The Ultimate Marvel Super Heroes Limited Set Review

Andrew Quinn 1 hour ago Deckbuilding, Draft, Limited, Strategy

Last updated on June 15, 2026

The Super Hero Civil War | Illustration by Serena Malyon

I’ve been waiting for this set for a long time. I grew up watching the ‘90s Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons and became a lifelong Marvel fan because of it. I wish I had access to comic books as a kid, but alas, there were very few stores that carried them in the UK back then, and I didn’t know where any of them were. Still, I’ve grown up around Marvel, and thanks to the MCU, I’ve been able to discover more of these wonderful stories. Last year’s Spider-Man set was very poorly received, but it looks like Marvel Super Heroes is on a whole other level, and I’m very excited for this review!

As always, this review is based on my initial impressions of the cards. It’s hard to figure out how these cards will play out without knowing things like the speed of the format or the relative power levels of the colors and archetypes. Many cards will under or over perform based on initial impressions as the format takes shape. My grades are largely based on the card’s quality in a vacuum or the assumption that the archetype they belong in is playable.

Table of Contents show

Grading Scale

I use a comparative rating system on a scale of 0-10. Here’s a rough guide to what each rating means:

10: The absolute best of the best. 10s will make a meaningful impact on any game, especially when you’re playing from behind, and they’ll be extremely tough to beat.

Examples: Emeritus of Ideation or Together as One.

8-9: Extremely good cards, usually game-winning bombs and the most efficient removal spells, though not quite good enough to be a 10/10. Could also be the mythic uncommon of the set (though these are harder to predict).

Examples: Stirring Hopesinger or Ark of Hunger.

5-7: Important role-players. These are typically great uncommons that really drive you towards playing a particular color, like build-arounds and good removal, as well as very powerful commons.

Examples: Elite Interceptor or Pestbrood Sloth.

2-4: The average Limited card. Most commons end up in this range, and most of your Limited decks will be made up mostly of these.

Examples: Dig Site Inventory or Noxious Newt.

1: These cards are weak and you hope to never play them in your main deck, though they are still just about playable if you need them in a pinch.

Examples: Spellbook Seeker or Hungry Graffalon.

0: Virtually unplayable in every scenario and you should never put these cards in your main deck. Typically cards that were designed with Constructed or Commander play in mind but are awful in Limited.

Examples: Pox Plague or Petrified Hamlet.

Set Mechanics

War Machine, Legacy of Iron | Illustration by Carlos Dattoli

This set is obviously all about the Super Heroes, but there are also plenty of Villains for them to battle against. As such, the heroes and villains need some mechanics to tell us what they do.

Power-Up

Probably the most recognizable thing about super heroes is their respective super powers. To represent these, we have the new power-up mechanic. Power-ups are kind of like a fusion of kicker and exhaust.

For starters, each power-up is an activated ability that you can only use once while that creature is on the battlefield, just like exhaust. However, if you activate the ability on the same turn that the creature entered the battlefield, you get a cost reduction of the creature’s mana cost. Note that this is mana cost, not mana value, so the reduction includes colored mana symbols. You can essentially view the power-up cost as an alternate cost to make your creature bigger and better than before. This is a really sweet mechanic that you’ll see all over the set, at every rarity. It’s essentially the foundation on which the set is built, so get used to seeing it.

Connive

Returning from Streets of New Capenna and Spider-Man, we have connive. This is a perfectly named mechanic for villains, so we’ll probably keep seeing it in the future. When a creature connives, you draw a card and discard a card, which is already great. Then, if you discarded a nonland card this way, the creature also gets a +1/+1 counter. This mechanic is pure upside, so long as it’s appropriately costed. You should always find a use for it, especially when there’s a Draft archetype to slot it into.

Plans

Another key feature of Marvel stories is the diabolical schemes that the villains set into motion. Since Magic already has schemes that get set into motion… we have plans instead. Plans are simply enchantments that build up plan counters and then give some big effect when you reach enough plan counters. They also have the plan subtype, which means they can be referred to by other cards too.

These aren’t all that impressive. Some of them have really cool effects, but it doesn’t seem likely that you’ll be building a deck around these.

Teamwork

Marvel has the Avengers, Young Avengers, X-Men, Defenders, X-Force, West Coast Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, and dozens of other hero teams in its lore. There had to be a teamwork mechanic in a Marvel Super Heroes set.

Teamwork is simply an additional cost that appears on some instant and sorcery spells. You pay a teamwork N cost by tapping any number of creatures you control that have a total power of N or more. By doing so, you get a boosted effect from the spell. It’s basically just a different kind of kicker cost, but that’s always been a great mechanic. There’s even a Draft archetype built around teamwork, so be prepared to see a lot of these.

Transforming Modal Double-Faced Cards

Another mechanic that returns from Spider-Man, we have five double-faced cards at mythic rare that are both modal and transforming. That means, for example, that if you have King T'Challa, you can cast it on its front side, then at some point pay the cost to transform it into Black Panther, Hope Enduring. Alternatively, you could just cast it as Black Panther for 6 mana right away. Being only mythic rares, you won’t see this mechanic very often, but it’s worth highlighting as a perfect representation of the alter egos of some of Marvel’s most iconic heroes, including T’Challa, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner.

If you want more info on mechanics, archetypes, and more, check out The Daily Upkeep's pre-release guide on Marvel Super Heroes.

Draft Archetypes

Source: Wizards of the Coast

We’ve had three sets in a row with five main Draft archetypes, but Marvel Super Heroes takes us back to the typical 10 Draft archetypes for 10 2-color pairs. They are:

Azorius (White/Blue ): Tapping your creatures (Teamwork)
Dimir (Blue/Black ): Draw two cards per turn (Connive)
Rakdos (Black/Red ): Villains
Gruul (Red/Green ): Power-Ups
Selesnya (Green/White ): Heroes
Orzhov (White/Black ): Attacking alone
Golgari (Black/Green ): Get two creatures into the graveyard
Simic (Green/Blue ): +1/+1 counters
Izzet (Blue/Red ): Artifacts
Boros (Red/White ): Noncreature spells

White

Agent 13, Sharon Carter

Rating: 6/10

We’ve seen the attacking alone theme before, and it’s really difficult to get right. If it works in this set, I have to imagine that it’s because of cards like Agent 13, Sharon Carter. You can play a 2-drop on turn 2, Sharon on turn 3 and then immediately attack and investigate for free. Frankly, anything you get after that is just a bonus; you’ve already gotten your mana’s worth.

Agent Maria Hill

Rating: 4/10

Drawing a card and getting a +1/+1 counter is a great benefit to have, but there aren’t all that many teamwork spells in the set to begin with. How often are we even going to be able to trigger Agent Maria Hill in the first place? There’s potential here, but I think it’ll just be a vanilla 2/1 for 1 mana more often than not, which is fine.

Agent of Atlas

Rating: 3/10

Prowess on a simple 2-drop is actually really annoying. If your opponent attacks their Agent of Atlas into your random 3/3, are you going to block? I doubt it. Any spell forces those creatures to trade and two cheap spells will kill your creature for free. This looks like a pretty decent 2-drop that especially shines in red/white.

Agent Phil Coulson

Rating: 8/10

“And there’s one other person you pissed off! His name is Phil!” – Tony Stark, to Loki

Agent Phil Coulson was such a cool, badass character in the early days of the MCU, and it’s great to see him here as a really powerful rare. Most white creatures in this set are heroes, so this card should be able to distribute a lot of counters if left unchecked, which makes it one of the most dangerous threats on the board.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Rating: 3/10

A 2/4 exalted for 3 mana sounds fine. Playing this on turn 3 lets your 2-drop attack past your opponent’s, which is a pretty nice upside. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. looks decent for the black/white deck. Elsewhere it’s fine, but I bet you can find something better.

Avengers Assemble!

Rating: 9/10

Regardless of what kind of white deck you build, your creatures are going to mostly be heroes, which turns Avengers Assemble! into essentially a Dictate of Heliod that probably draws you a card. +2/+2 to all or most of your creatures should both make future combats trivial and make it very hard for your opponent to get back into a game.

Borough Backup

Rating: 4/10

Borough Backup actually looks incredible to me. Unlike the other landcyclers in this cycle, this one looks like something I’d be pretty happy to play even if it couldn’t cycle. Two 3/2s with vigilance is sweet for both offense and defense, and it even triggers hero synergies. Great common.

Brave Brawler

Rating: 3/10

Child of Night was once a phenomenal 2-drop in Limited, but that time has long since passed. Brave Brawler still looks fine, but it’s nothing particularly exciting.

Captain America, Super-Soldier

Rating: 6/10

This is such a cool design for Marvel’s most iconic super hero, Steve Rogers. Captain America, Super-Soldier is incredibly difficult to beat in combat, just like in the comics. Three power and first strike is a great start, but the shield counter is a really big deal. They massively overperformed when we saw them in Streets of New Capenna. Simply having Cap on your board is going to draw a lot of your opponent’s attention and make a lot of their removal spells significantly weaker.

Captain America, Wings of Freedom

Rating: 8/10

Sam Wilson’s Captain America, Wings of Freedom packs one hell of a punch. Three power, flying, and first strike make for a very annoying combination. The ability to give +1/+1 to the rest of your heroes is also extremely powerful with the right setup, especially when you get to buff it with a simple combat trick or equipment. Keep an eye out for combining Sam with Captain America's Shield for a really absurd +0/+8 buff.

Captain Marvel, Earth’s Protector

Rating: 10/10

Flash, flying, and lifelink are a disgusting combination of abilities. Flashing in Captain Marvel, Earth's Protector to eat a creature in combat and gain 5 life while you’re at it is going to pretty much win any game you play it. At least you can deal with Captain Marvel with a removal spell… except that its indestructible counter also shuts off a lot of those. Carol Danvers is one of Marvel’s most ridiculously overpowered super heroes, and this card might be the strongest in the set to echo that.

Captain Mar-Vell, Space-Born

Rating: 5/10

Serra Angel is one of Magic’s most iconic creatures. It may not be what it once was, but it still packs a decent punch in Limited. Captain Mar-Vell, Space-Born won’t be the most impactful uncommon, but flying and vigilance are still good enough to dominate a few games.

Colleen Wing, Street Samurai

Rating: 3/10

Colleen Wing, Street Samurai has a lot of potential. In a set so heavily focused on creatures, it’s hard to see this noncreature spell theme working. The problem is, not only do you need a good number of noncreature spells, but not all of them even trigger Colleen’s heroic ability. I’m not sold just yet; I’d like to see what this red/white deck looks like first.

Crowd of True Believers

Rating: 2/10

Innistrad: Crimson Vow has a really innocuous common called Traveling Minister. It looked bad at first and ended up being one of white’s best commons. Crowd of True Believers looks kind of similar, so we have to pay attention, but I don’t think this is anywhere near as good. There’s no lifegain synergies to utilize, and you can only target a creature that’s attacking alone. It’s not bad, but quite a bit below the curve.

Helicarrier Strike

Rating: 4/10

One mana for 2 damage is a bit mediocre when it can only hit attacking or blocking creatures, but 4 damage is significantly stronger. The teamwork cost doesn’t seem too difficult to pay, so I’m sure Helicarrier Strike will just be a good removal spell in the format.

Hero in Training

Rating: 5/10

Hero in Training might not be able to fly, but it was drawing a card that made Inspiring Overseer the powerhouse that it was. This card isn’t quite as good, but it’s still incredible to have a 3-drop 2/2 that draws you a card. The 2 life will actually come up pretty often too, so how could you ever go wrong?

Invisible Woman, Sue Storm

Rating: 2/10

The powerhouse matriarch of the Fantastic Four, Invisible Woman, Sue Storm is one of the most iconic women in all of Marvel. Sadly, this card version just doesn’t hold up. It has weak stats and a cool ability that’s relatively hard to trigger. It’s also very expensive for what it does. White seems to have a lot of uncommon creatures at 4 mana and above, so sadly I don’t think Sue Storm will be high on our priority lists.

Jennifer Walters / The Sensational She-Hulk

Rating: 9/10

Our first double-faced hero card is Jennifer Walters, a.k.a. The Sensational She-Hulk. As a mono-white creature, it’s not that impressive. A 2/3 Grand Abolisher is fine, but not a big deal for Limited. However, throw a little green in there and She-Hulk is an absolute bomb. 6/6, reach, and trample is a great start, and it also throws back any damage dealt to your creatures. While She-Hulk dies to some removal spells, it stops them from being cast on the first turn you play it, which makes it very difficult for your opponent to block your other creatures for that one turn at least.

Kree Commandos

Rating: 3/10

There’s supposed to be a red/white prowess deck in this format, and if that deck is good, I’m sure this card will be a part of it. Kree Commandos is far too small if you’re bad at triggering prowess, but it looks quite aggressive if you can trigger it frequently.

Luke Cage, Power Man

Rating: 1/10

White has a lot of uncommons at the 4-drop slot, and Luke Cage, Power Man unfortunately looks like the weakest one. Its stats are far too weak when it’s not attacking alone, and most of the time your opponent can just chump block it.

The Mind Stone

Rating: 6/10

Our second Infinity Stone, and not to be confused with Mind Stone, The Mind Stone is first and foremost a 2-drop mana rock. That’s more than enough to warrant playing it. Then, if you can harness it, you turn it into a Conjurer's Closet and generate free value every turn with just a single creature. That’s a great upside, and I’d play this pretty much every time. Only the most aggressive decks in the format aren’t going to be interested.

Mockingbird, Ace Agent

Rating: 1/10

Four mana for just a 2/2 with double strike really isn’t good enough in this day and age. Mockingbird, Ace Agent really needs to get bigger before it makes any kind of real impact, and I don’t think we’re going to have the time or capacity to do that very often.

Monica Rambeau / Photon, Living Light

Rating: 9/10

Our second double-faced hero is Monica Rambeau, a.k.a. Photon, Living Light. Unlike She-Hulk, Photon is actually pretty good on both faces. A 3/3 with flying and prowess is a great rate for a 3-drop creature. Photon itself is a little less impressive on 5 because it needs to survive a turn to work properly. Fortunately, hexproof goes a long way towards ensuring that happens, at which point a couple of spells buff your team enough to take over any game comfortably.

Murdock’s Crusade

Rating: 4/10

The ability to exile a big creature for 2 mana makes Murdock's Crusade a very solid removal spell for Marvel Super Heroes. I love the flavor of also being able to exile a villain’s plan, but that’s not going to come up anywhere near as often. It also can’t answer Wilson Fisk’s Political Triumph, which is kind of on point for that storyline.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Rating: 2/10

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a pretty cool design. This is the guy who recruits the Avengers, so of course the card digs through your deck to find heroes. Sadly, requiring all five colors is far too prohibitive, so in Limited, it’ll simply be an Elite Vanguard.

Night Nurse, Healer of Heroes

Rating: 6/10

Online discussions have already pointed out how similar this card is to Samwise the Stouthearted. Sam was pretty damn good, and Night Nurse, Healer of Heroes is also great. Lifelink is really good, and it doesn’t take much to time this right for a free plus one on card advantage. This is such a good card, and I have no problem taking it early and cementing myself in a white deck.

Okoye, Dora Milaje Leader

Rating: 5/10

We’ve already seen a few mediocre, uncommon 4-drops, but Okoye, Dora Milaje Leader is the best of them by far. Four mana for a 3/2 plus a pair of 1/1s is an excellent rate, especially if you have ways to flicker Okoye or buff your team in some way. Okoye is one of my favorite characters from the MCU, and I’m glad to see that I’ll play her card quite a bit in this format.

Origin of the Avengers

Rating: 4/10

The Origin of the Avengers starts out in a vacuum as basically a 2-mana Preordain in white, which honestly isn’t awful. You won’t always be able to cheat out a hero from your hand, but at least that extra card is a good fallback for it. The key to maximize this saga is to make use of its third chapter. Playing it on turn 2 won’t maximize it very well, so this actually looks like a card that gets better a little later in the game.

Panther Pounce

Rating: 3/10

Panther Pounce looks close to unplayable to me. However, we have a Draft archetype that cares about noncreature spells, and this is a 1-mana spell to trigger all of those effects, plus the investigate means it eventually replaces itself. Outside of that deck, I think it’s too weak, but I’d happily jam it in red/white.

Patriot, Shield Wielder

Rating: 6/10

While the ability here is a bit expensive to activate, Patriot, Shield Wielder looks dangerously close to a Mother of Runes, one of white’s best-ever creatures. It’s of course “fixed”, in that it can’t protect itself, but that just means that as long as you leave mana open, your opponent is forced to spend their removal on this instead of your bigger creatures, a very worthwhile effect to have.

Political Triumph

Rating: 4/10

If you get to play Political Triumph early enough in a game, you’re bound to get to four plan counters at some point. It provides you with enough upside for doing so, with four scries, a free card and some +1/+1 counters. It loses out a bit for being a very bad top deck in the late game, but I think it’s good enough otherwise to be worth playing.

Quake, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Rating: 4/10

Tapping your opponent’s creatures so freely can be a very annoying ability. Still, I don’t know how many noncreature spells we can play in a deck like this, and they really need to be instants to make the most of this ability. Quake, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. looks like the kind of card that could be very good with the right setup, but it’s remarkably average otherwise.

Raft Security Officer

Rating: 2/10

I like tapper creatures, but 2 mana to tap anything useful is a fairly hefty cost. In a pinch, you can use Raft Security Officer for interaction, but white has several better options that don’t require you to spend mana every turn of the game.

Red Guardian, Super-Soldier

Rating: 6/10

Red Guardian, Super-Soldier is an interesting take on the weak, outdated design of creatures like Manticore. Instead of the target creature needing to have been dealt damage, it only has to have dealt damage. You can still chump an attacker and then finish it off like with Manticore, but you can also just let that creature hit you and score a nice little two-for-one. I think that’s enough flexibility to make this a very strong playable.

The Sentry, Golden Guardian

Rating: 1-9/10

This might be the most difficult card I’ve ever had to evaluate. On the one hand, The Sentry, Golden Guardian could be an absurdly powerful threat in just about any deck, but on the other hand, if your opponent can deal with it, you’ve just given them a free indestructible 5/5 flier, which is devastating. At first glance, Murdock's Crusade, Web Up, and Frozen in Ice are all common answers to The Sentry. I think I’d start this as a sideboard card that’s exceptional against black, red, or green decks, but I wouldn’t want to start it against anything that can answer it so simply.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit

Rating: 2/10

The black/white deck has a few equipment synergies which might benefit you when you play this, but your average deck isn’t going to care about S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit. A free scry every now and again isn’t enough of an upside to run a Leonin Scimitar without some good reason for it.

Super Villain Lockup

Rating: 4/10

Super Villain Lockup is a nice, clean answer to most creatures, but there’s a significant problem. As a trade-off for costing only 2 mana, you can only exile a tapped creature, which is a huge downside. You can only really use it to react to a creature when it attacks; you can’t proactively use it to clear away a potential blocker for when you attack. It also randomly can’t hit anything with vigilance, since they’re unlikely to become tapped. This is a fine card, but it isn’t as good as it could be.

Super-Soldier Serum

Rating: 2/10

If you’ve read any of my previous set reviews, you might know of my disdain for auras that do nothing but buff a creature. Super-Soldier Serum is exactly that. It provides quite a significant benefit to the creature you enchant, so it might be worth playing, but the risk of getting blown out by literally any removal spell makes it unlikely that I’ll play this any time soon.

Take Up the Shield

Rating: 3/10

Given the storyline of Steve Rogers passing the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson, I guess it’s no wonder that we’d see a Take Up the Shield reprint. We’ve seen this card a few times before, and it’s always been pretty good. It’s about as good of a combat trick as we ever get in white, so I’m sure it’ll find its home here.

Wakandan Drone Flock

Rating: 1/10

Wakandan Drone Flock is perfectly playable, but not exciting in any way. It also doesn’t really fit in any of white’s themes, so there’s a good chance that we’ll go through this format and just never play this.

Web Up

Rating: 6/10

Whether it’s Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light, or Web Up, 3 mana to exile any creature, even if temporarily, is extremely powerful and efficient. This is a premium removal spell that you can play in any white deck.

White Widow, Free Agent

Rating: 4/10

Both modes on White Widow, Free Agent’s trigger are very good. Since artifacts and enchantments don’t find their way into the graveyard all that often, you’re probably going for the two +1/+1 counters a lot of the time, and that alone makes White Widow a very solid card.

Blue

I Am Iron Man

Rating: 4/10

Did you know that when Robert Downey Jr. said I Am Iron Man right before he used the Infinity Stones in Avengers: Endgame (sorry, spoiler alert), he actually improvised this line? These immortal words were the closing line of the original Iron Man movie, as Tony Stark announced to the world that he was in fact Iron Man, a significant deviation from the comics where his secret identity remains a secret.

Also, the card is really good. We’ve seen this design be very solid in the past, with cards like Suit Up and Majestic Metamorphosis, so I imagine this’ll be good here, too.

Iron Lad, Diverging Destiny

Rating: 6/10

Three mana for a 2/2 with flying and vigilance that sometimes draws you extra cards? I’m definitely in for that! The artifacts deck is going to need a critical mass of artifacts anyway, and Iron Lad, Diverging Destiny slots into it perfectly.

Ironheart, Clever Champion

Rating: 7/10

With a good artifact deck, it seems very reasonable to cast Ironheart, Clever Champion for about 2 or 3 mana, which sounds very good to me. Giving all your noncreature spells improvise is a bit hit or miss. It might let you cast a bunch of spells that you wouldn’t otherwise, or it might do basically nothing. Either way, Ironheart looks like a very nice card for the artifacts deck, and it isn’t exactly unplayable outside of it either.

Justice, Vance Astrovik

Rating: 6/10

Not being able to bounce tokens is quite a significant downside, but Justice, Vance Astrovik has simply traded that functionality for flying, which seems somewhat reasonable. Also, bouncing your own permanent for value turns this into a 3/3, which is very nice to see. Like all other Man-o'-War variants we see these days, this is going to be one of blue’s best nonrares, so just pick it up and play it anywhere.

Kang the Conqueror

Rating: 9/10

One of the most notorious bad guys in all of Marvel lore, Kang the Conqueror is about to join a growing list of ridiculous 8-drops in recent Magic sets that basically win you the game. If you pay the full 8 mana, you get a 5/6 flier and an extra turn, which is really absurd! Even if you can’t wait until then, running Kang out as a 4/5 flier in the middle of the game is also pretty great. This is a really nasty card that I hope I get to play with at some point. I just love taking extra turns!

Kid Loki

Rating: 5/10

At first glance, Kid Loki doesn’t read particularly well. But, since it only costs 1 mana, it can come down on turn 1 or slot into your curve on a later turn, and it’ll probably be able to pick up a couple of +1/+1 counters very freely. The hexproof ability reads weirdly, but what it means is that if you can give a creature a +1/+1 counter at instant speed, you can protect it from removal. Power-up abilities place +1/+1 counters, but with Kid Loki, just draw two cards and trigger its other ability. Overall, this looks quite good to me, and I’m sure the fact that it’s both a hero and a villain will also come in handy.

Leader, Super-Genius

Rating: 8/10

In a vacuum, Leader, Super-Genius draws you two cards and has you discard one right away by having itself connive at the beginning of combat. That’s already a great start, but then you factor in that it not only does this every turn, but it also nets you a free card with every single connive that you do. This is a brutal payoff for the connive deck, one which even makes weak cards like A.I.M. Scientists look appealing.

Loki, God of Mischief

Rating: 4/10

Without playing this set, it’s going to be hard to figure out just how often Loki, God of Mischief will even be able to trigger. Still, as a 2-drop, it only needs to trigger once to have been worth playing, so I’m sure that’s going to happen. Just be sure to pay attention to the number of ways you have to enable Loki in your deck, because if you don’t have very many targeted abilities, you probably won’t want to play it.

Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards

Rating: 3/10

Our main set version of Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards is kind of disappointing. While it’s great to draw extra cards, it requires you to create tokens, which is far from guaranteed to happen in your average blue deck. It was of course designed to combo with Invisible Woman, Sue Storm, and there are a few nice synergies to be found, such as combining very well with Ant-Man, Colony Commander, but most of the time it won’t accomplish all that much.

Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan

Rating: 5/10

“A Noble Spirit Embiggens the Smallest Man” – Jebediah Springfield, allegedly….

This might just be my favorite top-down design in the whole set. In the comics, Ms. Marvel’s superpower is the ability to stretch her body, so she fights by “embiggening” her fists. So, of course she has no maximum hand size!

As a card, I think that Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan is a bit lacking. There are a fair few commons in the set that’ll trigger this ability, but I don’t know how many we’re likely to actually play in a deck. Ms. Marvel has a lot of potential if you support it, but a lot of decks won’t even want it.

Multiversal Incursion

Rating: 8/10

This seems like a hard card to evaluate because the delta between when you have no creatures in play versus two or three is absolutely massive. Despite the horrendous downside of being unplayable when your board is empty, I think Multiversal Incursion will be very good on balance. After all, it should be an automatic win if you’re in a board stall with a bunch of creatures in play.

Namor the Sub-Mariner

Rating: 9/10

With very few merfolk in Marvel Super Heroes, Namor the Sub-Mariner is just a self-contained token creation engine, and that’s absolutely fine with me. All you need to do is cast blue noncreature spells, which you were probably going to do anyway. My only point of contention is that none of blue’s supported themes are based around noncreature spells, but you should find plenty of ways to enable Namor anyway.

Pym Particles

Rating: 3/10

You won’t play Pym Particles in every deck, but being a 1-mana cantrip spell that does something relevant means it can go in basically any deck. I’m not going to prioritize it too early in a draft, but it’s going to be pretty decent whenever you get it. It’s also worth noting that this is a nice, cheap way to enable the draw two theme for blue/black.

Rewrite History

Rating: 3/10

Rewrite History feels kind of clunky to me. It’s easy enough to trigger by attacking or paying a teamwork cost, but the payoff isn’t all that great. The extra draws can trigger the “draw your second card” effects, and getting back two removal spells is very powerful, but playing a 3-mana card that doesn’t affect the board or give you immediate card advantage doesn’t sound like a winning play.

Secret Invasion

Rating: 8/10

Secret Invasion looks like an incredible removal spell. Not only does it remove a big creature from the board, but you get to turn one of your creatures into a copy of that creature, too? And you get to attack with that creature right away? Very nice! Of course, it’s a bit of a blowout if your opponent can remove your creature, but this is so cheap that you can probably find ways to protect it, plus the ward ability helps you to do that, too.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone

Rating: 5/10

S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone is an excellent common. I have to say this all the time, but two bodies out of one card is a great deal, assuming the stats are worth paying the mana for them. The fact that the front of this is a 2/2 flying artifact is also very relevant, but every blue deck is going to be happy to play this, so the artifact decks might not be able to get their hands on it quite so easily.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Flying Car

Rating: 6/10

The most common use of S.H.I.E.L.D. Flying Car is going to be to save one of your creatures from a removal spell. That’s pretty good by itself, especially with an easy-to-crew 3/3 flying vehicle attached to it. There are also quite a few randomly good flicker cards in the set along with some great ETB triggers, so that just pushes this over the edge for me.

Shuri, Wakandan Inventor

Rating: 6/10

One of my favorite characters in the MCU, Shuri, Wakandan Inventor is a great enabler for the blue/red artifacts deck. You’re not going to want to play this card in much else, but hopefully that means that with no one else interested in Shuri, you should always be able to pick it up if it’s opened.

Stature, Size Shifter

Rating: 4/10

This is a cool design of a card that you actually don’t want to power-up on the turn you play it. Rather, it’s far better to just play Stature, Size Shifter as a 1/1 unblockable creature, and power it up at some point once it has attacked and not been blocked. Until then, an unblockable 1/1 is very annoying to fight against, and it even helps to enable some of the set’s themes.

Super Intelligence

Rating: 1/10

I just don’t get this at all. You enchant Super Intelligence to a creature and it does absolutely nothing until the start of your next turn? So your opponent can just kill your creature, you get two-for-one’d and regret ever casting it in the first place? I hate it. There are a few creatures in MSH that care about you targeting something, so it might be a tiny bit playable, but you just shouldn’t put this aura in about 95% of decks you build.

Super Suit

Rating: 1/10

“Where. Is. My. Super Suit?!” – Samuel L. Jackson, but not as Nick Fury

The silly costumes are one of the most recognizable things in the whole super hero genre, so of course we have a card called Super Suit. It’s unfortunately just a riff on a tired design that doesn’t work very often, so I don’t think it’s worth playing. I’ll say though, black has access to some very nice equipment-themed cards, so I'll pay attention to this if those cards come up.

Thirst for Knowledge

Rating: 3/10

First printed in 2003’s Mirrodin, did you know that Thirst for Knowledge was once a restricted card in Vintage? It’s kind of strange to think about that. Anyway, this card is just good. It obviously shines in an artifact deck, where discarding an artifact helps to put you up on cards, but other decks might also be interested just for filtering cards. It even enables you to draw two cards on an opponent’s turn and trigger your “draw your second card” effects.

Tony Stark / The Invincible Iron Man

Rating: 9/10

Here’s where it all began! Back in 2008, super hero movies were on a huge downswing. Marvel Studios decided to take a gamble on Iron Man, with a relatively inexperienced director in the wonderful Jon Favreau, and a newly rehabilitated Robert Downey, Jr. in the lead role. No one at the time thought it would pay off; 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand and 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer were panned by critics and fans alike. Instead, it grossed nearly $600 million worldwide, kickstarted the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the rest is history.

Anyway, Tony Stark is an incredible card. Funnily enough, I think it’s better than The Invincible Iron Man, as getting to draw a free card so cheaply turn after turn is a very big deal. Transforming it can just be a nice way to close out the game later.

Trickster’s Stratagem

Rating: 3/10

Oh look, it’s the old 4-mana blue spell that sends a creature back into the library. This time, Trickster's Stratagem changes the tired formula a little bit by being a sorcery and giving you a free connive. Annoyingly, I think being a sorcery holds it back just a little too much. While it’s definitely still playable, I don’t see it being the premium common as often is in other Draft sets.

We Say Thee Nay!

Rating: 4/10

This is… certainly a quote. We Say Thee Nay! is a pretty effective counterspell. While Quench is good in the early game but gets weaker as players draw more lands, Convolute remains useful for longer, so you can even draw this late and still counter something good. We see these kinds of variants every now and again, and this looks like one of the stronger ones they’ve printed for a while.

Wiccan, Rising Magician

Rating: 6/10

If you’re unfamiliar with Wiccan, go and check them out. They’re one of the sons of Scarlet Witch and The Vision, ably played by the brilliant Joe Locke in the Agatha All Along TV series, and a wonderful gay icon in this genre. He’s also one of the most overpowered heroes in the Marvel multiverse, much like his parents.

The card, Wiccan, Rising Magician, is remarkably similar to Displacer Kitten, just without the possibility of infinite loops. Still, a 4/4 flier for 5 mana is a great start, and getting free value with every noncreature spell you cast is a pretty incredible ability. Just make sure you pair Wiccan with some good flicker targets and you’re set.

The Wondrous Wasp

Rating: 7/10

The Wondrous Wasp is a very nice, annoying little creature. A 2/1 flier for 2 mana is already very good, and turning off a creature’s abilities for a while is a nice bonus to get on top. That’s about it. You’re never cutting this from a deck.

Black

Agents of HYDRA

Rating: 4/10

I’d rather get the 2/1 upfront and have it die into a 1/1, but that’s only a minor complaint at best. Agents of HYDRA is a great common that gives you two creatures for the low price of just 2 mana. They’re both villains, it fills the graveyard… it just does a lot for such a simple common.

Arnim Zola, Bio-Fanatic

Rating: 2/10

About 10 or 15 years ago, this probably would’ve been a broken mythic uncommon. Nowadays, Arnim Zola, Bio-Fanatic is probably just too slow. It’s undersized, it costs quite a bit to create a token, and it requires setup. It’ll be pretty effective in a very long game, but I think we can do better.

Baron Helmut Zemo

Rating: 0/10

Baron Helmut Zemo is a great character, but an abominably awful card. Triple black is extremely hard to enable, and you’ll basically never have 15 black mana pips among the cards in your graveyard. I can’t wait to try and figure it out in Standard, where Doomsday Excruciator and Pox Plague can enable it, but in Limited it’s just a joke.

Baron Strucker, HYDRA Overlord

Rating: 3/10

I don’t like Baron Strucker, HYDRA Overlord all that much. The abilities feel very minor to me, and being a Gray Ogre otherwise is very weak. I’d probably still play it in a villain deck, but I’m not going out of my way to pick this up in a draft.

Black Widow, Super Spy

Rating: 9/10

Oh look, it’s Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in black! Black Widow, Super Spy is going to be virtually unbeatable if you can play it early enough in a game. Even if you’re not casting the spells you hit from your opponent’s library, you’re still exiling them so they can’t be used, all while you grow Black Widow with +1/+1 counters. Plus, the menace ability makes it really easy to support this spy by removing key blockers from the equation. Black Widow does have the clear downside of being much worse when you draw it later in the game, but that’s a fair way to balance a card like this. This is such a great design of a wonderfully iconic character. I can’t wait to try it out for myself.

Construct a Cosmic Cube

Rating: 7/10

Creating a 2/1 menace token whenever you draw your second card in a turn is an excellent payoff for that deck. Sure, Construct a Cosmic Cube can only trigger seven times before you have to sacrifice it, but if you get to that point I have to assume you’re winning that game. Especially because you get to Mindslaver your opponent, too.

Crossbones, Malicious Mercenary

Rating: 5/10

Crossbones, Malicious Mercenary’s stats are kind of embarrassing, but what I like about its ability is the fact that it breaks board stalls. Hitting your opponent for 2 damage every turn adds up very quickly and that makes Crossbones a very potent threat that needs to be dealt with, even without ever hitting the red zone.

Cruel Alliance

Rating: 5/10

Without the teamwork cost, this can only exile 64% of the creatures in Marvel Super Heroes, as well as tokens. That’s not too bad, but fortunately the other 36% can be dealt with just by tapping a creature with 2 power, which won’t be that hard. Plus, the lifegain makes up for that tapped creature’s inability to block. Despite being a sorcery, Cruel Alliance looks cheap and efficient enough to be a premium removal spell in the set for black, and probably the best black common.

Dark Deed

Rating: 7/10

Last Gasp is pretty much the gold standard for cheap black removal, and now Dark Deed is a strict upgrade, though at a slightly higher rarity. These spells are always great. Not only can you kill anything with 4 toughness or less, but you also get around indestructible, instant speed lets you pick up random two-for-ones, and you can even use it to shrink bigger creatures mid-combat and take them out with a block. This is excellent, easily one of the best black nonrares in MSH.

Decoy Ploy

Rating: 3/10

Two mana is way too inefficient to only be getting one creature back from the graveyard. Yet, getting two back sounds great. I wouldn’t play this in an all villains deck, but if I had a reasonable mix of heroes and villains, then yeah, Decoy Ploy starts to look like a strong piece of card advantage.

Doctor Doom

Rating: 10/10

I think this is a pretty appropriate way to show off one of Marvel’s biggest villains. After all, Doctor Doom is about as iconic as comic book villains get. Six mana gets you a trio of 3/3s, one of which is usually indestructible, and you also draw an extra card every turn? Honestly, what more do you want? Robert Downey, Jr. playing him in an upcoming movie? Oh wait, we get that too!

Doom Reigns Supreme

Rating: 7/10

With all of the 2/1 villain tokens running around in this set, even if you draw this kind of late, I can’t imagine it’ll be that difficult to then have five villains enter and have it really pop off. If you do, then Doom Reigns Supreme drains your opponent for 5 life in total and then lets you cast two of your opponent’s spells for free! That’s a ton of value for such a low mana investment.

Elektra, Daughter of the Hand

Rating: 7/10

I’m always on the lookout for the next Ravenous Chupacabra. Elektra, Daughter of the Hand isn’t quite that good, but it does a pretty good impersonation of it. Only being able to destroy creatures with power 3 or less still lets you kill a lot of potential creatures, and its sneak ability even lets you bounce something good and/or disrupt a double block for extra value.

Grim Reaper, Lethal Legionnaire

Rating: 3/10

Four mana is a lot to pay for a 3/4 vanilla creature, and even more to have to pay to reanimate a creature during combat. Don’t get me wrong, Grim Reaper, Lethal Legionnaire is a potentially very powerful effect, but there seem to be too many little restrictions to make me too excited about it.

Hour of Defeat

Rating: 4/10

We see this in every set of course. Four mana to cleanly kill nearly every creature in the set isn’t such a bad deal, plus it’s splashable. Hour of Defeat is something that every black deck is going to need, though I think Cruel Alliance is quite a bit better for the format.

HYDRA Infiltration

Rating: 2/10

I want to say this is virtually unplayable, but I just know I’m going to lose to it in this format at least once. HYDRA Infiltration is essentially two cards jammed into one, but neither of them looks particularly appealing. Most of the time, especially in the attacking alone deck, I’d rather just commit another creature to the board if I’m spending 4 mana. I don’t know, this is the type of card I never like, but has a bit of potential to be the most annoying card in MSH if things line up well for it.

HYDRA Troopers

Rating: 4/10

A vanilla 3/2 that mills two cards is pretty weak for 3 mana, but a 3/2 that creates a 2/1 menace on entering is absolutely ridiculous! I really want to have enabled HYDRA Troopers before I play it, and the payoff is worth putting a little extra effort into making that happen.

Kingpin’s Enforcers

Rating: 3/10

Kingpin's Enforcers is annoyingly small for a 3-drop, but don’t let that put you off. The ability to sacrifice permanents to draw cards can really pop off in the late game, and it combines really well with token generators and Evil's Thrall.

Klaw, Sonic Subjugator

Rating: 6/10

Since the number of cards that Klaw, Sonic Subjugator lets you see starts at one, the worst it can possibly be is a 3-drop Ravenous Rats, and that’s a pretty good floor for any card. Add in the fact that with a bit of setup, Klaw can straight up Thoughtseize your opponent and you have a very annoying creature.

Madame Masque

Rating: 7/10

Not only does Madame Masque provide you with one of the best payoffs for the draw two deck, but it also triggers it itself, so it’s immediately a 3/2 (possibly a 4/3) plus a 2/1 token without doing any additional work. From there, if it triggers any additional times, Madame Masque buries your opponent in board presence. This is an incredible build-around for the blue/black deck, and one that I’m excited to play for myself.

The Masters of Evil

Rating: 6/10

Six-drops are pretty replaceable these days, but I think The Masters of Evil has enough going for it. For a start, +2/+1 to all your villains is a huge Overrun-style buff which is especially good with the 2/1 menace tokens in the set. But also, paying 2 to trade this for a plan might actually be the better option if you’ve got something good to search for. Especially as this puts a creature into your graveyard for the black/green theme. That’s a lot of options for just one card, so I’m in for it.

M.O.D.O.K.

Rating: 10/10

It’s really hard to overstate just how broken the text “Creatures your opponents control get -1/-1” really is. It doesn’t just kill off creatures with 1 toughness, but it also shrinks everything else and makes it incredibly difficult for them to get back into combat. M.O.D.O.K. isn’t just an annoying villain, but an incredibly busted card to have to play against. I haven’t even mentioned the rest of the card, but yeah, flying and lifelink on a body that can grow bigger by paying life is also incredible, so this just looks like one of best cards in Marvel Super Heroes.

Moonstone, Harsh Mistress

Rating: 5/10

Containment Construct was a very powerful card, so sure, why shouldn’t we put that same ability on a 2/4 flier? With all the conniving going on, Moonstone, Harsh Mistress turns each of those loots into straight up draws. This is also a big incentive to just discard a land and skip the +1/+1 counter you’d get, since you’ll want to play a land for your turn anyway. The blue/black deck is starting to look really strong.

Ninja of the Hand

Rating: 3/10

Man, this is an annoying card. Three mana for a 2/2 deathtoucher isn’t great, but it does trade with anything in combat. And you’d better hope it does, because if it ever gets to power-up, it’s taking a card out of your hand, too? Plus, it’s called Ninja of the Hand… get it?

Project Deathlok Soldier

Rating: 4/10

I’m a huge fan of Sanitarium Skeleton, which goes from unplayable in some formats to one of the best cards in others, just so long as you have plenty of ways to discard or sacrifice it. Project Deathlok Soldier is functionally the same card, and it’s going to be the perfect thing to discard to a connive ability. Even if you don’t have much conniving going on, using it to chump block over and over or to get milled are both decent options, so I’m sure you’ll find a good home for this.

Red Room Recruit

Rating: 3/10

The conniving draw two archetype looks very well supported to me, so I have no problem imagining that Red Room Recruit will be a solid playable for it. It’s not that great outside of that deck, but it should really shine when you really want that connive.

Robot Domination

Rating: 5/10

The more expensive a plan gets, the harder they become to cast. For 4 mana, Robot Domination does nothing to affect the board immediately. That said, you start to get a ton of advantage from it after that. If this gets to the point where it sacrifices and turns into three 2/2s, you’re probably winning.

Ronin, Shadow Stalker

Rating: 6/10

This set has a lot of random, cheap equipment in it which actually makes Ronin, Shadow Stalker look quite powerful. The best combo seems to be Stolen Stark Tech, since you can use it to protect Ronin on one turn, then next turn you can sacrifice it to kill something else. If you play Ronin in a random deck, it’ll just be a vanilla creature, but you only need a little bit of support to make it really pop off.

Roxxon Brutes

Rating: 1/10

Roxxon Brutes is a really weak 5-drop. I just never want to actually cast it. Basic landcycling is obviously good for fixing your mana, and what looks particularly good here is using this to put a creature into the graveyard for the black/green theme.

Stolen Stark Tech

Rating: 2/10

This has all the hallmarks of a bad, next to useless combat trick in black, if not for one key detail. It’s an equipment card. Black has a lot of random synergies with equipment, particularly Ronin, Shadow Stalker, and Stolen Stark Tech looks like it’ll synergize very well with those cards. It’s something I’ll have to see in action first, but there’s quite a bit of potential here.

Super-Skrull

Rating: 9/10

Would you like any more options? If you can’t find a way to win the game with all of these then that might be a problem. Super-Skrull is absurd! As a villain, you’re far more likely to play it in a black/red or black/blue deck. Fortunately, WotC have thought of that already and they’ve made the red and blue abilities the strongest ones! Realistically, the only downside here is the triple black in the casting cost, but resolving this and untapping with it will generally win you the game, so that’s only a minor thing.

Swordsman, Sharp Scoundrel

Rating: 4/10

A pattern I’m noting with Swordsman, Sharp Scoundrel, as well as the cards for Ronin and Whiplash, is that we have these really powerful equipment synergies but no good equipment to pair with them. I’m wondering if that means that weaker equipment cards are going to be worth playing to make these cards work. I’m not sold just yet, but I really hope it can come together, because this looks pretty cool to play.

Thunderbolts Conspiracy

Rating: 6/10

I really don’t know what to make of this card, so I’m hedging my bets a little. If you flash in Thunderbolts Conspiracy right before trading off with a couple of creatures in combat, it looks amazing. It sticks around after you play it, too, so it’s not like you absolutely have to get the timing right or it’s dead. But it does have the downside of doing nothing in a vacuum. I think it’ll end up being good in the right deck, and I’d like to see it in action.

Too Evil to Stay Dead

Rating: 3/10

Even with a hefty teamwork cost, 3 mana to reanimate any creature is a pretty good deal. Usually, we’d pay at least 4 mana for that privilege. Plus, the buyout of getting back a 4-drop if you can’t teamwork it seems like a very fair compromise. I like Too Evil to Stay Dead a fair bit, and it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Unliving Legionnaire

I always love a good artifact deck, and this looks like a nice enabler for that deck. HYDRA Assault Robot also has some nice crossover synergy with the villains deck, giving it a couple of good homes to end up in. You should never play this in red/white or red/green, but that just means it should be easier to pick up in a draft when you do want it.

Iron First, Living Weapon

Rating: 6/10

I’m about to gush a little bit, so I’ll start by pointing out the obvious. A 2/3 for 3 mana with no abilities is awful, and you shouldn’t put it in your deck. Now, the heroic ability on Iron Fist, Living Weapon is truly absurd. You can just use it to guarantee that Iron Fist will deal its damage to your opponent without needing to attack, but the damage can go to creatures, too. Now, every crappy combat trick you play can turn into a devastating removal spell, especially if you use them to buff Iron Fist itself and increase its damage output. As such, this looks like a pretty busted build-around for a good red/white deck with plenty of spells that can trigger it, but you shouldn’t play it outside of that.

Jessica Jones, Private Eye

Rating: 4/10

Jessica Jones, Private Eye is a pretty reasonable, albeit slow draw engine. The main issue I have with it is that I don’t know which deck it fits into. Its best home seems to be the red/green ramp and power-up deck, but none of red’s other themes are going to be that happy with a card like this. Still, “drawing” two extra cards every other turn is a pretty sweet deal. You just need to get around the drawback of needing to wait to use it.

K’un-Lun Warrior

Rating: 3/10

K'un-Lun Warrior is a perfectly serviceable 2-drop. Decent stats, nice upside, good when you draw it late, what’s not to like? Of course, it gets a little better in decks that might have random useless artifacts sitting around, but that’s not necessary to sell me on playing this.

Kree Sentinel

Rating: 2/10

A huge reach creature is randomly very annoying to play against. The main reason to play this card is that it’s a landcycler, but drawing a huge 5/5 later in the game is really not a bad failsafe. I think you’ll play Kree Sentinel more often than some of the other landcyclers in Marvel Super Heroes.

Lightning Strike

Rating: 6/10

We’ve seen Lightning Strike plenty of times before, and it’s always good. Three damage for 2 mana is just a very solid rate on return, and it even goes to the face to help finish off your opponent. What’s not to like?

Loki Laufeyson

Rating: 5/10

Usually, copying your instants and sorceries isn’t a great effect in Limited because it’s just far too situational. Loki Laufeyson is quite a bit better than it looks though, because it’s still just a solid creature that affects the board. Loki might only be able to copy cheap spells at first, but you can still copy Lightning Strike, Dark Deed, or even HULK SMASH! to be able to kill two creatures. I think Loki looks pretty strong, but you need to pair it with plenty of spells like this so that you don’t need to power it up to make it good.

Machinesmith Automaton

Rating: 4/10

I’m sure it goes without saying, but this is only playable in an artifact-based deck. Three mana for a 2/2 is atrocious; this needs to get bigger to be useful. Blue/red might be able to turn Machinesmith Automaton into a 5/5 or a 6/6 with relative ease, which I think will make this a huge bomb with the right setup.

Misty Knight, Hero for Hire

Rating: 3/10

This is such a weird design. At the very least, being a 3/1 for 2 is a good thing, so you can always run Misty Knight, Hero for Hire to open your curve. If all it’s doing with its ability is rummaging, then paying 2 mana for the privilege is pretty terrible. If you can pair it with some conniving or other discard outlets then it starts to put you up on cards, but it’s very mana intensive to do so and I’m not sure the colors will line up well enough to enable that. At the very least, Misty has potential, but it requires some extra effort to reach it.

Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor

Rating: 7/10

Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor is clearly designed to work with the mythic Thor, God of Thunder, but how often are we actually going to be able to combine a pair of mythic rares? On its own, Mjölnir is basically just a split card between a 4-damage removal spell and a 2-damage sweeper. That’s a pretty incredible card on its own, and if you do put it on the battlefield, you can increase the damage output of one of your red/white heroes, too.

Photon Blast Barrage

Rating: 7/10

So, history lesson. Back in 1997’s Tempest, there was a simple common called Rolling Thunder. I think it’s fair to say that this card is one of the strongest commons in the history of Limited. Depending on the sizes of creatures in play, you can remove as many as three or four creatures or just send all the damage to your opponent and win the game on the spot.

Now, Photon Blast Barrage for the most part functions exactly the same, except you get an additional point of damage. Is this effect still good in 2026? I expect it is, but I guess we have a chance to find out!

Quicksilver, Brash Blur

Rating: 2/10

This is a really cool design for Quicksilver, Brash Blur, but a card that’s just Raging Goblin most of the time isn’t likely to make waves any time soon. It’s nice that Quicksilver can power-up in the late game, but by the time you get to 5 mana, a 2/2 with double strike isn’t quite where you want to be.

Red Hulk

Rating: 4/10

Bringing back enrage abilities for the Hulk characters is really cool, but for the most part this just means you shouldn’t (or should I say can’t) block Red Hulk. If all this card works as is a 6/7 with reach and trample that’s unlikely to be blocked or attacked into any time soon, I’d say that’s a reasonable curve-topper.

Repulsor Blast

Rating: 4/10

Red’s common removal spells are looking really good in MSH. Iron Man’s iconic Repulsor Blast is a simple 5 damage for 4 mana, which is a very nice rate to see. The teamwork cost is largely irrelevant; you’d definitely still play this in a deck that had no creatures, but it’s a nice little bonus.

The Scarlet Witch

Rating: 1/10

The Scarlet Witch is yet another 2/3 for 3 mana. This might be my least favorite stat line possible, behind maybe a 4-mana 3/3. Let’s hope the ability is worth playing… nah, not really. Cost reduction is never too relevant, and there are only 11 cards in the entire set that are even eligible for this cost reduction. Only three of them are red, and one of them already reduces its own cost! Wanda Maximoff unfortunately won’t be appearing on most battlefields in Marvel Super Heroes.

Speed, Young Avenger

Rating: 5/10

A 2-mana 2/2 with haste is already a pretty solid creature. Speed, Young Avenger has an extra ability that sounds kind of weird, but it basically amounts to making itself unblockable for 1 mana whenever you cast a noncreature spell. That’s pretty good, and a really annoying threat in the late game.

Stark Industries Executive

Rating: 1/10

Spending 2 mana to create a Treasure sounds like it’s far too expensive to actually be good. I don’t like to underrate 1-drops, but Stark Industries Executive just doesn’t look like it’ll be good enough.

Super Speed

Rating: 1/10

We’ve seen cards like this plenty of times before, and they’re always mediocre at best. It’s kind of nice that you can use it proactively to give something haste, and it’ll help to trigger heroic abilities in red/white, but I don’t think that’s enough to make me interested in Super Speed.

Team Tactics

Rating: 2/10

Temur Battle Rage was once an annoyingly powerful card that eliminated players out of pretty much nowhere. It even saw a ton of Constructed play alongside Death's Shadow, if you could believe it.

Team Tactics is pretty much the same card, though a little harder to enable, and it might be good enough to run in this red/white heroic/prowess deck.

Thor, God of Thunder

Rating: 10/10

“Is your name Thor, God of Hammers?” – Odin, to Thor

By now, I’m sure most people are familiar with Thor, God of Thunder. Marvel’s Thor is a prince from the realm of Asgard. When Asgardians appeared on Midgard (Earth) before the ancient Norse people, they mistook their overwhelming strength for godhood, and so the Norse myths were written. Thor is one of the most powerful Avengers and one of the original members of the team.

This card is also really busted, because a 5/5 flier for 5 mana that lets you get back any instant or sorcery spell is very good. But not only that! Thor turns every noncreature spell you cast into removal, so it’ll dominate pretty much any board you cast it on.

Truck Toss

Rating: 6/10

Four mana for 4 damage to any target is a very nice spell. Getting to go straight to the face is a huge upside over something like Repulsor Blast, and getting a nice cost reduction if you control a vehicle is obviously good. But, if it’s called Truck Toss, shouldn’t you be sacrificing a vehicle? Weird….

Vision of Love

Rating: 3/10

Given how The Vision and The Scarlet Witch’s love story ends, isn’t it a bit too on the nose to allow you to sacrifice an artifact for this card? Either way, Vision of Love is a fine spell to cast in any deck, but you’re only going to prioritize it in decks like red/white that reward you for casting instant spells.

Volcanic Villain

Rating: 2/10

Volcanic Villain looks overwhelmingly mediocre. It’s a haste creature, which is really nice for fitting it into your mana curve. But beyond that, it doesn’t do anything exciting, and you’re probably going to cut it more often than not.

Wonder Man, Hollywood Hero

Rating: 5/10

Have you gone and watched the Wonder Man TV series? If you haven’t, perhaps because you’re not really into the Marvel TV shows, then you absolutely should watch it. It’s probably the least super hero-y super hero show you’ll ever come across. Plus, Sir Ben Kingsley is incredible in it.

Anyway, Wonder Man, Hollywood Hero looks like a kind of solid build-around for red/green decks. Getting to double your power-up abilities is a really cool idea, but it’s still incredibly expensive to do so, so I’m not sure how likely it is to work. At least Wonder Man is a 4/4 flier for 5 to fall back on.

Green

Ant-Man’s Army

Rating: 3/10

Sure, I’ll take a 3/2 plus a Treasure token and cast my 5-drop a turn ahead of schedule. Then, later in the game, when you don’t need the mana, you can create a Food token instead. Ant-Man's Army is a great little common that doesn’t look like much, but it’ll do some work.

Call Damage Control

Rating: 1/10

If you had some good artifacts or enchantments to get back so that this ability felt really good, then sure, you can play this. But on balance, I doubt you’ll Call Damage Control very often. Decoy Ploy is a remarkably similar card but much better.

Claim the Kingdom

Rating: 2/10

“Not a great plan…” – Tony Stark, to Loki

I’m not liking this one. Finding a time to slot this into your curve such that your next land drop actually gives you a +1/+1 counter is very awkward. You can’t play Claim the Kingdom on turn 2 and then get a +1/+1 counter on your 3-drop. On top of that, the indestructible counter is deceptive because there are plenty of ways to deal with something that’s indestructible, including destroying it with this trigger on the stack. I’m not impressed, so prove me wrong!

Doc Samson, Super Psychiatrist

Rating: 4/10

Five-drop mana dorks have not historically been very good. Could Doc Samson, Super Psychiatrist be the exception? I think if you consider it as a build-around to help enable the red/green power-ups deck, it definitely could be good. I mean, all the good power-ups are extremely expensive, so a creature that taps for 3 additional mana, fixes your colors, and gives your creatures extra +1/+1 counters does seem reasonable.

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

Rating: 8/10

We’ve seen plenty of variants of this in the past, and they’ve basically always sucked. Could Earth's Mightiest Heroes finally be the one that’s good? Yeah, I really think it might be. So long as you can pay the teamwork cost, getting to put all of the creatures from your top eight cards directly onto the battlefield is a huge effect. A deck with 15 creatures can expect to find about three of them, and the bigger they are, the more you’re rewarded. Yes, there’s a small chance you’ll find nothing and whiff, but I think that’s fair when balanced with the fact that you could find several creatures and just win off the back of that.

Epic Fight

Rating: 6/10

Why haven’t we seen a Wolverine vs. Hulk fight in the MCU yet? I mean come on, is that really too much to ask? Yeah, this is an Epic Fight spell, and if you use it with something big enough, you’ll not only take out any opposing creature, but you should be able to take away a big chunk of your opponent’s life total, too.

Giant Growth

Rating: 3/10

It’s hard to beat a classic. Giant Growth is as old as Magic itself, and if you need a combat trick in green, you can’t do much better than this. +3/+3 is very good, and 1 mana allows you to slot it into your curve whenever you like.

Go Nuts!

Rating: 4/10

A +1/+1 counter for 1 mana is obviously not good enough, so if you’re not paying the teamwork cost, you really need to use this as a Prey Upon. Then, if you can teamwork it, you can let even smaller creatures Go Nuts! on an opponent’s creature. Seems good, but fight spells aren’t as good as they could be. Still, this is usually the best you can do in green.

Guerrilla Gorilla

Rating: 1/10

Yeah, a 2/2 with reach for 2 mana is kind of playable, but that’s about all this is going to be. You might be able to snipe a good artifact or enchantment, like a Web Up or something similar, but most of the time Guerrilla Gorilla is just a weak 2-drop that you’d rather not play.

Hellcat, Undying Vigilante

Rating: 5/10

Oh hey, Strangleroot Geist! It’s been a while! How’ve you been?

Hellcat, Undying Vigilante is a good, aggressive creature that looks like it’ll work very well in the green/white deck in particular. Double green is a little annoying, but it’s fine to fit this into your curve after turn 2, so it should be alright.

Hercules, Prince of Power

Rating: 3/10

If you play Hercules, Prince of Power as a 5-drop with its power-up ability, then it’s cool that you get to immediately attack with a hasty indestructible creature, but only being a 4/4 is pretty underwhelming at that point. It’s very possible your opponent will just have something with 5 toughness for you to bounce off of. Then, after that turn, it’s just a 4/4 and loses its extra keywords. There are way better green power-up creatures than this.

Heroic Feast

Rating: 2/10

This is a brilliant design, though sadly not something that’s going to be very good in Limited. There are very few cards in Marvel Super Heroes that create Food tokens or gain life, so it’s very difficult to actually utilize it. Heroic Feast feels like a meme-tastic plant for Constructed or Commander, but not for the Draft format.

Hulkling, Burgeoning Bruiser

Rating: 3/10

Great, another 2/3 for 3 mana. For an uncommon legend, I generally expect something better than just having vigilance and evolve. Hulkling, Burgeoning Bruiser is fine, but just incredibly boring. I doubt whatever green deck you draft will ever miss this if you don’t draft one.

Ka-Zar of the Savage Land

Rating: 7/10

How is this not a rare? Ka-Zar of the Savage Land looks like if Icetill Explorer were designed solely for Limited play. A 3/2 plus a 2/2 for 5 mana is a good start, but it’s extra free lands you get off the top of your deck that really sells this card. The legendary 2/2 cat token will grow into a real threat in no time at all, and you’ll probably draw a bunch of free lands in the meantime. This is a great card and probably one of green’s best.

Knight of Wundagore

Rating: 3/10

There are so many +1/+1 counters in MSH that I have no trouble imagining this growing at least once or twice in most games. Of course, if you have no ways to trigger Knight of Wundagore, you probably shouldn’t play it, but it’ll be a very solid 2-drop if you can.

Mister Hyde, Monster Within

Rating: 5/10

While it’s pretty bad to have to wait a whole turn before Mister Hyde, Monster Within even does anything, picking up a free counter or a card draw every single upkeep is a very solid ability. Even without attacking, Hyde can just grow and grow until it’s big enough to start attacking comfortably, so it likely requires a removal spell at some point. The only question is whether you can afford to wait that long.

Mole Man, Moloid Master

Rating: 6/10

A 1/1 that creates more 1/1s on landfall is a pretty good creature by itself. Mole Man, Moloid Master feels like more of a Constructed card, where you can really make use of its Crucible of Worlds ability, but churning out minion tokens is more than enough for us in Limited.

Pet Avengers

Rating: 4/10

Okay, I’m calling it, best card in set right here! It’s a shame they had to make this card a common. All the creatures in MSH above common rarity are legendary, and you probably can’t fit legendary on the type line. Still, I’ll take it.

At 4 mana, the Pet Avengers it a good curve-filler card as a 4/4 with reach, but on 7 mana, you get a 5/5 and a 3/2 which is an even better deal. This is the common payoff I want most for the red/green deck, and it might even be good enough elsewhere.

Powerful Broker

Rating: 3/10

The issue with proliferating counters is simply that this doesn’t do anything if you can’t get the first +1/+1 counter from somewhere else. Activating it as a sorcery also takes it out of combat for a turn cycle. I don’t know, at the end of day, Powerful Broker still has good stats, so it’ll never actually be dead, even without any counters to work with.

Punishing Punch

Rating: 6/10

Don’t be fooled, Punishing Punch is a perfectly reasonable removal spell for 3 mana. Of course, the black/green deck will more commonly be able to cast it for cheap, but this is a great card in any green deck.

Rapid Rescue

Rating: 3/10

Rapid Rescue is simply a functional reprint of Seed of Hope. This innocuous little common was pretty good back in March of the Machine, and I’m sure that if your deck is mostly permanent cards to ensure you don’t miss often, then it can be a good card here too. Especially in black/green.

Reptil, Dinomorpher

Rating: 1/10

Seeing a name like Reptil, Dinomorpher just makes me think of Power Rangers (UB crossover sometime soon?). As cool as this card is, having to pay this much mana to make it big enough to brawl in combat is just not going to happen. It’s not like you can afford to pay 3 mana on turn 3 just to attack for 2 extra damage and not commit a new creature to the board. Just don’t play this, it’s pretty terrible.

Restorative Technique

Rating: 3/10

Three mana isn’t great for a Rampant Growth effect, but Restorative Technique at least sweetens the deal with a +1/+1 counter and some life. There’s very little mana fixing available in MSH, and this looks like it’ll be important to fix for a few nice cards in the set.

Rick Jones, Destined Sidekick

Rating: 4/10

Unlike Reptil, Dinomorpher, if you sink 3 mana into Rick Jones, Destined Sidekick, you actually get to advance your gameplan. That said, 3 mana is a pretty hefty cost and not something you can often afford early, but it plays out nicely if you hold up removal or a counterspell that you don’t end up using.

Savage Land Dinosaur

Rating: 3/10

A 7/6 Colossal Dreadmaw with landcycling is pretty great. Green has a couple of archetypes that are interested in ramping and playing 6-drops and Savage Land Dinosaur looks perfect for those decks.

Serpent Specialist

Rating: 4/10

Serpent Specialist has a pretty cheap power-up, but also the one that you care about the least. A 1/1 with deathtouch for just 1 mana is a great card on its own, and picking up two +1/+1 counters at some point doesn’t really add to that.

Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu

Rating: 5/10

Now here’s a weird one. This is kind of a dangerous ability to print on a 2-drop, but that’s for Constructed formats. In Limited, Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu functions entirely as a double mana dork that only contributes towards power-up costs, which is honestly very good. If we’re building around the power-up mechanic, you can essentially view the power-up costs as casting costs, which essentially enables Shang-Chi to help you cast your bigger creatures anyway. Outside of a deck like that, I don’t think you need this at all.

She-Hulk, Jade Defender

Rating: 5/10

Once you power-up She-Hulk, Jade Defender, it’s only a 5/5, which isn’t all that impressive. It’s going to be incredible against decks with lots of artifacts and/or enchantments, but kind of average against everything else. I’ll be happy to pick up this She-Hulk card, but I’m not likely to go out of my way for it.

Super Strength

Rating: 1/10

+4/+4 and trample is a huge buff, but the key to figure out if this card’s playable is to check the type line. Since it says “aura”, that means it’s basically unplayable. Imagine spending all your mana to cast this only to have your opponent kill your creature, trading off two-for-one against you, and you’ve wasted both your cards and your turn. No thanks. I’m leaving Super Strength for someone else.

The Thing, Ben Grimm

Rating: 5/10

Six mana for a 7/7 with trample is already pretty fantastic, but thanks to The Thing, Ben Grimm’s ability, it’s often be a 9/9 on the turn you play it, which is truly absurd. Don’t get me wrong, The Thing is just a huge, trampling vanilla creature, which definitely limits its potential, but it’s definitely big enough to keep my attention.

Tigra, Feline Fury

Rating: 2/10

Ajani's Pridemate with flash and trample is pretty cool, but like I said about Heroic Feast, there’s no lifegain theme in Marvel Super Heroes and very few cards that actually gain you life. So yeah, Tigra, Feline Fury might be able to grow a little bit, but it’s mostly just be a 2/1, and that’s well below what we want.

Training Regimen

Rating: 1/10

I kind of want to never play this card just so that I don’t have to look at the artwork and that blurred image of Quicksilver on a treadmill. If Training Regimen were a creature, it would be really strong, but only adding an enchantment to the board is pretty weak, so I don’t think this card is good enough.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Rating: 9/10

I’m so glad that we get to see The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl in this set, and this card is really cool. Triple green is a very prohibitive cost, but once you’re able to cast it, it’s a very simple army-in-a-can card. You get Squirrel Girl as a 4/4 plus a free 1/1 Squirrel token right away, and you can then activate its ability turn after turn and keep making more squirrels. If your opponent doesn’t remove it, Squirrel Girl floods the board with exponentially more squirrels turn after turn and eventually wins you the game. Your deck has to be very green heavy, but that’s a price you should be willing to pay because this card really is that good.

Undercover Skrull

Rating: 4/10

Two-drop mana dorks are excellent in Limited, pretty much no matter what else they do. It’s nice that Undercover Skrull is sometimes a 3/3, but that’s not what sells me on it. I just want anything that can accelerate my mana this early, and this is perfectly reasonable at doing that.

Wakandan Royal Guard

Rating: 1/10

Common 5-drops are a dime a dozen. There’s nothing wrong with Wakandan Royal Guard in theory, but it’s also nothing special. Most of the time, your deck will probably have a rare or uncommon 5-drop that you’d rather play instead, and you’ll end up cutting this.

White Tiger, Ava Ayala

Rating: 5/10

A 3/3 plus a 4/4 for 6 mana is pretty solid, but when you pair that with this also being a 2/2 on turn 2, White Tiger, Ava Ayala looks like a pretty good card overall. It most obviously has a home in the red/green power-up decks, but all of green’s archetypes could use a card like this.

World War Hulk

Rating: 1/10

Rating: 7/10

Time for another unpopular opinion! I actually really liked Colin Farrell’s Bullseye in the 2003 Daredevil movie. I know everyone hates the movie, especially for the wildly bad casting choice of Ben Affleck as Daredevil, but at least for me, Farrell did a good job and Michael Clark Duncan made a good Kingpin, too. The TV shows were much better, but still.

Anyway, Bullseye, Death Dealer is a hell of a Magic card. It looks like it’ll function best in blue/red artifacts, where it can sacrifice useless artifacts and turn them into removal. The fact that Bullseye can do so repeatedly just makes it a powerhouse on board that absolutely must be killed, which is a great place for an uncommon to land.

Captain America, Living Legend

Rating: 4/10

The white/blue deck in Marvel Super Heroes is really struggling for some kind of identity. So far, it has to be my pick for the worst archetype. There’s just no reason to go for it. Captain America, Living Legend is a fine card on its own, but its ability amounts to little more than giving all of your creatures vigilance. It’s nice that mana dorks can tap for double, but they don’t even exist in white/blue. Yeah, this is a hard miss for me.

Cloak and Dagger, Entwined

Rating: 8/10

Cloak and Dagger, Entwined is a really cool design that I can’t believe we’ve never seen before. It’s basically a fusion of Banisher Priest and Deep-Cavern Bat, two exceptionally good cards. Whether you need to answer a threat on board or want to disrupt an opponent’s future plays, this Cloak and Dagger card is here for you and it’s awesome!

The Coming of Galactus

Rating: 9/10

Galactus is one of the most iconic big bads in Marvel. He’s an enormous cosmic being who consumes planets to stay alive. Of course, when he tries to consume the Earth, the Fantastic Four have something to say about it.

The Coming of Galactus is a bit of a slow burn, but at least you get to destroy anything upfront with the first chapter ability. Then, when Galactus comes in a few turns’ time, it probably ends the game. Though of course, a 16/16 token is still a token and has all the downsides of one, so it’s very vulnerable to removal, but your opponent only gets one turn of reprieve before they lose, so it’ll probably work out.

Daredevil, Man Without Fear

Rating: 8/10

Daredevil is easily one of the most badass super heroes in the Marvel roster, and Charlie Cox does an incredible job portraying him in the TV show.

The card, Daredevil, Man Without Fear, is quite the powerhouse itself. It’s basically a haste threat that allows you to draw a free card whenever you attack. It’s worth noting that the +2/+1 bonus that Daredevil gives itself is the only thing locked behind your top card being a hero, but you’ll still get to play that card no matter what it is. Red/white aggro in MSH is bound to be full of cheap spells and prowess/heroic creatures, so Daredevil looks like the perfect card to top your curve and end games quickly.

Ghost, Spectral Saboteur

Rating: 2/10

This card is kind of weird. It doesn’t really do anything that blue or black cares about, besides being a villain. Ghost, Spectral Saboteur is just very mediocre, and you probably won’t even bother taking it most of the time.

Hulk, Gamma Goliath

Rating: 7/10

Hulk, Gamma Goliath is an incredible build-around payoff for power-up abilities. Not only is it huge by itself (because it’s a Hulk card, so of course it is), but 3 mana is an enormous discount. Most power-up abilities cost about 2 or 3 on the turn the creature enters, so a lot of your creatures will be able to power-up for free! A lot of the power-up creatures look a little bit below the curve, but with this Hulk in play, they all become massively efficient threats.

Iron Man, Master of Machines

Rating: 7/10

If your blue/red deck can create lots of artifacts, then you want a payoff that benefits you for having lots of them in play, and probably one that gives a reward every time you play a new one. Luckily for you, Iron Man, Master of Machines is both of those payoffs rolled into one, and it does both fairly well.

Kang, Temporal Tyrant

Rating: 5/10

Kang, Temporal Tyrant isn’t exactly the strongest payoff for the draw two deck, but it’s still a pretty nice one. I’ve said this a few times already, but all these little damage pings (or life drains in this case) add up over time. My main criticism is that you can only trigger this once per turn, but it’s still a good ability to have. There are better payoffs for this deck, but this one can definitely be added to the pile.

Killmonger, Scourge of Wakanda

Rating: 8/10

Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger was one of the most compelling villains in the MCU and one of the best things about the Black Panther movie. His card is no joke either.

Killmonger, Scourge of Wakanda is basically the same as Skyfisher Spider, a mythic uncommon from The Brothers’ War. While you don’t have a ton of free creatures lying around to sacrifice, trading anything for the ability to kill something better is still very powerful. This is likely one of the strongest nonrare cards in MSH, and something I’d also be very happy to splash for.

King T’Challa / Black Panther, Hope Enduring

Rating: 9/10

The late, great Chadwick Boseman stormed onto our screens as King T'Challa in Captain America: Civil War. Ever since, he’s been an icon of the genre until his untimely death in 2020. I implore you to check out some of Boseman’s other work, because I’ve yet to find a project he wasn’t great in.

Anyway, T’Challa is a pretty powerful card advantage engine by itself, like a Faerie Mastermind that even triggers when you draw your second card. But it’s Black Panther, Hope Enduring that really shines here. A 3/3 double strike who’s completely invulnerable to damage and is going to draw you two cards if it hits a player? That’s a must-kill threat if I’ve ever seen one.

The Kingpin of Crime

Rating: 8/10

Here he is: The Kingpin of Crime. While most super villains in Marvel try to rule the world or destroy it one way or another, there are plenty of heroes who just care about protecting the little guy and fighting crime. When that’s the case, they’re probably going to encounter The Kingpin, the crime lord of crime lords.

If you’ve never gotten to play with extort in Limited before, you’re in for a treat. The ability to drain your opponent with basically every spell you cast gets annoying very quickly. Not to mention that this Wilson Fisk card also likes to get into combat itself, attacking as a 5/5 as early as turn 4. This is a great creature that doesn’t have a lot of synergy with black/white’s theme, but it’s just good regardless.

Madame Hydra

Rating: 7/10

Getting to create a 2/1 with menace every single time you cast a villain is just ridiculous. If you can play Madame Hydra somewhat early and it doesn’t die, I can’t see how you’d ever lose that game. There’s that slight downside though. It’s pretty fragile, and casting it on curve leaves it exposed on the field for a turn. If you can get past that, it’s one of the best villain payoffs you’re likely to see.

The Mighty Thor, Jane Foster

Rating: 9/10

The Mighty Thor, Jane Foster might as well be called The Mighty Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd. Phelia has shown us just how powerful flickering something with every attack can really be. Also, thanks to Jane Foster’s last ability, that thing doesn’t even need to have a good ETB trigger, since you could always flicker an equipment to draw an extra card. It's a definite bomb for the set; it just requires a little bit of work to really pop off.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

Rating: 6/10

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur doesn’t make much sense to me. The card has a trigger for the blue/black deck and another for the blue/red deck, yet it’s a blue/green card? It’s nice that the second ability enables the first, but blue/green I don’t think is likely to play a lot of random artifacts. I think this card’s best use is probably as a very good splash in other decks, but you need to plan around it whatever you do.

The Ruinous Wrecking Crew

Rating: 5/10

The Ruinous Wrecking Crew looks like a good card in theory, but every mode on the triggered ability is so minor that it’s never going to be that big of a deal, even if you get to do all four. It’s nice that it scales well with the game though, and it’s pretty funny that it can kill off the Galactus token, so keep an eye out for that if you can.

Scientist Supreme of A.I.M.

Rating: 3/10

While copying abilities for free has a lot of latent potential, Scientist Supreme of A.I.M. comes in a color pair that doesn’t care about artifacts in the slightest. The best use of this is probably to splash it in a dedicated artifacts deck, because running it alongside only a couple of random artifacts in blue/black doesn’t sound like a winning combination.

The Serpent Society

Rating: 5/10

I’ve seen the internet go into a frenzy over this card already, since it's the first new poison counter card in a few years. In Limited, the ward cost is an absolute joke. Picking up five poison counters does nothing without any ways to give you more. From what I can tell, only Powerful Broker has the potential to do that. There also aren’t very many deathtouch creatures in MSH, so The Serpent Society looks like a simple Commander plant that’ll get by in Limited on its stats alone.

Speedball, New Warrior

Rating: 4/10

Speedball, New Warrior’s ability is a bit weird, but it essentially amounts to being a double prowess that triggers with targeted spells, since you can always target Speedball and then redirect them to their real target. It seems tailor-made for red/white prowess, so why is Speedball blue/red? At least it’s hybrid, so you’ll be able to play it in the right deck anyway.

Spider-Man, To the Rescue

Rating: 5/10

Yes, I know we already had an entire set full of Spider-Man cards, but did you really think a set called Marvel Super Heroes wouldn’t contain at least one Peter Parker? Spider-Man, To the Rescue is very situational, but it basically flashes in to save a nonattacking hero from removal. You can also use it as a nice combat trick, since it can make a blocker indestructible, too. This card isn’t particularly exciting, but it does its job.

Spider-Woman, Secret Agent

Rating: 6/10

We saw a very similar card to Spider-Woman, Secret Agent recently, with Avatar’s Ty Lee, Chi Blocker. It turns out that having a Claustrophobia on a stick is a pretty good card overall. Spider-Woman is bound to be a fair bit worse than Ty Lee, but the effect is still very strong.

Storm, Windrider

Rating: 9/10

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a card quite like this before. Storm, Windrider completely pacifies your opponent’s flying creatures just by staying on the battlefield. This makes your own fliers practically unblockable and neuters your opponent’s ability to fight back. Not to mention it’s also a big flying creature itself. I think Storm looks absolutely incredible, and it’s going to be very difficult to fight against.

The Super Hero Civil War

Rating: 9/10

This reminds me a lot of The Akroan War, a card I don’t remember playing much, but it was played against me a lot and I didn’t like it. The Super Hero Civil War is just incredibly annoying to play against. Your opponent can steal your best creature for a couple of turns and then probably have it killed off in a fight before they have to give it back to you. Worse yet, they might be able to steal two creatures if the mana values line up correctly. No matter which way I look at it, I don’t see this card going badly. It just looks incredible.

Taskmaster, Mercenary Mimic

Rating: 8/10

You might be reading Taskmaster, Mercenary Mimic and thinking, haven’t I seen this card already? And you’d be right! Taskmaster is the exact same design as Absorbing Man, but instead it copies creatures. On average that’s going to be the much better ability, especially as you can copy power-up abilities so that you keep a bonus past the end of the turn.

Thanos, the Mad Titan

Rating: 4/10

“Thanos is just the latest in a long line of bastards and he’ll be the latest to feel my vengeance, fate wills it so!” – Thor, Avengers: Infinity War

The lone survivor of the planet Titan, Thanos is a murderous warlord bent on “correcting” the Universe by ending half of all life. He works to assemble the six Infinity Stones so that he can do this with a simple snap of his fingers.

The card design sums up this story perfectly, but getting access to all five colors isn’t exactly easy, and the colorless mana isn’t trivial either. Thanos, the Mad Titan was clearly designed with Commander/Constructed in mind, so here it’s going to be little more than an efficient triple-color vanilla creature.

Thor Odinson

Rating: 6/10

Prowess is often a very unassuming ability, so you could be forgiven for underestimating a creature that has double prowess. But you really should give it another look. If every noncreature spell is giving +2/+2, you only need a couple of cheap ones to turn Thor Odinson into a flier with 8 power for the turn. This is a really nasty card and a great curve-topper for these prowess decks.

Titania, Rugged Rumbler

Rating: 3/10

You obviously want to be able to get a mana discount on Titania, Rugged Rumbler, since it’s a pretty below average 5-drop. If you can do so without discarding something too good, then it contributes to the board quite nicely, but I’d really want to make sure I had cards in my deck that liked to be discarded. Project Deathlok Soldier is really pulling its weight here.

U.S.Agent, John Walker

Rating: 6/10

U.S.Agent, John Walker is an example of a classically good card design for Limited. It’s a 4/4 for 4 that leaves behind a relevant permanent when it dies. The Sturdy Shield isn’t a particularly good permanent, but it’s still a piece of equipment that you get entirely for free out of this very defensible 4-drop.

Vision Quest

Rating: 8/10

The problem with creature tutors is that you end up paying extra mana for your creature, and even the best creatures in your deck get significantly worse if you have to pay extra for them. Enter Vision Quest. You pay 2 extra mana for your creature, but in exchange you get a ton of additional upsides. You can grab the creature from your graveyard as well as your library, so if what you want has already died, you’re not out of luck. You get a bunch of extra +1/+1 counters so even a random common would be good to fetch. And finally, you even gain haste if X is 4 or more. Imagine paying X=4 and grabbing Iron Man, Master of Machines, who now attacks as a 5/8 with flying and vigilance and draws a card. This looks like an incredible card for blue/red, really bucking the trend of its predecessors.

War Machine, Legacy of Iron

Rating: 4/10

Getting to buff a creature at the start of combat is a pretty good ability for such a cheap creature. Pump spells also work pretty nicely with it, allowing you to get twice the bonus out of your spells. War Machine, Legacy of Iron is just a very solid early creature, and it’s worth playing in most decks that can cast it.

Winter Solider, Icy Assassin

Rating: 5/10

I have no idea if this equipment theme can really shine through. It’s a bit weird that black/white has two distinct themes, so neither of them have particularly strong support. Even if your deck has no equipment in it, Winter Soldier, Icy Assassin is still a 2/2 that you can return to the battlefield with its own ability. If I had Bucky in my deck, that would encourage me to find an equipment card to go with it, but it’s not necessary to make it useful.

Wolverine, Fierce Fighter

Rating: 9/10

Playing Wolverine, Fierce Fighter on curve is absolutely devastating. It immediately kills an opponent’s creature and can even attack right away. If they have other blockers, Wolverine doesn’t care, since it can only die to damage that would kill it in one shot. This is one of the easiest ways to pick up a two-for-one and take an early lead in any game.

Worlds Within Worlds

Rating: 0/10

Okay, I’m sure that it’s possible to plan around Worlds Within Worlds and make it work, but I’m not willing to figure it out. Seven mana is far too much for a weird card like this, and your opponent can just recast whatever you send back to their hand. This isn’t for us. Just move on.

Artifacts

A.I.M. Synthoids

Rating: 1/10

Sure, A.I.M. Synthoids is a card you can technically play, but it’s incredibly weak. It has a few things going for it that let it slot into a bunch of decks, but I don’t think that matters.

Arc Reactor

Rating: 3/10

“Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!” – Obadiah Stane

The Arc Reactor is the device that powers Iron Man’s suit and also the electromagnet that keeps him alive.

This is a nice mana rock, especially because it has improvise to make it a lot more affordable. I don’t know if artifact decks are going to be doing this, but if you have some expensive artifacts to ramp into, or big power-up abilities to activate, this could definitely be a way to enable them.

Captain America’s Shield

Rating: 6/10

Captain America's Shield lets you turn just about any creature into a pretty resilient threat on the board. +0/+8 might not increase your damage output, but it makes your creature pretty much unbeatable in combat. Add that to the vigilance and the attack trigger that taps a creature, and you have a nice little package. Also, combining this with cards like Captain America, Wings of Freedom and The Kingpin of Crime sounds pretty funny.

Cosmic Cube

Rating: 8/10

The Cosmic Cube joins a long list of somewhat expensive legendary artifacts in Magic that give you access to free spells each turn. Requiring you to attack, and with something big enough at that, is quite an annoying downside. Still, you dig deep enough into your deck that you should be able to find something worth casting each time, and it’ll only take a few free casts to feel like you’ve gotten away with something.

Dependable Quinjet

Rating: 3/10

Every set these days has a common 3-drop mana rock. Some, like Potioner's Trove, are incredible. Others tend to suck. Dependable Quinjet looks quite good, even with its hefty crew cost holding it back a bit. If you want to fix your colors, you could do much worse than this.

H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit

Rating: 2/10

At 4 mana, H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit is just a bit too expensive for what you’re getting. Of course, that’s expected from a colorless card that any deck could play, but it’s just not good enough to make the cut for most decks.

Iron Man Armor

Rating: 7/10

We’ve already seen Falcon's Wing Harness, and that looks pretty good. An equipment that automatically equips and grants flying makes for a great card in Limited. Now, Iron Man Armor does this in a much better way, not just by giving a better buff and being cheaper to equip later, but being colorless allows any deck to play this card. But not only that! Since Iron Man’s suit doesn’t actually need a pilot, you can turn it into a creature for the turn, which gives it another level of flexibility that’ll make it a great card to open.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier

Rating: 0/10

Okay, what’s going on here? While it’s true that vehicles aren’t too bad if they give you a good ability while not being crewed, there are limits. Four mana to get a pair of 1/1s is terrible, so the vehicle itself needs to make up for that, but S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier doesn’t do that in any way. Crew 6 is obscenely bad, especially when all you’re getting is a flier with 4 power.

Super-Adaptoid

Rating: 6/10

Most of this set’s creatures are in fact legendary, so Super-Adaptoid will probably be quite big for just a 2-drop. From there, playing this creature on most boards should allow you to pick up at least one or two keyword counters and turn this into a very real threat that any deck can play.

The Ten Rings

Rating: 3/10

The Ten Rings can definitely be a powerful card, allowing you to draw a ton of cards every turn. However, costing 8 mana is far too prohibitive for most decks to handle. If you can accelerate your mana in some way, this might be something good to pay you off for that, but without that support, this isn’t very playable.

Ultron, Artificial Malevolence

Rating: 7/10

In principle, getting to copy any artifact you play for just 2 mana sounds pretty good. For the most part it will be, but Ultron, Artificial Malevolence has a pretty significant drawback that I wouldn’t have thought would be missed off the card nowadays. It doesn’t stop the copies from being legendary. 15/40 of the artifacts in this set are legendary, which limits Ultron’s potential a fair bit. You can still get their ETB triggers, but you can’t keep them around. On balance, Ultron still has plenty of good artifacts to copy and turn into advantage, so it’s clearly powerful, but it’s just a shame to see it not be a little more flexible.

Ultron Drone

Rating: 1/10

At 6 mana, Ultron Drone isn’t actually horrible, giving you a 4/5 and a 2/2 for just one card. But for 3 mana, a 2/3 vanilla creature really is bad. I’m sure each color will be able to get away without needing to resort to this, but it’s not wholly useless if you need an extra playable.

Vibranium Energy Daggers

Rating: 1/10

The most important cost on any equipment card is the equip cost, not the casting cost. It doesn’t really matter that Vibranium Energy Daggers costs just 1 mana; it matters that 3 to equip it to a creature is quite a lot. There are a few ways to bypass it, so the card might find a home, but for most decks this is too expensive for the reward you get.

The Vision

Rating: 8/10

Getting to draw a free card whenever you cast a noncreature spell is a pretty great payoff, and becoming indestructible is an effective way to protect The Vision if you have any instants lying around. Better yet, being colorless, any deck can play The Vision and be pretty happy with it.

Viv Vision, Teen Synthezoid

Rating: 3/10

At 3 mana, you only get a Wind Drake, but for 7 you get a 4/4 flier that draws you a card when it attacks. Neither of these are particularly efficient, but the mix of both on a colorless card doesn’t seem too bad. Getting to 7 is no joke, but an artifact-based deck or something with some mana acceleration could definitely utilize Viv Vision, Teen Synthezoid.

Lands

The Gain Lands

Rating: 4/10

It’s always great to see a cycle of gain lands in any set. Land bases made up of the typical seventeen basic lands are bad, and anything you can do to improve them is worth doing. If you ever see one of these in the color combination you’re drafting, it’s worth taking over most average commons, but not over more premium cards.

Avengers Tower

Rating: 5/10

In any deck with a good concentration of heroes, Avengers Tower isn’t just a decent mana fixer, but also something you can sink mana into in the late game to find more spells to cast. You should take it a little higher than your average dual land, but it’s still not as good as the best uncommons or rares in MSH.

Baxter Building

Rating: 1/10

The Baxter Building is obviously designed to have as many fours written on it as possible, since it’s the home of The Fantastic Four. Unfortunately for us, that means it sucks as a color fixer and is way too situational and expensive as a draw engine. This land just falls short of the mark, so very few decks are likely to be interested in it.

Castle Doom

Rating: 7/10

Castle Doom isn’t just a color fixer for artifact decks, but it’s a particularly good utility land, too. Turning random throwaway artifacts into 3/3s is a great way to pick up some late game advantage. Of course, you need to be able to feed it, but there are plenty of ways to do so, including an endless stream of them if you use Project Deathlok Soldier.

The New Dual Lands

Rating: 6/10

We haven’t had a new cycle of dual lands in Standard for quite some time. This cycle is pretty interesting, and in Limited they basically have no downsides. That makes them substantially better than the common ones, and you probably should take them higher as a result.

Surveillance Room

Rating: 4/10

We’ve seen this same design time and time again, and it’s always good to see. Getting to surveil is a really nice benefit, especially if you want to fill your graveyard, and adding 1 mana to a cost in exchange for fixing a color isn’t too bad of a downside. Above all else, Surveillance Room doesn’t enter tapped like most nonrare lands, so you can still play it on curve.

Villainous Hideout

Rating: 5/10

As a counterpoint to Avengers Tower for heroes, we of course have Villainous Hideout for the villains. It’s actually very similar, so if you have a bunch of villains at your disposal, you should take it a little higher than a typical dual land.

Source Material Bonus Sheet

Just like with last year’s Spider-Man set, this set contains a bonus sheet of “Source Material” cards. These are reprinted cards from Magic’s history that feature classic Marvel artwork. These are not to everyone’s tastes, but I think they look incredible. They do appear in Play boosters, so we will talk about them, but since they only appear once in every 24 packs, and all at the same rarity, we’re just going to talk about the good ones.

There are 60 of them in total (well, 58, because three of them are just Heroic Intervention with different arts). First of all, here’s a list of the cards I’m not talking about because their grades would be too low (around 0-2/10):

Concerted Effort
Light of Promise
Return to the Ranks
Steelshaper's Gift
T’Challa’s Protection (Teferi's Protection)
Harbinger of the Seas
Lord of Atlantis
Mechanized Production
Black Panther’s Redirection (Narset's Reversal)
Reconnaissance Mission
Show and Tell
Chaos Warp
Fiery Emancipation
Seize the Day
Bedlam
Grimm Fate (Beast Within)
Force of Vigor
Heroic Intervention
Primal Vigor
Steely Resolve
Fight to the Death
Privileged Position
Sundering Growth
Horn of Greed

And now, let’s check out the rest.

White

Heaven-Sent Marvel (Archangel of Thune)

Rating: 8/10

Big lifelink, flying creatures are pretty much always good. Archangel of Thune raises the stakes by also growing your team every time it hits, or even any time you manage to gain a little bit of life, so yeah, nice classic bomb rare.

Don’t Move

Rating: 6/10

Don't Move is an exceptional board wipe against aggro decks, but it’s still a bit too situational. It has to be, because your own creatures won’t be tapped, making this a very possible Plague Wind.

Ephemerate

Rating: 4/10

Ephemerate might be the best flicker spell we’ve ever seen. One mana to flicker a creature is a little too costly, so why not get two flickers for the same price? While you can’t play this in any old white deck, you just need a few little synergies to make it very useful.

Final Showdown

Rating: 8/10

Six mana is a little high for a board wipe, but in exchange for that, you get an instant speed one, which is a lot more flexible. Heck, for 7 mana you can even protect one of your creatures from it. Final Showdown is a very powerful sweeper that can really catch your opponents off guard.

Path to Exile

Rating: 7/10

While you can’t expect to play Path to Exile early in a game, the later a game goes, the more effective it is. Don’t underestimate the ability to exile any creature for just 1 mana, you just can’t beat it.

Righteous Fury

Rating: 5/10

Why do we have a third sweeper on this list and the second one that only hits tapped creatures? Righteous Fury is weird to see here, but it still seems good, just slightly worse than Don't Move.

Blue

Counterspell

Rating: 5/10

The OG Counterspell is always pretty solid. Double blue can be tricky, but 2 mana to answer anything is always desirable.

Cyberdrive Awakener

Rating: 9/10

Cyberdrive Awakener was first printed in a Commander precon, so we’ve never had a chance to draft it. In any artifact-based deck, it looks absolutely ridiculous. All you need is a few treasures or otherwise useless artifacts lying around and all of a sudden they’ve all become flying 4/4s and you can win the game on the spot. This is kind of like a Craterhoof Behemoth for artifacts except a lot easier to cast, and as such it looks like an incredible bomb.

Dig Through Time

Rating: 7/10

Stock Up, meet your daddy, Dig Through Time, one of the most broken card draw spells in Magic’s history. It does need a bit of setup, but getting to pick two cards from your top seven for as little as two mana is pretty incredible if you can manage it.

Simulacrum Synthesizer

Rating: 6/10

The biggest problem with Simulacrum Synthesizer is that it does very little on the turn you play it, but after that, it’s incredible. When we first saw this in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, it had no support around it, but there’s a whole artifact theme in this set that will love to see this.

Three Steps Ahead

Rating: 6/10

Cancel isn’t strong enough for most Limited formats, but the additional modes that you get on Three Steps Ahead put it well above that. It’s actually very flexible and you can play it in just about any blue deck.

Black

Widow-Making Infiltrator (Dauthi Voidwalker)

Rating: 7/10

I’m a huge fan of Dauthi Voidwalker in general. You can just have it sit in play as a 3-power unblockable creature until something much better gets exiled by it and you can trade it for that spell. This is just a great value creature.

Deadly Dispute

Rating: 4/10

We’ve seen a lot of variants on this same design before and Deadly Dispute is probably the best one we’ve ever seen. It’s even banned in Pauper. For the most part it’s the same, but getting a free treasure token also accelerates your mana, which makes this a slam dunk for any deck that has fodder to sacrifice to it.

Extinction Event

Rating: 7/10

Extinction Event is a very unique board wipe that you can control to an extent. Since you know it’s coming, you should be able to manipulate the outcome and not lose many creatures of your own.

Final Act

You might be aware of my dislike of auras in general, but Rancor is one of the good ones. You can still be blown out by a removal spell that’s cast with Rancor on the stack, but as long as it resolves you’re all good. +2/+0 and trample is a great buff on most creatures and the fact that you keep getting it back to reuse again and again makes this one of the best auras ever made.

Unnatural Growth

Rating: 4/10

Quadruple green is a ridiculous mana cost, but what you get for it is exceptionally powerful. Your deck needs to be skewed towards green mana in order to make this easier to cast, but once you get Unnatural Growth onto the board, your combats will become almost trivial for the rest of the game.

Multicolored

Anthem of Champions

Rating: 6/10

It doesn’t get much more simple than Anthem of Champions. Green/white is even a go-wide aggro deck in this format which will benefit greatly from a cheap anthem effect.

Monica, the Marvel (Aurelia, the Warleader)

Rating: 9/10

Extra combats are only bad when they come attached to sorceries, enchantments, and the like. Aurelia, the Warleader is a huge bomb that can completely swing a game back to your favor. Even without a board of your own, she still attacks for 6 damage in the air and remains available to block on the following turn too.

Black Panther, Wakandan King

Rating: 7/10

I think it’s great to see the headliners of the first Marvel Secret Lair drop return on this bonus sheet. I was one of the lucky few who managed to buy them when they were released, but I know many more people missed out, so it’s great to see more of these ending up in the wild.

Black Panther, Wakandan King is a really potent threat. You barely even need to activate his ability, because just the threat of being able to move a bunch of +1/+1 counters onto a creature in the middle of combat will dissuade your opponent from blocking you, and you can also just spend your mana to draw cards when you want to.

Captain America, First Avenger

Rating: 8/10

The funny thing about Captain America, First Avenger is that you’re much more likely to want to Catch first and then Throw, as opposed to the other way around. There aren’t a lot of expensive equipment cards in this set, but having a solid 4/4 that can freely deal with any small creatures is pretty powerful.

Escape to the Wilds

Rating: 4/10

Five mana to draw five and give you an extra land drop is a pretty effective draw spell. Of course, the biggest upside of Escape to the Wilds is that it appears in a color combination that doesn’t typically get big draw spells, meaning it fits a slot that isn’t going to be taken up by similar or better cards when you see it.

Iron Man, Titan of Innovation

Rating: 5/10

The ability of Iron Man, Titan of Innovation is clearly not designed for Limited and there’s a very good chance that all you’ll be able to do with it is create a Treasure token on attacking. Even if that’s the case, a 4/4 with flying and haste is still a great deal for 5 mana.

Ravenous Tyrannosaurus

Rating: 9/10

Even without devouring anything, Ravenous Tyrannosaurus is a 6/6 that kills a creature every time it attacks. That’s an absurd bomb rare, and if you devour a creature or two as it enters, then the excess damage really starts to stack up. The only thing holding it back from a perfect score is the fact that you have to wait a whole turn before it does anything, but that’s a very minor complaint.

Storm, Force of Nature

Rating: 6/10

Since her first printing, I’ve seen dozens and dozens of rules questions about how Storm, Force of Nature works. She’s a very popular Commander, and it’s not hard to see why. Giving storm to the next spell you cast is very powerful, but in Limited it’s a little too hard to control, since you’ll need to have cast another spell before combat in order for storm to do anything. It's still worth doing, especially if you can copy a removal spell.

Warleader’s Call

Rating: 6/10

Anthems are already pretty aggressive, but Warleader's Call really goes above and beyond that. I feel like I’m repeating myself here, but those damage pings will add up very quickly and should help you close out any game in a hurry.

Wolverine, Best There Is

Rating: 8/10

Wolverine, Best There Is puts your opponent in a very big predicament. They don’t want to block a creature that can just be regenerated to save it, but they also can’t just take 4 damage to the face every turn. Resolving this on a board where you have plenty of extra mana to hold up the regenerate ability is going to be a real game changer.

Artifacts

Doom Variant (Roaming Throne)

Rating: 6/10

Nearly every creature in the set is either a hero or a villain, giving you two prime choices for a creature type to name. Even without a ton of triggers to copy, Roaming Throne isn’t exactly a bad play as a 4-drop 4/4 with ward, so you’ll always end up playing it.

Patriotic Shield (Sword of Fire and Ice)

Rating: 10/10

Sword of Fire and Ice is one of the most broken equipment cards in Magic’s history. While it has become a lot less efficient by today’s standards in Constructed, it still packs a massive wallop in Limited. Protection from red is key to protect a creature from a lot of removal options and the ability to Shock something and draw a card on hitting your opponent will take over a lot of games in pretty short order. Above all else, this is colorless, which might make it the most powerful first Draft pick in the entire format, because you’re guaranteed to end up playing it in your deck.

And… Done!

Iron Man Armor | Illustration by Javier Charro

Well, that was a big one. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to evaluate cards like this before, but analyzing over a hundred legendary creatures with weird and unique abilities can really take it out of you. I’m really excited for this set, not just for regular drafts, but also for Team Sealed at Spotlight Series: Brussels next month. Best of luck with all of your pulls!

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Andrew Quinn

Andrew has been playing Magic since 2009 and has been an active Magic Judge since 2012. As a judge, he has worked on over 20 GPs across Europe and North America. As a player, he enjoys every constructed format and won the UK Legacy Nationals back in 2018, but he loves nothing more than to draft the greediest draft decks you’ll ever see.