"Magic as Richard Garfield intended" is a popular, if ironic line in the Magic community. It's amusing, then, how many 'old school' Magic players hate the idea of Magic crossing over with other intellectual property. After all, Magic did it not once, but twice in the early days. First with Arabian Nights, the very first Magic expansion, an adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights. Arabian Nights was made a canonical plane before being abandoned and ignored entirely. Later, Portal: Three Kingdoms adapted Romance of the Three Kingdoms into Magic. It was never made canonical, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Commander player who hasn't at one point or another desired an Imperial Recruiter or Imperial Seal. Heck, Rolling Earthquake isn't canon in Magic and was just reprinted in a black border, tournament legal product.

Rolling Earthquake by Yang Hong

In many ways, Magic is founded on the use of outside IPs, whether they're direct parallels like the sets mentioned above, or if they're merely genre reskins. Magic is resonant because it puts a unique spin on existing genres, not because it's an entirely original fantasy property. Even 'default' Magic is rooted in Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings. The legends of Legends were, afterall, in many cases characters from the creator's D&D campaigns, and early Magic did little to diverge from the generic fantasy formula rooted in the works of Tolkien.

Why then, do so many community members seem to take the introduction of other IPs as a personal affront? There's been a lot of discussion of the 'purity' of Magic, especially in regards to Commander, that seems at odds with the number of Legend of Zelda elf tokens I've seen at any given table. I can't deny that at one point, I would have been against it, but recent years have changed my mind and I've opened up to the idea.

Magic has done other IPs well. I'm a huge fan of the Godzilla series. I collected them all: the lands, the Hangarback Walker promo, the Japanese-only version, two of the playmats... They're beautiful. I have Nerf, D&D, Transformers, and My Little Pony Magic cards in my collection too! Magic has crossed over in the past and done it well. And in general, just like different people like the genres of different planes better, the flavor of other IPs is going to hit people differently.

Let's talk about both Magic crossing over with other IPs, and Gatekeeping.

Sticking the Landing

Secret Lair: The Walking Dead Promotional Art (Uncredited)

All that said, Secret Lair: The Walking Dead clearly did not stick the landing, at least with the initial impressions. Why is that? There are a lot of things to consider. First, it was the first mechanically unique, black bordered (meaning tournament legal) card set to use another IP, and it was only available as part of this $50 limited product. While later clarification made clear they could be reprinted as traditional Magic cards, the initial impressions made a big difference.

Second, the IP itself matters. While I personally have no problem with The Walking Dead as a franchise, Magic players needed to be weaned off their concept of Magic "purity". Arabian Nights and Portal: Three Kingdoms are sets that, in retrospect, could appear to be canon to Magic because they're historical fantasy (and in the former's case, was made canon before being ignored entirely). I wonder if, had Magic more gradually expanded the outside IP partnerships with other more traditional fantasy IPs over time, if the reaction would have been the same. Wizards of the Coast has also set expectations by establishing a precedent of outside IPs being in silver border, intentionally or not. Let's talk about those, briefly before we look forward.

The Silver Bordered Past

Grimlock, Dinobot Leader by Tyler Jacobson

The year was 2017. Wizards of the Coast made an appearance at their parent company Hasbro's new convention in Rhode Island, HASCON (the first and last, so far). There, they revealed a silver-border product made specifically for the convention, one that featured Grimlock, Dinobot Leader, Nerf War, and Sword of Dungeons and Dragons. Grimlock remains popular, sitting near $200 as I write this article, while the Sword was reprinted in Unsanctioned. I love Nerf War, but its effect is a little hard to pull off (showing up with a nerf gun at FNM is also frowned upon by most), so it's still pretty easy to obtain. As a silver-borded product, these cards aren't tournament legal, and you'd need to ask your table if they're okay with you running Grimlock as a Commander, which is usually fine since he's not overwhelmingly powerful.

So, if Grimlock isn't a super strong Commander and isn't legal anywhere, why is he going for as much as an Ultimate Masters Liliana of the Veil Box Topper? The answer is pretty easy: the power of the Transformers brand. Grimlock isn't just popular with Magic players, Transformers fanatics wanted him too. Did he bring new Transformers fans to the game? Given the rarity, probably not. But then again, Wizards would announce their own Transformers CCG not long afterward, so there was clearly a market for Transformer card games. And there's plenty of overlap between Magic fans and Transformers fans.

My Little Pony followed in 2019 with Ponies: the Galloping, a box set featuring Nightmare Moon, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and Rarity. The set was part of a Magic's Extra Life charity campaign. Outside of some insecure adults bothered by cute ponies, the overall community loved and accepted it. Anyone who has visited a LGS knows there's plenty of overlap between Bronies, the term for adult men who are My Little Pony fans, and Magic fans.

Skinning the Game

Godzilla, Primeval Champion by Lius Lasahido

Alongside Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths came The Godzilla Series, 19 cards featuring artwork of Toho's legendary kaiju. I wrote all about them in Godzilla, the Monster King. They feature alternate artwork (and names) of actual Ikoria cards that could be found in booster packs. The community reception was mixed, with some people annoyed at the intrusion of modern day weaponry into Magic (with jets and tanks and the like), but in general people appreciated that they were just 'skins'. Except for Zilortha, Strength Incarnate, that is - but Zilortha held the inherent promise of being a regular Magic card later. An important distinction compared to The Walking Dead cards.

This idea was fascinating. People have been commissioning alters for Magic cards since the game existed. I've had a 'kaiju' themed deck in one form or another since Shards of Alara. It was a perfect match, so hearing people I like and respect speak derisively of this beautiful synergy of two of my loves hurt. I personally love the idea of reskinning cards from a set to another IP in the same genre as that plane, like Universal's classic monsters for an Innistrad set.

The Black Bordered Future

Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms was announced for 2021, in an unprecedented move by Wizards of the Coast. While two Magic planes had become official D&D worlds in recent years, with The Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica and Mythic Odysseys of Theros, the D&D brand had never been more than obliquely referenced in cards like Bag of Holding. Adding an entire D&D setting to Magic as a playable set sounds amazing! As I've repeated as a theme here, there's no small overlap between the Magic and D&D communities.

D&D is a perfect flavor fit for black bordered Magic, even though it's unlikely to be a canonical card set. What's more, D&D has exploded in recent years, and taking advantage of that to bring new players to Magic is a great idea. Hitting more on-theme brands like this is a slam dunk. I mentioned Legend of Zelda earlier. Imagine getting Link or Zelda as a Legendary Creature card? How many Magic fans wouldn't like to see that? What kind of boom would Magic see taking advantage of that kind of fan base?

How many of them would want to stick around if the community reacts as it has to Godzilla or The Walking Dead? The latter had its problems, but I think with a different execution I might have been just as big a fan of it as the Godzilla series.

New Blood: The Problem with Gatekeeping

Here's where the Gatekeeping aspect comes into play. Magic isn't 'pure' by any stretch. Magic is whatever the next set needs it to be, and on more than one occasion Magic has pushed the boundaries of what people have defined it to be. Each time, people have believed it to be the end of the road, but each time, Magic has been just fine in the end. Magic is frequently only loosely a fantasy series, as many fan's favorite villains, the Phyrexians, are far more science fiction than fantasy. I can't help but think every time someone tells me what is and isn't Magic, how derisive the story community was a decade or so ago when I dared suggest the modern interpretation of planeswalkers was good, actually. It's easy to see a scenario where I, a peasant who had not yet read real* Magic stories, grew disillusioned and left. And yet, over a decade later, the new planeswalkers and their stories are a driving factor for Magic, are characters that most people enjoy, and it's only the minority who still pine for their definition of the good old days.

(*Real Magic stories include Arena, a novel that has been out of print and irrelevant to anything in over 20 years. But it also includes [Insert the story or set you liked best 'back in the day', when you were young or new to the game], when Magic was at its peak. Anyone who doesn't enjoy [your favorite thing] obviously isn't a real fan, anyway.)

And as I've established from the start, Magic has been about IP crossovers from the very beginning. The reality is that most Magic fans aren't against outside IPs, they're negotiating the boundaries of what is acceptable. I spoke with my wife about The Walking Dead crossover controversy, and what she said surprised me. In twenty years of knowing her, she's never had any interest in Magic, and frankly, as a brown woman the community has historically not been welcoming to people like her. But the potential for crossovers was enough for her to declare that she might actually play the game with me, if they ever come out with a Sailor Moon crossover. It's not hard to imagine a whole lot of people out there who feel similarly about whatever core franchise they're passionate about.

But will the Magic community make them feel welcome?