Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro announced Thursday that Magic: The Gathering is doing crossovers now.
It won’t be a huge shock to the card game world. Many (most?) attempted collectible card games are clones of Magic as it is. So in some ways, it makes sense for card games featuring other popular intellectual properties to cut the pretense and just be Magic. But the move to license other IPs is a big shift for the venerable card game, which avoided formal crossovers for some 27 years of its existence.
The first signs of the sea change came last year when Hasbro and Toho Studios announced a special line of Magic cards set in the Godzilla universe. However, those were alternate art for 16 cards, rather than brand new cards of their own. The new sets featuring Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40K will be full-fledged, originally designed Magic sets in their own right, in a new line called “Universes Beyond.” Wizards said these will be printed with a distinct foil badge and “act as a brand within Magic: The Gathering—existing in addition to and alongside our existing line of products,” rather than showing up in standard Magic sets.
However, Wizards of the Coast is also planning to release a new Dungeons and Dragons-themed set called “Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms,” in the SummerTM of 2021. Remind you of anything?
Because D&D is also owned by Wizards, the Forgotten Realms set will not be in the Universes Beyond brand, it will simply be its own tournament-legal Magic set.
Putting aside the issue that almost all fantasy is D&D-themed and vice versa, this is a big change. Magic cards have obviously taken heavy inspiration from trademarked IP, but before now it was always set in the Magic universe and carried the pretense of originality. Magic will now be a true multiverse, and it seems like just a matter of time before Hasbro starts releasing sets in the Star Wars and Marvel universes.
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It raises the question of whether the new brand type will supplant new CCGs aiming to make money on existing IPs. Would Blizzard begin working on Hearthstone if they could have created a World of Warcraft-themed Magic set? Would a game like Overpower be able to exist without the strength of uniquely licensed IPs? What if Yu-gi-oh had been released as a Magic set? Think the show would be any good?
This isn’t to say that this change is necessarily bad. Perhaps it would force designers with gold IPs up their sleeves to be more original in their designs, rather than copying Magic. But I think it’s more likely for media companies looking to promote their IP with a new card game to decide to just collaborate with Wizards instead. Much less work; probably a lot more sales.
It ultimately indicates a shift in what Wizards of the Coast wants Magic to be. For decades now it has worked to create worlds that were original enough to be turned into book series. Will that be able to continue when it’s competing with sets laden with fan-favorite IPs? We shall see.
It wasn’t too long ago that Wizards was licensing its own IPs to crossover-based games like Dice Masters. Now it appears to be content with buying up a new IP license when it wants a new set.
