For many players, the announcement last year that Universes Beyond releases would take up half of Standard releases every year proved to be a bit of a hard pill to swallow. Universes Beyond as a whole has proven quite controversial over the past few years, starting with Secret Lair The Walking Dead in 2020. Many players have shown they don't want to be subjected to the Universes Beyond experience or else have shown concerns about accessibility via both potential for reprints as well as digital play.

A solution for reprints was found by way of producing special Universes Within cards. These represent special in-universe treatments depicting Magic characters and planes rather than the outside IPs. Thus far this has been used for cards from Secret Lairs including The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Street Fighter, and D&D: Honor Among Thieves. We've also begun seeing it on a handful of other cards as well, such as the generically named Shadow Summoning from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth getting a Universes Within printing featuring Innistrad art in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander.

Many players have been wanting to see this extend further with proper Universes Within sets releasing as time went on. Now, it seems as though these players have gotten their wish at last... sort of.

Earlier today, Wizards of the Coast announced that a new type of release would be coming later in 2025. Through the Omenpaths is a new type of product exclusive to the digital clients of MTG Arena and Magic Online to ensure all Standard legal cards are playable online when licensing issues come into play. These sets will represent full Universes Within treatments for all cards in sets as needed, including new card names and art, while still providing the exact text of the cards such as mana cost, card types, text box, rarities, and power/toughness (where relevant).

It was noted in this article that this change will only impact Magic: the Gathering - Marvel's Spider-Man for the time being. Both Magic: the Gathering - Final Fantasy and Magic: the Gathering - Avatar: the Last Airbender will be released in full with the Universes Beyond treatments on both MTG Arena and Magic Online. Additionally, the article noted that future Marvel sets will receive the Through the Omenpaths treatment going forward. Sets that are coming to these digital clients with the Universes Beyond treatment won't be getting the Through the Omenpaths treatment given the level of additional effort required to make this possible. Currently, Wizards only plans to do this for sets that are legal in all formats, so sets with Commander or Secret Lair-only products are exempt at present.

This news comes after much concern and speculation as to whether it would be possible to bring Universes Beyond cards to these digital clients. The Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 and Universes Beyond: Fallout sets famously took a long time to reach Magic Online while Universes Beyond: Doctor Who and various Universes Beyond Secret Lairs never showed up online. Additionally, Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed was notably absent on MTG Arena, which further fueled concerns about the implementation going forward.

It'll be interesting to see the impact of these releases as they come out in the coming years. Will it lead to an uptick in Universes Within cards being printed? Will it allow Wizards to go back and add older products such as Universes Beyond: Doctor Who or Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed to digital clients where they don't already exist? How will it affect things like decklist importing and tournament coverage?

We'll have to see how things turn out when Magic: the Gathering - Marvel's Spider-Man releases in September. Needless to say: it's an interesting time to be a Magic: The Gathering player.

Paige Smith

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