Warhammer & The Lord Of The Rings Joining Magic: The Gathering
February 26, 2021 by brennon
Wizards Of The Coast and Games Workshop have announced that the world of Warhammer 40,000 is going to be coming to Magic: The Gathering as part of its Universes Beyond collection.
Warhammer 40,000 & Magic: The Gathering - Wizards Of The Coast
Universes Beyond is going to be a little bit different from your standard Magic: The Gathering collection and will look to bring the mechanics of Magic to realms like the grimdark universe of Space Marines, Orks and Aeldari. To this end, as well as looking a bit different they will also not be Standard legal for tournaments and the like. Wizards have also stated that this won't impact the release of normal Magic cards in the future either; this is just a cool aside allowing them to explore different worlds.
How this is all going to shape up has still not been detailed. It will be interesting to see how the grimdark of Warhammer 40,000 mashes with the mechanics of Magic. How are the different colours going to work? In what ways will the factions be able to combine? I would assume we might be getting something more bespoke and suited to the different factions.
The Lord Of The Rings Joins Universes Beyond
As well as the announcement for Warhammer 40,000, the team at Wizards also noted that The Lord Of The Rings is going to be getting the same Universes Beyond treatment. So, Gandalf The White with all of his cards against Sauron and the forces of darkness then right?
I really hope that when they dive into this that the artwork and the graphic design matches up nicely with the worlds in question. Games Workshop makes some excellent artwork which I'm sure will work well when translated to cardstock. I just really, really, really hope that The Lord Of The Rings card art isn't just screenshots of the films. The thought of that has just made be shudder.
Are you going to be keeping an eye on what Wizards and Games Workshop are working on?
"I just really, really, really hope that The Lord Of The Rings card art isn't just screenshots of the films..."
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Good point there. Artwork not screenshots.
Memories of the GW mail order grapevine telling of John Stallard in the GW boardroom ripping up these (then) newfangled MTG cards shouting HERESY! HERSSY! The subtext being someone making money from a fantasy game and it’s not us.
Very likely apocryphal but totally in character. We all loved John!
Aprils fools already?
really? 40k and MTG? AoS I would get… but 40k?
AoS would be the natural Fantasy fit but 40K is more well-known heh
Based on that logic let’s add Hello Kitty and Star Wars 😉
It’s the bigger franchise but it could also be because they recently had an AoS card game on the market and I don’t think it did too well. We haven’t had a 40k card game since Conquest from FFG.
Well there is Munchkin 40.000 😉
Thought you were going to say Hasbro was buying GW. 😉
Well there’s something… The MTG cross over themes announced and done last year were very polarising. Wizards tends to push new concepts aggressively though so this should be no surprise.
As both a casual MTG and 40K player I’m not sure if this is the worst or best news of the year so far. If done properly this could be really good, if its just taking the artwork and putting to together with disconnected stats then it will be awful. Its going to be either or.
It feels a little bit like the 40K edition of Monopoly they pushed last year; trying to cash in on a new trend and appealing to a broader demographic by just slapping a new coat of paint on it. Though if they COULD make it work and could somehow bridge the gap between the card-flippers and the wargamers, this would be a good thing. (emphasis on “could”; they need to drop stats first)
The franchising out of monopoly is a funny thing itself, because fundamentally it just doesn’t work in any way. You are right slapping 40K onto monopoly is more than odd.
40K Magic could work and if it works I’ll be all over it. If it doesn’t I’ll pretend it never existed.
So this is thing then. This could go horrible wrong if not done right.
Interesting so bullets are like lightning strikes damage wise in game?
Pretty pleased to hear this as I’ve always enjoyed card games. I have a huge MTG collection but haven’t touched it in years.
I haven’t seen any official confirmation but a few places have mentioned that these will be Commander decks. That would suit me fine. I think it’s the most fun format and as a completionist, it means I won’t be chasing boosters
The official release does mention Commander decks.
Oh sweet, I missed that. Takes the hassle out of deck building.
NOPE, you will NEVER get me to share interests with the card-flippers! (I’m a little bitter towards MTG players; at my old hobby store, they’d always boot us off the terrain tables so they could use them for their tournaments, would hog them the whole day, and tell us to “go play with our toys somewhere else” when we asked if we could continue our Warmachine match.)
MtG has never interested me. I can see that many shops stay in business because of magic players constant purchases. But (and I know this is based on a small sample) whenever I do pop in to the local shop the magic players are really obnoxious.
@kronosthetraveler I knew I liked you for a reason. A pox on the card-flippers