most fans are just kids who owned the toys or watched the cartoons, and that’s about it. Street Fighter (pre-SF6) had the same problem-it was crossing over with everything instead of focusing on itself. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Ninja Turtles were next for UUB since they’ve been doing crossovers everywhere too. Notice how a lot of these MTG crossover IPs also pop up in Fortnite and other games/media, while barely doing anything on their own anymore. It’s like they’ve become default “crossover fodder” instead of thriving IPs. (just see Transformers, Street fighter & Ninja turtle lists of crossover and why i think the ninja turtles is coming to MTG at this point) :
you can see it on Likes/retweets on like Fortnite: 1 of theirs most liked tweets was a picture of Shenron from Dragonball: a still beloved anime to this day
vs. tweets when they revealed transformers/ninja turtles/Street fighters and its the same case as MTG basically
Also, it’s funny how some anti-UUB MTG players change their tune when one of their favorite IPs gets added. Suddenly, they’re like, “Okay, this one’s fine.” It just proves that MTG needs to stop picking the “misses” and focus on IPs that the general public actually likes. If the crossovers are consistently good, even the skeptics might come around.
TL;DR: MTG needs to pick IPs people actually care about instead of dragging in old ones that don’t have the same hype anymore. Focus on what’s popular and relevant, not “Who asked for this?” crossovers. I think that’s one of the main issues.
Good on you for getting the Gorillaz songs! Apparently streaming takes up quite a bit of energy too, so you're saving on that with each song that you just play from what's downloaded.
OOOHHHH, well now that IS interesting. I never thought about that aspect. I burn them to my PC so I play them back that way. I wonder if not having to spin the disc drive is even cheaper because I've copied the CDs? Huh
Obligatory reminder I started on the Assassin Creed set as a new player & im now a huge fan of Phyraxians. Both are my favorite sets to crack packs for. Well maybe not AC lol
Idk. A battleship themed plane where there's giant fleets containing multiple factions in each fleet as they travel across an archipellego plane looking for resources, salvaging wrecks, and getting into battles with one aoher could be cool.
But making it battleship-themed only makes it less cool. You can have a naval set (and you almost already do with Ixalan's Pirates vs. Conquistadors vs. Merfolk) without burdening it with a worthless license.
Like Mortal Engines but at sea? Hell yeah!
I like all the Red Bobcat's video
Thank you, they like you too
Very interesting. I personally haven’t got an issue with Universes Beyond, love what you love, but yes, I also believe there is some sort of segregation and a lot of the time people buying these cards probably won’t touch the MTG main universe stuff. And of course Wizards don’t care, they just want the money.
I’m not sure if the news was out when you guys discussed this, but they also announced that 50% of their output next year will be Universes Beyond and I’m not keen on that at all. You’re going to see fewer and fewer cards that are actually set in the Magic world. And that kinda sucks. I also wouldn’t be surprised if gets even higher and we see less and less original stuff and it’s all other IPs instead making it as you said, Matt, very, very Funko…
13:40 why cant you mention thranduil? am i missing a joke or is his name somehow problematic? lmfao what?
No no, he's talking from the perspective of an Amazon Rings of Power producerer. They can't mention him in the making of the show because they don't have the rights to him (Or at least that's how I understood. I don't actually know much about that show myself)
Played Magic from 4th edition to Mirrodin block, by chance stumbled upon the Dominaria United storyline and bought some fatpacks and stuff and tried to catch up with the story of the phyrexians cause they where the most interesting thing for me back then.
What was really hard for me to swallow after almost 20 years was that they crank out so much product nowadays that now I can't afford to stay up to date money-wise AND time-wise (compared to only money-wise as a teen). The release schedule would be exactly fine without the UB, so that's already one point why it shouldn't exist imo. But I'm actually more appalled by the concept of Secret Lair. Wtf, I thought this was a trading card game?!? I probably could live with these being reprints with alternate art, but mechanically new cards in a limited supply queued online sale? No, just NO, WotC might as well call them Scalper's Lair and sell them on Ebay themselves for 5x the price...
So, guess I'm out again, the most fun I had with MtG in the last 2 years was probably watching YT videos about the lore and those about the insane business practices of WotC...
Thinking about Foundations and Modern Horizon 3 from this summer, I think an under-discussed point is how WotC keep presenting story agnostic sets as the big premiere editions. Innistrad Remastered will be the same thing next year. The card selection and flavor is pulled from through out Magic story times. So even though Liliana is no longer the apathetic necromancer trying to get out of a demonic contract while wielding the Chain Veil (she's a devoted professor rebuilding her adopted Plane,) WotC is way more interested in depicting the old Lili. Even though the Eldrazi have been defeated, we have new cards depicting them from back in their glory days. Reprints are neat, but mingling past and present events in New sets just muddle the story and pull focus from what's happening now and where characters are currently.
You have to admit that it's a brilliant move from a monetary perspective. Personally, I would have loved for them to invest more resources in promoting the world of MTG with parallel projects featuring original art and lore, like Riot did, for example. But why would they invest time and money in something that isn't guaranteed to work when they can play it safe by bringing in franchises that are already heavily promoted, with minimal effort?
I think there's a large section of the player base that doesn't care for congruity at all, which is rough to admit. I enjoy the flavor, but I've never given a thought to the story. It's tangential to the mechanics, at least for me. New players might be drawn into Magic from other IP, but it's only because it's a chance to engage with a great game in a flavor they enjoy. Whether or not they engage with the Magic story and characters, in my experience, doesn't matter. The game is so good, that it absorbs all other attempts at making competing card games, at this point. If you want to make one, you might as well collaborate with Wizards.
In one sense, it's like a colonization of ideas. The outside world has recognized the beauty of Magic, and sought to carve off a small piece for itself. In another sense, it's an awakening for one of the greatest games of all time. All other ideas can be represented through its rules, from Wolverine to Pinkie Pie. I just hope WOTC realizes that people are staying because the game is good, and not because they're especially tied to Spider-Man, or something.
If we ever get any Monster Hunter products, that will likely be the only time I will ever buy a universes beyond product.
Yeah, I kinda hate Universes Beyond and have managed to keep away from ones that have franchises I like...
But a Shivan Dragon with Rathalos artwork might make me open my wallet too
Before I finish watching this. Something tells me they haven't finished deciding what that set is. As much as I wish they didn't push back the in-universe set that was already finished, I hope the unannounced is Milton Bradley or Parker Brothers themed and they get it all done in one go.
I hope goofy goober SpongeBob and Handsome Squidward become playable cards! We truly are living in the best timeline to be blessed with this crossover ❤
I wanted the Crypton Future Media collab with the swath of popular Vocaloids as planeswalkers, Rin and Len still being by far my favorite to this day from since I was a kid. But I decided against it. a big problem I have with many of the Miku Lair artworks are the lack of specifically anime styled artworks. Harmonize, Song of Creation, Miku Child of Song, Thespian Stage, and Command Tower are probably the main artworks I can sit down and feel spoken to as a genuine Vocaloid Fan. The rest have an uncanny valley feel.
For the fallout set- it's got a lot of good reprints and original cards, though some of the flavor theme-wise for the cards don't fully make sense mechanically and/or vice-versa
A good example would be the Winding Constrictor in the precon "Mutant Menace". It's a good card in the deck mechanically, and the art is of a mutated two-headed snake, but the enemy never appeared in any of the games.
As for one with good flavor and weird mechanics: gotta be Red Death Shipwrecker from the "Science!" Precon. It's a 2 mana (UR) 1/3 legendary Crab Mutant. Where I feel it fails is the rules text- mainly after the goading. "You add {R}". I think it should've said that it costs a red mana and tap it
(Fun fact Read Death is the only crab in red)
Hearing the comparison to Funko Pops felt really depressing, since a recent article by Rhystic Studies made the same observation. And I think it's an observation that rings true - shoving different brands and IPs into the template of MtG - which is why it's so depressing to hear it articulated from two independent observers.
For me, I think it will be Star Trek as the Universes Beyond set at the end of the year. I know almost nothing about it but considering they will have all the type lines and mechanics from Edge of Eternities, it makes sense to carry that over. Although I also think something like Harry Potter could be in the works as that has an expansive enough world for an entire set. My dream set would be ASOIAF and I certainly expect that to happen in the next couple of years considering the success of LotR
Next full set crossover could also be Game of Thrones, done similar to Lord of the Rings with their own art direction. Especially being so secretive, I think it is going to be a big one.
As for Secret Lairs, Breaking Bad is one that I think will come soon.
I'm fully of the belief that there is room for UB in magic, precisely as a way to get people into the hobby, but not this much room. Some fantasy and sci fi sets, maybe once a year. Occasional secret lairs that are reskins. That would be fine to me. I understand the idea of not wanting it at all, but I am the precise person Hasbro were trying to grab - my friends pulled me into MTG last year by saying "hey, you can play as Inquisitor Eisenhorn from 40k!" and made a commander deck for me. I then pulled in a friend excited to play 'as' Frodo and Sam. We laughed at the idea of astartes being destroyed by hobbits and the story we told through the games.
But I did stay, and I did slowly branch out into the rest of the game, I learned about the universes by recognising characters. I watched lore videos. In my case, the key turning point was LCI releasing and then getting obsessed over Ixalan's lore through the lens of Amalia, but the TL;DR is I am more invested now in magic's story than in any crossover for it. However, I'd never have gotten to this point without that gateway drug. So I think the occasional gateway drug is okay, personally, but I'd like it to not be a million miles away thematically, and if it is insane then to keep it to secret lairs.
This is cool. I hope there's more stories like yours. I do fear that the increased focus on UB means less attention to Magic's own IP, because otherwise people like yourself might not stick around if the lore isn't very good. But I guess next year will be the test of that
@@RedBobcatGames This is very true! Agreed I definitely still want less UB. And whilst I know it's a dead horse, but not just less UB - better in-universe theming.
I don't know if this has been talked about much, or if this is just me, but card art and theming was THE big bridge that got me to want to go out of my way to learn lore. I mentioned that with Amalia, but also with Phyrexia, and the eldrazi, and such. Evocative, but they don't make it trivial to interpret. That's part of the reason I think the gimmick sets fail, they don't make me ask questions. "Who is this character? Oh it's an outlaw in a cowboy hat. Okay. I feel like I've got the gist now because I've seen this a thousand times before." - I think they managed this a little better with the more fantasy horror elements of Duskmourn. I actually wanted to read the story of Valgavoth only after seeing the gorgeous art. I was disappointed to find it quickly fitting in to typical 80s American suburbia (especially as a fellow Brit) but at least the card theming got me that far. I think this aspect of presentation is huge for getting players into the universe and it's part of the conversation I don't see come up a lot. These new sets don't look to challenge me either. Racing, space? It just feels like a big joke. Ixalan STILL feels like the last serious lore set to me.
I really enjoyed the conversation you guys had though! I like the idea of bringing in someone who knows media marketing but is a relative outsider.
Every once in a while, I a Dungeons and Dragons player look into what is happening over at mtg since what Wizards does to mtg tends to also eventually make its way over to DnD in one form or another. Typically, to a lesser extent. Almost every single time I do this, I find another new thing to worry about.
Oh this is fun, cos I keep up to date with what's happening with D&D for similar reasons. Magic circles aren't massively talking about it yet, but I see Elon Musk looming and... oh boy
Naruto I'm calling it now
Oooh, yeah. I can see that too
I'm thinking skyrim is a very safe bet with fallout's release, but this seems surprisingly possible to me too, given naruto's recent tmnt and transformers crossovers.
IMO the other problem with Puresteel Paladin as Ash is that I really don't think Ash is mono white. I'd say he's Boros at LEAST, probably Mardu. MAYBE if you're only looking at the original Evil Dead where he's a bit more of a "pure hero", but beyond that I feel like Ash is basically a heroic (and situationally selfless) version of Rakdos (the color combination, not character) which seems like Mardu to me.
I used to play mtg years ago. The console games got me, and I played a little irl but stopped at some point. I was recently very interested in getting back into it, because of all the card games I played growing up I felt like MTG was the most interesting in terms of mechanics, art, and lore.
I’ve been missing it a lot recently, but once I saw all the crossovers, and how they were done, I knew I would ultimately be a “Nope”. It just seemed like the sophisticated flavor and tone of the Magic I was hooked by was being both watered down and overly seasoned at the same time until it became unrecognizable; perverse.
Perhaps if they put up a poll on the website where fans could vote on a crossover I wouldn’t see it as a blatant and purposeful quantity>quality corporate greed cash grab. But I’ve seen it too many times in the gaming industry to not see a duck for a duck.
It’s sad, because I wish my nostalgia for Magic and the crossovers that make sense tonally was stronger than my aversion for these cheap tricks. But it’s not.
Dnd and thus Baldurs gate were at least considered for being universes within sets and wotc themselves still seems somewhat unclear on it, which is probably why they weren´t called universes beyond.
I think they gonna do TES only when Bethesda announce TES VI, but since this is only for 2026, its a possibility
Haven’t watched fully yet, I'm having a half way tea break! 😁
Fair, well I hope you enjoy when you do
cgb's and crim's perspective is pretty interesting if you want to look into it.
Sure, you got a link?
HATSUNE MIKU!!!!! IS THAT YOU???? Have you come to put me out of my misery....