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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The semester continues with Barrai trying to get some more money and Thrain doing a poor job of gambling. Bokken, more focused on the goal of finding out who the spies are meets with Castillia and finds out from her that of her barrack mates, Addrus and Narius are the two who are gone from the barracks and not hanging out on the campus most often.

Things are going fairly boringly with Thrain studying up on necromancy around a fire and Barrai is coming up with ways to mess with Dorin. Bokken is sharpening his weapons and keeping on eye on his surroundings, he sees Dorin searching some bushes for something and Addrus off talking to someone in the shadows. He then when he hears the sound of an alarm off in the distance and he can see something come out of the tower, a massive creature that then flies in their direction. As it gets closer he sees that it is a massive black dragon that spews acid across one of the barracks in the school. Bokken braces against the wings but Thrain is blown over.

The group immediately jumps into action with Thrain getting up and rushing towards the barracks where he can hear Cordin and Castillia inside. He readies a spell against the dragon as he runs and unleashes it when the dragon comes back hexing the dragon. The wind from the wings knocks him down again. The teachers join them outside and Assendial urges the students down into a cellar below the mess hall. Bokken rushes into the barracks that’s structure has been weakened by acid and see that Castillia’s leg is pinned between a beam that was holding up the roof. Cordin, a wizard, is trying to lift it, Bokken helps and Castillia wiggles free. Bokken carries her to the mess hall where two other students take her to the basement. Meanwhile, the dragon flies over again and with a bit of luck Barrai taking a bunch of acid to the face as he’s by the barrack goes down but isn’t outright killed. Thrain drags Barrai out of the open and Assendial stabilizes him. Thrain, after placing his shield to cover part of Barrai, runs to the cellar. Bokken, on his way to get a weapon see Assendial trying to pull Barrai the mess hall and the cellar changes course to help her and they get Barrai into the cellar.

Looking around the cellar, Bokken notices that both Dorin and Addrus aren’t there. Remembering how suspicious Addrus had seen and questioning the timing, he has Thrain, who is considerably more sneaky than he is, sneak out during the fight to go and see what he can find where Addrus was. There wasn’t anything there, but Thrain decides to go into a tower where he could see better and see if he can see Addrus. He doesn’t see Addrus but he notices two things, first that there are tower climbers joining in the fight and that the barracks is getting razed to the ground by the dragon, and that there’s an odd spot that doesn’t seem to be kicking up dust and dirt when the dragon flies over it near where Addrus had been meeting. He goes over to investigate and finds what looks like a trapdoor. Thinking better of going just by himself, he goes back to Bokken.

Meanwhile, Parrag heals Barrai being him back to consciousness. And Bokken heads up the steps to watch the fight. Assendial shoos him back, but she’s busy supporting everyone else in the fight. Thrain fills them in and Bokken distracts Assendial so that Barrai and Thrain can sneak away. Then Bokken just walks away to join them. They get the trapdoor open, but they hear the barracks finish collapsing in on itself and decide not to investigate the ladder that leads down into darkness. On their way back Assendial catches them, she knows that Bokken disobeyed her, but Thrain lies and convinces her that he and Barrai were out looking for Bokken and avoiding trouble.

That’s where we ended. Not much behind the DM’s screen this time. Some things were made up on the spot, some things were planned, such as the dragon, but as to how much combat we’d be a part of, what would happen with the people trapped, that was all kind of up in the air depending on what the players did.

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