Magic's Marvel Super Heroes set fixes Spider-Man expansion's biggest problems
Mark Rosewater's love of comics shows in Marvel Super Heroes — this set adds synergies and new mechanics missing from the Spider-Man release. The new Plan mechanic pairs nicely with Villain cards like Doctor Doom.
Magic: The Gathering lead designer Mark Rosewater, a known comics fan, clearly treated the Marvel Super Heroes set as a passion project. Where the Spider-Man Universes Beyond release had some fun standalone cards, this Avengers-focused set delivers the synergies and mechanics that make a crossover feel cohesive. One key addition is Plan: an enchantment that gains plan counters until it completes and grants a reward. Doom Reigns Supreme, for example, advances whenever you play a Villain, eventually forcing an opponent to exile the top five cards of their deck and letting you play two of them for free. Villain entries also drain one life from each opponent and give you one life, and Doctor Doom—himself a Villain—creates two Doombot tokens that each count as Villains. That can mean three life shifts and three plan counters from a single play, the kind of interaction the Spider-Man set largely lacked.
