Multiple Magic the Gathering Sets

So let’s start if this is something that they are doing to do through 2025. If it is, kind of like Lord of the Rings, how many sets might there be? I think that it could be only Marvel throughout 2025 whereas Lord of the Rings had Doctor Who in the Universe Beyond part of the game as well. But Marvel has enough that Magic the Gathering doesn’t really need to look outside of them for a while. So what sets might they be?

Avengers

I think for the most part that this is pretty straight forward. We’ve gotten the Avengers in the movies and generally with other games, Marvel United and Marvel Champions, that has been the starting point. So creating a set around the Avengers and probably around New York City, for some locations, makes a lot of sense.

Magic the Gathering would have enough right there with the heroes to make a complete set. But it is common to have villains as well. When we look at the Doctor Who commander sets, we have Missy a villainous character. And then in Lord of the Rings we have Mordor. So for the Avengers, I’m thinking you go with the biggest threat thus far in the movies, Thanos. People like Thanos as a bad guy and it is something familiar.

X-Men

Then at the end of the year have an X-Men set come out. Again, it’s a nice set of heroes that mainly don’t overlap with the Avengers. There is of course Wolverine who spends his time floating between. But let’s face it, people would be fine with Wolverine showing up more than once.

And again you have an easy villain or anti-hero with Magneto that can be a bad guy. Put him together with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in a set deck, or just with synergies and I think that’d be a lot of fun. They provide a good bad deck or potential meta to play around with for heroes versus villains.

Villains

Finally, let’s lean into the villains. While I think it’s likely only two sets come out, this would be a late summer commander drop. Kind of like the Doctor Who sandwiched between Lord of the Rings that Magic the Gathering did this year. A more limited run of products with basically commander decks and a collectors box.

And with villains, I think it’s easy enough to see a series of solid villains that would make commander decks. If we are using Thanos as the villain for the Avengers set and Magento, who would the rest be?

Commander Decks

Avengers Commander Decks

Tony Stark/Iron Man: This one I like because you could play around with equipment, building up the best armor for Iron Man. And keep it limited with characters. This is one about building up strong characters that can deal damage without attacking and can avoid defenders with the tap of the right card. You’d probably have Pepper Potts (Rescue), James Rhodes (War Machine) or Riri Williams (Ironheart) to be the other commanders.

Captain America: Another fairly obvious choice, though, I think his deck, like the movies, would be a bit of a catch all. It’d be more of an Avengers deck with lots of characters like Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, Ant-Man, and others showing up. He would be about getting the battlefield full and then casting buffs on the team as “Avengers Assemble”.

Thanos: Already mentioned the need for a villain deck. Thanos is the choice for that with the Black Order supporting him. Ebony Maw and Proxima Midnight likely being your other options to use as a commander. Thanos should be a five colored deck which is hard to pull off. And he should have an infinity gauntlet. If he gets everything it’s game over or if you’re playing multiplayer, he’s the focus of everyone.

Young Avengers: I think it is smart not to just stick to the movie teams, but build up some that are more unique as well. And yes, I know the Young Avengers members have been introduced in the MCU. But this is going to be more of a straight forward deck of heroes that has a bit more of a street level. I think I would want them to play around with synergies in this one, tap Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) get a boost to another character and chain them together.

Villain Commander Decks

Hydra: This one would be a whole group with two possible commanders, probably three. But I can think of two easily with Red Skull or Arnim Zola as the likely two commanders you’d use. Probably a Baron Stucker as a third one. And with Hydra it’s all about getting foot soldiers out, so I’m thinking a token heavy deck. And it’s about when the tokens die, good things happen for them and probably more tokens are made.

Kang: Another one that seems pretty likely and I think could be a complex but fun deck. And you might ask, who are the other possible commanders. More Kang. Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, He Who Reamins, Victor Timely, Scarlet Centurian, Rama-Tut and that’s most of them introduced in the comics. But I like the idea of just pulling random characters from the Council of Kangs. And then it’s about finding cards and manipulating decks.

Apocalypse: Now, all the villains won’t be just Avengers villains but X-Men as well. Apocalypse seems like a good option with Mister Sinister and Nimrod as the other commanders. He’s going to be a the destruction character. With his deck it’s just about wiping everyone else out and good luck standing against him that way.

Galactus: Finally we have Galactus. Galactus is a huge villains and I expect the Fantastic Four to get in there somewhere. I could also pick Victor von Doom (Doctor Doom as well). But I like my idea for Galactus. He, once he’s on the battlefield can’t be removed. So you need to take down your opponent fast. Because, if you don’t, he just swings through with trample and is doing a lot of damage. So you can block, but it’ll be only so effective and eventually he’ll eat up your life.

Showcase Cards

Finally, I want to bring up showcase cards. If you’re not up on Magic the Gathering, you might be wondering what these cards are. Well, they are the same cards as in the main set, just with alternate artwork, often with a border, done in a unique style. For Lord of the Rings it was very abstract. For Doctor Who, it is very cartoon like.

I realize I have an opinion on this for Marvel. I want it to be comic book cover style showcase cards. Everything else can be done in a more classic style of Magic the Gathering. But it’d be nice to really have a comic book nod, and doing covers I think would be a great option. Because I think one of the questions people rightfully have is how do you combine Magic the Gathering and Marvel.

Final Thoughts on Marvel Magic the Gathering

I’m very excited for this set. I like what Magic the Gathering has been doing with the Universe Beyond sets. The regular sets are fine, if I find a good deal on a box, I pick it up, but the Universe Beyond has been drawing me in. And while I’m less interested in the upcoming ones in 2024, that’s probably a good thing.

Is there something that you’d like to see from the set or sets? Is there a hero that you think needs to make it who is a deeper cut, or a villain that you’d like to see get a commander deck?

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This episode was recorded the night of release so editing work on it has been minimal.

Thanks for Listening to 10 Minute Marvel

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends. Word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find on the podcast services. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

We also run a Patreon and that is another way you can help support. The Patreon, found here, goes to help improve the quality of the 10 Minute Marvel Podcast, pay for advertising and more. It also helps improve the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel and Nerdologists.com website. Thank you for considering supporting us financially.

Comments or Questions

What characters do you think would make for a good special presentation? Are there any you want introduced that way over just showing up in a movie or Disney+ show?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below. Or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel.

Thank you again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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And for the main topic, we dive into Mutants and the X-Men. How do we want them introduced into the MCU, what makes the most sense or what is easiest. And what story do we want told first when we do get mutants. Plus, even more with what villain would work the best for a mutant focused big bad.

All that and our normal what comics are we reading, so an update on that. And Greg’s patented Challenge Question of the week. If you were to restart the MCU right now, who would you start it with and why?

Thanks for Listening to 10 Minute Marvel

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends. Word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find on the podcast services. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

We also run a Patreon and that is another way you can help support. The Patreon, found here, goes to help improve the quality of the 10 Minute Marvel Podcast, pay for advertising and more. It also helps improve the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel and Nerdologists.com website. Thank you for considering supporting us financially.

Comments or Questions

Give us your fan castings. Who is on your list to play different characters or upcoming characters, like Sue Storm and Reed Richards in the MCU? And who that we have cast would you think would be the best?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below. Or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel.

Thank you again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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Pros

• Marvel Theme
• Proven Company
• Proven Track record for the game
• New Modes for the game
• Chibi Minis

Cons

• Chibi Minis
• Simple Game Play (at times)

The Page

Now, I already did a Let There Be Hype article on this game. So, needless to say I am a bit excited for it. But I wanted to look at it again when it came out to see what they are doing well and what they could do better. Now, CMON knows how to create and run a Kickstarter. And while in previous Kickstarters they have at times moved away from stretch goals, this type of game is made for it. There are so many X-Men characters that how couldn’t you have some fun with it and release a lot of ones and a lot of obscure ones.

Now, that, thus far, has been a knock for some people. I remember when the first Marvel United Kickstarter was out and Spider-Man wasn’t there, people complained a ton that Spider-Man wasn’t in the game. Turns out that he was, and turns out that then the Sinister Six were which people also complained about. Right now we don’t have the likes of Gambit, Rogue, and Colossus. I need Gambit in the game, but I’m not going to complain, because I know he will be coming. Gambit should be in an expansion for Marvel United X-Men. He is a big enough character that people will pay more money to get him. So it is a smart business move, and in all fairness, I was always going to go all in on this game.

The one knock I will have on the page is where the stretch goals are located. I knocked a game recently for having them too high, here they are too low. They are after the add-ons, which I get. They want people to see the add-ons and decide that they need something they didn’t get in the original Kickstarter. But this is really a campaign about the stretch goals and the extra expansions, and I want to know what I’m going to be unlocking, and there have been a lot of unlocks already. That is really my only knock and that shipping to some places is spendy, but for me in the US, it isn’t bad.

The Game

It happens from time to time that I know something about the game. In this case, it’s because I already own it. Well, I own all of the original stuff. The only thing that I didn’t get was the playmat, and honest, I’m not sure if there is a new playmat that I’ll get it this time around either. Well, I guess, I didn’t get the cardboard location tiles versus the cardstock ones, but that didn’t add anything new to the game.

But is the same good, I clearly am not trying to sell myself on the game. I am going to try and sell others. This game won’t be for everyone. The game is not extremely complex, especially the base box. If you like thinkier games, then I am not sure this game will work in all of it’s forms. This is a family weight game for the most part. But there are a few things that might make the Marvel United X-Men more interesting.

Heroes/Villains

So, two different modes for the same characters. The X-Men is known for this more than the Avengers side of things. A villain who becomes a hero or a hero who becomes a villain. A great example of this is Magneto. Magneto is a major villain for the X-Men, but he is also a leader for the X-Men at times. So you can play Magneto in either role.

Playing the Villain

And as I hinted at above, you can play as the villain. This is something different taking the game from just having to be cooperative to being able to be one versus all. I like that change as well. There are special rules and basically all villains, even in the old stuff, can be played this way. It makes the game more challenging, but it is fun to think of that addition. The person playing the villain gets a hand of three cards and picks versus it being flipped from the top.

But mainly, I think this game is going to be one that works for a really wide group of people. If you only play the base Marvel United, you are missing out. That game is meant to be sold at Wal-Mart and Target and be really accessible. The expansions offer new challenges and really unique characters, and it is so easy to get to the table as you just grab heroes and villains.

Back or Brick

No shock here, for me, it is a Back. I love Marvel, I love the X-Men, and I really enjoy Marvel United, especially with the expansions. This is a fun accessible game that will work for so many people. And I know the art style isn’t for everyone, but I really like it. I think that the chibi minis are cute, and for a family weight game it works. Plus, the minis will be easier for me to paint, which I consider a win.

Now, do you need to back this one?

Unfortunately the answer is yes. Originally some of the expansions were supposed to come to retail, now it’s down to Enter the Spider-Verse I believe. So if you want a million characters, you won’t be able to get them in the story. That sucks, I don’t love that change. However, expansions don’t sell as well as base games do in stores. So if you want Tales of Asgard or Sinister Six, you’ll have to grab it from this Kickstarter.

Is this one a back or a brick for you? What character do you want to see?

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