Warhammer 40K: The Gathering (40K/MtG crossover announced)

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**Tastyfish**

Magic: The Gathering is set to announce new crossovers with other popular fantasy properties, including Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40,000. Hasbro will announce the crossovers later today at an investor event, along with a re-organization that will spin out Wizards of the Coast into its own division. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news that Warhammer 40,000 and Lord of the Rings will both be coming to Magic: The Gathering, with Lord of the Rings getting a full expansion. ComicBook.com was able to independently confirm the reports. It is currently unclear whether Warhammer 40,000 will get a full expansion as well, or if this will be a Secret Lair drop similar to a crossover with The Walking Dead.

Via the WSJ and here.

Secret Lair thing seems the obvious direction - you can see what they did for the Walking Dead here.
They look to be a small set of cards (3-10) rather than full sets.

**ImAGeek**

Well apparently the Lord of the Rings one is a full expansion. As a magic fan, I’m not happy about this. I don’t like this recent trend of shoehorning other IP into magic.

**Tyranid Horde**

It's cool to see, and the artwork will undoubtedly be amazing, but I am not really a fan of crossovers.

**Sasori**

Not a fan of this at all. Doesn't really fit with MTG.

I'm hoping the 40k stuff is like the Godzilla stuff, and nothing more.

**ImAGeek**

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/02/25/warhammer-40000-is-coming-to-magic-the-gathering-yes-really/

Universes Beyond makes me a bit more hopeful for it being a big more of a separate thing.

**Voss**

Wow. Just wow.

Complete lack of interest, personally, but I can see the wisdom in this. Indie stores do a lot more traffic with card games than minis, and this is way to get kids hooked at the front of the store (CCGs are typically sold at the register), get their money and get some of them to later move to the back of the store where the miniatures games are.

---
I also look forward to the fuel this adds to the 'hasbro is going to buy GW' conspiracy theories.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

What a time to be alive!

**Tannhauser42**

The MTG community is absolutely on fire right now over this announcement.
But there's still so much we don't know as to exactly how this will be done. My personal suspicion is that the Warhammer version will be it's own box set like Game Night or Unsanctioned.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Good fire or butthurt fire?

**lord_blackfang**

Oh will you look at the time, it's ruin a bunch of good properties by mashing them together in a sensless cash grab o'clock

**ImAGeek**

Tannhauser42 wrote:
The MTG community is absolutely on fire right now over this announcement.
But there's still so much we don't know as to exactly how this will be done. My personal suspicion is that the Warhammer version will be it's own box set like Game Night or Unsanctioned.

They’ve already mentioned 40k Commander decks.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Good fire or butthurt fire?

Butthurt, obviously.

**Lord Damocles**

40K card games haven't been good since the original Combat Cards.
Change my mind.

**Niiai**

Wow.

'The Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks, for example, will be available everywhere we currently sell Commander decks, as will The Lord of the Rings product.'

**Daedalus81**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Oh will you look at the time, it's ruin a bunch of good properties by mashing them together in a sensless cash grab o'clock

Warhammer has what makes Magic have appeal to me - great art. Not everyone is into the latest art, but I'd totally buy some of the cards as a collector - especially any Thousand Sons.

**Overread**

This is at least one that might last a bit longer than the others. GW has had several combat card games over the years; though many don't seem to last. AoS Champions was the last and died a death (the company went super silent for a half year or more and then quietly just axed the physical game and the digital never took off because it was always made to support the physical side).

There was one or two before that as well, some which had unique art (far as I could tell AoS champions was all GW art cropped and cut for card display).

MTG at least has potential to finish the project

As for cross-overs eh I'm out of MTG so it doesn't hurt me and having it as a side thing is ok in my view. That said I do agree sometimes yo udon't need mash-ups just for the cross marketing potential.

That said I now have to somehow blank my mind of this ever happening so I don't get sucked back into MTG

**Yarium**

I feel like Magic is circling a design drain right now. They obviously are running out of ideas to stay relevant.

**lord_blackfang**

I'm gonna make a video of myself burning Rowboat Girlyman planeswalker cards

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yarium wrote:
I feel like Magic is circling a design drain right now. They obviously are running out of ideas to stay relevant.

How dare you say that, the Harry Potter ripoff set is just about to drop and then we have the Return to the Return to Innistrad and then the D&D crossover set!

**Slayer-Fan123**

feth all y'all. I enjoyed the Godzilla crossover and I'm sure as hell gonna enjoy this one (most likely).

**SamusDrake**

Got a friend who plays MtG over 40K partly because it doesn't come with the demanding hobby part, so this could be a good thing in that respect.

Can also see this being an ideal addition to the products sold at the GW stores.

**Tannhauser42**

ImAGeek wrote:
Tannhauser42 wrote:
The MTG community is absolutely on fire right now over this announcement.
But there's still so much we don't know as to exactly how this will be done. My personal suspicion is that the Warhammer version will be it's own box set like Game Night or Unsanctioned.

They’ve already mentioned 40k Commander decks.

I stand corrected. The original news regarding all of this was extraordinarily short on details. We'll see what the Commander RC has to say on their legality, but given they allowed the TWD cards... I'm not bothered by it, though.

**Kanluwen**

Source

Earlier today, we revealed an exciting expansion of Magic: The Gathering into the realms of Universes Beyond—a series that combines the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering with worlds, characters, and stories that are cherished by millions of fans around the world.

Among those worlds are the expansive universes of Warhammer 40,000 and The Lord of the Rings, with others set to join as our Universes Beyond expands.

This expansion of the Magic game system to other universes is exciting and new, and certainly raises questions for many of our longstanding fans, so today we're going to answer many of those questions as we look toward the Universes Beyond release in 2022 and further.

Universes Beyond will act as a brand within Magic: The Gathering—existing in addition to and alongside our existing line of products.

Universes Beyond came about thanks to a simple thought—if we can expand our story beyond the game system to things like comics, novels, and other games, then surely we can expand the game system to let players explore worlds outside of the worlds of Magic.

We are all fans of these other universes. Many of us imagined what it might be like to play a game of Magic with Gandalf the Grey, sketched out how we might translate the One Ring to Magic, or wanted to build a deck around the mighty Space Marines. In many ways, Universes Beyond is us living out those dreams of our own.

But we also hope that Universes Beyond will bring the game we love to more people who might not have otherwise found us. We hope fans of these worlds and characters will find our game through Universes Beyond—and we hope they'll stay a while and become part of our amazing community.

We know you're curious about Universes Beyond. We can't answer everything you may be asking, but we are thrilled to set the table on a number of topics today.

First, Universes Beyond will be branded slightly differently and will have a specific look as a result. These are still Magic cards, through and through, but the frame will be distinct and cards will have a holofoil stamp that denotes them as being from Universes Beyond. It will look like this:

If that stamp looks familiar, it's because it already exists on Secret Lair X The Walking Dead cards, which will be grandfathered into Universes Beyond.

On that note, Universes Beyond products will generally be sold in all Magic channels—these will not be strictly Secret Lair products. The Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks, for example, will be available everywhere we currently sell Commander decks, as will The Lord of the Rings product. We may occasionally do associated Secret Lair products related to the main release, like the Secret Lair Godzilla lands when Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths came out. There will also be the occasional standalone product like The Walking Dead, but the intention is to typically make Universes Beyond as available as any other Magic product.

That said, Universes Beyond cards will not be Standard legal. We strive to make Magic cards that are widely useful, but Universes Beyond will be above and, well, beyond our normal Standard releases. So nothing much is changing with our normal cadence of releases for Standard. This is purely a cool thing we're doing in addition to all the other cool things we're already doing.

To that end, it's worth noting that the upcoming Magic set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is not part of Universes Beyond. For now, we're reserving the Universes Beyond branding for worlds outside those built by Wizards of the Coast. As to whether the Forgotten Realms are now canonically part of Magic's Multiverse, for now, the answer is no. But we may change our minds in the future if it makes sense and is a fun net positive for Magic and D&D.

Finally, fans who have seen us try out a variety of treatments for cards featuring characters from other universes might wonder if we're utilizing the treatment from the Ikoria Godzilla cards—existing Magic cards skinned with the alternate universe—or the treatment used for The Walking Dead—alternate universe cards that stand on their own. The answer is "both," but often we'll default to letting these cards stand on their own. We may find charming opportunities to do the reskinned versions of existing cards and will continue to balance between the two as we move forward.

Universes Beyond represents an exciting, new, and, yes, different take on Magic. We're ecstatic to geek out over some of our favorite stories, characters, and fandoms alongside all of you, and we look forward to sharing more on Universes Beyond as we get closer.

Whole lotta words there, so I apologize but it does seem that they're meant to be "standalones" for the time being.

Speaking as someone who's gotten into MTG over lockdown...I'm fairly disinterested in a 40k set, but I enjoy Commander a lot. Maybe there'll be something that catches my eye. I'm a bit more focused on organizing my mess of Kaldheim+Selesnya decks for the time being.

**Sabotage!**

Yarium wrote:
I feel like Magic is circling a design drain right now. They obviously are running out of ideas to stay relevant.

I feel like they have been for a super long time. They used to tell some pretty interesting stories with the Ice Age Block, The Weatherlight Saga, Mirrodin block (even though the game itself was awful at that point). Lately it’s just been “Pick a culture, add fantastical element.” Steampunk India? Conquest of Central Americans by Conquistadors- with dinosaurs and vampires. Norse mythology - with demons?

Aside from more Return to Return to sets, it looks like crossovers are their thing now. I mean I can’t blame them for making money, but they certainly lost my interest a looooong time ago.

**Kanluwen**

Kaldheim actually worked fairly well, with the demons playing a fairly small part.

**Voss**

That 'stamp' looks hilariously like a pair of patterned underwear.

**Turnip Jedi**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Good fire or butthurt fire?

I'd go with justifiable butt hurt, the problem is that the design monkeys are taking the GW approach in pushing power to shift product, then banning and / or errataing cards once sufficient units have shifted, I have up about 5-6 years ago when a 2 card Infinte combo snuck past "testing" along with cockwomble in chief Rosewater yet again stamped his feet and forced another terrible pet rule on the set

**highlord tamburlaine**

My son is a lot more willing to sit down and play magic than he is any actual GW game, so I'll consider this a win.

We both particularly like playing Commander games too.

**Cronch**

Yarium wrote:
I feel like Magic is circling a design drain right now. They obviously are running out of ideas to stay relevant.

*taps the 40k section with nothing but marines for 3 years straight* glass cabinets and rocks and all that

**porkuslime**

hopefully this set has nothing but foil cards so I wont be tempted.

I love me some kitchen table magic, but my 40k is something the family doesnt share

**tauist**

meh

Remove strats from 40K and dump all that garbage to MTG, then I can applaud such crossovers

**Nostromodamus**

I think AoS is a better fit thematically but I’m tentatively interested