Explore Magic’s latest crossover and take a leap of faith into our Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed review!
Greetings everyone and welcome to our review of Magic the Gathering’s latest Universes Beyond set with a crossover with one of the most beloved video game franchises, Assassin’s Creed. Grab your hidden blade and practice your best blending-in technique as we swan dive into this amazing crossover set.
Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed Review – What is Universe Beyond?
For those who aren’t familiar with Universes Beyond, it’s Magic the Gathering’s expansions where they partner with other IPs to create unique Magic cards featuring the likeness of characters from the selected universes. We were lucky enough to do a review a little while ago on the Universes Beyond set focused around The Lord of the Rings. Feel free to check it out to see just how that set turned out!
Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed Review – Overview
This set is a little different from the typical sets that come out. None of the cards are legal in Standard, Magic’s premier format, in which most new sets are legal and rotate through. However, these cards will be legal in non-rotating formats such as Modern, Legacy and Vintage. But more importantly, they will be legal in Commander.
Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed Review – What’s in the Set
The set contains only 100 cards in the base set with 80 of them being all new cards and, uniquely, there are no commons in the base set. Each card depicts a character or scene from all of the games up to Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
While previously the Universes Beyond sets were distributed using Draft, Set and Collector booster packs, Wizards have changed the format slightly. Now there are only 2 booster packs Beyond Boosters which contain 7 cards and Collector Boosters which contain 10 cards.
Sadly there are no Commander decks that come with the set. Instead, a new Starter Kit with 2 preconstructed decks are available. These decks are used to teach new players how to play the game, and also contain some unique cards only available in these decks and not in booster packs. The first deck is a blue/black deck called Brotherhood Agents and features everyone’s favourite assassin Ezio at the forefront. The other deck is a red/white deck called Ancient Arsenal featuring Eivor from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Both decks have a focus on the Assassin creature type but look to use them in different ways. Brotherhood Agents has a focus on making your Assassins unblockable or at least harder to block while Ancient Arsenal looks to load your Assassins up with Equipment for a much harder beatdown.
Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed Review – Themes and Mechanics
If it wasn’t obvious from the overall theme, the Assassin’s Creed set has… well… an Assassin-matters theme where many of the cards will give buffs or bonus effects when you control an Assassin.
It also has the minor themes of Historic (Legendary spells, Artifacts and Sagas), Disguise and Cloak for flavour reasons.
The only unique mechanic to the set is Freerunning. Freerunning is a mechanic that gives the card an alternate casting cost for dealing damage to your opponent. Specifically, you need to deal combat damage to an opponent with either an Assassin or, and this surprised me, your Commander. Giving the ability to trigger Freerunning by using your Commander gives the ability much more versatility and I welcome it.
Just one more note with the mechanics. With the recent releases of Murder at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Wizards have set up some amazing support for this set. Murders at Karlov Manor gave great support for the disguise/cloak and manifest/morph mechanics and Outlaws of Thunder Junction gave great support for the typal coupling title of Outlaw which Assassins are a part of.
Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed Review – Showcase and Serialised Cards
As with every set we’re getting treated to some great showcase art. In the case of Assassin’s Creed, the showcase art is known “Memory Corridor” and features not only the main Assassins but also some notable characters from the series in the digital white void of the Animus.
Along with these, there are also your standard borderless cards, some borderless cards also feature alternate artwork of the characters. But they brought back something special for this set. For those who remember our review of The Lord of The Rings set, you’ll remember the special scene cards throughout the set. When these cards are put together they form a scene from the movies/books. Wizards brought it back for this set, and thankfully it won’t be so hard to finish it. You only need 6 cards. The 5 cards from the rare land cycle of the set with alternate art and an alternate art of everyone’s favourite assassin, Ezio Auditore Da Firenze. Once all 6 cards are put together they form a scene called Rome Vista and shows Ezio watching over Rome from a Synchronisation Point.
Finally to talk about the serialised cards. There are 4 cards that are serialised 1 to 500 in the set, and while many would think they’re of maybe some of the more memorable assassins, instead they are of historical figures. With Assassin’s Creed taking place throughout time it’s natural in the games to run across some notable characters. The 4 characters in this case are Leonardo De Vinci, Mary Reed and Anne Bonny, Cleopatra and Sokrates. In addition to being numbered, these cards are also in the native language of the figures, that being Italian, English and Greek respectively.
Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed Review – Conclusion
All up I can see this set being super fun and I know I’m going to be building a few commander decks from my favourite characters. As always, A big thank you to Wizards of The Coast for sending us some of the product to open and we’re looking forward to the next set!
A promotional set was provided by Wizards of the Coast for the purpose of our Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed review. For more MTG content, check out our Murders at Karlov Manor set review and join us on the Qualbert Discord to chat all things Magic!
