There were few things that I took more joy in as a kid than imagining epic battles between my action figures – struggles to the death, unlikely alliances, and harrowing underwater clashes in the kitchen sink. A similar excitement comes over me when I play the trading card game Universus. While it feels nowadays that you can’t go many places without seeing or hearing something about multiverses, crossovers, or the latest Fortnite skin featuring that one movie character you’ve heard of, Universus provides outlandish crossovers that previously could only exist between my action figures and imagination.
With a story worth its own article – from changing hands, going dormant, rights being bought by a single person, surviving off of the passion of its community, and finally landing at its current home with UVS Games – Universus is the original multiversal card game, hitting the scene back in 2006 under the label “Universal Fighting System (UFS). Earlier this year at PAX East, a chance encounter – thanks to large printouts of some of my favorite Critical Role characters – introduced me to the game, which has quickly become one of the standout card games that I follow.
As a longtime Magic player, I will say that Universus hasn’t been the easiest game to wrap my head around. The way it handles turns, enhancing attacks, and has various numbers and effects found on all of the cards are completely different from MTG. This is to say nothing of the fact that currently preconstructed decks and packs don’t include a “how to play” or rules reference booklet, requiring newcomers to hunt online for adequate teaching resources (a problem that looks to be fixed with decks in 2025).
In Universus, each player will have a character that dictates how much life and how big of a hand you have (for Magic players, it’s kind of like a Commander, minus the color restrictions) with the end goal being to deal enough damage to your opponent to bring their character down to zero life. Where Universus bucked my expectations and threw me for the loop is with its resource management, known as foundations. You can play as many as you want in turn so long as you can draw cards with high enough values to meet or beat that difficulty to play the card. It really is a lot different from other TCGs I’ve played and as I doubt I’m doing the whole system justice, your best bet will be to just check out the official “How To Play” guide on the game’s website or watch the wonderful video over at the Tolarian Community College YouTube channel.
It is thanks to all of the various anime, video game, and pop-culture-focused decks Universus has that continues to draw me in. Some card games use the concept of crossover as a novelty, helping boost interest and bring in new players, while Universus has made this practice its lifeblood- it’s DNA.
Universus lets my friends and I answer tough questions like who would win in a fight, Mecha Godzilla or Vash the Stampede? Or if Vax from Vox Machina teamed up with All Might from My Hero Academia, could they stop Mikasa from Attack on Titan and Spike from Cowboy Bebop? These outlandish situations have only grown with each subsequent deck that Universus has come out with or announced, including Jin and Jun from Tekken 8, Star Trek’s Lower Decks, Street Fighter, and more Critical Roll coming in the next year.
Just to give you a better sense of Universus, here are all the IPs that the game includes:
- My Hero Academia
- Yu Yu Hakusho
- Attack on Titan
- Godzilla
- Critical Role
- Cowboy Bebop
- Trigun Stampede
With these ones releasing soon:
- Tekken
- Star Trek
- More Attack on Titan
- More Critical Role
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Guilty Gear Strive
- Street Fighter
- Solo Leveling
And this doesn’t take into account any of the legacy offerings from when the game was known as UFS that include the likes of Mega Man, Soul Calibur and more!
Universus does something special that no other card game has managed to do for me – it’s made me dream up those outlandish situations that I used to have with my action figures when I was little. When I pull cards that show off one of the character’s staple attacks or a card of one of their teammates to provide help, it just hits differently from something like Fortnite where my beloved character is mowing down another character. It ignites that same imagination I had from my childhood, something that I covet and miss so much more now as I find myself in my mid-30s. It may not replace Magic as my go-to TCG, but it has certainly become one of my main card games I like to play when I can.
