[news] Universes Beyond - Warhammer 40k and Lord of the Rings expansions

[Mookie]

Mothership

Original source

Hasbro reorganization, WotC being spun out into its own division alongside their digital efforts. More interestingly....

Wizards of the Coast says it has attracted new players by joining with other fantasy and sci-fi franchises. In 2020, the company published new Magic cards that featured characters from the AMC television show "The Walking Dead" and giant monsters including Godzilla from Japanese film company Toho Co. Another limited card set featured paintings licensed from the estate of TV host Bob Ross.

Hasbro will announce new partnerships during its Thursday event, including a deal with U.K.-based Games Workshop Group to bring its war game "Warhammer 40,000" to Magic, and an agreement with Middle Earth Enterprises for a "The Lord of the Rings"-themed expansion. New videogame projects include games developed by Bellevue, Wash.-based Hidden Path Entertainment and Boston-based OtherSide Entertainment.

Welp, time to grab some popcorn.

[void_nothing]

...I'm mostly just surprised WotC wasn't its own division already.

Suffice it to say, don't let this thread get out of hand.

[Krishnath]

Good thing the Wall Street Journal is such a reliable source of info... Oh, wait...

I'll take this with a grain of salt until confirmed by WotC themselves. Either at the investor event, or from another official source. I can see LotR's happening in a style similar the Godzilla cards, but I am extremely skeptical about Warhammer 40k, particularly considering just how litigious Games Workshop tends to be when it comes to their IP and that it is rather well known that the people in charge there kinda loathe WotC in general and D&D in particular because they feel like it infringes on their Warhammer Fantasy (even though D&D beats it by a decade). Not to mention that GW really likes to sue people who use the words "space" and "marine" in the same sentence, even though they have zero rights to those two words in conjugation due to prior art, and always lose the trial when it goes that far. If the Warhammer thing happens, it'll likely be as a secret lair, and hopefully WotC learned their lesson from the Walking Dead debacle.

But anyway, take it with a grain of salt. WSJ often reports things based on rumors alone.

[valentine]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... HG3CzRJ5DU

They confirmed it.

[BeneTleilax]

"but the frame will be distinct"

These are new silver-bordered cards, and I hope they get the same treatment in Eternal formats. I am not looking forwards to playing against someone's Fortnite deck in EDH.

[Mookie]

Some other things to note:

• Not standard-legal
• Distinct frame
• Separate from the normal set release cycle
• Sets will be as available as normal sets
• Warhammer 40k commander decks
• D&D set isn't a Universes Beyond set
• The Walking Dead is retroactively a Universes Beyond thing

[5colorsrainbow]

Also of note the DnD universe isn't gonna be canon to Mtg.

[Krishnath]

Some other things to note:

• Not standard-legal
• Distinct frame
• Separate from the normal set release cycle
• Sets will be as available as normal sets
• Warhammer 40k commander decks
• D&D set isn't a Universes Beyond set
• The Walking Dead is retroactively a Universes Beyond thing

Good, that means we can safely ignore them.

Also of note the DnD universe isn't gonna be canon to Mtg.

Yet. If they find it to be beneficial to either or both brands, they'll make them canon to each other (which they pretty much already are due to the MTG D&D settings and how the D&D multiverse works. The Phlogiston sounds awfully similar to the blind eternities, so does the deep ethereal and the astral planes... just saying, and what recently happened to Halaster Blackcloak sounds an awful lot like what happens when someone Sparks...) It would be incredibly easy to integrate the two.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

What...Wha...

Man, I remember Hasbro's previous stance on the matter.

I remember when we did Nintendo-themed cards in the Custom Card forums, it doesn't seem so far-fetched now.

Video games seem like a likely pull. Square-Enix maybe? Final Fantasy Magic: The Gathering?

They did lend them Nicol Bolas for that Square-Enix card game, they might return the favor.

FF7 remake being the hot stuff now, might be a good time for a tie-in?

[UnfulfilledDesires]

I'm annoyed about the inevitable high-powered EDH staples from Universes Beyond that everyone will be running. However, MTG aesthetics already clash internally & a lot of the flavor you see at the average table makes no sense, so I guess it's whatever.

I already exclude various staples from my more thematic decks because the aesthetics don't align. In this sense, the Universes Beyond products won't change anything.

Many cEDH combos get over-to-top absurd when you think about them. "This mafia goblin extorts my opponents for infinite magical money by appearing & disappearing over & over again thanks to the help of a large cat."

If you don't want an organized-crime theme in cEDH these days, you're almost out of luck. So it goes.

[Wallycaine]

Very cool. Glad to see they're learning from the Secret Lair reaction and making sure these are (largely) available through normal stores. Should be interesting to see what other stuff they do, looking forward to it.

[SquirrelToken]

FYI, here's Games Workshop's presser: https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... es-really/

[folding_music]

guaranteed a vin diesel you can tap to steal other player's Vehicles before the end of 2023

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Very cool. Glad to see they're learning from the Secret Lair reaction and making sure these are (largely) available through normal stores. Should be interesting to see what other stuff they do, looking forward to it.

Absolutely this. The Commander guys made themselves heard, it seems.

[Krishnath]

Very cool. Glad to see they're learning from the Secret Lair reaction and making sure these are (largely) available through normal stores. Should be interesting to see what other stuff they do, looking forward to it.

Absolutely this. The Commander guys made themselves heard, it seems.

Most played format, so not surprising.

[void_nothing]

I'm pleased to see this has been civil thus far, so I'm going to offer a serious question: What do you put on the typeline of an Astartes? Human Mutant Soldier? Just "Soldier" like certain Scars-block Phyrexians just had a class type?

[dangerousdice]

I'm pleased to see this has been civil thus far, so I'm going to offer a serious question: What do you put on the typeline of an Astartes? Human Mutant Soldier? Just "Soldier" like certain Scars-block Phyrexians just had a class type?

I dont know enough about warhammer to answer that completely, but probably just soldier or mutant soldier.

[Krishnath]

I'm pleased to see this has been civil thus far, so I'm going to offer a serious question: What do you put on the typeline of an Astartes? Human Mutant Soldier? Just "Soldier" like certain Scars-block Phyrexians just had a class type?

Wouldn't that really depend on which faction they belong? From what little I know of the setting, if they are part of the Imperium, they pretty much have to be human by default because they are extremely xenocidal (for good reason to be fair).

The Ork's have to be fungus though.

[Guardman]

I know nothing about Warhammer, so I can't comment there. And I really only know Lord of the Rings from the Peter Jackson trilogy. So I am probably not the best person to comment on that either, other than to say it is a property that has the depth of world building to produce a very good set (if the rumors that LotR is getting a set, and not just commander decks for example, is true).

One thing I do want to ask is would Gandalf be red?

The only reason I ask is because of this Polygon article I read the other day, where it states Gandalf is the best at fire magic and he does have a lot of phoenix qualities.

[void_nothing]

Wouldn't that really depend on which faction they belong? From what little I know of the setting, if they are part of the Imperium, they pretty much have to be human by default because they are extremely xenocidal (for good reason to be fair).

The Ork's have to be fungus though.

The thing is, 40k's Space Marines have extreme physical alterations. They're in the range of 9 feet tall, can spit poison out of a special gland in their throats, and are smooth like a Ken doll downstairs generally exceed human abilities in a lot of ways. A Loyalist Space Marine would not be pleased to be described as a mutant as such, but it's just the truth that they have many types of mutations.

Orks, however, would have to say Fungus Orc on the typeline to be accurate, that's correct.

One thing I do want to ask is would Gandalf be red?

The only reason I ask is because of this Polygon article I read the other day, where it states Gandalf is the best at fire magic and he does have a lot of phoenix qualities.

Maybe part red, but not just because he has fire motifs. When he says "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor" to Durin's Bane, what he means is he serves the power of Eru (i.e. capital-G God), and that he wields the light of the sun. If Gandalf has red in him it's because he's a trickster.

As a (noncorporeal) Maia he split his time working with the Valar (lowercase-g gods) Manwë (the king of Valar and lord of the sky), Varda (the goddess of stars), Irmo (the god of dreams), and Nienna (the goddess of grief and pity). Ultimately his background and later actions and portfolio sound WU because he uses wisdom and counsel to help bring peace and safety to Middle-Earth.

[dangerousdice]

Wouldn't that really depend on which faction they belong? From what little I know of the setting, if they are part of the Imperium, they pretty much have to be human by default because they are extremely xenocidal (for good reason to be fair).

The Ork's have to be fungus though.

The thing is, 40k's Space Marines have extreme physical alterations. They're in the range of 9 feet tall, can spit poison out of a special gland in their throats, and are smooth like a Ken doll downstairs generally exceed human abilities in a lot of ways. A Loyalist Space Marine would not be pleased to be described as a mutant as such, but it's just the truth that they have many types of mutations.

Orks, however, would have to say Fungus Orc on the typeline to be accurate, that's correct.

One thing I do want to ask is would Gandalf be red?

The only reason I ask is because of this Polygon article I read the other day, where it states Gandalf is the best at fire magic and he does have a lot of phoenix qualities.

Maybe part red, but not just because he has fire motifs. When he says "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor" to Durin's Bane, what he means is he serves the power of Eru (i.e. capital-G God), and that he wields the light of the sun. If Gandalf has red in him it's because he's a trickster.

As a (noncorporeal) Maia he split his time working with the Valar (lowercase-g gods) Manwë (the king of Valar and lord of the sky), Varda (the goddess of stars), Irmo (the god of dreams), and Nienna (the goddess of grief and pity). Ultimately his background and later actions and portfolio sound WU because he uses wisdom and counsel to help bring peace and safety to Middle-Earth.

I always thought he would be blue/red originally, but gains white after coming back to life.

[void_nothing]

Saruman, meanwhile, is clearly UB. Radagast is open and shut monogreen.

[Krishnath]

Radagast is open and shut monogreen.

Nobody with any sense would ever believe he would be anything else.

I have to wonder though, would the LotR's based set include Ungoliath, Glaurung, the Blackblade, and the Silmarillions? Or would it solely focus on the Trilogy and nothing of the other books? Because if only the former, it'd be pretty boring creature wise. But if the Silmarillion was involved we'd get such awesome things as Dragons, Werewolves, evil gods, gods walking the Earth, corrupted elves, a swan maiden (to be fair, she was an elven princess to begin with), and the most epic of all epic humans. How epic was he? He was so epic that he is the only human to ever set foot in the elves ancestral homeland where the gods dwell. He was so epic he literally stole one of the Silmarillions of the brow of an evil god just to prove his worth so that an Elven king would allow him to marry his daughter. He was so epic that the gods themselves granted him immortality and enchanted his ship to sail the sky forever, with a Silmarillion upon his brow.

[void_nothing]

Tolkien's estate is never going to license the Silmarillion for anything, but I think there are plenty of creatures that are at least mentioned between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings for lots of creature types. We might not get Eärendil or Túrin legends specifically but besides Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs we'll be seeing things like Spiders, Wolves/Wolf Beasts (Wargs), Elephants (Mûmakil), Birds (Crebain and Great Eagles)... Even sapient Bears if we get the Beornings.

[Krishnath]

Tolkien's estate is never going to license the Silmarillion for anything, but I think there are plenty of creatures that are at least mentioned between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings for lots of creature types. We might not get Eärendil or Túrin legends specifically but besides Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs we'll be seeing things like Spiders, Wolves/Wolf Beasts (Wargs), Elephants (Mûmakil), Birds (Crebain and Great Eagles)... Even sapient Bears if we get the Beornings.

They've already licensed it once, it never went anywhere, and the rights eventually reverted back to them, and Tolkien's kids are no longer in control of the estate anymore, and if the people who are know that the people who are using it will treat it with respect, it might happen. I never say never when it comes to them anymore, after all they greenlit the Lotr Amazon series based on and around the fall of Nümenor with the caveat that it could not contradict anything in the books, and that was something we for decades never thought was going to happen. The same with the NZ made movies, particularly considering how utterly bad the Bakshi movies were, comparatively. Stranger and weirder things have happened.