Magic the Gathering has made two sets that I am just excited about this year. The first one being the Lord of the Rings set. And I wrote a lot about that one already. You can see what I thought about all the products that have come out thus far here. And just shipped yesterday are the Doctor Who sets, which I plan to open on stream sometime. So two worlds, Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings, that I enjoy. But what are some other ones I’d like to see?

Top 3 Magic the Gathering Universe Beyond I Want?

3. Vampire the Masquerade

This is a license that I think has a chance, but also doesn’t. Vampire the Masquerade Rivals exists which is supposed to kind of be in a Magic the Gathering spot. That said, I’d love a set of this, and I think it’d drop into the Magic the Gathering system amazingly well.

Mainly, we already have Innistrad, we already have vampires in Magic the Gathering. Compared to the others, it’s something that already exists. Now, this is a more modern setting than Innistrad, so that might be a concern, but you’d be able to use some of the same mechanics for Vampire the Masquerade.

But one thing, that I think people might call out, is the masquerade, how do you make it so it isn’t just vampires fighting vampires. The whole point, or part of it, is that vampires run things from the shadows and want to stay hidden. So, how do you make that work in Magic the Gathering? I think there is a template for that with the ring tempting the ring bearer in Lord of the Rings set. It’s a tracker to see if you break the masquerade. So you can improve it, get it further from breaking, but as you attack it might get closer. So it’d be a balancing act which I think would be fun.

While Vampire the Masquerade is my #3, I think out of the three it’d be the easiest to do in Magic the Gathering.

2. Wheel of Time

With a lot of these, it’s hard to come up with an in game reason why they would be fighting each other. That’s the issue with a lot of IP’s, they are built around stories. But we just saw a massively successful one where it doesn’t make sense in Lorcana. Even Lord of the Rings or Doctor Who it won’t always make sense. So I just need to assume that logic is out the windows.

The nice thing with Wheel of Time is that you have different groups throughout that you can play around with. The Aes Sedai, Rand’s group, some of the bad guy groups, Aiel, and more. What does is it builds out a systems where you can create synergies between certain groups and work better with each other versus with other groups. So from that perspective I think it could work. And if it’s just a straight up battle, that would make sense for at times in the story with almost any group fighting the others. Or you could have them going up against dark friends and dark ones to do better than the other team.

But in the world of Magic the Gathering, I think it’d work. Plenty of groups to build commander decks around. And there are plenty of interesting characters to draw from.

1. Sword Art Online

Now, I think there are other anime that would get done first. With the success of the live action One Piece show, that’s the one I could have scene. But anime’s are generally pretty stingy on giving out their licensing for stuff, especially for something that isn’t just their thing. And One Piece technically has a TCG out, but not one that’s even close to the name recognition of Magic the Gathering.

But Sword Art Online, on of my favorite anime, I think could work as a trading card game. Possibly a player versus the game set-up game. Or there is dueling within the first season and the world of Aincrad. So let you take on heroes and characters from Aincrad and face off against one another, build up decks with abilities to augment what your characters can do. And let you switch heroes out, if you meet a condition they can jump in and take over the attack, like in the show.

In terms of Universes Beyond, I think switching would just be a flip card that you could have as a commander. And it’d likely break the game in some way that Magic hasn’t done before. But that’s what Magic the Gathering does regularly anyways, add in something new that changes up how the game works. And Universes Beyond are actually a decent testing ground for that.

What Set Would You Want?

I know that some of the upcoming ones might interest people that are already coming. There is Final Fantasy, Doctor Who releasing today, and Assassin’s Creed, all worlds and IP’s that people enjoy. But is there one that they haven’t announced you’d be interested in.

More generically, probably not in Universes Beyond, I’d like a set where they lean into Gundam. Giant powered machines doing the combat and being able to play around with that and piloting them, adding on mods to them, things like that. It’d feel different, but in the mechanics of Magic the Gathering, I feel like it’d work quite well.

Let me know your thoughts or favorite one.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here