Magic the Gathering: The Fortnite of Card Games
The 2024 Las Vegas Magic the Gathering (MtG) convention saw an exciting announcement from game publisher Wizards of the Coast, detailing their 2025 road map for the premium trading card game. This was met with an uproar from fans as the announcement came that half of the sets released next year would be part of the Universes Beyond family. This is a type of set that uses a third-party IP rather than stories and characters written by the MtG team. This change also brings these third-party IPs to be legal in Standard format meaning that all of these cards featuring outside characters can be played in Standard on the mobile app and in physical Standard tournaments. Members of the community called out for rescinding this as they claim that this change would force players to play these cards that are not “lore-friendly” to the Magic the Gathering universe.
Some reactions are mild-mannered, with players saying they will still play these new cards because they look cool with the caveat that it will feel odd watching Spider-Man face off against Bloomburrow animals. More extreme responses suppose that it will drive people away being forced to play a Sephiroth card to keep up with the competitive side of the game, or even being driven away because the magic is lost when you have to play against a Sephiroth. Head Designer Mark Rosewater had an elegant response to the outrage:
“The players... have said that this is something they want in the game. It’s now part of the game because people want it to be.”
Mark Rosewater, Head Designer
He later extrapolates the response by explaining a few psychographics about their player base. In summary, a player is a Spike if they only play Magic to win, meaning they likely don’t care what art is on a card as long as it performs well in their deck. A Timmy/Tammy is interested in experiencing something by building a deck that gives them the best game experience tailored to them. A Johnny/Jenny player is looking to express themselves and bring decks that can show other people who you are through the cards. In all of these choices, he explains they have decided that if a player is a Spike they will play the Universes Beyond cards anyway, to win games. The rest of the players in this psychographic will simply choose other cards if certain ones don’t please them. Players must decide which is more important, mechanics or flavor.
Statistically, dear reader, you will likely fall into the camp that is excited to see familiar faces in your games of Magic. It makes sense, as there are already Marvel, Final Fantasy, and Lord of the Rings card games. But why invest in a second hobby when you could be expressing your love for your favorite superhero while also investing in a singular card game?
To me, the public's emotional response feels unfairly thrust upon the designers of the sets. Magic the Gathering features well over 20,000 playable cards, so to say that you have “no choice” but to play certain cards feels baseless. Magic the Gathering, as a game that requires you to build a deck, comes with the joys and frustrations of using your own creativity to find ways to make your board as strong as possible. To say that you can only use the strongest cards to achieve this also undermines the randomness of the game. A perfect first hand might always win against a struggling first hand, however, being clever with your responses and how you manage resources might overcome even the strongest cards you either don’t own or can’t afford.
I hold a hard stance on this and anyone is free to disagree, but as the loading screen reads on Arena, “Magic is for everyone”. We are all free to play and experience the game in whichever ways that we see fit. If you stop finding ways that Magic can be played to your preference it may be time to experiment with new tactics or simply look through the compendium of cards to find powerful combinations that you hadn’t thought up before that use cards you would prefer using.
I titled this with a coy statement that Magic was “The Fortnite of Card Games”. The real version of that idea, in truth, is most likely Universus, a game entirely centered around collaborations. Magic is making a huge splash by getting the big Western IPs to join its roster while Universus focuses on Eastern influence. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Star Wars, Anime, or other big Hollywood properties come to life on a Magic card next year with their one unannounced collaboration still in the works.
With Fortnite as a baseline, we can look at how execution has directly impacted how these collaborations have felt in the Magic the Gathering universe. I logged into Fortnite recently and it is a culture shock to be sure. Different properties of all different art styles bleed onto my eyeballs as many different artists' work all come together to make a messy video game that doesn’t look much different than logging into VR Chat on a busy day.
Magic the Gathering has had many collaborations and has featured many different artists across all of its work, but it feels like a collective. The art all shows similar or slightly improved art from one year to the next and always feels like one product. Even a Transformer looks like it might exist in the Magic multiverse when given the correct coat of paint. It’s like in Kingdom Hearts when Sora travels to Halloween Town for the first time. It’s still Sora, but he just “belongs” there now, being in the new art and aesthetic. That’s not a perfect example but I hope my point is getting across.
Magic the Gathering lore is already chock full of many diverse groups. It seems relatively elementary to me that we trust a company that is already the masters of a universe where Pirates, Vampires, Elves, Dinosaurs, Wizards, Robots, Cowboys, Campy Horror Movie Teens, Small Woodland Creatures, and now Professional Racers battle each other to add Superheroes and Video Game Icons to the roster. Magic is already a ridiculous game of large proportions that has always based its thematic decision-making on what would be the most fun for its community.
It’ll be scary to trust Wizards of the Coast to make a good product derived from other IPs. But they have an incredible track record of making it work seamlessly and I have no doubt watching Spider-Man fight Ghalta is going to be as epic as it sounds.