MTG: Surprisingly, Most Players Use the ‘Universes Beyond’ Cards
Turns out, Magic decks full of Transformers, Space Marines, and Aragorn aren’t as much of a meme as people think, so says MaRo.
As Magic: the Gathering releases more and more Universes Beyond sets, the Magic library resembles the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny more and more. Especially since Godzilla and Optimus Prime are already in Magic sets of their own. But, as memetic as it is hearkening back to the days when Chuck Norris in the Barrens Chat was all you needed to enjoy an afternoon, it turns out that it’s actually not that much of a meme.
At least that’s what Mark Rosewater says.
MaRo: Universes Beyond Sees More Play Than Universes Within
In a new blog post on his tumblr, Mark Rosewater explains that across the board, players seem to prefer to use the Universes Beyond version of Magic cards when he answered a player’s question about WotC creating a “Universes Within” set of their outside of Magic expansions. Universes Within, if you’re blissfully unaware because you live a life where you make good choices, is the name for cards that eventually see an “in-universe” replacement.
This is mostly for players who want to see cards that fit within stories of Hedrons and talking plants and machines who want to drip their goo into everyone’s eyes.
But as Mark puts it, the audience for the “in-universe” versions of cards is actually small in comparison:
The biggest problem, from a business standpoint, with making a Universes Within card for every Universes Beyond card is there isn’t a large enough audience to offset the huge cost of such an undertaking.
As I’ve said in other answers, the number of players that will only play a Universes Within card and never a Universes Beyond version is just not that big. And we believe as Universes Beyond gets more normalized as a product line, the small number will continue to shrink.
So get ready for more things from Universes Beyond Magic
