{"id":721468,"date":"2026-06-07T18:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721468\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T18:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:39:14","slug":"magic-the-gatherings-new-marvel-set-is-a-love-letter-to-the-super-hero-genre-new-cards-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721468\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic: The Gathering’s new Marvel set is a love letter to the super hero genre | new cards revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tBecome a member of GB MAX to gain exclusive access to the industry and to the most influential global B2B leadership community in the business of gaming, entertainment, and tech. Join now<\/a> and also get a VIP ticket to GamesBeat Next (Nov 2-3, SF).<\/p>\n

When Mark Rosewater found out about Magic: The Gathering\u2019s Universes Beyond initiative, he immediately knew he wanted to design a Marvel Comics set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Magic: The Gathering head designer first learned about Wizards of the Coast\u2019s third-party IP licensing initiative in a meeting with WotC vice president of Magic design Aaron Forsythe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very first thing I said to him was, \u2018dibs on Marvel,\u2019\u201d Rosewater said in an interview with GamesBeat during the Summer Game Fest Play Days demonstrations in Los Angeles this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At SGF: Play Days, where Wizards of the Coast was showcasing Magic\u2019s new Marvel Super Heroes set, GamesBeat sat down with Rosewater to discuss the philosophy behind the set, its warm reception from the Magic community thus far, and Rosewater\u2019s passion for Marvel and the super hero genre at large. Rosewater and his team have been working on the Marvel Super Heroes set for four years, and his excitement about the crossover set\u2019s June 26 release was on full display during the interview.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a giant Marvel fan. Obviously, I like Magic. So, this was a really fun set to work on, because I brought my two loves together in one thing,\u201d Rosewater said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Marvel\u2019s IP holders at Disney gave Rosewater and his team freedom to design around a wide range of characters, locations, and other elements of the Marvel universe, the Marvel Super Heroes set is broadly built around the concept of the Avengers super hero team, with significant typal set mechanics revolving around the Hero and Villain creature types. Rosewater noted that he had designed potential cards for Marvel characters that didn\u2019t make it into the Super Heroes set, including a Rocket Raccoon<\/a> card that could show up in a future expansion. He noted that Marvel superfans could likely get a sense of the nature of future Marvel expansions from the characters and story elements withheld from the upcoming set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe clearly spent time and energy before we started sort of chopping everything up \u2014 so we were aware when we made this, and we knew what was coming,\u201d Rosewater said. \u201cAnd so, the things that are missing here, maybe they\u2019re missing for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to prominent Marvel characters like Iron Man and Captain America, Magic: The Gathering\u2019s Marvel Super Heroes set includes a number of characters that Rosewater described as \u201cdeep cuts,\u201d such as Reptil, a dinosaur-themed hero originally popularized through the \u201cThe Super Hero Squad\u201d animated television series, and the fan-favorite Squirrel Girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the cool things is, you don\u2019t need to know all the depth of the Marvel universe to enjoy things from the Marvel universe \u2014\u00a0and you know what? A guy that turns into dinosaurs made a really fun Magic card,\u201d Rosewater said. \u201cAnd Reptil, to me, is the poster child of, you don\u2019t even need to know who he is to appreciate the character and the card.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In Magic\u2019s Marvel Super Heroes set, every creature with a rarity of uncommon or higher is legendary and thus legal for use as a commander in the game\u2019s Commander format, which Rosewater said was an intentional feature to allow players to build around all of their favorite characters. However, he flagged that his team had managed to sneak even more deep-cut characters such as the villain Volcana into the set as commons by featuring them in the art and flavor text of otherwise generically named cards. Volcana, for example, is featured on the card Volcanic Villain, pictured to the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I had the opportunity to draft a few packs of Marvel Super Heroes during my interview with Rosewater. While I\u2019m at it, here are a few more images of common-rarity cards from the new set that haven\u2019t yet been shared anywhere, as far as I am aware: Decoy Ploy, Stark Industries Executive, Raft Security Officer, Super Suit, Vibranium Energy Daggers, S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit, and Ant Man\u2019s Army. I know that\u2019s what you all are really here for. <\/p>\n

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Rosewater and his team are working on additional Marvel expansions, so there is much more to come in the future for Marvel Comics fans looking to rip packs and slam cardboard featuring their favorite heroes. And there is hope on the horizon for fans of other fictional super hero worlds who enjoy playing Magic: Rosewater is a DC Comics fan, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a huge DC fan \u2014 I would love that,\u201d he said. \u201cI probably need to go back down to say, \u2018dibs on DC.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Become a member of GB MAX to gain exclusive access to the industry and to the most influential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,3494,75,31556,3078,260801,95681],"class_list":["post-721468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-magic-the-gathering","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-super-heroes","tag-wizards-of-the-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}