Get ready for Magic The Gathering 40k Edition! LOL, they're actually doing it.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/magics-voyages-universes-beyond-2021-02-25

Welp... it's taken 27 years, but it looks like Hasbro is more or less forcing WotC into porting the MTG mechanics into other worlds/brands.
So welcome 40k the Gathering and Lord of the Rings The Gathering!
Gotta make that paper, son!

Earlier today, we revealed an exciting expansion of Magic: The Gathering into the realms of Universes Beyond—a series that combines the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering with worlds, characters, and stories that are cherished by millions of fans around the world.

Among those worlds are the expansive universes of Warhammer 40,000 and The Lord of the Rings, with others set to join as our Universes Beyond expands.

This expansion of the Magic game system to other universes is exciting and new, and certainly raises questions for many of our longstanding fans, so today we're going to answer many of those questions as we look toward the Universes Beyond release in 2022 and further.

Universes Beyond will act as a brand within Magic: The Gathering—existing in addition to and alongside our existing line of products.

Universes Beyond came about thanks to a simple thought—if we can expand our story beyond the game system to things like comics, novels, and other games, then surely we can expand the game system to let players explore worlds outside of the worlds of Magic.

We are all fans of these other universes. Many of us imagined what it might be like to play a game of Magic with Gandalf the Grey, sketched out how we might translate the One Ring to Magic, or wanted to build a deck around the mighty Space Marines. In many ways, Universes Beyond is us living out those dreams of our own.

But we also hope that Universes Beyond will bring the game we love to more people who might not have otherwise found us. We hope fans of these worlds and characters will find our game through Universes Beyond—and we hope they'll stay a while and become part of our amazing community.

I have no idea what to think of this, it's just fucking weird. I mean, it couldn't hurt, it's just going to lead to a bunch of really cheesy products that can combine with each other.

The MTG fanbase so far is... not pleased.

Sorry Wizards, I'm not getting back into Magic no matter what cards you make.

ChristopherMD wrote: Sorry Wizards, I'm not getting back into Magic no matter what cards you make.

My sentiments as well.

Heh, so is Magic the Fortnite of tabletop games now? Earlier today some coworkers who are tuned in to the MTG community said they already tried this with The Walking Dead last year and people hated it then...?...which makes this all the more understandable...

I think people are overreacting if they think it's the big game, horrible, authenticity killing thing. That kind of reaction smacks of real Gamer Rage to me. The lore of Magic is not that singular or important and it's already a multiverse setup so it'll all slip into place.

The Emperor Protects, but only if you have 3 Lands

This smells like pure greed. 40K might actually be a reasonable license to translate into Magic, but most settings would be a real stretch to express in terms of the five colors of Magic.

Yeah, I would estimate most people care about "the lore" of MTG insofar as it conveys the mechanics of a given card in a flavorful way. E.g. my red card deals damage to your cards and there's a picture of a fire wizard throwing a fireball on the card so it all makes sense.

If Gandalf the White turns out to be a white planeswalker who can prevent damage to your creatures, or whatever, does that really matter to people?

My reaction initially is similar to ChristopherMD's: I'm not coming back. Ever.

But I can grok the reaction of much of the fanbase in the same way that I did when the Kemet KS last year declared a Cthulhu expansion as one of the stretch goals. It was completely off-putting. Kemet is its own things. I don't need ported HP Lovecraft to "enhance" it. Same thing here. MTG lore may be totally generic or multi-worldable already, but its still its own thing that has nothing to do with the firmly-established (and lore-burdened) worlds that are LotR and 40K. I just don't find it interesting. It feels cheap.

So regular players aren't interested and former players aren't interested. That only leaves new players as the target audience. But LotR isn't exactly an underused IP in gaming and of course neither is 40K so not sure how the IP's themselves will grab anyone considering other games are custom made for them. Are these sets just for collectors?

ChristopherMD wrote: So regular players aren't interested and former players aren't interested. That only leaves new players as the target audience. But LotR isn't exactly an underused IP in gaming and of course neither is 40K so not sure how the IP's themselves will grab anyone considering other games are custom made for them. Are these sets just for collectors?

One of the secrets to Magic's ongoing success is how many different approaches there are to it. Some are casual, some are hardcore. Some only play Commander, some only play Standard. Some buy singles, some rip packs. So while the hardcores are clearly offended (I get it) there is still a metric fuckload of casual players who will see a 40k or LotR Magic product and be at least intrigued if not straight up geeked. The hardcores love Magic's lore & see any licensing as an unforgivable transgression (see also the Walking Dead Secret Lairs they did) but plenty of casuals wouldn't know a Llanowar Elf from a Karplusan Hound, and they don't care. And if they see Legolas (even if he's just a past Magic card with a different name) that person is going to like it, and collect it, and possibly be turned on to other Magic stuff.

And that's not counting gamers who have never played Magic but love Legolas or Space Marines and see it as their "in" to the hobby.

I gotta wonder if this spells the end of the LotR CCG from FFG .

Ironically right now I'm sorting thru a huge Middle Earth CCG lot I bought recently. It was one of the earliest CCGs to come out after MAGIC .

Gary Sax wrote: I think people are overreacting if they think it's the big game, horrible, authenticity killing thing. That kind of reaction smacks of real Gamer Rage to me. The lore of Magic is not that singular or important and it's already a multiverse setup so it'll all slip into place.

Completely agree. I cannot believe the folks whining about the setting being broken when there are already COMPLETELY different settings coexisting in Magic.

Personally, I think this sounds fun, and I also completely disagree with whoever was saying that the color system doesn't lend itself to expansion outside the Magic world: for DECADES people have been classifying superheroes and other fictional characters as being one or two of the five colors. The five colors are defined as philosophies and priorities, basically, which makes them INCREDIBLY easily transported to other settings.

The biggest issue I can see is that these are cards are going be naturally very difficult to reprint, due to licensing and due to not being able to reprint into a "normal" Magic set. That'll make these somewhat limited edition, which sucks if they end up getting expensive.