We first heard about Magic: The Gathering‘s collaboration with Marvel in October 2023. That’s just about one year ago. At the time, all we had was a brief teaser to go on, but already, everyone was more than excited. And now, this highly anticipated collection finally has its very first cards to show us. Magic: The Gathering has revealed that the first release from its Marvel collaboration will be a Secret Lair drop containing five different Superdrops you can purchase. Each new Magic: The Gathering drop, of course, will revolve around a Marvel hero commander card.
The commanders highlighted in the first Marvel x Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair drop are Captain America, Black Panther, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Storm. Each of these Magic drops will come with at least four additional Marvel-themed cards (which are all reprints from Magic history) that work together well to support their commander. Some of the cards are chosen from their mechanical cohesion, while others are chosen more for theming. And that’s just how we like it!
But naturally, this is only the beginning. Magic: The Gathering has already revealed a Spider-Man-centric tentpole booster release will be coming in 2025. And all of this is just the very start of what the Marvel x Magic: The Gathering collaboration will hold for fans of both worlds.
Without further ado, let’s dive into this first Marvel x Magic Secret Lair card.
Marvel x Magic: The Gathering—Captain America Commander Secret Lair Drop
First up in the Marvel x Magic: The Gathering collaboration are the cards that make up the Captain America Commander Deck. Captain America is, of course, a noble hero, and so his card is a White mana Magic card, which embodies morality and order. Despite his White association, Cap’s signature red, white, and blue coloring appears throughout his cards. It was too cool to pass up, share the Magic: The Gathering team. But they hope to do some mono-white versions of the cards in the future, should there be more Captain America Magic: The Gathering Cards to come.
In addition to the Captain America Commander card, this Marvel Magic card drop comes with four support cards. These include Sigarda’s Aid as Captain America’s Aid, Flawless Maneuver, In the Trenches, and Sword of War and Peace as Shield of War and Peace. Each of these cards captures the history of Captain America, different moments and different eras of the characters, and, of course, they honor the shield. Mechanically, they also play well together because Captain America cares about equipment.
Additionally, Captain America’s storyline is always going to different places and trying different things in Marvel’s world, and so Magic: The Gathering wanted to make sure to honor Falcon/Sam Wilson as Captain America, especially as he prepares to take flight in his own MCU movie very soon. Other pieces of Cap’s journey, such as his friendship with Bucky Barnes, also receive a place of honor. You can see World War II Bucky in his red and blue sidekick uniform in Captain America’s support card, In the Trenches. Notably, Namor the Mariner and the Human Torch are also featured on this Magic card as a wonderful homage to Captain America’s Marvel Comics history.
Marvel x Magic: The Gathering—Black Panther Commander Secret Lair Drop
Next up is Black Panther. This Magic: The Gathering card is a Green/White card. While Black Panther has a specific color moniker in his name, that mana energy was just not right for our noble king of Wakanda. Instead of Black, T’Challa’s Black Panther Commander card is a Green and White mana blend. This is Magic: The Gathering designation is perfect for the Marvel character as it reflects Black Panther’s deep goodness, as well as his strength, power, and ties to the land and nature of Wakanda.
Black Panther was the trickiest of the Commander Marvel x Magic cards to get right, share Aaron Forsythe, Vice President of Design, and Daniel Nguyen, Senior Product Designer, because his messaging that of a good king guiding his people was more complex and high concept than some of the other collaborations, which were more focused on their combat abilities. But having Black Panther be about as noble and caring as a character can be in Magic: The Gathering felt exactly right.
Black Panther, like Captain America, has a “Hero” creature type, and this is something that Magic: The Gathering has used before, but they’ll be leaning into it much more as the rest of the Marvel card sets roll out. More versions of Black Panther that show him as a leader and as a great fighter will likely come as the Magic: The Gathering x Marvel sets roll out. But for now, the team wanted to focus on him as the ruler of a kingdom that contains the most viable natural resource in the world. The mechanics of Black Panther’s card serve to emulate the vibranium that powers Wakanda.
Black Panther’s support cards also help underscore this theme. These are: Secure the Wastes, Warrior Token, Bast’s Blessing as Primal Figure, and Wakandan Skyscraper as Karn’s Bastion. Additionally, Heroic Intervention is also a support card in this Marvel x Magic: The Gathering drop. While it’s not necessarily mechanically tied in, it’s a Green staple that works really well. The Black Panther version of the card also depicts Black Panther vs. Klaw, and since Klaw is always trying to steal Vibranium, it ties the card into the overall theme. Notably, this is the comic’s version of Klaw. It was very important to Magic: The Gathering that these cards appealed to Marvel Comics fans.
The Black Panther cards also strive to show the eras and versions of the character. Secure the Wastes shows Bashenga, the very first Black Panther back in the Bronze Age, while Karn’s Skyscraper takes us all the way to the modernity of Wakanda.
Finally, a deep cut for you Magic: The Gathering lovers: cat decks are generally green-white in Magic: The Gathering, just like this Marvel Black Panther drop is. Shuri will surely get a kick out of that one.
Marvel x Magic: The Gathering—Wolverine Commander Secret Lair Drop
Our next Marvel Commander is Wolverine. The top of this Magic: The Gathering card gives us a truncated version of Wolverine’s very long Marvel catchphrase, “I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn’t very nice.” Wolverine also gets a “Mutant” and “Bezerker” designation. Both of these have occurred in Magic before but haven’t been used very much. Although the MCU couldn’t use Mutant for a while, Magic: The Gathering is jumping right in. Wolverine also has the “regenerate” ability. Again, this isn’t something Magic uses very much, but it does have it in its history, and it was perfect to use here for this Marvel collaboration.
Wolverine’s card indicates that he loves fighting, really loves fighting, and he never dies. That sounds about right to us. Wolverine’s support cards includes Berzerk, which is a card all the way back from Magic: The Gathering Beta, so it’s a thirty-something-year-old card. It shows Wolverine in his brown and yellow suit, which is a fan favorite, busting out of the head of a Sentinel in an iconic fit of rage. Additionally, Wolverine’s Magic drop has the Right of Passage card. This version of the card shows Laura Kinney, aka X-23. Next up is Rhythm of the Wild. This Marvel Magic version of the card depicts Wolverine as James Howlett, a fun deep-cut for fans, and shows Wolverine running with the wolves. Finally, Wolverine’s drop has The Ozolith as the Adamantium Bonding Tank. This card shows off the Weapon X origin story for Wolverine.
Marvel x Magic: The Gathering—Iron Man Commander Secret Lair Drop
Of course, we couldn’t have a Marvel x Magic: The Gathering collaboration without Iron Man. The Iron Man commander card tips its hat to the MCU movies, showing Tony Stark mid-way through his iconic transformation into Iron Man, with all his suit parts floating around him. (But we also see some of his literal fabric business suit on his arm.) This Iron Man card is built around the idea of artifacts. When he attacks, Iron Man receives a treasure token with a meta value of 0; Iron Man can then sacrifice this to find something a little better. This speaks to Iron Man building and crafting as he attacks. Iron Man himself is an artifact creature, which is something a little different than the other cards.
Iron Man’s supporting Marvel Magic include a Treasure Token, Galvanic Blast, Commander’s Play, Soul Ring, and Inventor’s Fair. Again, these cards depict different eras of Iron Man, and you can see the suit changes throughout the cards. Soul Ring specifically depicts the first arc reactor with its copper rings. It fits really beautifully because Soul Ring is, of course, the quintessential Commander power source, and the arc reactor is the ultimate Iron Man power source. It doesn’t hurt that they’re both rings.
The team also discussed the Iron Man treasure token at some length—the Marvel x Magic team thought about showing a pile of money or a box of arms but eventually decided to stick with the Iron Man armor theme. In a fun, full circle moment, the team also enjoys that the Hasbro Iron Man helmet was shown on a kid trying to stop drones at Stark Expo in Iron Man 2 (theorized to be Spider-Man), and now that same helmet has found its way onto a Marvel Magic card in a new era crossover of the two IPs.
Marvel x Magic: The Gathering—Storm Commander Secret Lair Drop
Finally, we have Storm—a mutant hero with flying vigilance. It turns out that Marvel’s Storm could go on a Magic: The Gathering card named Storm. And both Storms are incredibly powerful. The Magic team really wanted to include a character that wasn’t in the MCU, at least so far. They wanted to show that this collaboration really involved the breadth of the comic universe and not just Marvel movie nods. Storm is a beloved character, so it was really exciting to bring her back here.
With Storm, Magic wanted to depict Storm in her purest nature goddess form, connecting with the intense forces of nature and not a hero to be crossed. Storm ended up with a Yellow card designation. Then, her support cards are green, blue, and red, which are colors of weather phenomena in Magic.
But what are Storm’s Marvel x Magic Support Cards? We have Lightning Bolt, which reveals a ’90s punk-era Storm. Next is Jessica’s Well reimagined as Storm’s Well. This card features art which is a callback to the original. Also we have Ice Storm. While Ice Storm isn’t mechanically aligned per se, it adds great flavor and is a deep cut from Magic‘s history. This card comes from Beta and hasn’t been reprinted in a playable form in 30 years. The card also shows Colossus, Bishop, Jean Grey, and Ice Man, in case you were missing some of our other X-Men. Finally, we see Metamorphosis renamed as Ororo Borealis.
Marvel x Magic: The Gathering—Avengers’ Tower Card
Along with the five Commander Drops, Magic: The Gathering‘s first Marvel Secret Lair drop will include Arcane Signet reimagined as Earth’s Mightiest Emblem, a card every Commander Drop needs. On this card, we see a depiction of Avenger’s Tower. This card will be priced at the $200 price span, so if you buy one of each of the Marvel x Magic Commander Drops, you get an Arcane Signet to go with them.
Coming Soon: A Spider-Man Tentpole Booster Release
This is just the beginning of a multi-year partnership, though. Magic: The Gathering has already announced that coming in 2025, we’ll get a tentpole booster release featuring Spider-Man. He did feel absent from the above!
When Will the First Marvel x Magic: The Gathering Cards Be Available for Purchase?
You won’t need to wait long to get these drops, either! They’ll be available for purchase November 4.
The Future of the Marvel x Magic: The Gathering Collaboration
Narrowing down the first five characters for this Marvel x Magic: The Gathering collaboration was no easy task. But ultimately, the team took over a dozen characters and settled on the first wave. They looked for a balance of concepts, a mix of MCU characters and characters from the comics, and a diverse array of representation. Basically, they wanted the full breadth of what the Marvel universe has to offer to be showcased. Of course, they had no way of knowing that Wolverine was about to become the talk of the MCU town at the time with Deadpool & Wolverine. But they’re not too sorry about it. However, Magic shares that anyone else folks are hoping to see from the Marvel universe, they probably have plans to make something for them at some point.
As the Marvel x Magic: The Gathering collaboration evolves, people can anticipate seeing more characters and different expressions of them, as well as totally new cards entering the Magic space. Of course, the sets will also pull from the history of Magic as well, as these do.
When asked if there will be anything akin to Magic‘s The Lord of the Rings One Ring card, Nguyen notes that he can’t talk about specifics, but it’s going to be a super awesome few years in the Marvel x Magic space, so it’s time for us all to get hype.
