Table of Contents
The Universes Beyond product line, for the unfamiliar, are sets of cards that utilize other IPs. The first Universes Beyond set was The Walking Dead Secret Lair back in 2020. Since then, Magic has crossed over with IPs like The Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, and many more. As with (nearly) every set in Magic, all these cards are legal in Commander. They’ve ranged from barely making a dent in the greater meta, to being meta-warping cards. Here, we will look at the overall impact that these Universes Beyond sets have had in Commander.
Constant Stream of Fresh Cards
One thing that Universes beyond does is offer a constant stream of new cards. While regular sets achieve this as well, regular sets aren’t released through Secret Lair. Using Secret Lair as a way to drop cards without having to worry about a whole set is great. It allows for cards to be made with their own identity without conforming to things like draft archetypes.
For example, it might be hard to fit a card like Nathan Drake, Treasure Hunter or The Celestial Toymaker in a full set. With Secret Lair, these cards can be released without any other baggage (aside from the flaws that Secret Lair naturally has with availability). It allows more unique flavor to be given to characters when they don’t have to conform to specific themes of the set.
Fixing Partner
Partner is a mechanic that was introduced in the Commander 2016 set of precons, and uses frequently in the Commander Legends set. You can run two commanders if they both have partner. For example, you can use Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker and Anara, Wolvid Familiar as your commander. This enables easy ways to build commander decks of varying color combinations with no downside. Partner is often considered a “broken” mechanic, and many cEDH decks utilize partner commanders.
Partner with X is a variation that takes away the freedom of choosing any commander with partner. Instead, it can only partner with one specific card. Examples of this would be Brallin, Skyshark Rider and Shabraz, the Skyshark. This also still appears in Universes Beyond sets regularly, even in non-Commander sets, as seen with Evie Frye and Jacob Frye. While these are fine, you’re streamlined into one specific pairing.
With Universes Beyond, the perfect balance was found with partner. It created new partner keywords that let you play two commanders, but from a specific pool of creatures instead of a broad one that all have the same keyword. One such example was with the Stranger Things cards, which all have friends forever. You can run any two cards that have this ability as your commanders, such as Chief Jim Hopper and Lucas, the Sharpshooter. Another example would be from Doctor Who with creatures that have Doctor’s companion such as Jamie McCrimmon, which can partner with any Doctor cards like The Sixth Doctor.
This helps to get around the powerful ability to partner with any commander. It also feels less restrictive than partner with X, allowing you to have variety in the kinds of commanders you can play. It’s the perfect balance when it comes to partner, something that before was either too powerful or too weak.
Bringing New Players In
Love it or hate it, one thing Universes Beyond has done is interest people in Magic. I have personal firsthand experience with this, with friends who swore they’d never touch Magic getting invested with Lord of the Rings and later Fallout.
There is a big appeal in being able to play with your favorite characters. Be it Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER, The Tenth Doctor,
What also helps is that a lot of Universes Beyond sets have come in the form of precons. This lets fans of these IPs jump into Commander with a deck full of familiar characters. Love Final Fantasy X? Play the precon featuring every party member led by Tidus, Yuna's Guardian. Or maybe you love the bad guys in Lord of the Rings, you can buy the precon with Sauron, Lord of the Rings as its commander. While learning Magic through Commander can be hard at times, these products offer an easy onboarding for when new players want to dive into its most popular format. It takes a bit of time to get the hang of deckbuilding, so these Universes Beyond precons help to satisfy you until you’re ready to upgrade them or make a deck of your own.
Universes Beyond in Commander’s Meta
While Universes Beyond has done a lot for new players, it has also drastically affected the meta. With Universes Beyond, when it comes to iconic characters and cards, players are going to want them to be powerful. If you look at a powerful item in lore and see that it is hardly usable, it’s disappointing all around.
However, this can sometimes cause power to overshoot its intended scope. The prime example of this is The One Ring. It’s one of the best cards you can play in Commander, so much so that it’s on the Game Changers list (and had to be banned out of Modern). In The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring is the world’s most powerful artifact, so you want its Magic card to elicit that same feel. Because of this, sometimes it’s too strong and makes for a problematic card. If you’re playing a high bracket game, odds are you’ll run into decks where everyone in the pod is running The One Ring.
In some cases, cards are very strong even when they aren’t attached to popular characters. No one would look at Orcish Bowmasters the way they do if it weren’t for its effect. Art-wise, they’re just Orc archers, but it’s the card that makes it powerful. For Commander, especially in cEDH, it’s one of the best Black cards you can run. It severely punishes card draw (such as from the previously mentioned The One Ring.
Miscellaneous Cards With Meta Impact
It isn’t just The Lord of the Rings that has impacted Commander. Doctor Who’s Everybody Lives! is a fantastic piece of interaction that essentially makes it so no one can win or lose, and no creatures can die except by being exiled. Not even life totals can change. It’s a phenomenal counter to game-winning combos and can buy you more time to find your win conditions in a pinch. Danny Pink is a big addition to Counter decks as a way to draw a lot of cards.
Final Fantasy’s Cloud, Midgar Mercenary was a big boon for Equipment decks as a tutor, and Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is perfect in any sacrifice-based strategy. The Wandering Minstrel offers a great budget option for fans of Five-Color decks for the lower brackets. With as big of a set Final Fantasy was, there was a little bit of everything at every bracket level for it.
Nuka-Cola Vending Machine from the Fallout set is a unique ramp engine that turns Food into Treasure tokens, allowing for synergies for Food fans. Silver Shroud Costume is a great Equipment for Voltron decks, giving temporary protection for a turn while giving unblockable for free damage. Speaking of Voltron, Codsworth, Handy Helper is one of the best mana dorks for that archetype ever, either generating mana or cheating around equip costs.
The Commanders of Universes Beyond
Universes Beyond in Commander has introduced a ton of commanders into the format. Due to its nature, the number of legendary creatures in Universes Beyond sets is much higher than the average set. As you may expect with big numbers like this, the number of meta-relevant commanders from Universes Beyond is quite high. Like other cards, characters that are popular tend to be given above-average treatment, given higher power than normal.
Perhaps the strongest commander to come from Universes Beyond is Vivi Ornitier. If you’re playing a Spellslinger deck, if you want to pick the best commander, it’s hard to pick one that isn’t Vivi Ornitier. Y'shtola, Night's Blessed has a lot of different builds, from Group Hug to Pillowfort to Big Mana. If you like aggro Voltron decks, Lightning, Army of One is a fantastic addition to that archetype.
The Sixth Doctor is a great leader for a historic deck that wants to copy its spells constantly. If you like powerful gimmicks, The War Doctor can one-shot opponents with cascade/discover, as each card revealed gives it more counters for its effect. For those who want a unique way to make opponents lose the game, The Twelfth Doctor can force opponents to copy cards like Pact of the Titan when they can’t pay the mana for it.
If you enjoy Mill decks, The Wise Mothman helps to get around the usual downside of Mill. Rather than having to get your opponents through 99 cards, it’s traded for spreading +1/+1 counters that can get out of hand very fast. With how many cards that can ping for one damage there are, Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph is a surprisingly fast commander that can be built on a budget (minus the price of admission for the commander itself). For Pirate and Vehicle decks, Edward Kenway is a fantastic hybrid commander for to two. Deadpool, Trading Card is a surprisingly strong commander, even putting up results in Duel Commander tournaments.
The Future Impact of Universes Beyond
So far, it’s clear to see that Universes Beyond in Commander has been very impactful. While we only looked at the very top of the meta, every level of Commander is affected, from cEDH to Pauper Commander. But what about the future? Will the trend continue or will it eventually reach a wall?
Well, at least in the near future, it looks like there are no signs of Universes Beyond slowing down. In 2026 alone, there are four full sets in Universes Beyond, and potentially more releases coming through Secret Lair that haven’t been announced. Even seemingly lower power sets like TMNT and Spider-Man have fantastic cards like Super Shredder and Electro, Assaulting Battery.
Universes Beyond in Commander isn’t going anywhere. Like it or not, these cards are going to stay in the format. With them having full sets, many of them are going to have Commander precons. This means there are going to be more onboarding products for new players. With Commander decks being led by a commander, playing with your favorite characters is easy. Some of these cards will be powerhouses, while others will be bulk bin cards. Regardless, 100s of Universes Beyond cards will constantly flood into the format.
When characters and items are powerful in lore, expect the Commander cards to be just as powerful. We’ve seen it constantly, and it seems to be a common trend. With the sets being designed primarily for Standard now, they’ll be weaker. But as we’ve seen with cards like Vivi Ornitier, that isn’t always true. There has been at least one amazing card in practically every Universes Beyond release, so don’t expect that to change.
In Conclusion
Universes Beyond in Commander is something that affects every layer of it. The cards are legal in every major format of Commander, so you’ll likely run into them at some point in your Commander career. Many cards within Universes Beyond are playable to some degree, with some being powerful enough to be Game Changers.
Overall, Universes Beyond has benefited Commander. It’s brought new eyes to the game and the format. Thanks to various precons, it makes it even easier to jump in and start playing. The franchises it’s crossed over with have been across many genres, from the fantasy of The Lord of the Rings to the sci-fi world of Star Trek. There have been plenty of crossovers so far, and it looks like there is plenty more on the horizon.
