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The debate over third-party franchises in MTG has raged for years now, but the issue just came to a head with head designer Mark Rosewater suggesting that those who don't like Universes Beyond should either adapt or leave the game behind.

In response to a fan expressing concern over how Rosewater responded to previous complaints about Universes Beyond, the designer writes on tumblr that there are only three paths forward for fans of the best card games : they must either accept the change, find like-minded players who don't want to use crossover sets, or "walk away" from MTG altogether.

"None of those is inherently easy," Rosewater says after comparing some fans' dislike of Universes Beyond to his own struggle in adapting to the player-led Commander format. "I really do understand your pain." However, he warns that there's no going back to how things used to be; the genie's out of the bottle.

"This just isn’t the way the game or the world works. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s just not going back in," he suggests. "Whether you like or dislike Universe Beyond, it has fundamentally changed the nature of what the game is. It’s taking the game to a whole new level, in both scope and awareness, much like Commander forever changed how people saw and interacted with the game."

Universes beyond number

(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast) At the time of writing, there are 11 main Universes Beyond sets so far - Star Trek, The Hobbit, Marvel Super Heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy, Assassin's Creed, Fallout, Doctor Who, and Lord of the Rings. That number increases by a significant amount when you include Secret Lair drops and sets introduced before the Universes Beyond label (such as Warhammer 40K).

Fans on reddit are taking issue with that comparison to Commander, though. As pointed out by user Anubara in the thread's most upvoted comment, "there's a difference between 'I don't like commander, so I will continue playing 60 card formats and not interact with commander', and 'I don't like universes beyond, but it's legal in every format.'" Many seem to be in agreement; KARLWHEEZER says that "the issue is that it really is unavoidable at every level of magic aside from draft and cube," while others criticize how Commander is an opt-in format compared to Universes Beyond now being available across most major playstyles.

For what it's worth, I understand the frustration. While it looks like a cool set, it'll be jarring to see the likes of Captain Kirk in November's Star Trek ( which features ultra-rare cards signed by actors ) beating up dragons. Yes, we had the sci-fi Edge of Eternities last year, but that was designed from the ground up to be a part of the MTG multiverse – it shared a lot of design language with Magic mainstays. By contrast, Star Trek, TMNT, and the rest can feel sort of… thematically tacked on, as it were, despite having a lot of love put into them both mechanically and in terms of overall design. (I'll argue with anyone who says they're phoned in, because that's simply not true.)

(Image credit: Future/Rollin Bishop) Still, I also understand where Rosewater is coming from. There's no denying how popular Universes Beyond is, and as he says, you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube now; it's too much of a success for that. As such, I suppose we've got no choice but to find a way to live with a world where Universes Beyond make up 50% of annual MTG releases .

What do you think? Is Universes Beyond pushing you away from MTG, or are you all in on crossovers?

Want something to take your mind off all this? Try the best board games or, if you're planning a vacation, the best travel board games .

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Two major mysteries in science, the nature of dark matter and the possible existence of higher dimensions, could be linked, new research suggests. The team behind a new study proposes that dark matter may be so strange and ghost-like because it is in tune with a fifth dimension.

When scientists discuss "extra dimensions," they aren't talking about other universes in which another evil version of you exists (and with a beard). Instead, they refer to dimensions that could be "curled up" with reality alongside the standard four-dimensional spacetime , consisting of the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time.

While these extra dimensions remain highly speculative, they have become a hot topic, especially as string theory, the most popular extension to standard physics, relies upon the existence of at least 11 dimensions. Scientists are more sure that dark matter exists, but proving its existence still remains troubling because, despite its gravity literally holding galaxies together and outweighing ordinary matter by around five to one, it remains effectively invisible because it doesn't interact with light and it simply ghosts through ordinary matter.

"Understanding dark matter would represent a profound advance in humanity's knowledge of the cosmos and what it is made of," team member Yu-Dai Tsai of the University of Sheffield said in a statement .

"Our research gives physicists clear new targets in the search for dark matter, while connecting two of the biggest ideas in fundamental physics: the mystery of dark matter and the existence of hidden dimensions."

Dark photons play dark matter like a violin

Though the main idea is that dark matter may operate in the fifth dimension, this new research expands upon that concept with another theory. It suggests that dark matter exists with another inhabitant of the fifth dimension, a force-carrying particle called a "dark photon."

Standard photons are the constituent particles of electromagnetic radiation, or light; dark photons would be similar but for a hypothetical "dark force."

The team's new proposal would see the unique geometry of the fifth dimension causing the masses of dark matter particles to form an arrangement that gives rise to a "dark matter resonance." This is akin to the intense vibration of a musical instrument at certain notes.

"Dark matter resonance is already known to be a powerful idea, with the potential to change our understanding of how dark matter was produced in the early universe and how we search for it today," team member Yu-Dai Tsai of the University of Sheffield said in a statement. "But many previous resonant dark matter models have treated the resonance as an assumption. This work gives a possible deeper origin for it: the resonance may come directly from the geometry of hidden dimensions."

An illustration shows a cloud of dark matter slipping past a distant star (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)) Tsai explained that while dark matter resonance is a phenomenon that has been explored before, the research conducted by this team differs because it suggests dark matter resonance is not a coincidence. Instead, the possible deeper origin for the resonance sees it emerge directly from the geometry of hidden dimensions. This would allow dark matter to interact strongly shortly after the Big Bang while allowing it to settle into its ghost-like inert existence today.

"This resonance can make dark matter interactions much stronger at crucial epochs in cosmic history, such as in the early universe," Tsai added. "Crucially, the model allows for these strong interactions in the past while still explaining why dark matter appears so inert and hard to detect today."

Of course, it is very early days for the team's theory, but it excitingly offers a way toward solving two of the universe's greatest mysteries.

The team's research was published in the Physical Review D.

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Starship won't be the only SpaceX rocket flying today, if all goes according to plan.

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today (July 16), carrying 21 satellites for the U.S. military's advanced new "Tranche 1 Transport Layer" (T1TL) constellation to orbit.

Liftoff will take place during a 22-minute window that opens at 4:22 p.m. EDT (2022 GMT; 1:22 p.m. local California time). You can watch it live via SpaceX beginning about 10 minutes before launch.

SpaceX's Starship megarocket — the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built — is slated to make its 13th test flight shortly thereafter. It will lift off from the company's Starbase site in South Texas during a 90-minute window that opens at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT; 5:45 p.m. local Texas time).

SpaceX will stream that mission live as well, and Space.com will carry the feed . Coverage will begin about half an hour before launch.

Today's Falcon 9 flight will help assemble the T1TL, a network in low Earth orbit (LEO) that will be operated by the U.S. Space Force 's Space Development Agency (SDA).

The T1TL "will provide global communications access and deliver persistent regional encrypted connectivity in support of warfighter missions around the globe," SDA officials wrote in a explainer .

The T1TL will eventually consist of 126 satellites, which will be built by York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Forty-two of the spacecraft have reached orbit to date, on two Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg — one last September and another last October .

These 126 spacecraft will be part of a larger LEO network that the SDA calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.

The PWSA is "a proliferated constellation of hundreds of optically linked small satellites, in low-Earth orbit (LEO), delivering capability at speed to the warfighter," SDA officials wrote in a Tranche 1 fact sheet .

"SDA leverages spiral development to deploy and proliferate new capability into a new generation of the PWSA every two years, called a 'tranche,' to continually increase capability used by the warfighter," they added.

Previous Booster 1103 launches

NROL-179 | 2 Starlink missions

If everything goes according to plan today, the Falcon 9's first stage will come back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff for a landing in the Pacific Ocean, on the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You." According to a SpaceX mission description , it will be the fourth flight for this particular booster, which is designated 1103.

The Falcon 9's upper stage will haul the 21 satellites to LEO. We don't know when or exactly where they'll be deployed; the SpaceX mission description doesn't provide that information, likely at the request of the SDA.