2025 is going to be a different kind of year for Magic: The Gathering. Universes Beyond is now a massive part of the game, taking up half of the year’s set releases. Despite such a massive change coming to the game, believe it or not, we’re actually getting fewer set releases in 2025 than in 2024. Even more surprising is a confirmation from MTG designer Mark Rosewater that there shouldn’t be any surprise releases in this coming year.
Universes Beyond Overload
The online MTG community has felt like an echo chamber of complaints regarding Universes Beyond products lately. Many players did not take the reveal of these off-IP tentpole sets becoming Standard legal in 2025. While Spongebob and other crossovers from Secret Lairs will stay Eternal legal, Spiderman, Final Fantasy, and the third surprise Universes Beyond release in 2025 will all be Standard legal.
For players who want to play Magic, but don’t necessarily want to play with Universes Beyond products, this is rather frustrating. Now, it will be very difficult to engage with Magic without engaging with Universes Beyond.
It is important to remember, however, that a lot of MTG players love the designs of Universes Beyond. One Tumblr commenter made sure to mention this. Despite how many new cards from different places are coming to Magic, all of the designs for the cards are flavorful and fun, creating engaging gameplay experiences.
“The design team is killing it with these cards. You have to read so much negativity that I do want to make clear I’m loving most of what is being designed. Even the cards in Universes not for me I can recognize cool mechanical and flavorful design.”
unit-two-zero
Unit-two-zero’s problem is instead with things that the play design team is not a part of. There are too many new cards being released from high price points in limited quantities. Many Universes Beyond cards that release as mechanically unique entities in Secret Lairs are super hard to find in the wild. Secret Lairs themselves aren’t exactly cheap, either.
Considering that Wizards of the Coast has every reason to push further and further year over year, players may find it surprising that Magic is actually taking a step back. Mark Rosewater wanted to make that known since excessive quantity is one of the larger complaints circulating the MTG community currently.
A Step Back from 2024
In response to Unit-two-zero’s post, Mark Rosewater highlighted a rather curious fact. There are actually fewer MTG products being released in 2025, compared to 2024. This certainly bucks the trend that players have gotten used to over the past few years.
Rosewater highlighted that 2024 had nine new product releases. Eight of these releases had new cards (Ravnica Remastered was reprints only) and one of these products was Commander decks only (Fallout). These releases are as follows:
- Ravnica Remastered
- Murders at Karlov Manor
- Fallout
- Outlaws of Thunder Junction
- Modern Horizons III
- Assassin’s Creed
- Bloomburrow
- Duskmourn
- Foundations
In 2025, only seven new sets are planned for release. One of these is a reprint-only set (Innistrad Remastered), and the rest are draftable set releases. Here’s the list:
- Innistrad Remastered
- Aetherdrift
- Tarkir Dragonstorm
- Final Fantasy
- Edge of Eternities
- Spider-Man
- Unannounced Universes Beyond product
That means there are two fewer product releases in 2025 in comparison to 2024. Foundations is in a bit of a strange spot here, however, since the set’s longevity does not match a normal set release. Even without counting this set, there will still be fewer product releases in 2025.
By stating this, Rosewater has also suggested that there will be no surprise sets released in 2025. This, in itself, is new information that we haven’t seen before. Noticeably, Secret Lair products were not discussed at all in either of these comparisons, so those will likely continue to constantly release new card treatments throughout 2025.
This also means that no new format-specific sets will be coming in 2025. People afraid of Pioneer and Modern Horizons sets that end up rotating formats won’t have to hide their heads in fear. This may seem obvious with the recent legality changes stated by Wizards of the Coast (Eternal and Standard legal only), but they do reserve the right to print exceptions to that rule, so we could get another Modern Horizons set at some point.
That said, Pioneer Masters is coming to MTG Arena on December 10th, but that set will simply supplement Explorer with some of the biggest cards missing on MTG Arena for the Pioneer format, like Hidden Strings.
A Blessing in Disguise?
Digesting the larger changes to Universes Beyond products has been difficult for the MTG community, but players have been asking Wizards to hit the brakes with new set releases for a long time. We still have a jam-packed schedule for 2025, but a slight bit of reprieve should allow players to digest new content more easily. That said, for all we know, Secret Lairs could double their product releases compared to 2024, fully embracing the idea of Universes Beyond.
We’ll have to wait and see how this shakes out, but we have faith that whatever comes our way in 2025 will create an enjoyable gameplay experience.
