I Need Magic: The Gathering's Assassin's Creed Set To Be Good

After a couple years mithering over what it means for Magic: The Gathering, the Universes Beyond crossover series has finally won me over. Pretty much every release we’ve seen as part of UB has been amazing, from the massive sets like The Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who, to the smaller team-ups like Fortnite and Jurassic World.

There’s even more on the horizon, with Final Fantasy, Fallout, and Marvel all joining in on the fun over the next two years. But there’s one crossover that I’m simultaneously pant-wettingly excited for, but also incredibly nervous about. I’m just not sure how Assassin’s Creed is going to shape up.

Revealed at last year’s Magic preview panel at Gen Con, we know very little about August’s Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed. Based on Ubisoft’s long-running stealth-action-sometimes-RPG series, the only titbits we know is that it’ll be a straight-to-Modern set, and that it’s introducing a new kind of product known as a “Beyond booster”.

Despite being lukewarm on the recent Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the series is one of my absolute favourites in all of gaming. I love the constant variety each game offers, with new time periods to explore and characters to play as. I love running over rooftops, leaping into hay bales, and shoving my hidden blade into someone’s jugular. I’ve been playing the games since the very first launched in 2007, and have religiously kept up with every single sequel and spin-off. If Magic: The Gathering is ‘my thing’, Assassin’s Creed is a very close second.

After Doctor Who and Fallout, it feels like someone at Wizards has been targeting me specifically for Universes Beyond. I want to build decks around Arno Dorian and the Frye Twins, I want the Hidden Blade as an equipment, and I want lands based on Rome, London, Paris, and Krokodilopolis. Heck, this set is a great way to bring some of the less well-known characters of Assassin’s Creed to the front – cards based on Nikolai Orelov or Aguillar would be fantastic. As soon as previews for this set come around later this year, I’m going to be absolutely feral over what makes the cut for the set and what doesn’t.

And yet, despite my love of both Magic and Assassin’s Creed, my excitement for the set is tinged by a slight anxiety over what it actually is. Head designer Mark Rosewater has described it as a non-draftable small set, and the reveal described Beyond boosters as telling individual stories in each pack.

On the one hand, this could make for an interesting pack-opening experience. Opening up a whole booster dedicated to the Renaissance, or Eivor and the Raven Clan, or Basim in Baghdad, could help make for some cool on-theme decks. On the other hand, the whole thing sounds a little too March of the Machine: The Aftermath to me.

Aftermath was last year’s biggest mistake for Magic. A micro-set of just 50 cards, not designed for limited play, booster packs had five cards each and only a handful of them were any good. The set was too small to tell a story, and the cards felt like leftovers from the main March of the Machine set’s design.

Assassin’s Creed following in the Aftermath’s footsteps is my worst-case scenario. Booster packs of a handful of milquetoast cards could kill my enthusiasm for the Assassin’s Creed crossover entirely, and an Aftermath-sized set would be nowhere near big enough to hit all the right beats that Assassin’s Creed fans would want from it.

I hope Rosewater is more literal when he describes this as a “small set”. Back in the days when Magic dedicated two or three sets to a story in the form of a “block”, small sets were about half the size of the large set companions, but played into the themes and design space of the whole block. Sets like Born of the Gods, Oath of the Gatewatch, Worldwake, Conflux, and Betrayers of Kamigawa were all small, and still offered a lot for those opening packs.

If Assassin’s Creed is a “small set” of around 180 cards, with properly-sized booster packs, I’m in. You’ve got me hook, line, and sinker. I’ll even get the Secret Lairs. But if this is March of the Machine: The Aftermath Part 2, I’m likely just going to grab a few singles of key characters I want and not subject myself to it again.

Would I have preferred a full set like The Lord of the Rings for Assassin’s Creed? Absolutely, but I’m still happy the Assassins and Templars are coming to Magic at all. I just need this not to be the second attempt at Magic’s worst idea in a long time, or else my little white-robe-stabby-loving heart won’t be able to take the disappointment.

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