Nothing is true, everything is permitted in Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond.
Uncover your ancestor’s history in Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond
After years of fan-created cards, Magic the Gathering finally sets its sights on the much loved Assassin’s Creed franchise, introducing Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond allowing fans, collectors and players to handle cards containing the AC franchise’s notable characters.
Master assassin’s, real-world historical figures and a variety of weapons and actions seen in the Ubisoft series this summer beginning on July 5th.
As you may remember, Assassin’s Creed as a franchise has a basis in the Abstergo company using a device in-game known as the Animus to access genetic memories of fictional ancestors.
Spanning the history of various iconic eras such as the Third Crusade, Italian Renaissance, American Revolutionary War and Golden Age of Piracy.
In later years we would get games that would include historical events such as the French Revolution, Victorian England, Ancient Greece and Egypt.
In recent times new Assassin’s Creed experiences in the Islamic Golden Age and the Sengoku period in Japan. Some of these may be re-introduced into the coming Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond.
Your most famous ancestors inside Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond
Some of the ancestors in the series include Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, in his younger days a hot-blooded arrogant man turned wise mentor to fledgling Assassin’s later in life.
Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a charismatic Italian operating out of Florence, Rome and Venice, led and trained new recruits to the Assassin in order to master Assassins over in Italy and later on in Constantinople.
Another memorable character from the past is Captain Edward Kenway the Welsh pirate captain who becomes embroiled in a plot with the Templars of the series as well as associating with the legendary Blackbeard as he tries his best to lead a crew of pirates to set sail and gain riches in the waters of the Caribbean.
Watch your footing when you play these cards!
Freerunning is a feature within the game mechanics, fluid Parkour, jumping, and climbing as seen throughout the Assassin’s Creed video games. The mechanics state that you can cast a card for its freerunning cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with an Assassin.
Within the Animus
Other aesthetic touches on the card designs appear to be the Memory Corridor style cards, these stylistic touches are unique to the Assassin’s Creed set.
The borders and surrounding aspects changed to mirror similar visual effects seen in the Animus during loading screens or main menus.
You may be aware of the Isu or Those who came before. These powerful beings may also be present within the Magic: The Gathering game pieces as these ancient and highly-advanced species in the video games have a large impact on the overall plot.
They were responsible for creating the Pieces of Eden, artefacts that augmented their super abilities. One such is the Apple of Eden, a sphere-shaped piece of ancient technology, they are cryptic but give the users access to various feats of supernatural abilities.
Look out for Leonardo
What you will see from the set so far is that exciting additions have been added for you, localized in Italian language only and available in Collector Boosters of any language.
What do you think? These appear to be the Serialized Italian Leonardo da Vinci cards.
As you know he was a genius inventor, painter, polymath as well as a loyal friend to Ezio in the AC games, availability of these 500 cards appears to only be present in these Collector Boosters and only localized in the Italian language.
Aside from the games so far we have had novelizations, comics and a big-screen Assassin’s Creed Movie starring Michael Fassbender.
We have also seen Wizards of the Coast release a similar set idea using an established franchise early on this year with Fallout Universes Beyond to great fanfare back in a March 8th tie-in and shortly after seeing the success of the Fallout TV show on Amazon.
An Assortment of Assassin Boxes
The product advertised so far appears to be the starter kit that gives you two themed decks to learn how to play, Collector Boosters containing exclusive treatments on the cards as well as foil-etched cards.
Beyond Booster packs, 7-card packs that include a borderless and shining foil in each pack, then finally a bundle which contains 9 Beyond Boosters, a special-art promotional card, 40 lands and a themed die for you to use in a game.
Success of Universes Beyond
In the past, we have seen the idea of Universes Beyond succeed and be profitable ventures for Wizards of the Coast. Another notable example was last year’s fantastic Lord of the Rings Magic the Gathering set we saw do amazing numbers in sales and gain some buzz in the tabletop card collecting space.
Their serialized 1 of 1 One Ring card with special card font is now in the hands of the musician Post Malone which he bought for $2 million after it was finally found in the wild.
Likely the future seems bright for more Universes Beyond ideas but where does it end?
Universes Beyond seems to encompass nearly every pop-culture franchise or intellectual property WOTC can acquire lately.
Examples in the last years are The Walking Dead, Warhammer 40k, and Doctor Who even more set to release in 2025. Do you like the different ‘universes’ Wizards have so far been exploring? Or do you prefer their original creations? What do you make of Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond?
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