Magic Players Test ‘Universes Beyond Format’ in First Community Tournament
A niche community of Magic players focused on the Universes Beyond product line has wrapped up a tournament using only non-Magic IP cards, in what they believe could be a community first. The tournament’s format, named ‘SUPER Magic’ by the community — or just ‘SUPER’ for short — plays like a classic, one-versus-one, 60-card Magic format, with the catch that it only allows cards depicting non-Magic IPs. This leads to gameplay reminiscent of that one meme and gives the format its Smash Bros.-inspired name.
While Magic players on social media have consistently joked about the ‘Fortnite-ification’ of the game caused by the introduction of external IPs (including Fortnite itself), the small but dedicated SUPER community have lent into this accusation and set themselves the challenge of brewing competitive decks based on these cards before putting them to the test.
With a mixture of casual and more competitive players in the recently-formed SUPER community, decks themselves ranged considerably in power level and theming. From upgraded draft archetypes — like Goblins and Orcs from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth — to those utilising powerful mechanics from across Universes Beyond sets to emulate Modern or Legacy-lite strategies — such as Human typal, with Walking Dead’s [[Rick, Steadfast Leader]] taking the helm, supported by Dracula’s [[Dr. John Seward]] and the Tomb Raider herself, [[Lara Croft]].
Good-stuff decks also prevailed, such as 40k Midrange, which hoped to use [[Atalan Jackal]] in combination with [[Chaos Terminator Lord]] to quickly slam the formidable Tyranid [[Old One Eye]] and close out the game. It was this deck that was ultimately victorious, winning after three rounds of Swiss and a final match.
However, the meme-potential of the format may have been most fulfilled by Wraith Typal, which combined [[Nazgûl]]’s unique ‘a deck can have up to nine cards named Nazgûl’ ability and its Wraith synergy with another Wraith, the unblockable Necron [[Canoptek Wraith]], to snowball to victory. An amusing, but perhaps appropriate, alliance. A close competitor in the way of strange alliances was Oops (Nearly) All Balrogs, a glass cannon reanimator deck of eight possible Balrog targets, or a choice of Warhammer 40k’s [[Hierophant Bio-Titan]] or Doctor Who’s [[Judoon Enforcers]], depending on sideboarding.
Beckett, one of the organisers of the tournament and SUPER Discord server, said, “We developed the format, partly just to see what funny and powerful decks we could build with these weirdly contrasting settings and characters, but also, contradictorily, out of mixed feelings toward Universes Beyond. We liked the cards, and liked how Wizards had captured the setting of the external IPs, but didn’t like the idea of Lord of the Rings and Assissin’s Creed cards becoming stables of classic Magic formats, and maybe even overshadowing classic Magic IP cards. The solution was to create our own format where we can mash together these iconic characters and settings using the best card game ruleset ever made, while avoiding the cringe some of us get from seeing Stranger Things characters at the table alongside Urza and Teferi.”
HFSoundwave, another organiser and community member, said “I suspect it is inevitable that a format like SUPER will become popular to some extent, as Wizards prints more and more Universes Beyond cards. Since we’re only a small community, it may not be SUPER itself, particularly if others come up with better or more intuitive rules for card legality, or I guess Wizards may want to create a UB format themselves. We’ll have to see.”
People can learn more and get involved at supermagic.carrd.co, where links can be found to the format’s community Discord.
