Pokemon TCG Should Borrow Some Ideas From Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond and Secret Lair are leading the way for creative trading cards, and Pokemon needs to take notice.

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I’ve been all-in on Pokemon cards since I was nine years old, but lately, Magic: The Gathering has really caught my attention. I love hunting down new holo Charizards, shiny Charizards, Charizard promos, and EX/GX/V/VMAX/VSTAR Charizards as much as the next collector, but I have to admit that Magic is doing so many refreshing things that it makes even the most exciting Pokemon expansion look a little long in the tooth. Initiatives like Universes Beyond and Secret Lair are breathing new life into MTG, while eye-catching sets like Double Feature consistently deliver fresh ideas and themes. Pokemon would be wise to learn a few lessons from Magic if it doesn’t want to get left in the dust.

Magic is slowly becoming the Fortnite of card games, and I mean that in the most charitable way possible. Wizards started experimenting with crossovers in 2019 and 2020 with three-card promo sets from Hasbro – a HASCON charity set of promos featuring Transformers, Nerf, and D&D, and Ponies: The Galloping, a set of My Little Pony cards. The crossover concept really took off last year with the Godzilla collections, which appeared as alternate art variants of specific cards in the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths expansion. The success of these crossovers led to Universes Beyond, a new Magic sub-brand announced earlier this year that will bring other media properties into the game. Some, like Godzilla, will appear as alternate art variants of standard format cards, while others will be released as part of the Secret Lair, a series of small card sets designed by well-known artists. Some of the Secret Lair sets already released include The Walking Dead, Dungeons & Dragons, and Bob Ross, while upcoming sets include Stranger Things, Warhammer 40K, Fortnite, Street Fighter, and The Lord of the Rings.

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Crossovers aren’t the only cool thing happening in Magic. Both Secret Lair and Standard format have been exploring interesting themes with well known artists. The upcoming 90th expansion, Crimson Vow, is a vampire-themed set that features an 18-card alternate art set of Dracula cards created by some non-MTG artists, including Castlevania character designer Ayami Kojima. Crimson Vow and the previous expansion – the werewolf-themed Midnight Hunt – are being repackaged together in a draft box called Double Feature, which features new black-and-white artwork inspired by classic monster movies.

That’s only a small taste of all the cool things happening in Magic: The Gathering. Meanwhile, TPCi continues to release cards with Pokemon on them. Don’t get me wrong, the Sword & Shield era of Pokemon TCG has been phenomenal, and recent sets like Evolving Skies and Fusion Strike have included breathtaking alternate art cards. The 25th-anniversary Celebrations set was an amazing way to honor the legacy of the game and all of the cool mechanics that have come and gone over the years, but Pokemon has never done anything on the level of Universes Beyond or Double Feature. The new Post Malone, Katy Perry, and J Balvin cards, as well as the 2016 Japan-only Mario Pikachu cards, are the closest we’ve ever gotten to crossover sets.

There’s so much opportunity for the Pokemon TCG to expand, particularly with Nintendo. A Smash-themed set to celebrate the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would have been a no-brainer, considering ten of its fighters are Pokemon. A Secret Lair-style release for every major new Nintendo game seems appropriate. What if there was an alternate art set of famous trainer cards featuring Animal Crossing villagers? How about when Breath of the Wild 2 comes out we get a set of energy cards rethemed with artwork from all the different biomes in the game? The possibilities are endless, but TPCi seems content to mostly keep things the way they’ve always been. Magic is making it obvious that there’s a lot of untapped potential Pokemon cards – pun very much intended.

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