Universes Beyond pricing poses risk to Magic in Latin America

What was the most expensive Standard of all time?

The answer may vary based on a number of factors, particularly inflation and local currency, but in general terms, many longtime players would probably name two seasons: Khans of Tarkir/Origins/Battle for Zendikar and Innistrad: Midnight Hunt/Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

In the former case, the high prices were driven by the original Fetch Lands in Standard, which were combined with the Tango Lands from Battle for Zendikar to create several three- and four-color goodstuff piles, as well as cards like Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy that commanded huge tags for a single copy, driving deck prices to unprecedented levels.

The previous Standard season already had a dozen aggravating factors, especially the considerable value of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse combined with other multi-format staples that, together, culminated in high deck prices: Tri-Lands, Surveil Lands, Slickshot Show-Off, among others that, added to the increasing demand for singles at a steep costs as a whole, made Standard more expensive than many were used to - this was also a natural consequence of the three-year rotation.

Both of these may soon be a thing of the past. As announced by Wizards on its official page, the Final Fantasy along with the Spider-Man expansion, both of the Universes Beyond series, will come with higher prices than our regular Standard Magic set - a Set Booster that costs, according to the MSRP, US$ 4.50, will cost US$ 7 - in practice, Final Fantasy and Spider-Man will have approximately the same price as Lord of the Rings had in 2023, the price of a premium expansion like the Modern Horizons sets.

This change generated an alert: All Universes Beyond expansions will now go through Standard. Therefore, we can expect prices for singles and staples to be higher than usual - see for example the price The One Ring reached when it became a Modern staple -, and half of Magic's releases are crossovers in 2025, and we can expect each of them to have, naturally, the same price range that we are seeing with these collabs and what we witnessed with Lord of the Rings.

Having three premium sets in one year will considerably increase the price of a Standard that would already be 1/3 more expensive anyway because it now has six expansions in one year. Now, knowing that half of these will have prices comparable to those of Modern Horizons or Lord of the Rings, the expectation is that the format will have over a 50% of price increase when compared to what it used to cost in 2024 to build a deck.

The reasons for the price increase in Universes Beyond products this year are probably no different from the reasons why Lord of the Rings was a more expensive set in 2023: image rights.

None of the collabs Magic is working on this year are owned by Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro. They differ from some previous crossovers, such as Warhammer 40,000 or Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, which are owned by the companies. Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix, Spider Man is part of the Marvel universe, and Avatar is a major Nickelodeon brand - in all cases, they grant the rights to Wizards to produce a Magic: The Gathering product.

Some of these are expected to be cheaper. For some reason, Doctor Who didn't see a significant price increase in its Commander product line, while Warhammer, which is owned by Wizards, had decks costing $55, while Final Fantasy will have Commander decks costing $70.

The point is that no company is going to willingly give the rights to another. It needs to generate some revenue to justify portraying Cloud Strife, or Peter Parker, on a piece of colored cardboard, and the result is Wizards passing that cost on to the players in the product, just like they did with Lord of the Rings - but in the case of Tolkien's works, the community didn't notice it as much because, as it was a Modern-exclusive set, it was expected to be priced similarly to Modern Horizons.

This logic probably goes beyond image rights. Wizards is a billion-dollar company and a subsidiary of Hasbro, a company that has been around since 1923. No company can survive without understanding the market and making assertive predictions about the future, and at some point, someone in a boardroom might have predicted an unstable year for North America, as we are seeing in the first quarter of 2025.

Hasbro is a large company, and like any multinational brand, it generates revenue and has market confidence in its shares. If a country's currency enters a cycle of instability, confidence in that country's companies tends to decrease - there was a time when the United States would be immune to this type of situation due to the predominance of the dollar in trade relations, but we are living in times when such a guarantee is threatened - and, consequently, companies need to take measures to keep their profits high and ensure a positive margin for their investors.

Add to this the fact that, in 2024, Magic decreased by 1%. It seems small, and Hasbro attributed this reduction to the success of Lord of the Rings the previous year (which is probably right), and the report came out shortly after Wizards of the Coast made its first reveal of Final Fantasy cards and put its first preorders on sale - which according to Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, sold out in an hour.

While this is speculation, all points affirm that the measures of introducing a more expensive product and taking advantage of the hype around it in the same week that it needed to make a report that its largest source of profit today decreased by 1% was a strategic decision to maintain the market's reliability in Hasbro - and increasing the prices of Universes Beyond products is not only part of the image rights process, but also increases the company's security at a time of high instability in global trade and the US currency.

The Monkey's Paw is a horror story written by W. W. Jacobs in 1902. Its story revolves around a talisman that grants wishes, but each wish comes with a high price - the term “Monkey Paw Curls” is commonly used to illustrate a situation where a wish or popular demand is granted, but the consequences are catastrophic.

Magic has had many moments like this, and the current one is no different. For a few years, players complained that there were too many things being released in too short a space of time. In response, Wizards announced that 2025 would have only seven expansions, three of which would be Universes Beyond - the first “consequence” of the wish was clear: all sets of the year, except Innistrad Remastered, would be in Standard.

The decision, despite being met with apprehension, seemed logical on many fronts: Standard needs to be the epicenter of Magic for the competitive game to work, it is a format that helps those coming from Universes Beyond to familiarize themselves with competitive Magic and, finally, the “cost” of fewer sets in a year would be offset by the greater demand for the cards released since they would all enter the full Magic cycle, including Standard and Pioneer.

The price increase, however, adds a new aggravating factor to the equation and an “advantage” for Hasbro to maintain its annual growth around Magic. Since there are fewer products being released, they need to sell more, and in addition to selling more, they need to cost more to compensate for a supposed “loss” that having fewer sets in the year would cause - after all, Magic is a product to be sold and Hasbro has never had any problems making this fact very evident.

When the 2025 sets were announced, one of my biggest concerns was that there would be three Universes Beyond sets in one year and this would feel like the “new normal” from now on.

My problem was how Magic's collabs must feel special to generate hype and, consequently, a considerable number of sales of the product while at the same time not being ostracized inside and outside the community - Magic retains its sense of identity that is inviting to new and old players, while an annual Universes Beyond would do the job of bringing in more players and creating a more “festive” environment among fans of both brands, not unlike what happened with Lord of the Rings.

Now, with the announced prices and the certainty that Universes Beyond will always be more expensive than an in-universe expansion, the need to reduce the number of Universes Beyond sets per year becomes more evident: ideally, many players wouldn't mind having a “bit stronger” set each year for a “bit higher” price - yes, there would be complaints on social media and people posting the image of Greed on Magic's accounts, but the product would sell well, and Standard players would always have a year between one UB and another to prepare financially.

With three sets, there is no preparation. It will be a succession of price bombs that will make it increasingly difficult to acquire the cards to keep up with the format.

A common argument in this situation is the famous “don't buy boosters, buy singles”. However, in order for singles to be available on the market, stores need to open packs, and Magic has fewer boosters per box now, and if Universes Beyond boosters are more expensive and boxes come with fewer boosters, the most obvious result is that singles will be more expensive to justify the cost of opening the boxes.

For some regions, the change will be almost negligible: The difference from US$4.50 to US$7 might be of little relevance to North American and European players, and the price of the Commander deck from US$45 to US$70, although uncomfortable, is not an impediment that can erode a significant part of someone's monthly income in countries with more valued currencies.

Latin America, on the other hand, could suffer considerably.

All currencies in Latin America are devalued when compared to the dollar. Brazil, for example, has the commercial dollar quoted at R$5.90 on February 28th (date on which this article is being written).

Without considering extra import fees, price maintenance, IOF, and other pertinent elements of international transactions - Magic is a product imported via distributors - we can consider that each dollar of that US$7 booster pack is equivalent to almost six times its value in Brazil: grossly, an Universes Beyond Booster would cost R$40, with fees and other logistics issues, the value can easily reach R$50 or a little more per Booster.

The minimum wage in Brazil today is R$1,509. An Universes Beyond box with a value of US$7 per Booster can be equivalent to almost the value of a Brazilian minimum wage when it reaches R$1,239.00 - again, without counting fees, taxes, and logistics costs.

Let's disregard players who buy Boosters - these, for example, are already rare in most regions of Brazil - and focus only on the stores that exist in the region: for each case opened, a store will need to price the cards at a value that, in the amount of cards they import, they cover the cost of opening the cases, in addition to obviously all the fixed costs of having a store: rent, employees, basic bills such as electricity and water, and others to, at the very least, make the product pay for itself - profit comes after these costs are offset and, again, these statements do not consider variable factors such as the number of potential customers for card X or Y, store traffic flow for events, among others.

With each box becoming more expensive and having fewer boosters, the result will be more expensive singles on the market, and the final cost of the product (the card) for the consumer will be higher than, for example, it was with Aetherdrift or Duskmourn, and the result of having an impact equivalent to Modern Horizons three times a year is to create less investment security in Magic for less economically developed countries, and with less security to invest in the game, both players and store owners may feel discouraged from buying more - if less Magic is sold in a country, less Magic will be bought by distributors, and with less Magic bought by distributors, less Magic exists in that region.

I have no doubt that there is a portion of players and collectors who will be able to buy many of these more expensive expansions in Brazil or Latin America, and the demographic of the average Magic player is not the majority of people who earn a minimum wage. However, if US$25 already makes a difference in the income of an average American citizen to the point of them expressing their feelings on social media, R$120+ for the average Brazilian citizen makes a huge difference.

This puts Magic as we know it in local stores in a tricky situation, especially in Standard: if the cost of the game would already be higher with six expansions this year, and it became even higher with booster packs at US$7 for three of the main sets, many who don't follow the most competitive circuit may not be interested in playing anything other than Commander or Pauper, and if many abandon Standard or other competitive formats and the Universes Beyond sets cannot replace this demographic, it is likely that stores will have to make difficult choices about which products are worth buying and which are not, and Latin America will start to see situations where certain Standard expansions are not worth buying, putting the availability of singles in check for many stores while inflating the price of staples due to low availability.

These are uncertain times. Perhaps, the product Magic: The Gathering is no longer “a product for you” for a large portion of LatAm players. It has been more common to see them migrating to other card games, either because they are more affordable or offer more competitive support in the region.

If fewer players are investing in Magic, there is less reason for Wizards of the Coast to create events and provide due support to the region - the RCQs have ceased to be a circuit for Brazil and Latin America to be LatAm as a whole. If the player demographics in certain regions decrease, we have fewer chances of recovering or keeping some minimum support from Wizards, even killing the possibility of having our own Spotlight Series as some local players and content creators have been asking for.

In 16 years of following this game, I have never seen Magic in Latin America - especially in Brazil - with so much uncertainty. The winds of change have blown like a hurricane, and it will be a challenge for the community and stores to realign everything and continue to maintain an environment that favors competitive Magic in the country in a way that is healthy for both parties.

We can only watch the next episodes and hope for the best results. For the good of the Magic community in Brazil and in other countries. Until then, I hope that this anomaly of three sets with premium product prices is just a moment in the year 2025, and that Wizards rethinks the concept of having so many Universes Beyond in such a short period.