According to Magic head designer Mark Rosewater, the three top-selling ‘universes within’ sets that aren’t connected to a third-party IP are Lorwyn Eclipsed, Reality Fracture, and Secrets of Strixhaven. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that those are also the three in-universe MTG sets that came out this year.
For new sets to keep consistently breaking records, Magic’s audience must be growing, and indeed we know from Hasbro investor calls over the past few years that it is.
The obvious implication, which many online have drawn, is that Universes Beyond – far from ruining Magic the way some fans clearly feel – is actually increasing the number of people who care about Wizards of the Coast’s Magic multiverse setting, its original characters and its lore… or at least the amount people will spend on its cards.
It’s an improvement on the age-old defence always brought out to bolster Universes Beyond products: that they sell well. This has always been unconvincing to those, like me, who’ve had misgivings about tie-in sets. Popularity isn’t a marker of quality, and my enjoyment of Magic isn’t based on how much money Wizards/Hasbro makes (as long as it can keep going, while paying its workers a decent wage).
However, the fact that all three of this year’s Universes Within sets are chart-topping indicates that Wizards plan is working. It’s getting new players to try the game by tapping into properties they already care about, and those players are sticking around for regular Magic sets.
Of course, as long as Magic keeps growing, you would expect to regularly get record-breaking sets, but three in one year is more meaningful. This could suggest particularly rapid year-on-year growth, or it could mean that Secrets of Strixhaven, Lorwyn Eclipsed, and Reality Fracture were all banger sets – which, in fairness, they were.
At any rate, it seems like Magic has built a very healthy ecosystem, using third-party tie-ins to make a rising tide that lifts all boats.
Rosewater made some other recent statements about Universes Beyond on his blog too. He mentioned that a property that has been used for a Secret Lair is “not off-limits” for turning into a main set (Monster Hunter, please!). He also mentioned that the number of viable Universes Beyond properties “is much more finite” than the amount of total design space left in Magic.
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Source: Wargamer
