Here’s Everything We Know So Far About Marvel and Magic: the Gathering’s Crossover

Last updated on January 22, 2024

Fraction Jackson | Illustration by Mark Poole

Avengers and… Planeswalkers assemble? That’s right! Marvel fans who also play Magic: The Gathering have been waiting for this moment in history! MTG and Marvel are finally collaborating for a Universes Beyond crossover that’ll be even bigger than others released before it such as Fallout, Doctor Who, and Jurassic World.

Most Universes Beyond crossover collaborations usually feature only one set of cards. The Marvel and MTG collaboration will be seeing multiple expansions. I mean, come on, the superhero and tabletop gaming universes are so expansive that they’ll need a couple of drops to cover everything, or at least as much as possible.

So, what do we know about the Marvel and Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond crossover? Grab your Mjölnirs and counterspells for the ride of a lifetime into the Marvel and Magic collaboration.

Marvel x MTG Basic Information

Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/the-magic-the-gathering-marvel-collaboration-begins

Not much is known about the Marvel x MTG crossover, but here’s what we have to go off of so far. We’ll update this post with more details as it nears time for the Marvel cards to be released.

Set Name

To Be Announced. Nothing has been released concerning how many cards, their rarities, or the overall mechanics of the cards just yet. Check back later on for more details!

Important Dates

On October 23, 2023, Magic and Marvel announced their collaboration together on their prospective websites. They revealed that the cards will release some time in 2025, but a specific date has not been designated as of yet.

About the Set: The Story

Enter the world of Marvel superheroes and villains in the MTG and Marvel Universes Beyond collaboration. Relive the most famous Marvel stories that you’ve come to love through the most popular 30-year-old tabletop card game.

From Spider-Man’s radioactive spider bite to Bruce Banner being exposed to gamma rays and becoming the Hulk to the Avengers Civil War, there are so many levels of the Marvel storyline to be explored as they become incorporated into Magic cards.

The Marvel and MTG collaboration is not the only one of its kind. Fallout hits stores on March 8, 2024 while fans got a taste of a Doctor Who crossover in October 2023. The Warhammer 40K collaboration with Magic elevated the tabletop game to a whole new level, too.

Disney’s new Lorcana trading card game made more sales than Magic: the Gathering back in August 2023. Its popular appeal is attributed to how Disney characters are coming to life in a tabletop gaming setting. Hence, many people’s favorite shows and comics are becoming playable in tabletop gaming to further enhance people’s love for that specific brand’s story.

Other Marvel Card Games

Fantasy Flight Games published Marvel Champions: The Card Game in 2019 where you can play with a themed Marvel character deck that features 40 to 50 cards. The game featured seven waves of hero packs with characters such as X-23, Vision, Nebula, Valkyrie, War Machine, Gamora, and Venom as the leaders and overall theme of these decks.

There was one core set and six campaign expansions. The game continues to be a success as Psylocke and Angel hero decks were released on September 22, 2023. 

Marvel SNAP is an electronic game on smartphones with over 10 million downloads on Google Play. You play against opponents in real-time with Marvel superheroes and villains that have different abilities to give you an edge over your opponents. If you feel like you can win, you can SNAP! To up the ante of the match. The player who puts the most power on two of the three locations wins the game.

Set Mechanics

Since no cards have been spoiled yet, we do not know all the set mechanics that’ll be utilized for the MTG and Marvel collaboration. It'd be foolish to think WotC won't create a few new mechanics with their new superhero friends and villains. However, we can throw around some speculations!

Ally Creatures

Magic’s official announcement mentions allies. Hence, there could be Ally creature types amongst some characters in the MTG and Marvel crossover. Say for example that one of the cards features all the Avengers or characters of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Since they’re all allies in the Marvel universe, they could be designated as an Ally creature type when printed on Magic creature cards.

Battle Cards

Magic battle cards could bring to life some of the best Marvel battles in history. Think Spider-Man versus Venom, Battle of Wakanda, Black Panther versus Killmonger, and Loki versus Dr. Strange. The front of the battle card could have a scene from the beginning of the battle while the flip side features an image encompassing the end of the iconic fight.

Mutate

For the tension between humans and mutants, a return of mutate has to be among the WotC discussions. Because mutate cares about building decks with non-humans, one of the Marvel sets could have us caring about keeping at least one human on the battlefield at all times. There is ample opportunity with Magneto, Xavier and their followers for mutate to stretch between colors more than they did in Ikoria.

Marvel-Inspired MTG Mechanics

You never know if there’ll be new Marvel-based mechanics inspired by the Marvel superheroes and villains.

Characters such as Nightcrawler and Blink could have what’s called a teleport mechanic since they’re superheroes with a teleportation ability. This could have something to do with scrying when one of the corresponding creatures attacks. You could look at the top three cards of your library and decide which ones you want at the top or bottom.

A card featuring Storm should have the MTG storm mechanic (shocker) printed on it so it’s a more powerful card. I mean, the flavor aspect is priceless!

Maybe on Hulk cards there can be a smash mechanic because of his catchphrase, “Hulk smash!” The smash mechanic can allow for some damage to go towards a player or a creature when a Hulk card attacks.

Speculation

Marvel and Magic fans alike are speculating on the types of cards that could be included in these upcoming crossover sets. Let’s take to the replies on Magic’s official tweet about the upcoming collaboration.

TheDenofNerds hopes for a 5-color planeswalker featuring Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet! This card will add flavor to this crossover. Even though the gauntlet has six Infinity stones and there are only five color identities for Magic, the idea still works. The “6th stone” in the mana cost of this Thanos planeswalker could be a colorless mana and then one of each color much like the mana cost on Karona, False God.

Do you remember The One Ring from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth? Who wouldn’t? Post Malone purchased the official 1/1 serialized version from a fan. How about for the Marvel and MTG collaboration there’s a legendary artifact called The Infinity Gauntlet? At least that’s what fresk0_ on Twitter is hoping to happen. This poster also suggested that each of the Infinity Stones be mana rocks.

Let’s expand on this speculation. There are six Infinity Stones. Each one can relate to one of each color within the 5 colors of Magic’s color pie and the last one can tap for colorless mana.

• Time Stone can tap for green mana.
• The Space Stone can tap for blue mana.
• The Reality Stone can tap for red mana.
• The Mind Stone, even though it’s yellow, is the closest color that makes sense to tap for white.
• The Soul Stone, even though it’s orange, can tap for colorless.
• Have the purple Power Stone tap for black mana.

Hence, the Time Stone, Space Stone, and Reality Stone will be tapping for their corresponding original color. The Mind Stone, Soul Stone, and Power Stone, despite them being an original different color, can tap for other colors closest to Magic’s color identities.

DanticsOfficial is hoping for four commander decks based on the teams in the Marvel Universe. Team Iron Man, Team Captain America, Thanos, and a Space character-themed commander deck featuring Thor and Kraglin is the basis for this poster’s speculation.

User infernoman64 has another idea for commander precons featuring key Marvel characters. Themes include Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, and a precon featuring villain characters such as Ultron, Doctor Doom, and Red Skull.

As far as commander products go, reddit users are convinced there will be an EDH mechanic like partner so that planeswalkers can assemble.

Let’s talk color identity for some speculated legendary creature cards that may feature some of our favorite Marvel characters. Color identity may be based on their names, the colors they wear, or their personality as a superhero or villain.

• Beast: blue.
• Black Panther: black.
• Black Widow: black.
• Captain America, of course, should be red, white, and blue.
• Cyclops: red.
• Doctor Strange: red and blue.
• Hulk: green.
• Iron Man: red and white.
• Loki: green and black.
• Rogue: black and white.
• Spider-Man: red and blue.
• Spider-Man (Miles Morales): black and red.
• Storm: black and white.
• Thor: red, white, and black.
• Venom: black and white.
• Vision: red and green
• Wolverine: blue and white, or green.

Comment on what color identities you think other Marvel characters would be if we missed one that you like! Think about your love of Marvel to generate personal speculations and channel your inner R&D.

If you use the movies as any sort of guide, you have sequels and prequels, so a transforming double face card or adventure card would make for a few cycles worth of origin stories. Also along the story route, sagas could very well depict key story arcs from the comics or movies.

Official Spoilers

No official spoilers have been released yet. Check back for further updates.

Unofficial Spoilers/Leaks

No cards have been leaked for this set… yet! Come back for more updates as time draws near for the cards to be released!

Available Products

Since no cards have been leaked yet and the collaboration will be released in 2025, there are no available products to preview or pre-order yet.

Avengers and Planeswalkers, Assemble!

Tidy Conclusion | Illustration by Bastien L. Deharme

Marvel encompasses a universe of notable superheroes and villains that’ll soon come to life on Magic: The Gathering cards in 2025. How excited are you?

Get ready for the upcoming release by joining the Draftsim Discord to discuss speculations with other Magic players around the world. It can be challenging waiting for something you really want to happen, but take the guesswork out of getting updates by following the Draftsim Facebook page.

Until next time, get ready for Avengers and planeswalkers to assemble in this action-packed Universes Beyond crossover between MTG and Marvel.

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