The various crossovers that Magic: The Gathering has had with Marvel Comics have taken a couple of different forms: some very popular, quickly selling out Secret Lair drops, and a smaller set around Marvel’s Spider-Man. That Spider-Man set is contentious, not least because of its lack of availability on Magic: The Gathering Arena. But the latest Marvel set, Marvel Super Heroes debut, is showcasing the first large expansion of the crossover deal, and Wizards of the Coast is pulling out all the stops.
This set promises more unique individual cards across products than any Magic release to date. In order to accomplish this, the set leads are a bit of Magic’s own Avengers. Head Designer Mark Rosewater led vision design for the ideas of the set, then handed off to Dave Humpherys to lead set design for the details. Between the two are decades of Magic design under their belts. That alone should indicate how special Marvel Super Heroes is to the WOTC team.
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Larger Universes Beyond sets – such as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Final Fantasy – use the huge card pool to really delve deep into the core of the IP, and Marvel Super Heroes is no different. Each mechanic tugs at some part of the core of superhero comics. In particular, comic characters getting powers and then getting even more powerful is represented by Power-up.
Power-up is an activated ability that gives some kind of a buff, usually in the form of a type of counter, and may have some subsequent effects. The counter may be important to note, as each Power-up ability can only be used once without the card leaving play and returning.
Rosewater pitched it as a mix between Kicker (where mana is paid for an additional effect) and Monstrosity (which puts a number of +1/+1 counters on a creature). But the final form looks more like Exhaust from Aetherdrift, where counters and a one-time effect could be activated once. However, Power-up seems like its impacts will be much larger, such as with the arrival of Thanos.
Thanos, the Mad Titan | 1 Red Mana, 1 White Mana, 1 Black Mana
Legendary Creature – Eternal Villain
Deathtouch, lifelink
Power-up – 1 Colorless Mana, 1 White Mana, 1 Blue Mana, 1 Black Mana, 1 Red Mana, 1 Green Mana: Put two +1/+1 counters on Thanos. Choose odd or even. Destroy each other creature with mana value of the chosen quality. (Activate each power-up ability only once. Reduce the cost by his mana cost if he entered this turn. Zero is even.)
4/4
Now that is some killer art (not sorry.) Clearly, this take on Thanos is meant to be the flashy top end of what Power-up can do, and I expect to see many a Commander deck try to pull off its own version of “the snap.” Lower rarity Power-up cards will certainly be strong limited bombs for the ability to use late game mana reserves to swing a game in that player’s favor.
However, high-cost activated abilities can be preyed upon by faster decks, and every format right now is playing much faster than Power-up can handle. It looks like tapping isn’t necessary for Power-up, so that could be in its favor, but I wouldn’t expect to see cards like Thanos much at Standard Showdown nights.
A slightly better constructed play candidate is the Teamwork mechanic. Reflecting the various crossovers and team-ups of comics, Teamwork is an additional cost that players can pay to get more out of their spells, but the cost is tapping creatures with power equal to or greater than the number listed instead of mana sources. Ironically, this is closer to a Kicker kind of effect! Flexible effects are always worth considering in deck construction, as seen with a Hulk-themed removal spell.
HULK SMASH! | 1 Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana
Instant
Teamwork 4 (As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may tap any number of creatures you control with total power 4 or more.)
Choose one. If this spell was cast using teamwork, choose both instead.
- Destroy target noncreature artifact.
- Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature an opponent controls.
This variant on the classic Abrade type of modal removal isn’t necessarily better, but the flavor affords a bit of a different range. Paired with a warped Nova Dragon from Edge of Eternities, HULK SMASH! easily gets both effects, which could remove a big threat and a utility of the opponents for an efficient five mana.
Higher rarity Teamwork cards could look for lower numbers, though four or five sounds more right for the flavor of the set. Even at their worst, Teamwork cards get progressively better as the game goes on, making for another good limited play mechanic.
Marvel Super Heroes still has more named mechanics, including a whole new subtype, but the context of the creatures in the set is necessary to understand them better. Obviously, Marvel Super Heroes is going to focus on the grand conflict between Marvel’s heroes and their iconic villains.
These creature types are still new to getting support, and this set is going to give them a large injection of backup on both sides of the battle. One example is a pretty strong payoff for playing hero cards.
Agent Phil Coulson | 1 Colorless Mana, 1 White Mana
Legendary Creature – Human Spy Hero
Vigilance
Tap: Put a +1/+1 counter on each other Hero you control.
2/2
That’s right MCU haters, Phil Coulson was popular enough to make it into the comics! Beyond his card being pretty straight-up good for a strategy of going wide with multiple hero creatures (such as the Hero tokens from Final Fantasy), Marc Aspinall’s artwork is stellar here.
It’s playful and serious at once, looking like its own comic variant cover. Phil not having to tap to attack makes him a threat in multiple directions, even if his 2/2 statline that he can’t increase doesn’t seem like much.
A new mechanic could very well help with that, though. Worthy is a status that a creature either has and doesn’t, and as Marvel fans can surely guess, helps determine if a creature is worthy to wield the mighty Mjölnir.
Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor | 3 Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana
Legendary Artifact – Equipment
When Mjölnir enters, it deals 4 damage to up to one target creature.
Double all damage equipped creature would deal.
Equip worthy 1 (A creature is worthy if it’s a legendary non-Villain that’s red and/or white.)
2 Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana, Discard this card: It deals 2 damage to each creature.
As stated right on the hammer, a worthy creature is one that is not a villain, is legendary, and has red or white in its colors. This is what Wizards of the Coast calls a batching mechanic, which is checking attributes of a card rather than any kind of specific activation or trigger.
Up to now, batches mostly cared about supertypes (such as legendary) and card types. Now, color itself can be a factor for a batch, which opens up some more design space while making me that much more glad that Wizards did not change the hybrid mana rule for Commander.
Being worthy might not be super relevant to a lot of cards, but Mjölnir is a pretty fine payoff to caring about worthiness. It also opens up some pretty fun options about who is worthy by Magic’s interpretation of Marvel. Phil Coulson is worthy, but so is Krenko, Mob Boss. That’s funny stuff. Of course, one particular card simply must be worthy.
Thor, God of Thunder | 3 Colorless Mana, 2 Red Mana
Legendary Creature – God Warrior Hero
Flying
When Thor enters, exile target Equipment, instant, or sorcery card from your graveyard. Until the end of your next turn, you may play that card.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, Thor deals damage equal to that spell’s mana value to any target.
5/5
Thor naturally gets synergy with Mjölnir across the board. He adds to the damage that Mjölnir deals on entry, even being able to hit players where Mjölnir can’t. He also pays off, curving into Mjölnir’s discard effect, dealing a bunch of damage on turn three, then coming into play itself on turn six thanks to Thor’s ability to recover from the graveyard. It’s an excellent design, though it points out that Thor is given flying all the time, not just when equipped.
Villains aren’t left in the dust, though. The type is getting support similar to heroes that care about playing more villains, like the long-standing Captain America villain Madame Hydra.
Madame Hydra | 2 Colorless Mana, 1 Black Mana, 1 Red Mana
Legendary Creature – Human Villain
Whenever you cast a Villain spell, create a 2/1 black Villain creature token with menace. (It can’t be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
2/3
Just as with Marvel’s Spider-Man set, some villain cards will use the returning mechanic connive. Connive involves drawing a card and then discarding a card.
If the card discarded wasn’t a land, the creature conniving gets a +1/+1 counter. It was a much smaller use case in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but cards like The Leader suggest that it’ll be a much bigger deal in Marvel Super Heroes.
Leader, Super-Genius | 2 Colorless Mana, 2 Blue Mana
Legendary Creature – Gamma Scientist Villain
If a creature you control would connive, instead you draw a card, then that creature connives.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, target creature you control connives. (Draw a card, then discard a card. If you discarded a nonland card, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature.)
1/3
This card is sure to be an all-star somewhere. Players who recall Streets of New Capenna will surely shudder at the mention of Ledger Shredder, a two-mana flying creature that could connive easily and even on the opponent’s turn. Leader isn’t that efficient, but in exchange, the number of cards drawn goes up quite a bit.
Not only can players pick and choose what’s conniving with their own trigger, but they’ll also draw additional cards for any other connive triggers like Mob Lookout from Marvel’s Spider-Man. That’s a rock-solid effect for four mana.
Villains still don’t necessarily have all the same tools that Heroes do in Standard, but one debut preview card suggests some clever synergy with another set from this year. Thunderbolts Conspiracy, a reference to the original secret villains playing hero and not the film, is a pretty interesting entry in the “scam” kind of gameplay.
Thunderbolts Conspiracy | 3 Colorless Mana, 1 Black Mana
Enchantment
Flash
Whenever a Villain you control dies, return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a finality counter on it. That creature is a Hero in addition to its other types. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.)
“Scam” is a shorthand for the kind of effects in which a creature seems to die, but a spell effect returns it to play. It’s been the backbone of several strong decks over the past few years, paying off death triggers while not losing the creature. Thunderbolts Conspiracy leans into this even on a flavor level, but can be repeated with multiple creatures.
This card could play well with the changeling creatures from Lorwyn Eclipsed, which have all creature types. Some of these have seen light play alongside Tragedy Feaster from Secrets of Strixhaven and Unholy Annex//Ritual Chamber from Duskmourn to create a synergy around the demon creature type. Thunderbolts Conspiracy could revive fallen changelings like Chomping Changeling to remove another artifact or enchantment.
On the note of enchantments, Villains will have some level of synergy with a new enchantment subtype called Plan. Plans have the same template as a normal, but will be distinguished by getting plan counters built up on them, with a payoff for reaching a certain number of counters. For example, this Doctor Doom-themed plan.
Doom Reigns Supreme | 1 Colorless Mana, 1 Black Mana
Enchantment – Plan
Whenever a Villain you control enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Put a plan counter on this enchantment.
When the fifth plan counter is put on this enchantment, sacrifice it. When you do, target opponent exiles the top five cards of their library. You may cast up to two spells from among the exiled cards without paying their mana costs.
The upside to this example of Plans is that Doom Reigns Supreme is not a do-nothing enchantment until its conditions are met. Draining opponents by playing Villains for two mana is a decent rate on its own. If there are enough efficient Villains to follow up after dropping this, the opponent is giving up cards pretty quickly. However, if this is a rare Plan, it does indicate the ceiling on these cards is pretty low. Standard might be too fast for players to be able to take enough turns for Plans to pay off.
The speed of Standard gameplay keeps coming up because the Marvel Super Heroes debut suggests the set may be tuned in a slower direction than previous sets. That’s not a negative, but it does beg the question of whether or not any of these new designs will be able to break through the precarious balance between Blue/Red decks, decks using Avatar’s Badgermole Cub, and the occasional rogue list. More viable cards may ultimately be previewed, but there is some hope for a returning design.
Modal transforming cards are returning from Marvel’s Spider-Man, and these MSH cards look to be more viable for constructed play than those from Spider-Man. One in particular is the kind of card that could become the backbone of an entirely new Standard deck by giving some of Standard’s outliers a home. Enter Monica Rambeau, also known as Photon.
Monica Rambeau | 2 Colorless Mana, 1 White Mana
Legendary Creature – Human Hero
Flying, prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
2 Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana, 2 White Mana: Transform Monica Rambeau. Activate only as a sorcery.
3/3
Photon, Living Light | 2 Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana, 2 White Mana
Legendary Creature – Elemental Hero
Flying, hexproof, prowess
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on each other creature you control.
Monica gets a pretty interesting card that really encourages some building around. There are plenty of spells in Red and White that could have great synergy: Lightning Helix can serve as damage and removal, and Secrets of Strixhaven’s Antiquities on the Loose can create Spirit creature tokens for Photon to buff.
What makes this compelling as a card is the Flying keyword, which means another Avatar all-star, Momo, Friendly Flyer, can reduce the casting cost of both sides of Monica’s card by 1. That means she could be a threat as early as turn 2 and close the game faster on the Photon side.
The other revealed modal card is a very familiar face, but may be a shot in the arm for a lower-tier deck: good old Tony Stark himself.
Tony Stark | 1 Colorless Mana, 1 Blue Mana
Legendary Creature – Human Artificer Hero
1 Colorless Mana, Tap: Look at the top four cards of your library. You may reveal an artifact card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
4 Colorless Mana, 1 Blue Mana, 1 Red Mana: Transform Tony Stark. Activate only as a sorcery.
1/3
The Invincible Iron Man | 4 Colorless Mana, 1 Blue Mana, 1 Red Mana
Legendary Creature – Human Hero
Flying, haste
At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may put an artifact card from your hand onto the battlefield. If it’s an Equipment, attach it to The Invincible Iron Man.
5/5
Iron Man’s ability to cheat out an artifact for free is quite cool and free is always a preferred cost to play cards. But it’s actually the Tony Stark side of the card that’s truly powerful. For a single mana each turn, a player can dig for an artifact card to help sculpt the perfect turn.
This kind of effect might be a real boon to mostly Blue artifact decks built around Simulacrum Synthesizer from Outlaws of Thunder Junction’s Big Score sheet. His 3 toughness makes him an okay blocker too, meaning players can hold his artifact digging until the last moment.
And on the topic of Simulacrum Synthesizer, it’s one of the Source Material reprints for Marvel Super Heroes.
Simulacrum Synthesizer | 2 Colorless Mana, 1 Blue Mana
Artifact
When this artifact enters, scry 2.
Whenever another artifact you control with mana value 3 or greater enters, create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with “This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.”
It seems that WOTC also determined that Synthesizer might matter, giving the card its first reprint and with appropriate Iron Man flavor to go along with this Standard deck idea and everyone’s Iron Man Commander decks. Some Source Material cards don’t look all that great, but using high-quality art like this makes for the best examples.
New comic art is also coming with the Borderless Panel variants for cards in the set, once again bringing comic artist Jim Cheung and others in to give unique art treatments that could easily be mistaken for iconic comic scenes, as seen on this variant of The Ten Rings.
The Ten Rings | 8 Colorless Mana
Legendary Artifact
Your maximum hand size is ten.
At the beginning of your end step, if you have fewer than ten cards in hand, draw cards equal to the difference.
Marvel Super Heroes is still more than just highlighting popular moments from the comics, every good Magic set needs a good set of lands. Since this Marvel set is moving beyond the borders of New York City (there’s still some New York stuff nonetheless), the full art basics of the set show both the quiet and the combat of the Marvel Universe in equal parts.
It also wouldn’t be a modern Magic set without a dual land, and Marvel Super Heroes is introducing a new cycle of five ally color dual lands.
These new locations generally tap for colorless mana, unless they entered that turn or the player controls a proper basic land. It’s an interesting constraint to put into an era of Standard in which the mana fixing is quite good, to the point where some players don’t run many basic lands at all.
Dark Fortress
Land
Tap: Add 1 Colorless Mana
Tap: Add 1 Black or 1 Red Mana. Activate only if this land entered this turn or if you control a basic land.
These lands could see some kind of play as fixing for a post-rotation Standard, which will take Duskmourn’s ally Verge lands out of the format. This once again reinforces that Marvel Super Heroes might not be coming to change the current constructed play patterns, but instead is looking far forward.
Future proofing is appreciated, but the remaining previews of Marvel Super Heroes have a lot of heavy lifting to do to win over players who were burned by Marvel’s Spider-Man. New decks and enhancements to lower-tier ones would help greatly, and what the debut shows is not good enough for that.
However, it’s immediately clear that the Wizards’ all-star team worked extremely hard to get the adaptation of the Marvel Universe right this time. It’s much easier to see the ties between these two properties coming together and make cards that will spark real joy in Marvel fans.
It’s hard not to stop in awe at the debut’s artwork; every card is so full of energy and life that Marvel’s Spider-Man sometimes lacked. That might be enough for Marvel Super Heroes to stick that superhero landing this time around.
The Magic: The Gathering – Marvel Super Heroes pre-release begins June 19th, with a digital release in Magic: The Gathering Arena on June 23rd and a full retail release on June 26th.
