Right now, the Magic: The Gathering fanbase is reeling after the reveal of the biggest bunch of Universes Beyond crossovers ever. From the three sets shown off at Atlanta, to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the recent Secret Lair drop that includes Furbies, Jaws, and Dwight from The Office, never has such a high quantity of disparate properties been injected into the game. It came as something of a shock; even, I think, to many fans who'd had no issues with UB in the past.
It didn't help that next year's MTG release schedule was announced close to the most underwhelming Universes Beyond set so far, Spider-Man.
So UB is all anyone is talking about right now, and as with any internet conversation, it got ugly very fast. One side's members are soulless corporate bootlickers or ignorant pigs slurping up slop, while the other side are spoiled babies, spotty hyper-nerds who take their toys way too seriously and are unable to let anyone else have fun.
But in most of the conversations, the discussion boils down to a disagreement over what should and should not be on a Magic card. Are fantastical swords and sorcery properties like Elden Ring or The Witcher more suitable than sci-fi or superhero IPs? Is it too jarring to see a real life actor's face represented in Magic artwork, or the cartoonish artstyle of Avatar?
The conversation is mainly about the aesthetics of Magic or its themes. It's a dispute between those who see involvement of outside IP as polluting and those who don't, either because they mainly care about the cards' mechanics or because they find cards that explore their favorite franchises just as compelling as Magic's own worlds (if not more).
However, I'm seeing almost no one talking about a pretty simple downside to this whole thing, and it's this: Universes Beyond MTG sets cost more.
Since Final Fantasy, Universes Beyond sets have had MSRPs set significantly higher than in-universe sets. Play boosters are up to $7 from $5.50 Collector boosters have risen from $25 to $37.99. And the Bundle now costs, not $54 but $70.
It's not hard to explain this discrepancy. Wizards of the Coast has to pay licensing fees for every partnership it makes, so - given that the sets are otherwise the same as the in-universe releases - this is likely a simple case of a business passing its extra costs onto the consumer. It's not surprising: that's what businesses do.
That wouldn't be a big deal if it was just the odd set. Magic has always had 'high class' products that cost more than the rest. But when four out of 2026's seven Magic sets are Universes Beyond, this amounts to a somewhat stealthly price hike on 57% of all Standard-legal Magic products.
That's a bitter pill to swallow, especially when it's a direct result of a change that is already pretty controversial itself.
I wonder if it'll be enough to affect people's spending habits. We're still very early on in this new age of crossover sets, with only Final Fantasy and Spider-Man to help us set our forecast for the next few years. But the extra cost is going to become much more noticeable when we get several back-to-back sets that all set players back more than they are used to.
And while people might be willing to pay extra for a Universes Beyond set that's particularly spectacular, like Lord of the Rings and Final Fantasy, what about when it's… well… not?
We have no idea how well Spider-Man is doing, and UB is such a partisan issue that I don't trust anyone's anecdotal evidence on the issue, but it definitely feels like a flop. The secondary market seems to support that idea, as play booster boxes have tanked where Final Fantasy's soared, and most of the chase cards we pointed out for the set when it was brand new have sunk to a fraction of their original value (sorry about that).
Universes Beyond is great at getting new players invested in Magic, of course, and I expect passionate fans brought into the game by a crossover will be more than happy to spend big bucks on their favorite property. But I doubt that enthusiasm will be carried across to future releases.
And if you're an established fan, as I'm guessing most of our readers are, you might be more than happy to pay a little extra on an IP you have a strong personal connection with. But that won't be true of every UB set, and who wants to be charged extra for someone else's nostalgia?
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