In case there were still any lingering doubts, Hasbro’s Q1 2026 financial results show that Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond strategy is working precisely as intended – not just drawing in fans who are interested in other nerd-adjacent IPs like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Final Fantasy, but also keeping them invested in the TCG after the game moves on to pastures new.
That’s because, according to Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, the last two in-universe MTG sets – that’s Lorwyn Eclipsed and Secrets of Strixhaven, for anyone who’s fallen out of touch with the MTG release schedule – were record breakers.
In the investment call that took place alongside the Q1 release, Cocks said that Lorwyn Eclipsed “really overperformed” and became Magic’s best-selling first-party set “by a handsome margin”, meaning the best-selling set using Magic’s own characters and lore. He followed that up by revealing that Secrets of Strixhaven beat the record again three months later.
While Universes Beyond sets like Final Fantasy are still doing better than the top-selling in-universe sets, it seems they’re having a positive effect on Magic as a whole, drawing in new players who stick around. This is confirmed explicitly by Cocks later in the call.
“Magic is extremely healthy, and Universes Beyond is probably the most successful new player adoption initiative that we’ve ever done,” he says. “In one quarter, we’ve done the third highest year ever of backlist sales, and that just means we’re creating new Magic players.”
When asked by an analyst if the success of recent in-universe sets has changed Wizards’ attitude to the correct mix between first-party and third-party IPs, Cocks made it pretty clear they’re not deviating from the current course.
In the CEO’s view, the balance between Universes Beyond sets and in-universe sets is “at a decent place right now”, though he suggested it could be finetuned by 10% in either direction. He also added that the upcoming Netflix series “could influence the first-party mix in a positive direction.”
That’s a fairly small glimmer of hope for the diehard Universes Beyond haters among us, however, especially because the Netflix show doesn’t yet have an official release date and wasn’t mentioned again in the presentation.
In between Lorwyn and Strixhaven came Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and while Cocks didn’t seem as amped about this one, he did say the set had met or exceeded internal expectations. Speaking purely anecdotally, I’ve definitely seen a lot of people pretty down on this set, but at any rate Wizards doesn’t consider it a huge flop, just not a record-breaking, expectations-smashing success.
You can find a full transcript of the call on Yahoo Finance. And feel free to come share your insights over on the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
