Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
Grab your cloak and hidden blade because Magic: The Gathering is heading into the Animus with Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed! Arriving on July 5, the Assassin’s Creed set is a 100-card set that will be legal in Modern, Vintage, Legacy, and Commander. The set will include twenty reprints, with the rest of the set made up of new cards featuring characters, locations, and events from across the Assassin’s Creed chronology.
Much like The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed will print cards that will be brand-new to the Modern format. And with the recent announcement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows from Ubisoft, there’s plenty of excitement for the upcoming Magic collaboration. With that, here’s everything we know about Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed.
Assassin’s Creed Key Dates, Previews, and Event Schedule
- Debut and Previews Begin on WeeklyMTG: June 18
- Card Image Gallery and Previews Complete: June 21
- Global Tabletop Launch: July 5
- Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed Set Code: ACR
As Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed is a smaller set, there won’t be a Prerelease, so players will be heading to their game stores on July 5 for a chance to pick up these cards. There won’t be a comparable MTG Arena release, so if you’re looking to play with Ezio or Altaïr, be ready to play on the tabletop.
Previews for this set begin with the WeeklyMTG stream on June 18, and we will have the complete set available on June 21. If you want to keep up with previews, you can follow along with Wizard’s official card gallery.
Assassin’s Creed Previews and Mechanics
This set looks to feature characters from throughout Assassin’s Creed’s history, from Altaïr to Eivor (and potentially even Yasuke and Naoe!). With such a wide span of history to pull characters and events from, the opportunities are limitless and should please every fan of the long-running series.
Players received their first look at the Assassin’s Creed set at MagicCon: Chicago, which revealed a few reprints, some iconic objects from Assassin’s Creed, and Assassins.
Quite a few assassins, actually!
The set will feature a considerable amount of cards that feature the ‘Assassin’s Matter’ theme, including the new mechanic: Freerunning. Freerunning allows you to cast the card for its Freerunning cost, as long as you dealt combat damage to a player with an Assassin or your Commander this turn. Taking combat damage now presents an entirely new risk, as you never know when an Assassin might leap off a roof to join the fray!
Another notable feature of the set is the introduction of real historical people as creatures in Magic. So far, we’ve seen Leonardo Da Vinci and Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh depicted as legendary creatures that will soon be leading their own Commander decks.
My favorite reveal so far is the one that has carried me throughout all of my journeys in Assassin’s Creed: The Haystack. Wizards got the flavor of your creatures ‘hiding’ in plain view perfectly with the return of the phase mechanic, so your creatures can sit on board with your opponent unable to find them with their removal spells.
Assassin’s Creed Products
Market Price: $219.78
Market Price: $94.47
Market Price: $48.86
The Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed set features the introduction of Beyond Boosters: a seven-card booster packs are meant to be a more streamlined booster opening experience that includes a foil and Borderless card in every pack. Since Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed is a smaller set, these Beyond Boosters should be perfect for opening packs without being worn down by repetitive cards, but the price point of these packs will be the defining factor. These packs will also feature in a Bundle product that includes nine Beyond Boosters, a special alternative art promo, and the normal contents of a bundle product.
For most fans of Assassin’s Creed, the collector boosters will be the more attractive product due to the incredible amount of alternate art and the chance at a serialized historical figure card. If previous Universes Beyond products are anything to go by, these collector boosters may be hard to find in the opening weeks of the set, so if you’re looking for any cards it may be faster to buy them as singles to ensure you can obtain copies.
Assassin’s Creed Starter Kit
Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed – Starter Kit
Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed
While the Assassin’s Creed set does not have Commander Precons, it does have a starter kit product that features two decks: a Dimir (Blue/Black) Ezio deck and a Boros (White/Red) Eivor deck. Previously, Tales of Middle-earth included a similar product that was great for introducing new players to Magic that were fans of the source material and this product looks to be very similar. If you have friends who have not played magic, but love Assassin’s Creed, this Starter Kit is the perfect way to introduce them to the game.
The Card Treatments in Assassin’s Creed
Market Price: $30.02
This set includes the normal treatments for sets:
- Borderless Frames
- Extended Arts
- Etched Foils
- Traditional Foils
But, the release has a few special treatments taking inspiration from the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
The set includes one series of cards featuring the borderless scene treatment, where the cards can be placed together to show one scene across the cards. While we have only seen the Ezio card so far, we know that this scene will feature the iconic moment from the video games where the player climbs the tallest tower in the area to look out across a location and ‘sync’ their vision to unlock their map and hidden secrets.
Market Price: $38.71
Market Price: $16.77
The Assassins from the game series have an additional treatment known as ‘Memory Corridor’ that features the character against an all-white background. In the video games, the main character would access their assassin ancestor’s memories and go through the memory corridor, an in-between space that blended tech with ancient history, before entering the mind and experiences of their ancestor.
The most exciting treatment is the four serialized cards which feature the card of a historical figure in that person’s native tongue: Leonardo Da Vinci in Italian, Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh in Greek, and two more that have not yet been revealed. For history buffs, Assassin’s Creed fans, and collectors, these cards will be the chase cards of the entire set and fans have been hypothesizing about who the last two historical figures could be. With Assassin’s Creed: Shadows being revealed and fan hype at an all-time high, this set looks to be another success for Universes Beyond.