Predicting 2025's Mystery Universes Beyond Set with Facts and Logic

Here we are, at the start of another new year. It's the feeling you get when you have a factory-sealed box of Fallen Empires you found in the bottom of your closet. So crisp and full of possibilities.

The rest of the year is what happens when you can't resist the temptation to crack that wrapper and pop open each one of those packs: first, you remember that Fallen Empires booster packs only contained eight cards each, and then you remember that Fallen Empires is straight trash, and the best you can hope for is a five-dollar Rainbow Vale.

But we aren't there yet. We're still in the honeymoon phase with 2025, and the lingering doom that comes with the purchase of a new calendar hasn't quite sunk in yet. Give it a couple weeks. 

We've still got hope of a pleasant surprise. Our imagination can't help but superimpose itself on logic. We know, based on trends and just the general vibe of the world at-large, that things probably won't be great. But maybe they will be?

This is true in life as it's true in Magic. A year doesn't happen in a vacuum, but rather in the context of the year preceding it. We can't arbitrarily abandon December 31 at midnight, despite what a giant glowing ball in Times Square would lead us to believe. And as such, we can't ignore the events of 2024 in Magic and assume 2025 won't be largely the same, with a few variations here and there. 

And that's okay. If you're reading this, it's probably safe to assume that if 2024 didn't lead you to post some screed on Reddit about how you're selling all your Magic cards, about how Kitsune Miku was the last straw; if you didn't do that, then 2025 probably won't be that tipping point, either. We're all just along for the ride, and with a little luck and an open mind, maybe there'll be at least something for everyone to love. 

We already know, in broad strokes, what 2025 will look like:

• Jan 24: Innistrad Remastered
• Feb 14: Aetherdrift
• April 11: Tarkir: Dragonstorm
• June 13: Final Fantasy
• Aug. 1: Edge of Eternities
• Q4 TBA: Marvel Spider-Man
• Q4 TBA: Unannounced Universes Beyond Set

Like it or not, that's your line-up for 2025. It's clear that Wizards is taking a shotgun approach to this year's releases, in the sense that we're going for maximum spread across tastes of a rapidly expanding playerbase. Like a shotgun, or maybe a buffet.

But let's get a little weird with it. Let's throw a bunch of insane predictions against the wall for that unannounced Universes Beyond release, so if any of them happen, we can refer back to this article and say "see?! I told you!" 

Predicting the future is a messy business

We're going to sort our predictions like an inverted pyramid: broad at the top, and narrow and pointy at the bottom. Can we make a pointy prediction? I predict we can. 

That "Unannounced" UB Set Will Be...

We already have a built-in mystery regarding the year, and for many players this is probably the biggest question mark determining whether 2025 will be a success or failure. We can extol or deride Universes Beyond as a concept until we're blue in the face, but that's all superficial at this point. They're here, they're insanely popular, and they're Standard-legal now. 

Over the past few years, we've seen more than a dozen outside franchises appear on Magic cards, but not all of those instances were major releases, like the one capping off 2025 is promised to be. It's extremely unlikely that we're going to get a rehash of something already seen, so if you were holding out hope for an expanded look at Jurassic Park or Evil Dead through a Deckmaster lens, you're likely going to be disappointed. 

Of the franchises that have seen a major release, there's been in no particular order and straight off my own memory Fallout, Warhammer 40,000, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, and the upcoming Final Fantasy and Spider-Man. 

It's not going to be any of those, either. It's not impossible to see a sequel set, especially for the monumentally popular Lord of the Rings crossover, but I'm saying it's not going to happen. I have no evidence to back up this claim, but people have told me in the past that I seem trustworthy. So trust me. 

We already know that whatever that end-of-year release is, it's important in the eyes of Wizards of the Coast. So important, it seems, that it needs to be tacked onto the end of 2025, thereby pushing the previously announced return to Lorwyn into 2026. That would seem to indicate timing is important if they're willing to delay their own IP in order to shoehorn someone else's into the last release slot of the year. Is that timing part of the deal to bring this mystery IP into Magic? Only those shaking hands and signing agreements behind closed doors know the answer to that question, but there's nowhere in the rulebook that says a dog can't baselessly speculate about the legal dealings of entertainment corporations.

So what are our predictions, then? I'll give you a bunch to get us started, in order of likelihood:

Cosmere

I'll say right here at the top that I am unfamiliar with Brandon Sanderson's works. I'm not much of a reader these days. That's not a flex, just a statement of fact. 

But the evidence seems to be mounting that a crossover UB set featuring Sanderson's Cosmere fictional universe is a matter of when, not if. At the beginning of 2024, Sanderson said in a livestream that discussions with Wizards have already taken place about that very thing, and if Final Fantasy and Marvel didn't get in the way, it's likely that we would have already seen a Cosmere UB happen. That fact seems to indicate that Sanderson and WotC aren't looking to do a Secret Lair, but a fully-fledged release. 

Sanderson himself is a well-documented mega-fan of Magic, with a very expensive Cube, writing credits that include Magic lore, and occasional Magic-related appearances on various YouTube channels.  

In fact, Sanderson himself recently added fuel to the growing Universes Beyond: Cosmere theory during a Q-and-A session in which he said a) he has had conversations in the past with Wizards to do it, b) he would want it to be a full set, not just a Secret Lair or ancillary product, and c) he wants to be involved in the development of said set. So it's going to happen, but is it our mystery release?

Percy Jackson

 The first season of the second attempt at bringing Rick Riordon's YA series to life was refreshingly good, and there's plenty of momentum behind the franchise as it nears a second season on Disney+ sometime in 2025. Now would be a great time to commit Percy and his mythological friends and enemies to the Multiverse.

There are five novels in the original series, two other series of novels (The Heroes of Olympus and The Trials of Apollo) plus two more "Senior Year Adventures" novels, the second of which just released in 2024. Things are moving along for Percy, and I include all that information to say that yes, there's plenty of lore surrounding Percy Jackson to justify a full UB release. Sure, that lore is really just Greek mythology, which might give a hypothetical Percy Jackson UB a very Therosian flavor in the context of Magic, but what can you do.

Mortal Kombat

 Of the past major UB releases, one thing they all have in common is a substantial built-in lore. Mortal Kombat has so much lore, I'm not sure the people who make the games can even remember it all. We know that the MK franchise loves crossovers, as the last several MK releases have featured them extensively.

And we know that the sequel to the rebooted MK film franchise is slated to release sometime around late October, 2025, which could very well line up with the release of that mystery UB set. Hell, the setting for MK is basically its own Multiverse, so it's not too hard to envision a scenario where the Blind Eternities have an off-ramp to Outworld.

How will the ultraviolence of MK mesh with the more T for Teen vibes of Magic? Well, Netherrealm, developers of the MK franchise, have been able to skirt that boundary before, when their characters did battle with the DC Universe.

Harry Potter

 Wizards of the Coast, given their more-or-less adequate track record with inclusivity, probably won't want to touch this particular franchise with a Colossal Dreadmaw-sized stick, but money's money. Sure, the progenitor of the Harry Potter universe is a monster, but something-something separate the art from the artist, or something. 

And really, Harry Potter as a franchise has grown so far beyond any one person that it's hardly sustainable to try to ignore it in an effort to punish that one person's lunacy. But why do I predict a Harry Potter UB? You can thank HBO for that. 

We've known that HBO's gearing up to do a full-scale serialized reboot of Harry Potter for a while now, and the most recent news on the subject suggests that they'll be kicking off filming for the first season sometime this summer. Assuming they start with post-production for the first few episodes while they finish filming the last few, we'll probably see the series debut in very early 2026. Maybe a little late to join forces with Magic, but if that "Q4 TBA of 2025" ends up being mid-December, we might be right in the thick of the marketing cycle for HBO's pet project. 

As for the content of Harry Potter itself, it's pretty easy to imagine a crossover with Magic. Almost too easy. I'm not much of a Harry Potter guy myself, but I'm also nearing 40, so Harry Potter's basically been a cultural juggernaut my entire adult life. I know enough about it through cultural osmosis to easily see a world in which we're Crewing up Broomsticks and Equipping Golden Snitches and targeting your Spider-Man with Avada Kedavra.

More Marvel

Wizards of the Coast has already told us that their crossover with Marvel isn't going to be a one-off thing. We know that Spider-Man is just the beginning. But would they be so bold to devote back-to-back major releases to Marvel?

I think it's definitely possible. We know, through ample interviews, marketing materials and event panels, that Wizards (or more likely, Hasbro) sees this team-up with Marvel (or more likely, Disney) as a seismic milestone in Universes Beyond. What better way to hammer (or more likely, Mjolnir) that point home than with a one-two punch of major releases? 

We could go from Spider-Man straight into The Avengers. We've also got Marvel Zombies and Wonder Man scheduled for release on Disney+ for Q4 of 2025, but devoting a major UB release to either of those off-shoots seem like a step down from Spider-Man. We'd be looking at a lateral move at worst, which is tough since Spider-Man is already the pinnacle of Marvel.

Twilight

Just like its protagonists, the Twilight franchise is always there, lingering in the background of our cultural zeitgeist, refusing to just die already. It seems like just yesterday that we were either Team Edward or Team Jacob (I was neither, but instead Team Jasper). 

Is there enough Twilight lore to sparkly flesh out a full UB release? Judging by the content of the books themselves, definitely not. But like Stephenie Meyer herself, why expand on the lore when we can just retell it over and over again? That's what the more recent 2020 novel Midnight Sun is, retelling the events of the original series from Edward's perspective, and that's what the upcoming Netflix animated series based on that book will be. That series, if you haven't guessed, is likely headed for Q4 of 2025.

Grand Theft Auto

The fourth-biggest video game franchise of all time is finally slated to return by the end of this year, so maybe they'll celebrate that release with their very own Universes Beyond set? 

I mean, probably not. GTA as a franchise pulls in such obscene amounts of money that it's likely Rockstar, makers of the franchise, probably don't even know what Magic is. But what would a GTA UB look like? Vehicle-based, surely, with a theft mechanic and lots of guns. The rest of the more unsavory elements of the franchise that upset Midwestern moms? That'll take a bit more massaging to fit into the Multiverse.

The real question is can Magic handle not one, but TWO car-based sets in one year? Or will we run out of gas after Aetherdrift?

The Dark Tower Universe

There's a lot of nonsense in The Dark Tower series, penned by Stephen King over the course of decades, but there's a lot to like, too. Often, fans of the series tend to hand-wave the more ridiculous aspects of the plot, instead putting focus on the lore of Mid-World and the core journey of Roland Deschain. We don't talk so much about the "sneetches," lightsabers, and other various anachronistic pop culture references, but they might work in a Universes Beyond crossover's favor.

If I'm being honest, there's little to indicate that The Dark Tower would ever end up as a Magic set other than my own pleas into the void. But you have to admit, it would work pretty well, right? At the very least, we could ditch Loot and replace it with Oi. 

I have seen the future. It does not include you.

All right, fair readers. Now it's your turn. 

Hit me with all those predictions of what the unannounced Universes Beyond release might be, from the reasonable to the insane. I want to hear them all. And if any of us end up being right, you have my permission to lord it over the rest of us until the heat death of the universe. Which, to be fair, could happen in 2025. That's the thing about a new year: anything could happen.

See you around!