It’s been a good year as far as Wizards of the Coast is concerned when it comes to Magic: The Gathering and its “Universes Beyond” collaborations. Final Fantasy made a ton of money, plenty more themed sets are on the way, and people have started to slowly but surely accept more and more that the crossover sets are part of the game’s future. So it’s probably not great then that the company has had to publicly and embarrassingly pull the plug on one of its latest collaborations and try to do better.
That’s exactly what’s happening with the upcoming Monster Hunter card set being crafted for Secret Lair, Wizards of the Coast’s limited-time special release store. Revealed just weeks ago after an early press release published by Wizards leaked the collaboration’s existence, the set is now being pulled from its planned December 1 release.
“Like many of you, we’re big fans of Monster Hunter. It’s why we put this Superdrop together,” a statement published on the official Magic: The Gathering website reads in part. “But in our excitement, we missed the mark on elements like card selection and faithfully integrating the world and mechanics of Monster Hunter. As a result, the overall construction of this Superdrop is not up to the standard you have come to expect.”
“Pulling Superdrops back isn’t something we’re going to do very often, but we’re committed to doing better,” the statement continues. “Capcom is on board for us to take another swing at this Superdrop as well.”
Ever since the collaboration’s accidental reveal, Magic players and Monster Hunter fans alike have criticized Wizard’s choices for cards used to receive the Monster Hunter art, both representing a swath of Magic cards that usually don’t command the value that cards usually selected for superdrops (which themselves can cost $30-40 or more, depending on size and scope), and cards that didn’t seem to fit with the flavoring they were being designated with—such as creatures over pieces of gear from the game being used to represent artifact cards, or certain cards from Magic‘s color wheel, and the usual elemental archetypes they represent, not being reflected in the Monster Hunter beasts they’re reskinned as.
It further didn’t help that several cards included spelling errors, notably the Champion of Lambholt reskin, “Champion of Kotoko,” a misspelling of “Kokoto,” the village that serves as the main hub of the original Monster Hunter as well as Monster Hunter Freedom.
If Magic fans have been at least willing to accept Universes Beyond when it meant both flavorful theming of whatever license was being used and mechanically exciting cards, the Monster Hunter superdrop represented players’ worst fears about it: awkward, clumsy tie-ins that served neither fans of the crossover nor players of Magic. At least this time, Wizards of the Coast agreed—but as it begins to make Universes Beyond even more present in the cycle of Magic releases, a mishap like this one is only going to make Magic players less receptive.
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