Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond range — which brings major pop culture properties into the game as card sets — has already committed to Doctor Who and The Lord of the Rings for 2023. The question of what comes next has naturally consumed a certain portion of the internet, and Wargamer has put the case rather compellingly for something I am forced to admit I had not previously considered: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The case is stronger than it might initially appear. Mark Rosewater, Magic’s lead designer, has gone on record with his views on how the major Buffy characters map to the game’s colour system — the philosophical framework that governs how every card is classified. Rosewater’s passion for the show suggests someone at Wizards of the Coast has at least considered the possibility. And the colour pie, as it happens, maps onto the Buffyverse with pleasing precision.
The argument runs roughly as follows. Buffy herself is Green/Red: fate and instinct in the primary colour, personal freedom and empathy as the secondary. She was chosen, but she resented the choosing; she fights from instinct but is driven by love for specific people rather than abstract duty. Green/Red captures both the chosen-one mythology and the girl underneath it.
Willow is unambiguously Blue: intelligence, the thirst for knowledge, the near-insatiable desire to understand and master. Her addiction to magic is also Blue in the way that Blue’s flaws tend to manifest — the pursuit of knowledge past the point where it remains safe, the emotional coldness that can follow. Dark Willow is a Blue character who has let the philosophy consume her.
Giles is White/Red, which is more interesting than the obvious White-only reading. He values duty and order — solidly White — but Ripper is still in there somewhere, the young man who rebelled against everything he now represents. White/Red accommodates both the Watcher who follows the Council’s rules and the man who eventually defies them.
Angel is White/Black, which is almost too neat: the vampire with a soul, literally embodying two opposing philosophical forces, one pulling toward justice and peace and the other toward the darkness that produced him. Angelus is pure Black. The version with a conscience is the White component fighting back.
Spike, fittingly, is Black/Red: the selfish, ambitious, charismatic force of destruction who eventually develops enough love for other people to pursue a soul he was not obligated to seek. The redemption arc adds the Red; without it, he would simply be Black.
The creature design alone — the Master, the Mayor, Glory, the First Evil — would give any set’s art team extraordinary material to work with. Buffy MTG, if Wizards of the Coast have any sense, is not a question of if but when.
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