Highlights
- Magic: The Gathering will feature upcoming Universe Beyond crossovers with Doctor Who, Final Fantasy, and Assassin's Creed, offering players new worlds and characters to explore.
- The Doctor Who collaboration will include four commander decks and Collector Boosters packs, featuring iconic characters and themes from the long-running sci-fi series.
- Final Fantasy and Assassin's Creed are also set for Universe Beyond expansions, though details are limited. A focus on characters and events from Final Fantasy 16 or a draftable set exploring the franchise's history and multiple Commander decks centered around the Assassin's Creed characters could be on the horizon.
More Universe Beyond collaborations are coming to Magic: The Gathering in the near future, taking players to all sorts of new worlds and adventures. Previously, Magic’s Universe Beyond crossovers have taken players to Middle-earth with The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, the martial arts-filled world of Street Fighter, and even the undead nightmare of The Walking Dead.
There are three confirmed upcoming Universe Beyond crossovers coming to Magic, the fantastically whimsical Doctor Who later this year, the many heroes and villains of Final Fantasy, and the secretive world of Assassin’s Creed.
4 Doctor Who
The first of the three announced Universe Beyond collaborations is BBC’s Doctor Who. The science fiction television show has been around since 1963 and has crossed all forms of media, from novelizations to comic books, board games, and video games. It follows The Doctor, an immensely powerful, millennia-old humanoid alien from a near-extinct race called Time Lords.
The Doctor now travels through time and space in his time machine, called a TARDIS, which is shaped like an old British police box, picking up other travelers with him, their companions on their adventures. Different actors have portrayed The Doctor over the years, as each version of him is a new reincarnation of the same person, though with different characteristics and personality quirks.
Releasing October 13, the Doctor Who Universe Beyond collection includes four commander decks and Collector Boosters packs. The four Commander decks are:
- Timey-Wimey - A Jeskai-colored deck based on the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors and their companions.
- Masters of Evil - A Grixis-colored deck featuring the villains of Doctor Who, Daleks, Cybermen, and The Master to destroy The Doctor.
- Blast From the Past - A Bant-colored deck filled with the first eight regenerations of The Doctor.
- Paradox Power - A Temur-colored deck featuring the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors and their companions.
Each Commander deck has 50 brand-new Doctor Who-themed cards and ten Planeschase cards. In total, the Commander cards are bringing at least 200 new cards and upwards of 40 new Planeschase cards, assuming there are no reprints in those packs.
There are no draft or set booster packs releasing with the Doctor Who Universes Beyond, only Collector Edition packs, which will likely be made up of cards from the Commander decks, providing ways for players to collect foils and variants of their favorite cards.
3 Final Fantasy
Not much is known about the Final Fantasy Universe Beyond collaboration and what possibilities it could bring to the game. Much like The Doctor Who Universe Beyond set, Final Fantasy has an extensive history of lore, characters, worlds, and expanded media to pull inspiration from.
Since Final Fantasy 16 is the most recent iteration in the long-running franchise, there is a chance that the set could be focused entirely on characters and events from that game. That said, Final Fantasy 7 is currently in the middle of a three-game remake, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the developer Square Enix wanted to focus entirely on its most famous game in the series.
Final Fantasy would also be a great choice for a complete set to be produced, much like The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. A full, draftable set would allow Wizards of the Coast to explore the extensive history and unique stories that all the Final Fantasy games have to offer. Even if they focus on only a few of the most popular games in the franchise, there is still more than enough content to flesh out the set.
2 Assassin’s Creed
Another video game franchise being adapted to Magic: The Gathering, Assassin’s Creed follows several characters from across mankind’s history as they work behind the scenes to shape the flow of mankind for the better against the Templars.
While there are many games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, it might fit better as a limited Universe Beyond expansion.
With a focus on four or five Commander decks, each one could focus on one character. Ezio, Altaïr, Eivor, Kassandra, and Bayek could each be the main Commander of the decks, with other characters or even older versions of the Assassins being featured on other legendary cards, much like how Tales of Middle-earth featured multiple cards for the same character, signifying their growth throughout their travels.
1 Future Universe Beyond Sets
While Wizards of the Coast has not revealed what future Universe Beyond crossovers could be, there’s a good chance that some of the biggest fantasy and science-fiction properties are all possibilities. Star Wars, Diablo, Genshin Impact, Elden Ring, and more are all possible, assuming everything works out between companies.
There’s also nothing saying Wizards of the Coast can’t go back and do another collaboration with a property they have already worked with. There are plenty more factions to explore in Warhammer 40,000 to build out another four or more Commander decks, and since Magic has already done an Arcane crossover, why not go back for a full League of Legends set?