With Magic: The Gathering expanding through its Universes Beyond line, crossovers between iconic game franchises and MTG’s deep mechanics are no longer just fan dreams. We’ve already seen The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Assassin’s Creed, and even Fortnite get the MTG treatment. But what about video games that haven’t made the leap yet?
From hero shooters to farming sims, many beloved game worlds are packed with unique characters, systems, and lore that could translate beautifully into Magic’s color pie and card design. Here’s a look at how franchises like Overwatch, League of Legends, Stardew Valley, and more could work as full MTG crossover sets or Commander decks.
10
Minecraft
Minecraft is one of the best-selling video games of all time, so a collaboration with an equally successful trading card game like Magic: The Gathering just makes sense. While its blocky aesthetic doesn’t match the typical MTG card, Minecraft is full of creatures and items that would be right at home in a standard set. Imagine throwing down a Steve or Alex Planeswalker card to lead a summoned army of common pig mob cards equipped with diamond swords and enchanted chestplates to fight a legion of Creepers and Piglin Brutes, only to have to wipe the board with a TNT sorcery card when your opponent taps all his land to summon an Ender Dragon. Intense.
A zombie deck built around creatures with deathtouch abilities. A deck that allows you to spawn mass amounts of bee tokens to overwhelm your opponent. An unblockable chicken jockey legendary creature. The possibilities are endless.
Minecraft
- Released
-
November 18, 2011
- ESRB
-
E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
-
Mojang
- Publisher(s)
-
Mojang
9
Resident Evil
A Resident Evil MTG set would fuse one of gaming’s most iconic survival horror franchises with Magic’s rich mechanics, pitting infection and evil mutation against the surviving human resistance. The existing factions that exist within the Resident Evil universe are perfect for building decks around.
Umbrella Corp and the world’s most vicious villains like Nemesis, Albert Wesker, and Lady Dimitrescu would lead black and red mana decks, while iconic heroes like Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, and Jill Valentine would head white and green mana opposing decks. A blue-mana deck would focus in on Umbrella’s scientific prowess with instant cards themed around containment (or outbreaks).
Resident Evil
- Released
-
April 30, 2002
- ESRB
-
Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Capcom Production Studio 4
- Publisher(s)
-
Capcom
- Engine
-
MT Framework
- Franchise
-
Resident Evil
- Number of Players
-
1
8
The Legend of Zelda
A Zelda–themed Magic: The Gathering set would center around the eternal struggle between good and evil, and the virtues represented by the Triforce: power, wisdom, and courage. Imagine the iconic trio of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf heading Commander decks for the ultimate showdown.
Link’s deck could be filled with allies and powerful equipment cards (Master Sword, Boomerang, Bombs) to bolster a balanced attack with adventure spells to represent his lifetime of questing. Zelda could be a blue and white mana deck, with summoning tokens to represent the people of Hyrule while she prepares powerful spells to bend space and time, take multiple turns and milling cards to find the right hero and the right place in time to protect her land. And Ganondorf, the Demon King, would lead a red and black mana deck focused solely on strength and destruction, summoning hordes of creatures to overwhelm the enemy.
This set would be so interesting because there are so many versions of the Zelda series to pull from and mixing eras of the series could end up with some amazing combinations. An army of Moblins and Bokoblins could be led by Shadow Link and the iconic monstrosity Bongo Bongo. One Zelda card could be a peaceful creature with support abilities, while another could transform into Sheik and be a more melee-based combatant. There’s too many oddball combos to count.
The Legend of Zelda
- Released
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February 21, 1986
- ESRB
-
E For Everyone Due To Mild Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo EAD
- Engine
-
Havok
7
Borderlands
Borderlands is a chaotic, loot-filled, dark setting filled with anarchy, capitalism, vault hunting, alien artifacts, and wasteland survival—more than enough to pull together a whole MTG set. Planeswalkers and stronger creatures in this set would be represented by the series’ recurring protagonists like Lilith the Siren, Claptrap the annoying little robot, and Roland the soldier, among others. The iconic supporting cast of Tiny Tina, Dr. Zed, and Marcus would serve helpful roles for any deck while the frontlines could be filled out with Bandits, wildlife like Skags and Spiderants, and Loader Bots.
This looter-shooter set would need a brand-new lineup of card abilities to match the series’ energy. A Loot mechanic could improve equipment the longer it is in play, representing the constant arsenal upgrade you experience in the game. And some sort of vault-hunting mechanic would allow you to complete a series of quests to earn powerful rewards, similar to the Dungeons & Dragons set’s Dungeons system.
Borderlands
- Released
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October 20, 2009
- ESRB
-
m
- Developer(s)
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Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
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2K Games, Feral Interactive
6
Halo
Is there a better fictional battle than the constant war between humanity and the genocidal alien Covenant? Not to mention the parasitic hive mind Flood. The existing factions are already laid out pretty clearly and are ripe for MTG interpretation. Decks would be themed around the most prominent groups in the series: United Nations Space Command, the Covenant, the Flood, and the Forerunners.
Iconic characters like Master Chief, Cortana, and the Arbiter could be the set’s most powerful cards, while smaller creatures like UNSC soldiers, Grunts, and Flood tokens would be more common. The game’s iconic set of sci-fi weaponry could be included with Artifact Equipment cards, along with iconic vehicles like the Warthog and Phantom Dropships.
Obviously, we’d need to sneak in a few Red vs. Blue references and make sure you can dual-wield Needlers somehow.
Halo: Combat Evolved
- Released
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November 15, 2001
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Bungie, Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
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Microsoft Game Studios
- Engine
-
Blam Engine
5
Super Smash Bros
Nintendo has included so many different IPs in its Super Smash Bros. series that deserve their own complete set, but why not just take a page out of Nintendo’s book and throw them all into one game to duke it out? Dividing the massive roster of characters—there are 89 playable characters across the series—would not be an enviable task, but there are plenty of lines that can be drawn. Iconic heroes and notorious villains. Heavy-hitting melee characters and those pesky ranged attackers using magic and lasers.
Competitive Smash Bros. players will hate this, but the series’ endless trove of items would be a major mechanic with this set—a new equipment card type would allow for instant attachment for one-time buffs to your creatures. I pity the poor player whose opponent busts out the inevitable Hammer card.
Super Smash Bros.
- Released
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April 26, 1999
- ESRB
-
e
- Developer(s)
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HAL Laboratory
- Engine
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Proprietary Engine
Designing a MTG set inspired by The Elder Scrolls series is a match made in Aetherius. The world is rich with ancient lore, gods, competing factions, and interesting creatures that would make for good soldiers on your playmat. The strongest creatures in this set would, of course, be legendary dragons like Paarthurnaax, Nahfahlaar, and Durnheviir. Mana themes would be divided by the series’ biggest factions or player builds — the Mages Guild would counter all your creature spells, the Thieves Guild would be heisting your deck and attack with deathtouch assassins and the Fighters Guild would be filled with unique soldiers.
The most interesting piece of this set would be addressing the Dragonborn, some of the most powerful beings in Tamriel. I’d propose a new mechanic for the set — powerful Shout enchanments that give creatures powerful extra abilities. Like the Job Select mechanic in the new Final Fantasy set, playing one of these would create a low-level Dragonborn token that you could slowly beef up over the course of a game.
The Elder Scrolls: Arena
- Released
-
March 25, 1994
- ESRB
-
t
- Developer(s)
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Bethesda Softworks
- Publisher(s)
-
Bethesda Softworks
- Engine
-
OpenTESArena
3
Overwatch
This MTG set would reimagine Overwatch’s diverse cast of characters as legendary creatures, each tailored to their in-game roles. Think Reinhardt as a white-red tank with a barrier mechanic, Tracer as a blue-red haste creature with blink-style movement, and Mercy as a white support that brings creatures back from the graveyard. Instead of traditional factions, the set could revolve around role archetypes—Tank, Damage, and Support—each tied to certain playstyles and color identities. A new mechanic like Ultimate could function similarly to MTG’s Level Up or Saga effects, unlocking powerful abilities after certain conditions are met, such as casting three instants or dealing combat damage multiple times.
Mirroring the hero-shooter’s emphasis on proper team composition, decks with a balance of all roles would be more successful. Perhaps there would be special enchantments that allow for powerful boosts if you have a set number of Tank, Damage, and Support cards on the field at once.
Overwatch
- Released
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May 24, 2016
- ESRB
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T for Teen: Blood, Use of Tobacco, Violence (online interactions not rated)
- Developer(s)
-
Blizzard
- Publisher(s)
-
Blizzard
2
League of Legends
Similar to Overwatch, there’s too many heroes in League of Legends to not give them a MTG set. With a sprawling roster of over 160 champions, deep lore, and a global player base, League could make for a high-energy, faction-driven Universes Beyond set. Legendary creatures would, naturally, be the champions themselves.
There wouldn’t be room for everyone, but each card would have MTG abilities linked directly to their in-game powers and roles on the battlefield. A new mechanic could be introduced to mirror typical gameplay, with heroes starting out with modest stats, then unlocking massive ultimates at a threshold — like casting three spells, destroying two creatures, or accumulating enough mana through triggers.
League of Legends
- Released
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October 27, 2009
- ESRB
-
T for Teen: Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
- Developer(s)
-
Riot Games
- Publisher(s)
-
Riot Games
1
Stardew Valley
Now, what if MTG abandoned its typical player-vs-player fight to the death and instead tried something a bit more … cozy? Yes, you’d be using legendary creature versions of the game’s most iconic villagers, like Abigail, Willy, Krobus and Robin, to fight, but new mechanics and card types could make the experience a bit more peaceful.
Quest cards could have you completing tasks for villagers in order to earn buffs (like MTG‘s existing Saga and Battle cards), Festival cards could spark valley-wide events like untapping all mana or wiping the board of creatures and Iridium-quality equipment cards would boost all of your creatures.
And despite the business’s blue color scheme, JojaMart would obviously be represented by black mana cards, led by “Morris, Face of the Corporation.”
Stardew Valley
- Released
-
February 26, 2016
- ESRB
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E for Everyone (Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Simulated Gambling, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco)
- Developer(s)
-
ConcernedApe
- Publisher(s)
-
ConcernedApe
While we wait for these to arrive, why not check out some card and board games that are better as video games?