MTG head responds to fan calls for more Universes Within cards

Mark Rosewater, the head designer for Magic: The Gathering has elaborated further on why we won’t see a Universes Within set any time soon.

The head of Magic: The Gathering, Mark Rosewater, responded to a fan’s request for more Universes Within cards. On his Tumblr blog, Blogatog, MaRo gave quite his typical to-the-point answer when talking about products.

The fan made the point that they’d rather play with in-universe Magic cards, rather than crossovers from other properties:

“I can tell you that I used to spend a ton to keep up with Modern, but the lore dissonance of [Universes Beyond] bothers me so immensely that I’d rather not play at all than be forced to put UB cards in my decks to optimize them.

“I would VERY EAGERLY jump back in with my wallet wide open if I could buy in-universe variants of the UB cards!”

Rosewater responded by stating that it doesn’t make much business sense based on research:

“We’ve done the research. There just isn’t a large enough group that wants “Universe Within” cards.

“We don’t think the product would sell well enough to warrant making it.”

Mark Rosewater says there’s not enough demand for MTG Universes Within

Universes Within version of Walking Dead Rick card

The last Universes Within cards were based on the Walking Dead Secret Lair that kicked off Wizard’s Universes Beyond. These took three years to manifest, with other entries having similar timelines.

Magic: The Gathering is a relatively expensive game, which could potentially explain the lack of interest in acquiring lore-accurate cards. Magic players will often use what’s functionally the same, regardless of how it looks.

Fan reactions have been relatively mild in comparison to other gaming player bases. The top comment on Reddit reasoned that it’s due to a lack of “high-value” reprints:

“That may be true right now because the density of high-value reprints they could put in such [a] product is not enough.”

Over on Tumblr, however, things were a little more lively. One user questioned how the research was conducted:

“How was this market research conducted? Many people that I know of would like [Universes Within] cards to substitute their Necrons, Transformers, or Doctor Whos because they are super jarring next to in-universe cards.

“If UB is doing so well, is it not worth it to reinvest some of the profit into your own IP to cultivate goodwill and bring back people?”

During Hasbro’s – who owns Wizards – last financial call, numbers were down as Wizard’s product line picked up the slack for the company.

Another responded with a more pointed retort:

““We’ve asked the guy in the cubicle over from mine, and he thinks it’s fine.”

“You know, every once in a while, it would go a long way to do something nice for the community of this game you make.

“Or you can continue to hide behind the “no demand” statement I guess, and continually jack up prices for no reason.”

Wizards currently has two major “tentpole” Universes Beyond sets in development, similar in scope to its Lord of the Rings set. These are focused on Final Fantasy and Marvel. More recently, Fallout and Doctor Who have been major entries into the game through the popular format, Commander.