Magic: The Gathering has been having a lot of fun with crossovers lately. When the Ikoria set was first revealed, it was clearly inspired by monster and kaiju movies of all kinds, but to the surprise of many, Magic: The Gathering marked the occasion with a slew of special edition cards reskinned as Godzilla monsters. Magic didn’t used to interact with other settings so much, but now it puts a huge amount of effort into these rare crossover cards. That’s only one of many crossovers, too. Wizards of the Coast has dedicated resources to designing cards specifically to reference other pieces of pop culture many times now.
It seems like all of these events have been gearing up for Universes Beyond, Magic: The Gathering‘s new official subseries dedicated to representing other IPs. Wizards of the Coast has already announced a couple other pieces of media that will get Magic cards, and one of them is Warhammer 40K. This sci-fi wargame by Games Workshop is extremely successful in its own right, so it’s not surprising that fellow tabletop game Magic wants kick off its Universes Beyond by making a connection with Warhammer. Wizards of the Coast has yet to reveal much about its Warhammer 40K products, but fans can guess at some of the details.
It’s highly appropriate that Warhammer 40K is going to be converted into a series of Commander decks. In Commander, Magic players construct large and highly themed decks with a special legendary creature as their designated Commander. Commander’s highly themed decks and long play time are pretty similar to the long, sprawling games that Warhammer 40K is famous for. Warhammer 40K‘s factions will probably be the inspiration for the Commander decks; Wizards of the Coast will produce probably a deck each for the Imperium of Man, the Necrons, the Orks, and so on.
That also means each deck will feature an important character from each faction as the Commander. The Emperor seems like a shoe-in for the Commander of the Imperium’s deck, for instance, whereas a Chaos deck might offer the player choice between Chaos Gods like Khorne and Slaanesh. The backbone of each deck will be built on all the unique types of units that each faction has available to it. Warhammer 40K‘s Commander decks are likely to set the tone for future Universes Beyond sets in that it’ll require Wizards of the Coast to come up with way more unique cards than any previous crossover. For fans of the game, that’s a big plus.
Players should be ready for new keywords and mechanics introduced by the Warhammer 40K cards in order to capture each faction’s unique playstyle and the types of units that each faction generally has available to it. It’s up to Wizards of the Coast to decide how close it wants these Commander decks to play like Warhammer. For instance, the decks might have a lot of alternative win conditions to reference Warhammer objectives. Alternatively, the decks might put an emphasis on the positions of players sitting around the table, since in Warhammer, the distance that units have to travel makes a world of difference.
While the Warhammer 40K decks are bound to be unique because of a lot of these potential mechanics, they do come with a small drawback. The cards in the decks might be designed very specifically to work well with each other and not normal Magic cards. That’s no skin off the nose of Standard and die-hard traditional Commander players, since Universes Beyond isn’t Standard legal, but it could disappoint casual Commander players who want to tinker with the Warhammer 40K decks. It might be a little harder than usual for players to find new spins on the Warhammer material.
No matter what the Warhammer 40K decks look like, though, they’re sure to stand out from the rest of Magic‘s products. Universes Beyond is a bold initiative, and it has yet to be seen how it’ll perform. There’s already a bit of tension in the Magic community over Universes Beyond. Some fans are delighted at the notion that their favorite IPs might get lots of official Magic cards, while others are concerned about pop culture tainting Magic‘s original ideas and getting in the way of play. If the Warhammer 40K cards are very self-sufficient on purpose, that might assuage some fears. Whatever the case, Warhammer 40K‘s Magic crossover is clearly a big deal. Hopefully Wizards of the Coast gives fans a taste of what’s to come soon.
Magic: The Gathering is available now in game stores and digitally through Magic Arena.
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