The MTG community is a curious thing. One day it’s bemoaning the Universes Beyond concept as a death knell for the game and its originality. The next, it’s speculating on hypothetical Universes Beyond products based on the current flavor of the month. Truly, a showcase of the duality of man. Over the past day, we’ve seen the latter in action, as players on Reddit gathered to discuss a potential Elden Ring Universes Beyond set. Just in time for the new DLC. As it turns out, players have a lot to say about a product that could put the ‘Lands’ in ‘The Lands Between.’
Arise, Tarnished!
The thread, hosted on r/MagicTCG, was started by a user called PuzzledPoetess. They kicked things off with a solid suite of suggestions, including “Tons of interesting creatures with well-defined abilities (and a lot of transforming creatures because of how many characters are secretly other characters).” On top of this, there’s also “An opportunity for a lot of battle cards because the world is littered with old battlegrounds.” They also discussed the potential for Spirit Summon Companions, and color alignments for each in-game faction. Green for the Crucible, black for Destined Death, etc.
In the thread below, players responded extremely positively to these suggestions, and the idea as a whole. “Completely agree, would make an amazing set,” noted Bonercuda. This was a sentiment echoed by SadConfusion4729: “I’d spend more money than I’m willing to admit on a set like this.” Others replied with further suggestions, many of which centered around the iconic bosses from Elden Ring. “I’m here for it. I’d love a whole set. Would love to get commander decks based on the remembrance bosses.” added semiamusinglifter. In a candid moment, myPooPisonfire noted that “Elden Ring would be insane. It has a ton of legendaries that can be Commander “bait” (it would work on me)”
Elsewhere in the thread, several players pointed out that Elden Ring has actually seen an awful lot of custom cards in the past. “It may be because I’m a DS and Elden ring player, but I think FromSoft and Elden ring specifically are the universe I’ve seen the most fanmade cards for.” Duraxis chimed in. Further up, Fightlife45 shared their own batch of Elden Ring custom cards, which they claim is “like 50 overall.”
The Great Converter
These existing fan projects speak to the demand that an Elden Ring set if fully realized, could generate. The community worked for years on custom Lord of the Rings cards before Tales of Middle-earth came along, after all. Considering that was one of Magic’s most successful sets, surely Elden Ring has potential. In fact, one of the prevailing themes of the thread as a whole was the idea that an Elden Ring set could actually convert a lot of players to liking Universes Beyond sets in the first place.
“I’m not a UB fan in general but this is clearly a great fit,” noted Leaning_on_a_wheel. Geiszel agreed, throwing out “THAT would be a UB product I would buy.” A user called nyx-weaver perhaps put this point best: “I firmly believe this is a lot of peoples’ ‘Universes Beyond is TERRIBLE…however…’ set. Yeah, there’s a ton of material to work with here.”
The frequency of these comments points to an interesting phenomenon in the Universes Beyond discourse. Most naysayers take issue with the specific properties featured in the products, not with the concept itself. This makes a lot of sense in the case of IPs like The Walking Dead and Transformers, which have a decidedly un-Magic feel, for want of a better word.
Crossovers like Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons, both of which feel like strong thematic fits for Magic, have attracted far less criticism. With its high fantasy trappings, Elden Ring is likely to be part of the latter group. It could even bring along a whole new batch of Magic players from the FromSoftware fandom.
Late To The Party?
The general consensus, across over 230 comments in the thread, was that an Elden Ring Universes Beyond set would be a great idea. As always, however, there were some concerns. Largely these stemmed from the timeliness with which WOTC could deliver the product if it was to exist.
It’s a common joke in the Magic community that Wizards tends to miss the best window of opportunity for most Universes Beyond products. The new Assassin’s Creed set is a testament to that. Given that Elden Ring has been out for over two years now, it’s likely that they’ve missed the best window for that, too. Even with the DLC arriving just last week. Many players in the thread pointed this out, with increasingly outlandish release date predictions.
Most generous was Grain_Death, who said “They’ll do it in 3 years.” TheBuddhaPalm was less optimistic: “Given the speed at which the UB sets are made, and how WotC keeps on missing the cultural mark, I imagine we’ll see an Elden Ring set sometime in 2029.” Not content with a five-year prediction, StructureMage went long with “It’ll happen in 2035.”
Honestly, if an Elden Ring set were ever to happen, predictions like these aren’t too outlandish. The legal proceedings around working with external IPs, and the actual development time of a full-on set, are both time-consuming processes after all. For BuckUpBingle, this is a concern. “While Elden Ring is certainly big, it isn’t a long-standing series that they can expect to maintain popularity over the period of time it would take to produce a magic set.” A sobering thought, and one to keep in mind when imagining all the keyword abilities a Radahn card could have.
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