Upon entering Wizards of the Coast’s Seattle headquarters, I was greeted not only by the Wizards’ team but also by an astonishingly large statue of a magnificent copper dragon. This statue, of course, was Mitzy, one of Magic: The Gathering’s beloved iconic mascots. After a good amount of time admiring Mitzy and a wall covered in unopened booster packs—a striking catalog of Magic’s three-decade history—I was led to the studio’s dining hall. Yet, calling it a dining hall feels almost inaccurate, as most of what graced those tabletops were, you guessed it, Magic cards.
Throughout the day, I watched as people rummaged through their bags for cards or wandered over to sift through the studio’s bulk boxes, then settled at a table for a game or three. While most of the players I observed were, like me, eager members of the press, it was clear that this level of excitement—this enthusiasm for play—was not accidental or fleeting, but rather an integral part of the studio’s culture. It is invigorating to find yourself among people who create something you care deeply about and to discover their love for that creation is as genuine as you had hoped—that there is a palpable reverence for it.
And yet, something nagged at me as we delved into conversations about the main reason for my visit: Magic: The Gathering’s Spider-Man collaboration.
Here I was, among the minds who helped build my favorite planes and stories—among images and statues of Liliana Vess, Chandra Nalaar, and Shivan dragons—and yet, discussions largely revolved around Spider-Man. And I understand. It makes perfect sense to want to discuss your show-stopping collaboration with Marvel, which is, as of today, officially released. At the same time, what about, well, Magic?
I will admit that some of this feeling stems from my own growing hesitations toward Universes Beyond—the facet of Magic: The Gathering where various properties (like Final Fantasy, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, Doctor Who, and Spider-Man, to name a few) are transformed into Magic cards. In 2025, three of the seven sets scheduled for release are Universes Beyond sets. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, their presence has certainly led to some tension in the community, with some complaints about being priced out of the hobby by collectors and others expressing frustration over how some original sets—like Tarkir: Dragonstorm and Edge of Eternities—have been overshadowed.
Magic: The Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater, lead designer Cory Bowen, and senior art director Sarah Wassell were all receptive when it came to answering questions regarding these issues. But beyond that, they also reassured me that Universes Beyond—the upcoming Spider-Man set included—are labors of love. They serve as a way for them to express their deep appreciation for fandoms outside of Magic: The Gathering, while also striving to grow and appease their own widespread community. Though it remains to be seen how Magic: The Gathering will change in the coming years, the following conversation reaffirmed that passion for the game and flexibility are leading the charge.
While Universes Beyond sets seem to be doing well commercially, it feels safe to say that there has been some criticism leveled against how often these sets are appearing. Does the team find this to be a legitimate issue? Are there plans to address this going forward?
Rosewater: Essentially, the way we function in Magic—and this has been true since Magic’s beginning—is we try something new to see what the players like. If the players like something, we make more of it. If they do not like it, we make less of it. That’s the nature of how we make Magic since Magic began.
Universes Beyond was the same thing. When we tried it originally, we did a little bit of it to see what people liked. They liked it, so we did a little bit more. The reason there is so much Universes Beyond is because the players are overwhelmingly excited by it. Final Fantasy, which came out earlier in the year, is the best-selling set of all time. It defeated the previous best-selling set of all time, which was the Lord of the Rings.
We provide what the player base wants. The fact that the Universes Beyond sets are doing well says there is an audience—that people are excited by this. We are just meeting the needs of the players. If the players were not excited, if they were not happy, if they were not buying lots of it, we would not make lots of it. But that is not what is happening, so that is why we are doing more.
Wassell: Another thing, too, is that Magic is a physical thing. This is an analog process. The cards are made by big, loud, noisy machines and it is a little bit hard to pivot really quickly on things when something is already at a certain point in production.
Cory Bowen: But we are always using feedback. We are always going to keep doing what people want. Right now, people want Universes Beyond, people want magical worlds, and we are going to keep doing that as long as they want them. And we are going to react as quickly as our printing process allows.
I would guess too, with utilizing intellectual properties, that creating Universes Beyond sets is an extremely lengthy process. I remember talking to folks about the Final Fantasy set and hearing it took over five years to realize. Once that is started, you are on that course. Does this incentivize you to lean more into Secret Lair or other avenues rather than keeping Universes Beyond at the current size?
Rosewater: When we look at properties, Magic has a lot of different options. There is a large set, there is Secret Lair, and then there are things in between. We have done Commander Decks. We try to establish what size the property is, then what is the best way to make Magic with that.
Some things make perfect sense as a small number of cards in a Secret Lair. Some are an entire set. And for some, like Marvel, one set is not enough. They have so much material that it is multiple sets. We are very flexible to try to meet the demands of the property. But as you can see, we have been interacting with lots and lots of properties.
Do you find it at all limiting to work within the confines of an IP or the real world?
Bowen: There is a lot of fun with it. There is freedom in making stuff up, but there is real fun in taking stuff that people know and trying to express it through Magic. I love City Pigeon. I think City Pigeon is emblematic of the most fun I have had making this set.
Rosewater: In general, I like doing things that I do not always do just because it changes things up. It was fun to have a set where there is a real world to compare it to. I like bouncing back and forth. I would not always want to do that, but it was very refreshing when that is not what we normally do.
When I think of artists who have helped shape pop culture, I think of Kirby, McFarlane, Romita Sr., and other iconic comic book illustrators. What was it like getting to use the moments they created and their illustrations?
Wassell: It was mind-blowing. Getting to have their names on a Magic card, getting to look at their work up close and trying to figure out how to honor it and yet adapt it for a new use … I think it really gave us all a feeling of responsibility. With great art comes great responsibility. We were so excited to use it and to work with it, but we also really wanted to make sure that we were honoring it.
Rosewater: One of the neat things about Universes Beyond is that, eventually, we get to what I call your passion property; that property that means something to you. It affected you as you grew up, and it is something that defines who you are as a person. I grew up reading comics. I mean, I wear superhero shirts constantly. It is a big part of my identity. So the chance to finally get to make these cards, and to make them for people who like me? It has just been lots and lots of fun—endlessly fun. I could go through Spider-Man and make notes on it to the end of time just because it is so much fun to ask ourselves, “Can we capture those little tiny moments?”
I remember I was doing flavor text and one of the cards talked about how Spider-Man’s web dissolves in 30 minutes. And I am like, “No, no. Actually … ” And we changed it. It maps in the comics how long it takes Spider-Man’s spider webs to dissolve. I care and I know the people that will care. So we want to put that time and energy into making sure that we are making the best possible Magic set, but also the best possible Spider-Man set for all the Spider-Man fans.
How was it melding together the artists that you commissioned for original pieces for the set, and these pre-established works? Was there an effort to keep things in line with the tone of these previous artists or were you more adventurous with it?
Wassell: One of the things we were excited to do—and how we approached this from the beginning from a visual perspective—was with respect to comic books’ very distinct visual eras. We went into the project with that in mind. We were very deliberate about, “Okay, now we are going really into the Golden Era,” “Oh, now we are going to go into the Dark Ages,” or “Now we are going to work with someone who is making really exciting Marvel art now—how does that look different from the way it used to look?” We were pretty deliberate about where we deployed those visual styles.
While Spider-Man does have more fantastical elements, and other sets, like Doctor Who, have had some more grounded elements—funny as it is to call Doctor Who “grounded”—I feel like this is the first one that is very realistic. It largely has a New York setting, for example. What were the challenges in making cards that are set inside what is essentially a different version of our universe, and making them feel at home among these other planes?
Bowen: Design-wise, it is challenging. There are a few things that were easier. It is easy to make a bird in Magic, so the pigeon was easy. We have food tokens, so it was easy to make food stuff that happens to resonate. But Taxi Driver being a creature … it is a little bit of an odd concept.
It seems challenging, but doing vehicles, food, locations with lands, and certain creatures … it sounds difficult but the more you do, the more that Magic actually has the language to express those things. I think it was almost easier to express [all of that] design-wise than it was to do Spider-Man stuff. Spider-Man punching or doing his flips or whatever, those were harder to express with language. But with the environment stuff, Magic just actually has a bunch of tools to express the world because its best quality is world-building.
Rosewater: Magic is 32 years old this year, and because we have been making the game for 32 years, we have a lot of tools. Really it is just a matter of adapting the tools for whatever world we are doing. We are constantly making new worlds. This was a little different, you are right. This was more “Our World” than most Magic sets tend to be, but we do have the tools to capture it. It just feels a little bit different because Magic tends to be more fantastical. A hot dog card is a little less fantastical than the average thing we do.
Wassell: There were moments that were a little bit easier in that way, though. I have been to New York City. I know things about it. So when we are doing a card that has a bodega on it, or there is a scene with the back of a rental truck in it, those are those moments where, when we get the sketch in from the artist and the rental truck is all clean on the back, I can be like, “There is no way that truck would be untapped in New York, driving on those city streets.” Those moments are, to me, the most fun—when we get into the world building of the in-world experience of these objects, vehicles, animals … stuff like that.
Bowen: Those details help a lot to immerse you in this world. This world is New York, and there is a lot to love about New York. We are immersing you in it in a similar way that we immerse you into a new plane we have created.
Rosewater: The big difference is, let us say we make a brand-new plane, we can do whatever we want. I mean, we are making the world, so we can make choices that we think make the world make sense. No one is going to say, “Oh no, that is not how that looks in that world.” Because nobody knows that. But in New York, you have the sense that you know what it should look like. That is probably the trickier thing, we are used to making our own worlds so no one can question, “Hey, that is not how it looked.” We do not get to make up New York. New York is New York.
How was it designing mechanics that are based on superheroes? These are inherently overpowered characters, and I am sure you want these figures to be extremely powerful. At the same time, I am sure you do not want them to be game-breaking and overly powerful. How do you tread that?
Bowen: Magic gives a lot of room for both really abstract expression and really specific expression. Yes, these characters are larger-than-life, but we do need them to play well. Gameplay ultimately is the king here, and not every Spidey character is going to be a 10/10 or an 8/8, if that is the proportional strength of a Spider. They all need to play well in the environments.
Things like rarity are a really good way to express that these are the Spider-characters we think are really cool. Like, Cosmic Spider-Man has got to be a mythic—he just feels like he has a step above. And there is a relative expression among the spider-characters.
Is it a little weird that a taxi driver and Spider-Man can take each other out in combat? It is a little weird, but again, Magic is an abstract game. Fifteen squirrels can kill an Elder God. There is a little bit of suspension of disbelief, which helps out a lot.
Rosewater: When you are making Magic cards, mostly what you want to do is make exciting things that do something. Marvel is about superheroes and supervillains with magical powers, and costumes that are designed to look really cool when you see them. Marvel has actually been perfect for making just really awesome Magic cards. They do fantastical things, and fantastical things make fun cards.
Last year, Wizards of the Coast announced the return of MSRP, and I know people were super excited about it. But obviously that is a suggested price, not an enforced price. Since then, however, prices have never been as high as they are now, which seems a result of the increase of Universes Beyond production. Do you have any plans on addressing these issues, or is that something that is more out of your hands?
Rosewater: As you said, we have no control. That is how capitalism works. People can charge whatever they want, so it is a tricky question. It is just outside of our control.
Bowen: People in this room are not in the conversations of pricing, I will say that.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity, clarity, and readability.