I recently found out that not far from my house Magic: The Gathering events are regularly organised. A couple of months ago I joined there for the pre-release of Secrets of StrixhavenPre-release Secrets of Strixhaven. This week I joined the Pre-release Marvel Super Heroes.
I am not a Marvel fan
Magic lately has a lot of Universes Beyond sets, adding content from strong IPs to the gameplay of the card game. I really enjoyed how the did it with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and Godzilla. The famous monsters of the Japanese franchise just became alternatives facings with a new name and new art. And adding monster to MTG isn’t weird at all.
Earlier this year I played a small sealed with 3 other friends of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I wasn’t sure what to expect with bringing MTG to New York. However, it worked out just fine. It wasn’t the best set ever, but having played with Turtles toys in the ’90s, we ended up having a great afternoon.
As for Marvel, I did see a couple of movies like the older Wolverine movies, Iron Man 1 & 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 & 2 and the Deadpool movies. But I have no clue about the phases the movies are currently in. It is just too much and just not my cup of tea.
But am I a Marvel MTG fan?
Back to the card game. I am no a Marvel fan, why spend my money at Marvel cards? Well, I really like the concept of a MTG Prerelease Sealed Tournament. You get 6 packs and barely an hour to build a 40-card deck with all the cards you haven’t seen before. Yes, we all follow the announcements, but still you don’t know the cards.
And every set has some new rules: Mechanics.
- Power-up: Boost your critter for an additional cost, but get a discount if you do this in the same turn as summoning the critter.
- Teamwork: Unlock extra features by tapping creatures while casting this spell
- Plan: Put counters on these enchantments and unleash the big plan if you reach the required number.
- Connive: Not release new, but a welcome return: draw and discard. If it’s not a land get a +1/+1 counter.
- Transform Double-Faced Cards: regular citizen by day, but when shit hits the fan, these can creatures transform into the hero suit.
And of course you have a lot of characters from the Marvel comic books, grouped by the two creature types Heroes and Villains. And yes, many of them appear on multiple cards.
I did laugh out loud because of this vid:
The pulls
So, what did I pull? Well two epics, Kang the Conqueror and Black Widow, Super Spy. Blue and black, actually my favorite colors. Checked that other cards and turned out, I had some good cards, mainly Villains, in these colors, so decided to stick with them.
I did with all three games with 2-1. The fun part, I did not play these two epics until they 9th match and then had both in play.
Why did I win the other games? Maybe due 1x Kid Loki and Aerial 2x Doombot. In all games I had a 1/1 critter in play on the first turn. Most decks were way slower.
The set doesn’t have a lot of removal, but 5 cards helped me a lot. Dark Deed is simply removing medium sized stuff. Justice, Vance Astrovik and Trickster’s Stratagem slowed the opponent down. And flash-cards Giant-Sized Flying Ant and Super Suit were some nice surprises to create some blockers and kill stuff in combat.
The real villain of my deck was Titania, Rugged Rumbler. A 5/5 in 3rd turn with Ward wasn’t something my opponents liked.
Artifact
1x S.H.I.E.L.D. Flying Car
1x Super Suit
Creature
2x Aerial Doombot
1x Atlantean Cavalry
1x Black Widow, Super Spy
1x Ghost, Spectral Saboteur
1x Giant-Sized Flying Ant
2x HYDRA Troopers
1x Justice, Vance Astrovik
1x Kang the Conqueror
1x Kid Loki
1x Leader, Super-Genius
1x S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone
1x Swordsman, Sharp Scoundrel
1x Titania, Rugged Rumbler
1x Unliving Legionnaire
1x Unliving Legionnaire
1x Yellowjacket, Heartless Marauder
Enchantment
1x HYDRA Infiltration
Instant
1x Dark Deed
1x Visions of Villainy
Sorcery
1x Trickster’s Stratagem
Land
8x Island
8x Swamp
Missed opportunity?
Looking a day later at the cards and found Pym Particles, why didn’t I add this to the deck?
Conclusion
After playing 9 matches I did have fun with MTG Marvel Super Heroes. The set is seems balanced and fun. As for the theme, just go back to the planes of Magic.
