Magic: The Gathering has announced a partnership with Netflix’s Stranger Things for Secret Lair Universes Beyond, a new drop of collectible cards. The cards in the Stranger Things Secret Lair drop will be black-border, mechanically unique, and reprinted within the series. The cards span the main characters and antagonist of the television show, including Chief Jim Hopper and Eleven, The Mage.
The Stranger Things Secret Lair contains nine new Magic cards and a unique Clue token with unique art connected to the show. The bulk of the set includes the mysteries of Hawkins and the Upside Down. The game is produced by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro), and every card from last year’s Secret Lair x Stranger Things will be getting an Innistrad-themed makeover.
Despite its charms, Netflix’s 1980s throwback series errs in how it treats its most important young character, Will the Wise. Season 4 of “Stranger Things” is scarier with demons, murders, and Eleven on a mission, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. The mystery of Hawkins and the Upside Down has come to Magic: The Gathering! This drop features eight brand-new cards and a unique Clue token. Some of the Stranger Things MTG cards are incredibly powerful, and could easily run your next Commander deck.
📹 Stranger Things Is Not Magic: The Gathering…And That’s Okay
#magicthegathering #mtg #commander Be sure to also check out my video on Universes Beyond here: …
Why does 11 have powers?
Eleven, a child raised at Hawkins Lab, was granted powers by Dr. Brenner’s twisted experiments. He used Henry Creel as a prototype, identifying the parts of his brain that activated his powers and discovered drugs like LSD had similar effects. Dr. Brenner subjected pregnant women to heavy doses of drugs, aiming to mutate fetuses within their wombs. This cold strategy belied his profession as a father figure, but it was effective. However, Dr. Brenner learned too much from his precious Number One, modeling his training on techniques that amplified Henry Creel’s powers.
He deliberately distancing his children from one another and carefully monitoring their socialization. Many of Eleven’s “siblings” were aggressive and dominant in character, raising them to share the character traits of Henry Creel. Eleven was the most concerning test subject, as he sensed her repressed anger and rage. In Stranger Things season 2, Eleven’s only surviving sibling, Kali, tried to teach her the same lesson.
Kali had developed different powers to avenge herself on everyone involved in Brenner’s experiments, and she encouraged Eleven to use these dark emotions. However, Eleven transcended this in Stranger Things season 2, and she continues to do so in season 4.
Who is most powerful in Stranger Things?
The Mind Flayer is the most powerful character in the Stranger Things series, having the ability to mentally enslave any human it comes into contact with and create a terrifying and gross physical form. This giant meat spider would be nearly impossible to defeat even without the mind slave powers. The Flayer’s origins are unclear, but it is a significant advantage over Henry Creel, the artist formerly known as Vecna.
What powers do the Stranger Things kids have?
In the fourth season of the show, the actors were told that the children had telekinesis and an extra unique power, which aligns with the show’s portrayal. An unknown number of test subjects were subjected to experimentation at Hawkins National Laboratory and other secretive government facilities throughout the mid and late twentieth century. Some of these test subjects, such as Terry Ives, were volunteers for Project MKUltra, aiming to expand the limits of the human mind.
Dr. Martin Brenner discovered Henry Creel’s unusual abilities and implanted a power suppressant chip in his neck. He began a new MKUltra subprogram, codenamed “Indigo”, where volunteer test subjects took experimental drugs while placed inside sensory deprivation tanks. Brenner secretly hoped to abduct the unborn children of the pregnant test subjects, believing the experimentations would make them develop similar psychokinetic abilities to Henry.
Does Will Byers have powers in Stranger Things?
It seems that Will has a psychic connection with the Mind Flayer, which enables him to perceive phenomena on the ethereal plane. Additionally, he possesses “true sight” and is “good at hiding,” which may involve psychic abilities. Additionally, there are indications that Will possesses other potential abilities that may yet be revealed.
Are Stranger Things MTG legal?
The Stranger Things MTG cards are only legal in Magic’s Eternal formats, including Legacy, Vintage, Commander, and Oathbreaker. As more properties are added to Magic’s Universes Beyond roster, any popular media is fair game for an MTG adaptation. Stranger Things was chosen for a Secret Lair due to its strong connection to nerd culture and its less jarring crossovers compared to The Walking Dead or Fortnite.
Magic’s design team has effectively translated the relative skills of each character into a card. For those who aren’t fans of the show but want to play with the cards, Magic’s Stranger Things cards have been reprinted as Magic cards with new in-universe characters.
Is Stranger Things based of DND?
Stranger Things season 4 introduces a new villain named Vecna, inspired by the classic Dungeons and Dragons game. The evil force that Eleven and the gang must face is a being known as Vecna, who threatens Hawkins, Indiana. Vecna, a being from the earliest days of D and D lore, was not a fully formed character when he made his debut in the 1974 “The White Box”. This is due to the crude presentation of the original game and the initial parts of Vecna that were not fully formed.
The characters on the show are avid players of the game, as were the series’ creators, the Duffer Brothers, in real life. There are several parallels between D and D and Stranger Things, including the addition of Vecna in season 4.
Is 11 stronger than Vecna?
Vecna, the original subject in Project MKUltra, was stronger than Eleven due to his older and more experienced nature. He was able to create or alter other children with powers using his DNA, making him inherently more powerful. In 1979, Eleven freed Henry Creel from his Soteria chip and unleashed his rage, aiming to destroy humanity. He tried to get Eleven to join him in conquering the world, but Eleven refused. Eventually, Eleven banished Henry to the Upside Down, where he became Vecna. However, it was only by tapping into her anger that she defeated Henry.
Dr. Brenner knew both Eleven’s and Vecna’s capabilities, and in 1986, he decided against fighting against Vecna. He believed that Vecna “consumes” and takes everything from his victims, including their abilities. Despite the challenges, Eleven was able to defeat Henry through tapping into her anger.
Is Stranger Things a horror or Fantasy?
Stranger Things is a dark 1980s sci-fi/horror drama starring tween/teen friends fighting dangerous forces in their Indiana town. The show features intense monster/slasher-type scares, frequent death, peril, and gore. However, Season 4 has taken a significant leap into adult content, making it no longer safe for children. The gore/violence is terrifying, and parents may want to watch an episode and decide if they want to watch it with their family.
Who is the most powerful person in Stranger Things?
The Mind Flayer is the most powerful character in the Stranger Things series, having the ability to mentally enslave any human it comes into contact with and create a terrifying and gross physical form. This giant meat spider would be nearly impossible to defeat even without the mind slave powers. The Flayer’s origins are unclear, but it is a significant advantage over Henry Creel, the artist formerly known as Vecna.
Does Eleven’s mother have powers?
Terry Ives, a character in the Netflix series Stranger Things, has the ability to manipulate objects with her mind, such as changing the TV channel. She also has the ability to manipulate electricity, as seen when she manipulates the lights in her house to lead her daughter, Eleven, towards her. Terry was a test subject in Dr. Martin Brenner’s Project MKUltra experiments, where he abducted her newborn daughter Jane and raised her at Hawkins National Laboratory. Terry attempted to take her daughter by force, but was caught and subjected to electroshock therapy, leaving her in a state of severe catatonia. Aimee Mullins portrays Terry in the series.
Does Will have powers like Eleven?
The show and comic suggest that Will had dormant powers and was unaware of them before the upside down incident. He accidentally sent himself to the upside down, similar to El’s accidental sending herself there. The comic heavily implies Will was born with multiple powers, such as shadow walking, teleportation, and invisibility. These powers are similar to those of a wizard or sorcerer, which is synonymous with the term mage. In the show, Will’s password for Castle Byers is ‘Rhadagast’, a wizard from Lord of the Rings.
However, it wasn’t until Will’s possession that he truly became a cleric. Clerics are given their powers by a god, and Will is going to be OP as F***. Unfortunately, like El, Will will become a target of Dr. Brenner and the government to become a government weapon/spy. The Will Byers comic even references the book “House of Stairs” and Dr. Brenner on the same comic book page, which is about kidnapped teenagers brainwashed into being weapons for the government.
The stand-ins for Will and El end up being okay, as they are not able to escape the government.
📹 Stranger Things Meets Magic! What You Need to Know | Good Morning Magic | Secret Lair
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My problem with these cards isn’t a problem of ‘flavour’, but that every singe Media Property is beginning to homogenize and congeal into the exact same thing. Space Jam, RPO, Fortnite, Disney (like, as a company in general, really); it’s getting very hard to just enjoy One thing without having to be in the orbit of fifteen other creative properties.
Magic player should be collectively a shame that they rewarded wizards by buying so many of The walking Dead secret lairs. Not because of the setting, but because they were mechanically unique cards available for a high price and for a limited time. You know it won’t be long before they start putting pushed edh and legacy tournament must-haves in new secret lairs.
I’m sorry Professor but I must respectfully disagree: 1. Timed exclusives of mechanically unique cards are still a problem for the game, making them a premium product that those who can’t afford them aren’t allowed to have for however long it takes for reprints, which leads to 2. We’ve got no promise about how long any given Universes beyond Lair or other product will take before it gets reprinted. No consistent amount of time for players to keep their eyes on. 3. The list, as even you acknowledge, is flawed. It’s a mess, it’s always changing and never clear, plus being in 1/8 packs is needless. Just put a list card in every pack. Even in the quoted article they said that rate isnt even set in stone and could go down. 4. By designing these first as Universes Beyond characters and then as magic cards, instead of akin to the godzilla cards, the Universes beyond cards, as you say, lack the name referencing their MTG version, and mechanically might be difficult to import to a good magic character. 5. Just as The List is inherently flawed, Secret Lairs are inherently flawed. So these still carry all that baggage as well. This is the issue I quit the game over, and I don’t think enough has been done to convince me to come back. WotC needs to stop putting profits above players. Universes Beyond cards need to be printed at a level equal to the Godzilla promos with a promise that all cards will be printed at this level in a set, and printed in sets before or simultaneously with the Lair.
If the list and WOTC products have taught us anything over the years it’s that they don’t have a firm grasp on what the phrases “meaningful reprints” and “plentiful supply” actually mean outside of press speak. When you factor in the mentioned issues with the list (namely the flood of bulk that has no business appearing on the list) and WOTCs notable printing issues I would be quite shocked if these reprints actually turn up in the quantities they are claiming they will… I think it’s far more likely they will end up like everything else on the list lost among a sea of bulk garbage in a lottery with somehow even shittier odds than your standard booster packs
I find it ironic that you started this episode with the article that killed my bond with WOTC. The way they talked down to us was the final straw. I’m happy for you and for the people who continue the game, but idk if I’m ever coming back. There was no apology. They continue predatory decisions. It’s not a company I can support.
I am thoroughly confused as to how you see the matter as closed, when all WotC is doing is printing MtG versions of the Stranger Things and Walking Dead cards. When the Walking Dead Lair came out, you predicted this was exactly what would happen, the lair would sell well, we would complain, WotC would respond with MtG skin versions of the cards after the fact… a solution you called sloppy at the time and did not find acceptable. So how is it that You found that to be unacceptable then… but now that that’s exactly what’s happening, you say there is no longer a problem? To me, an MtG reskin of Eleven the Mage is still going to have the number 11 in it’s ability text for purely “fun reference” reasons. It is still fundamentally a card that is Primarily a collectable, and secondarily a game piece, which is exactly why it should not be black bordered, because black bordered cards are Primarily game pieces, and Secondarily collectables. Those are your words from the article you made on the Walking Dead Lair. I’m just not seeing how what you say in this article coexists at all with what you said in the last one on the Walking Dead. They seem to be contradictory. I agree completely with what you said in the older article… and I disagree completely with the assessment that there is no longer a problem, that you make in this article.
It felt like mtg was on a spectrum between game and product and sat comfortably on the game side of the spectrum its entire life. But between secret lairs, 4 kinds of booster packs, abysmal card stock, constant bannings, and outside IP’s, mtg feels like it has slammed into the product end of the spectrum, neglecting the health of the game.
While it’s not automatically a bad thing, it feels like the decision to treat the multiverse as little more than a marketing opportunity feels like WotC throwing out the thing which made them stand out so well: a unique, interesting world with interesting characters, locales, and themes. Now that nearly any IP can hop aboard, none of them feel special. Having an alter that makes your Sol Ring look like the One Ring isn’t unique, and I’d wager that within 5 years, it’ll be an official wotc product. Magic used to have an incredible universe which, while not always well written, was still interesting to watch unfold and wield the powers depicted in your own games. And it still does, but at least with Eldraine, it felt like they were trying to hide their influences somewhat: now, those influences are front and center, and the Magic rules, its cards and systems, have changed from a blend of mechanics and world building to a husk that any old IP can be slotted into. MtG feels like the TCG equivalent of Munchkin. And Munchkin is a good game to me, I still love it. But I didn’t come to MtG to feel a vibe of “incongruous themes being haphazardly mashed together because funny”. It’s a shame to me that, in the pursuit of becoming more and more profitable in the short term, mtg had to give up a part of what made it unique, the special sauce that made imitators never quite the same.
Hello professor! I don’t play magic anymore but I still love your articles. You actually introduced me to Flesh and Blood but that’s neither here nor there. I want to say that while I may disagree with what direction Wizards and Hasbro are taking Magic, I am at least cognizant that there are people there excited that this exists and that it will be playable in most constructive formats as a proxy for a legitimate magic card. While I care not for the aesthetic and the decision to bend what is and isn’t a magic card, I am hardly the target demographic (since I don’t play anymore) so I suppose it doesn’t matter. Great work as always and thanks for reading if you did!
Well said Prof. My issue with these Secret Lair exclusives/Universes Beyond cards (aside from flavor) is that they are mechanically unique. Sure, I don’t need them to have fun but they also happen to be legal in Eternal formats. Suddenly I need a playset of, say, Rick, Steadfast Leader, to keep up with the arms race. Hopefully WotC keeps their word to print the Magic version of these cards and make them more available.
Just bought some singles from my, and many others, local game store; Card Kingdom. I am often mistrustful, sometimes distrustful even, of purchasing merchandise without first having the product in hand. However, after viewing so many of The Professor’s articles, and hearing his multiple, glowing recommendations; I simply could not dissuade myself from clicking the link in the description. Now my small circle of pauper playing pals will have no recourse as I completely control them with a play set of Counterspell and other goodies. This was all made possible because of you, The Professor, and the ever expanding Magic: The Gathering community, so thank you.
I’m still just interested to see how they do the Street Fighter one. I thought it was the greediest, stupidest idea with The Walking Dead (Namely in how massively irrelevant the show was by the time we got the secret lair).. still think secret lairs in general are a greedy idea that should never have dollar rares in them.. but at least the cards are getting a bit cooler.
I love Stranger Things. I hate having these IPs in MTG. All of them. They could pick my absolute favorite IP in the world and I still wouldn’t want to see it in my Magic games. I’m not saying this opinion is right, or the only reasonable opinion, but I hate it. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’m one of those players who really loves lore. I like making tribal decks, I like reading about planes and creatures and the history of the worlds of MTG. For me, playing is part of that experience. It may seem strange to call a card game immersive, but to me it certainly is and these cards take me out of it. I know from a reasonable standpoint I can’t be too upset with their updated policies on these cards. I’m really happy we’ll see Magic-themed printings. But I’ll still always wish this never happened (outside perhaps silver-border). I wish we could erase this part of MTG history. And more than anything, I wish they could have the same thoughtfulness on going back and correcting mistakes with the reserve list. I wish they’d just rip the bandaid off and do it.
As someone who wants to try a “Negan”-Commander Deck without having to buy Negan, I’m glad wizards came to their senses. I’m not really a fan of the crossover lairs, even crossovers of franchises I enjoy feel out of place. But as its just cosmetics now, the only quarrel I hold is that you get premium early access if you’re willing to pay for secret lairs, while the rest has to wait for “The List”-releases.
I’m glad they’re adding these to The List since I was never a fan of Stranger Things but very much love Investigate as a mechanic. That being said, I hope they keep them in The List permanently and don’t cycle them out, turn the list into exclusives like this and some spicy reprints, no garbage commons/uncommons like pointed out in your other article.
Looking forward though, WotC will be releasing Universes Beyond WH40K decks next year that will probably have mechanically unique cards. Those cards are not going to be available via other means (this list treatment is only for Secret Lairs). As the number of Universes Beyond releases start to churn off the production line en mass, we are going to have the problem rear its head again. Additionally, reducing the number of cards from The List being printed to make space for these new cards, The List becomes even more useless for addressing the demands for wanted repeats. The Prof already highlighted that the list is broken but this move breaks it even further. Finally, woe betide anyone that wants to draft and access these “SLD proxies” as they are only available in (some) set boosters. Overall, this attempted solution to a problem that WotC created is laying the ground for future problems.
I’ve given up, I don’t care anymore, I’ve quit magic, I’ve boxed up everything to put into my closet. This is just icing on a really bad cake. It’s all profit, just, pure greed with zero effort or care, turn out new sets and mechanics that ruin other formats, flashy, big cards, power creep, good products get put under like the budget commander for full blown commander with every set that I can’t afford, muddling of set boosters and draft which no one likes, just…..more more more buy buy buy. I am DONE, I am TIRED, I am sick of them killing the soul of magic for a quick buck.
Expect Secret Lair Rick and Morty Summer 2022. I generally loathe secret Lairs of non-hasbro IPs, it’s literally a commercial in card game form. That being said I’d more open to fantasy worlds as you said, a Warhammer Fantasy or Age of Sigmar set would be cool and would likely be a hit with players. Imagine a Goblin RabbleMaster with Night Goblin Loon Boss art!! Or a champion of the parish with a warrior priest of sigmar design. That would be cool.
I don’t think “The List” can be considered ample supply. The professor himself has said that The List hasn’t helped much with reprint value. What if they remove the equivalents from The List after New Capena just to keep value up? Please change my mind, I want to be excited about this, but I’m still skeptical and salty.
The weird thing to me is we’ll have another partner-esque mechanic with whatever the magic version of the cards are since just doing regular partner would make them very different (and much much better) or else you give them friends forever as well but then they’d allow you to double up on “identical” commanders.
The prof is, as almost always, right. They have every right to do it that way, if they want to. My friends and me also have every right to dislike it to the core and proceed to only play with the cards we bought in the past, to never financially support that ever again. I say this as someone who 100% loves that great series and will watch it until they destroyed it proper. Just like my favourite card game. And then i will proceed to go back to the first few seasons and rewatch those instead.
I don’t know, maybe I am just old fashioned, but universes beyond has always felt as though wotc doesn’t trust their own ip to sell anymore, that it needs the references to be popular and its saddening to me, I miss when the game was more unique and not just a top down design mess of ideas and now literally just everybody else’s ideas thrown in for flavor, I feel Magic was at its strongest when it was unique, even if it wasn’t perfect
I still say the list is not a good substitute for actually reprinting cards in it’s current iteration, and with this change it will be even worse. The SL cards may be more accessible, but the other List cards will be half as frequent, and with the glut of unneeded and unwanted crap on the List, the few gems will be few and far between. :/
Agree on most points. Just wanted to say that if they had released the walking dead secret lairs in the same way I would imagine they would have sold significantly less of them. The controversy behind it for attention and the fomo of exclusive cards propelled sales to what they were. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got more eyes on the secret lairs product line in general. One more thing. Do list cards come foil? I don’t recall that they do in which case the foil versions of the stranger things skinned cards are the only way to get those cards foil.
Wonderfully well-put as usual Prof. I agree it is strange to have these pseudo-Magic adjacent universes included but it’s hard to argue with the profit they are almost guaranteed to bring. Personally, I’d like to see more niche universes given these treatments like Dinotopia or Riverworld. Something that builds the MTG lore and expands the universe while also giving those niche fantasy worlds a larger audience to appeal to.
Yeah but what if ones problem is not that there aren’t any “Magic versions” of said cards but that they completely dilute the visual cohesion of the game. I want to dive into the MAGIC Universe not Fortnite, Godzilla, Stranger Things, My Little Pony or The Walking Dead. And now I am forced to sit across all these cards. Also I hate this late stage capitalism blending of all IPs… they start to feel like one and the same … its just one big mush.
I think the only thing I still have an issue with is the fact that decks can now double up on these cards. Like, a commander deck will now be able to play both the Stranger Things cards, as well as the new cards meant to be magic equivalents of them. That’s not a giant issue, as we already have cards that are duplicates in every way other than name, but when the issue is that some players don’t want to sit at the table with other IPs that are strictly that IP, I don’t know that this fixes that 100%. The Godzilla cards at least allowed for one to look at Biollante and just ignore that skin and see her instead as Nethroi, but these won’t allow for that. Mike will only ever be Mike, he won’t be whatever new card they make with his same abilities. Overall though, it’s a minor issue. I’m not going to say people that have issues sharing IPs are wrong, as role play is factually something people care about when it comes to Magic: the Gathering as a game (I mean, even the surveys they put out ask how people feel in regards to the game’s role play elements), and this ruins that level of immersion for them, but if we’re just looking at the existence of mechanically unique cards being poorly accessible, that’s now fixed. Whether that’s more important I’ll leave up to the individual.
I disagree. There very much are still problems with this. One thing I’ve been saying ever since they said that they would do Magic versions on the List is that it’s very telling that the solution to doing Universes Beyond Secret Lairs via Magic versions on the List is to make it not Universes Beyond (via Magic versions) and not Secret Lair (via not having online only time limited FOMO nonsense). If the fix to doing a thing is to inherently make it not that thing anymore, perhaps, perhaps …the thing you’re doing is bad and shouldn’t be done. Besides, this is only for mechanically unique UB Lairs. There are going to be mechanically unique UB preconstructed decks and mechanically unique UB sets (like the LOTR set). Those aren’t going to get actual Magic versions. But even getting actual Magic versions still doesn’t undo the harm of diluting the game with things that obviously don’t belong there. I was okay with the Godzilla versions back then, but if they opened the door for UB to happen, then I actually am retroactively not fine with it anymore. Also, apparently there is a Godzilla card that did not get its Magic version? Geez, the incompetence. Anything involving things that aren’t Magic should strictly be silver border and use silver border mechanics. Lastly, I need to talk about a serious problem in the culture of Magic. I find it to be a huge symptom of Magic Player Syndrome that Magic players never seem to draw the line. No matter what awful thing Wizards does, no matter how overpriced, how unethical, or now how over the line it is.
I’m still overall disappointed in how they handled MUB overall – I think they had a fantastic opportunity to expand their company portfolio of card game products and restructure the game’s rules as a system that could be used for various games, of which Magic happened to be the most venerable. Call it, say, “Deckmaster” – now you could have Magic events where Magic is played, you could have LotR events where LotR is played (which also means we could get additional expansions as it gets treated as its own real product), or you could host an overarching Deckmaster event, where anything goes. Most Commander would clearly devolve into the latter fairly quickly, and I don’t think anyone would have really complained. Now if only there was a way to go back in time and sneak the branding for this “Deckmaster” system onto older Magic cards so they’d be properly labeled as part of this system and match the branding on the new unique card backs of the other sibling games… hmm, too bad we can’t do a retroactive update to physical cardboard.
The main problem I see is that Wizards has demonstrated that we just can’t trust any promises they make anymore. Yes, you could argue that in this case the broken promise of not reprinting TWD is a net positive for the game, but it won’t always be, and I think it’s important to not set a precedent of patting them on the back when they go back on their word, particularly for things with such huge implications for the collectible aspect of the game.
I think that this is, at the end of the day, a healthy way of looking at it. People already used alter sleeves in my group to make their magic commanders anything they wanted. While it may not be your jam, you don’t have to play with them in your decks now, and you shouldn’t be policing others cards with how they play unless there’s good reason. Great vid Prof!
I disagree, crossovers actively damage the property as a whole. This isn’t a subset of magic like commander, or draft focused sets, this actively takes away from what makes magic special. Crossovers can be great, but every great crossover IP has one thing unique to it: it starts off as a crossover. It is not enjoyable to sit down and we use to play a game, and something else entirely happens. Imagine sitting down to watch one of your articles, but not you have 5 minute section of Rust gameplay in the middle of an EDH deck tech. That is what this is to many magic the ga- sorry Crossover Sellout #5 players.
Very true!I play and collect MTG since Christmas 1996 here in Germany, starting with Packs of “Deutsch Limitiert” (black bordered revised) and i don’t care about these Mashups WotC does for Secret Lairs, especially now that these will be cards that also exist as MTG Version and the cards aren’t unique to the Mashup like the Walking Dead ones were. It doesnt ruin MTG but like always, MTG Folk (especially online) just love to complain and predict how “MTG is gonna die!”. The MTG Community has had always people who proclaim “Magic is dead” because of WotC doing something new and different. It won’t die and this current situation won’t change a thing and the only people i see losing their mind over these Secret Lair Mashups (with or without normal MTG variant) are a few people online, the majority of MTG Players and Collectors aren’t even active in Comments online, people tend to forget that some big upvoted Reddit comment or Tweet is still a minoriy of the community since most people aren’t active online. The same is true for anything that isn’t MTG as well, people forget that a popular tweet or reddit comment doesn’t make it something representing the Community, just those active and outspoken on social media, which is a minority Prost & Cheers from the Bavarian Alps and stay safe everyone
I agree with get it if you like it, and don’t if you don’t. We as the consumer doesn’t like something shouldn’t buy the product if we don’t like it, and hopefully them as the producer understands … wasn’t popular we shouldn’t make more like that. But if you buy the product even though lets say you hate … than it just encourages them to make more, cause at the end of the day sales really proves if something is succeeding in business.
Professor, I personally do not like this, as the integrity of magic and it’s lore is much more important to me than just having the mechanics in play or the battlefield. If we open the gates of the magic universe to the outside world, it won’t be long before ironman equips Cinderella’s lost shoe to gain haste and kills my Dora the explorer. When I delve into the battlefield or into magic in general, the mana flows around me and it’s a whole different feeling, getting to feel something magical, being placed into the fantasy world full of beautiful lore, one which does not have SpongeBob SquarePants. However professor, I’ll tell you this I have followed you to the ends of the world and if you say it’s fine, I’ll fold, however I still believe the opening of our universe’s gates should be resisted with everything we have.
Nope. I won’t play a game with you if you are playing the non-Magic version of these cards. Can’t. I will try to be as respectful and polite as possible, but I can’t do it. And if I can’t avoid giving bad feels by politely excluding myself or establishing a regular play group who bans, them I will quit Magic again. It’s a deal breaker for me. It’s something I have to do to continue my enjoyment of the game. If you respect the Magic IP enough to wait and obtain the Magic version from the list, I will play with those. But the Warhammer Precons and the LotR set are NOT getting the same treatment and players will adopt them without thought to the pure Magic IP so I’m likely quitting Magic, and that’s my choice. It is changing from the game I signed up for and I feel betrayed.
Is this satire? Prof starts talking about how the magic-versions of TWD cards will be “plentiful” in The List, and then he puts an advert for his article on why The List is broken. I understand staying optimistic Prof, but jesus, the problem hasn’t been solved. Not to mention the garbage hoops you have to jump through to justify TWD as MTG-adjacent
Some say this crossovers can bring new players and interest to the game. But to me the effort is really lame, they make a few cards, and call it a day. On secret lair non the less. Instead of having real stranger things theme decks, so the fan of the show may jump and start playing the game. Instead of “I will buy this 5 pieces of paper from a game I have not try out” which are worthless to play by themselves
I personally dont like this path they are taking. I didnt get into magic with the thought of one day seeing outside IP:s getting chruned in. I just liked the worlds we already where in But if it is what makes others happy and join, then i cant say no. I’ll just look for the producs that entice me personally.
Am I the only one who thinks hawkings national lab is really bad? You have to spend 4 mana + tapping this land to make a clue three times for a total of 15 mana, then spend another 6 to crack three clues to draw 3. And if you crack a clue early, you spent 7 mana to draw a card and are farther away from the actually good effect. Spending that much mana per clue is pretty absurd, most decks don’t have other ways to make clues (especially in black), and its not so good that you start also playing other bad clue generators. War Room, Castle Locthwain, and arguably Arch of Orazca, are all much more worthwhile effects.
Thats cool and all, but i had REALLY hoped that WotC had taken advantage of the reskin idea in the other direction; using reskins to create non magic versions of magic reprints that they could fill into whatever they needed to boost their profits into. ex. Make a Street fighter card of Heartless Hitasugu
Great article as always. I will say, it’s a bit of an annoyance of mine that somehow the DND products are considered “Magic” in every sense of the word, with no such Magic alternatives likely to ever come out. As a former Heroscape player, I’m quite reticent to the idea of just jamming DND in everything to reinvigorate/boost a game’s popularity, and find it detracts from the worldbuilding of Magic that made it so unique. Just my two cents.
I don’t play MTG to be bombarded by stories that aren’t MTG. Walking Dead, Godzilla, and now Stranger Things all violate this tenet for me and by that fact alone I want these cards to not exist. I don’t care if other people like them — they aren’t relevant to Magic’s own lore or stories and only serve as a source of extra cash flow from people with no self control. EDIT: If they absolutely must exist as a “collector” item, then they should be stripped of their black borders. Players can house-rule them into their own games if they want to run them for their unique mechanics, like how some people let you sprinkle in Un-set cards. That’s the only compromise I’m willing to make.
In addition to the points you’ve stated, my biggest gripe with the crossovers and why I think it’s incredibly immersion breaking is because the art features Hollywood Actors. It’s for this reason that the 40k product will be less of an infraction than Stranger Things despite 40k featuring giant miniguns. It’s fair to say we already have that, some Teferri cards look like Idris Elba was used as a reference but I don’t think it’s the same. I just can’t stand the art on these crossovers.
I imagine Magic adjacent IPs by Prof’s thinking are the ones with hard worldbuilding (not soft worldbuilding) where the main focus is the world itself and how immersive it is while the story comes second. Lord of the Rings would pass this way, unlike Stranger Things and the Walking Dead, but I think, if not always, there is usually more to the worlds of MTG. And here I mean colors; it’s never that they are discovered in characters or the world they live in but rather these colors shape them instead. If analyzed through the lens of the color pie, the motifs of Jeskai or Esper are not as blurry as Mike’s, moreover, charachters from Strangers Things were not to be presented only from one side. It’s a show, they develop as a part of the story and they grow up as just people, which is not common for Magic. Even though Wizards wouldn’t score any brownie points for that, I would genuinly enjoy if they made a collab with Ghibli Studio and design some cards with the characters from “Princess Mononoke”. Soft worldbuilding (kinda), but from all movies I know, this one represents colors best.
Haha, that opening clip of Walking Dead being “Magic adjacent” as some kind of excuse for why it can be allowed, now we get Stranger Things, Street Fighter and Fortnite. Speaking of Fortnite, that has to be their main inspiration for doing this. They’ve seen how much money that game makes with it being a cross promotional tool for other brands and they want to replicate it with Magic.
Honestly I’m glad WOTC is branching out and doing these new IP cards. My son had no interest in magic until he seen a Godzilla card. He’s now a few hundred dollars into the game and I get to bond with my teenage son. I think that’s amazing. All those sweaty nerds who are angry about this just need to get over it. More players means more revenue which means our beloved card game isnt dying out anytime soon 🤘
At the end of the day, it’s lazy. Though much of magic is inspired and even copied from other IP, this is the most lazy way to do this. I like strixhaven, it was like harry potter. Even some hints and winks, but no card that says “harry potter”, it had a degree of creativity. But a card that says “M. Byson” or “Godzilla” is just lazy. As cool as many of these are (& I’ll buy some… 40k cough cough ), it is at its core, a lazy cash grab.
Ehhhhh I usually like your opinion Prof but it sounds like you are splitting hairs because you like the Stranger Things show. Both are set in our world, and both have things that aren’t in Magic (like a slingshot, skateboard, etc…). The main reason you hated TWD was because it was mechanically unique, not because it didn’t fit into the “theme” of Magic. Call it like it is: these are mechanically unique cards, and should not be legal in any format, and instead be collector items like My Little Pony
These cards should be banned from commander for two reasons. First, they are simply not accessible enough as they were only printed in a secret lair and second because we should absolutely reject any attempt by wizards to design cards specifically for commander. Commander is great because it isn’t a format controlled by wizards, but if we let them print cards specifically for commander then it quickly will be essentially owned by wizards. After that it won’t be long before they start doing what they always do. Design, release and ban cards based entirely on what will force people to buy new cards and not what will make the format fun.
On this topic: Godzilla, King of the Monsters / Zilortha, Strength Incarnate did NOT get a Magic-version. I repeat: Zilortha was never printed. In hindsight, it was an obvious experiment from WotC to see how the player base would react, but it went under everyone’s radar as all the other Godzilla-cards got Magic equivalents. So please, in any Walking Dead vs. Godzilla crossover discussion, remember that Zilortha was never printed as a Magic card, and deserves its proper reprint just as much as Walking Dead/Stranger Things.
See, here’s my opinion on the matter (which means very little in the long run…) Does your world have Magic? I’m not talking about simple sleight of hand or escape artistry, I’m talking actual thaumaturgy that can at the very least be practitioned by a few? if yes, then I think there’s a case to be made. it doesn’t have to be called magic… it could be called “The Force” or “ESP” or “Alchemy” or whatever floats your boat, and I think you could make it work as the backdrop for a magic set. that’s why the 1,001 nights works in my mind as a Magic setting! The Zombies are unexplained, yes, but it could just as easily be say… cordyceps or a type of micro-organism that clumsily pilots the decaying flesh and seeks to propagate just as easily as it could be contagious necromancy. given that there’s no apparant source of the undead rising and other media that inspired TWD rolls with it being some sort of disease, it’s easier to assume there IS a scientific explanation to the dead rising that nobody has been able to study and get the word out on. I feel like the best way to prove a Universe’s Beyond set’s merit is indeed to signpost instants and sorceries, maybe some that are familiar to players of Magic as a way to make that connection make more sense. if you can do a TWD Lightning Bolt, I’m far more willing to accept the viability of a property as something I can see a planeswalker wanting to call upon with the mana in the land.
Magic adjascentness is just a corporate trick to get you to pay more money. I let the printer go brrr for ulta expensive cards. II let the printer go Brr for many things.. .but even that Ill not do to get these cards. The whole magic adjascent thing is completely subjective and you could argue any way you like. Like Rick Sanchez says, in the semantics dome you can make anything look good or bad. But, as you said, if people like it, its fine. Ill play people who use these cards, just the same. Despite the comment, I am not too mad about the whole thing, It just makes it easier for me to just print the cards, instead of buying them. The more corporate tricks, the more I can justify this. I That being said. I do really love your analysis on these things. I agree on the important parts, we should play the decks we feel like. Thanks for the article.
It’s crap! Capitalism at its finest. WotC aren’t getting enough of our money to keep it original. I might….might be interested in some kind of compelling story crossover. The Dark Tower or even some outlandish Marvel event…. But even then I would begin to worry about the overall integrity and originality of WotC. In my personal opinion I don’t like my peas touching my mashed potato’s so I’d like to at least see these cards have a colored boarder. We going to have Rick and Morty next? It is a disease that will spread… If I see one of my kids playing a Karn skin on Fortnite I’m going proxy and never cracking another pack again.
Hey….if Magic became like LEGO … People love Lego…people love their fav. IP in Lego… HECK UFS did something like that …the fighting games and article game characters went to them .. Just don’t change the stories of the Prime Magic plane and characters …and make good stuff? accessible ? I mean ..it could be cool
I think there is a big caveat here that you may have missed in your relief, prof. If New Capenna is a magic skinned stranger things set, this news is even worse for magic players then us never getting magic skinned versions, as we are then losing even more of Magic’s story and identity! However (fingers crossed) if New Capenna is just a regular magic set that happens to contain magic cards with the same mechanics as those secret lair cards, this news is indeed fantastic!
Uuuuuh…. I don’t think I really get the logic behind accepting Walking Dead as “Magic adjacent”, but not Stranger Things. You say if you strip away the settings, Walking Dead is a story that could take place on any kind of plane/world/whatever, but somehow that doesn’t apply to Stranger Things? You could ABSOLUTELY do the Stranger Things story in a fantasy setting, or any kind of alternate society. What… I just don’t get what the differentiating factor is between the two. BOTH stories could be done on somewhere that is not Earth… Like… Stranger Things is telling “human stories” because the kids are developing a romantic relationship, the mom wants a better life for her kids, and the cop is haunted by a devastating loss? These are ALL things that can happen on any plane, and you get just as many “human stories” like these in Walking Dead as well. The 80’s setting is more important to their aesthetic than the setting is in Walking Dead but, again, I don’t think that’s really all THAT important to the actual stories being told. Again, it’s an aesthetic. Georgia and DC have their own aesthetic as well, but it’s not as nostalgic or fun as “THE 80’s! :D” so I guess it doesn’t count? idk man… I don’t think ANY of this stuff really matters, I just couldn’t help but crinkle my brow a bit at the arguments being given is all. They’re BOTH fantastical stories that take place in our real world, so if we accept or reject one, I genuinely see no reason who the other wouldn’t receive the same treatment.
I’m stoked about this! It’s great! I do not at all mind alternate card skins. Heck, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Magic might be awesome; as long as we get Magic: the Gathering equivalent versions of the cards. Otherwise, I feel they’re compromising Magic: the Gathering’s lore and world-building. The fact that there are My Little Pony un-cards doesn’t bother me in the slightest. What is pretty funny is that there is a “Sword of Dungeons & Dragons” card.
Great class, Prof. I don’t necessarily disagree with any of your conclusions–and I don’t know if Wizards/Hasbro marketing and PR, etc. deserve the credit–but I don’t think it’s fair to say ‘Everything would have been fine if it was like this from the beginning!’ When people are haggling/negotiating, it’s common to “start high” (unfair) so that the deal you’re hoping for seems low (more fair) by comparison. In other words, I think this iteration of distribution and availability would have been similarly (not equally) outrageous if it is what was originally released. I don’t want to speak for you or put words in anyone’s mouth, but I believe the community as a whole (the reader, the Prof, and myself included) would still have been upset. This seems more okay because it absolutely is a better and ‘more fair’ version of what happened with TWD drop. Offering that up just for consideration, not to be accusatory or confrontational. Still not a fan of this kind of product. At the same time, I do think they would make cool promos and this is arguably a ‘more available’ version of promos. Mixed feelings, it’s obviously good that Wizards and MtG are making more money since that’s supposed to ‘trickle down’ (groan) into the game. But, in order for the company to report such incredible growth in their profits means the money almost certainly is not going back into the game, the people who make it, and the laborers who keep the lights on for them.
Fantasy: fiction involving aspects that don’t exist and are not possible Science Fiction: fiction involving aspects that don’t exist but are possible “Stranger Things” is fantasy. It’s fiction that has impossible elements (the Upside Down, for example). Yes, it’s also Horror and Action and Nostalgia Bait, too, but things can belong in multiple genres.
This is fine. People are overreacting and coming off as magic purists or spewing their “elitist” opinions. It’s a game, it’s more fun with more universes and cards added. These are essentially expansion packs or special one time dlcs for the game and I’m all for it. I’m even all for the exclusivity of them in secret lair. Why? Because the whole concept is to be something special, that doesn’t end up in a bulk bin. The whole concept is to be there, and be a part of it for that special moment that it’s available. (Although we have the secondary market) This is exactly that. A functional reprint would be a disservice to the secret lair concept and honestly a waste of allot of collectors times. It’s a COLLECTIBLE card game. Make something worth collecting. Exclusive is fine, limited is even better. Just buy what you are into and Move on. It’s literally that easy. Can’t believe I’m saying it but, I’m pro wizards on the secret lair Extended universes. It’s fun, it’s cool to collect, and has a flavor that people outside of the game can appreciate. Side note: people want to complain but the value for some of these secret lairs btw has been ABSURDLY good. ( Ik this is not the argument but still)
I have a bone to pick with secret lairs, but the inverse of what most people say. Mechanically unique cards for sale directly isn’t such a bad thing, if it wasn’t massively marked up I’d prefer it over gambling. What I dislike is the flavor break. In record time, non-magic IPs have taken over the focus from the endemic worlds and characters to showcase and advertise other IPs, continuing the modern media machine’s incest quest – you WILL know and enjoy all of pop culture and you WILL like it. Consume product and get excited for next product. The best for which you can hope and cope is the knowledge that the cards and characters going forward will be afterthoughts, the offal from the characters WOTC really care about – anyone else’s.
this new change, honestly has me EXCITED for the Warhammer 40k commander decks, and the Lord of the Rings themed stuff.i enjoy both of those IPs, so i can pick up a deck or 2 purely to play with friends on the kitchen table for the novelty value of having a gruul space orkz deck, and if i like the cards and want them in my regular commander deck, i can buy singles of them at a reasonable price when their MTG equivilant drops and take them to FNM
It’s weird because other than their secret lair exclusivity, I like Universe Beyond as a concept, and like the crossover appeal. I like that the cards won’t be exclusive anymore, but I am looking forward Street Fighter. BUT I think the Professor is being too optimistic with Hasbro listening to the public. They don’t need to, it’s just a good PR move that will give them more money. Stop thinking they actually respect customers.
Prof, you said a while back that things like these really should be silver bordered like the Un- series, that way people can have neat and wacky cards without interfering with the internal lore. Soo you will be able to have Gandalf, Eleven, Mordenkainen and most likely Robute Guilliman aka Papa smurf all in decks. The beginning of the slippery slope and a possible destruction of magic from a cool multiverse, to a bargain bucket of IPs. Heck, they may even chuck anime or cartoon IPs in. Kirito and Steven Universe. From one person who has a hobby that didnt get gatekept correctly.
I guess… WotC whole thing about these cards(the walking dead ones) was to foment the FOMO on people. While they might have done this (printing Stranger things on the list) in good faith(which I DOUBT) they perhaps just don’t want people ranting on them again, even if they achieve financial profit. If you can get the same financial value without the shitstorm, why go through the shitstorm right? Or maybe I’m missing something here.
I’m just not a fan of this. I like the Godzilla ones and would like to own them simply because I’m a massive Godzilla fan. Everything else just feels like it doesn’t fit in Magic. Like for example regarding Stranger Things I just feel it’d be pretty lame for me to summon Edgar Markov, a cool vampire, and for my opponent to summon Will, a regular teenager. It’ll be even worse with Fortnite. It’s not a matter of just not buying these cards for me. It’s a matter of having to play against these cards.
I understand what you mean about “Magic adjacent” but wouldn’t 11 and Vecna be planeswalkers? S4 says the whole story kicked off with 11 sending Henry Creel to another dimension, Henry creates a hive mind using the creatures living in the void becoming Vecna, and when one of the creatures senses 11 Vecna opens a portal and turns the void into a dark mirror of our world. While this set came out before S4, Vecna and 11 very much feel Magic adjacent.
I hadn’t seen the Mark Heggen interview prior to this, so the justification that the walking dead has zombies and combat is absurd. Skyrim has combat and zombies, why is there no skyrim secret lair? Castlevania has zombies and combat. It just seems like such a strange, purposefully obtuse justification
In my opinion they should be printing the MTG versions before they reskin them. Also I don’t understand why they don’t have the actual name below the Universe Beyond name like Ikoria did. The fact they are not doing this to me means they don’t have the MTG ones created yet; and probably didn’t have a plan to create them until the backlash occurred. This is still a cash grab to get us to purchase them via secret lair if we want them before the MTG version comes out. I can’t fault WOTC for doing this, but it still feels like greed and the backlash because of this is something even a corporation should consider. Like Amazon says, customer obsession is what will drive future business. It doesn’t feel like WOTC has that and it will likely hurt them in the end.
Thanks Prof, nice article. I’m still not sure how I feel about Universes Beyond when not Magic adjacent, but every time I hear arguments against I keep coming back to the “Deckmaster” logo on the backs of MTG cards. It seems to me that if Wizards had stuck to the original plan we would have many different games with different themes that could all be played together, so to me it seems like this was the plan all along. Maybe I’m not understanding what the original take on the “Deckmaster” brand was so I might be way off base. Curious what your thoughts are?
I’d argue stranger things has more in common with MtG than walking dead does. First off you can’t allow the zombie apocalypse to be an excuse for a divergent timeline but not psychics, extradimensional monsters, and if you actually pay attention to the first episode of the show, different rules for dungeons and dragons than existed in the 80s plus with what’s depicted with the involvement of Russia in season 3, the comic tying the psychic children into MK Ultra and novel which are all officially cannon do a lot to show that this isn’t a one off bit of randomness but a world where the weird crap happens somewhat often and is covered up by a great conspiracy of various powerful organizations. It didn’t diverge from out world, It never was our world. Its a weird alternate universe where 80’s movies like goonies and monster squad were reality rather than the actual 80s… S which if you were a suburb kid were basically just really, really lame. Second… Walking dead is barely horror… Few Romero style zombie romps are. The zombies are a catalyst that in the narrative could honestly be replaced by any sort of dangerous event that causes heavy loss of life… The unthinking undead hoards are more of a hurricane or other dangerous storm than the actual antagonist or villain, roles which are usually filled by darker more brutal or savage humans. The whole point of them is to serve as a backdrop for the “Yes the dead have risen but no monster is greater than an evil man.” It’s not ‘not horror’ but it’s definitely more tangential and only because zombies squick people not because it explores a lot of horror themes. Magic the gathering has never used zombie like this Amonkhet sort of barely came kinda close with the zombies out in the waste but they got so little screen and plot time I’m going to write them largely off for the much more used unwitting pawns of a god dragon zombies that were everywhere. Magic zombies aren’t some constant elemental force but are minions of more powerful and dangerous beings such as demons, necromancers and so on. Stranger things on the other hand encompasses multiple types of horror. You’ve got your Lovecraftian cosmic horror, a fair helping of body horror, your classic morality play themes with it’s brothers Grimm like classic fairy tale use of child protagonists and the themes they engender. I could probably go on further, but this is going to be long enough for a youtube reply as is. Now lets look at some of the other comparisons… Outside of maybe Daryl no one in that show is safe, at least that’s what they keep saying in interviews they want you to think, and they work together to survive and hopefully get fucked over a little less by the more brutal and uncaring groups and individuals. They aen’t trying to beat the zombies, or often even the other antagonists, they’re trying to survive them. Magic, while this hasn’t always been the case it definitely is now, has the Gatewatch and to a lesser extent all planeswalkers, A group of writer darlings who the stories of multiple universes revolve around who actually triumph over the 5-D chess maneuverings of thinking inhumanly brained antagonists with actual mustache twirling plots largely through the power of friendship and plot armor… Sound familiar? Hell they even redeem villains who are demonstratively more evil fucked up and vile than the worst season bad in TWD through the power of friendship and hugs… that or Jace is just irresistible when he uses a can and a half of axe body spray since he seems to be the one man dynamo wanging goodness into hawt bad girls… Either way. Also theres the comparison that both stranger things and magic have been somewhat sanitized for the ‘Young Adult’ audience so the over PG-13 but under R things that happen on screen might seem less horrific than the overt violence you get in a grittier edgy growed up show like walking dead but when you look at the implied awfulness of getting your soul ripped out, compleated into Phyrexian perfection, or having your brain used to rip open a gateway to the home of a thing that is to alien from you for concepts like mercy or kindness to apply instead of to stupid the realities of the world are quite different… the only bad thing in TWD that can’t happen to you right now is getting chewed on by zombies… which is probably worse than a rabid bear or wild dog pack attack because yeah… the things doing it at one point were people… but not nearly as bad as getting mind nonconed by an elder dragon or extradimensional horror or any of the many many Very Bag Things that don’t and can’t happen in a world with reality levels of technology and magic. The whole nature of the subject is admittedly somewhat subjective because ‘horror’ is a sort of hard to define genre on a good day even when your not dealing with mashing other tropes into it…
the fact that there isn’t a plane in magic that isn’t “boring” or close to reality is exciting for players and lore-followers, but because everything is exciting doesn’t that make everything boring? The fact that eleven is that only one with powers and its mainly kids taking on supernatural beings is actually very close to post-mending planeswalkers taking on the Eldrazi. I would say if that Stanger Things is very close to magic and its ridiculous that the fact they are on Earth and the people aren’t blue making it not-magic-adjacent is just as ridiculous as Jace, Gideon, Nissa, Chandra, and Lilianna being white and Humanoid instead of being more fantical.
Great episode! I do not totaly agree on the magic about walking dead and stranger things. Cuz u could just take away everything from our world in the stranger things series and then it’s basicly just from d&d. So just magic, i would even say there is more magic in stranger things cuz the zombie virus is actualy a real thing in the ant world. And elleven actualy use mind magic! But what ever man! Love ur episodes! 🤘❤
Kind of off topic but I was excited for the stranger things secret lair/world’s beyond and might’ve gotten it depending on price but after seeing how the cards actually look(and other problems I’m realizing) I’m no longer interested. The other problem I found was that like the article said the chosen franchise isn’t magic adjacent and therefore it sort of pulls you out of the experience. I don’t know what I was expecting when I heard stranger things secret lair but it wasn’t this. I feel like they should consider which franchises they actually choose and what they actually make into cards from the chosen franchise. I understand that moving forward there will be actual magic alternatives to these exact same cards anyways but it’s just something I think they should consider. When my friend brought out Godzilla when we’re playing kitchen magic, I didn’t care and in fact I thought it was really cool that Godzilla was in the game but with stranger things I just think it’s weird that we have characters like Mike and Dustin as creatures even though creatures are supposed to be skilled in combat and they are far from that. Eleven and Hopper are justified but that’s about it when it comes to the humans. I may buy singles of other cards(if possible) but that’s about it
For me, the announcement of Universes Beyond compelled me to quit the game altogether. I have to admit, if this had been their approach from the start (i.e. real Magic versions of UB cards), I would have stayed. At this point, though, with most of my collection sold off, I find that I kind of don’t want to come back. It feels kind of nice not having that constant pressure to have to keep up with the Joneses.
I can respect people who want to use these cards (honestly they seem pretty good from a game play standpoint) but I will respectfully ask you to refrain from using these cards when playing against me. I honestly don’t have a justified reason for disliking these cards (I have reasons, they are just childish in nature) but if I see my opponent slap down one of these cards I’m folding and walking away. Edit: “these cards” is referring to any IP that is not MTG or at least owned by wizards of the coast.
Your definition of science-fiction is too narrow if you think a show where a scientist uses a girl with psychic powers to punch through to another dimension doesn’t qualify. If a “demigorgon” and “mind flayer” aren’t fantasy enough. Saying it isn’t those things because it’s a human drama makes me think you know nothing about genre. Honestly you sound like my professors who spent all semester bad mouthing Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter without having read them.
The Walking Dead sold like crazy just because scalpers and speculators were expecting that a controversial product supply would not receive a reprint even with if it had limited availability. Sadly, sales numbers is the only metric that WotC was paying attention to. It’s good news that they are also listening to the community after all.
It’s a little early to declare the magic equivalent cards a success. We haven’t even seen spoilers yet. How will they handle the name change? Are they going to be printing the original Walking Dead card name right below the Magic card name? If so, it still links to the crossover. If they don’t put the original Walking Dead card name on the card how will they prevent players from playing both versions?
Even with DnD, this practice bastardizes any semblance of investment a lot of fans have for the game. Rather than this being a story intended that it is defended as such, instead this is a bunch of backwards reasoning to justify a company getting paid bucket loads of cash to push non-canon characters. Magic Adjacent is literally terminology to whittle the tolerance threshold of players. How can you care about Jace’s story when the crossover episodes covers a bunch of people from a show no one has talked about for years.
I’m still a huge fan and collector of MTG, but has anyone here tried out God’s Unchained yet? Its the new project Chris Clay went to work on after he left Arena. It feels a little like a mashup of Arena and Hearthstone where you actually own all your cards as NFTs. Its free to play and there are no referral perks, so I’m just here to spread the good word.
I don’t know if it can be said there were no complaints about the Godzilla cards. There were plenty, just not to the level of The Walking Dead. Also, I still think there would have been more complaints about the Walking Dead than Godzilla, even if there had been clear that this would be done in the first place. However, it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal as it was to some.
There are a thousand very good points being made here, so I’m just going to voice this subjective one of mine: fuck the Fornite crossover specifically. The other crossovers so far are properties which have some soul and flavour to them, and at least have some dedicated fans. Fortnite as it’s story and flavour are concerned is a mess of mass marketing smashed together in an awkward chaotic mess. It’s just weird colorful images and marvel crossovers. It’s a monument to the inevitable capitalist corruption of art.
They wouldn’t have sold as much of the walking dead cards if it was at the beginning (They could have always knew they were bringing then to real cards but just said that statement to buff sales). Also watch, now people that hoarded them are going to be pissed that they aren’t exclusive anymore, so the price will drop a bit, and magic will listen to the whales before listening to the little guys.
Wait…. So does this mean two cards with the same ability will be in the vintage card pool? Wizards needs to commit to reprinting staples instead of reskinning similar effects into unique game pieces. I don’t need 30 Terrors. I need stable removal that cannot be overrepresented in formats past a certain percentage of a deck count.
Well if you say that walking dead is fantasy then the stranger things show has basically the same thing zombies? Well look at the mind flyer the shadow he takes control over humans and basically makes them zombies because billy is a perfect example he basically becomes a zombie and becomes the mind flyers minion stranger things also has combat look at season 3 the Russians are now involved with guns just like the walking dead bother are similar but both are different
It makes me sad that the ‘list’ card won’t even be foil. So even if you don’t want the Stranger Things cards, you will never, unless something extra happens, be able to get them in foil. Context, while I know foiling causes curling, commanders that I play tend to be used in hard card sleeves, because they are special. While I do not really care for the mechanics of the Stranger Things cards, as they don’t align with my play style, my concern is more for the player base and their wants.
I like this, I just kinda wish they were marked up the way the godzilla cards are for deck tracking purposes and to illustrate that they are the same cards, there is precedent for naming cards that are not printed also since Zilortha the ikoria buy a box card to my knowledge has still not been printed without the godzilla skin.