General [MSH] Marvel Super Heroes

[ravnic]

They tricked me. I was going to skip this set as I really dislike Marvel. But they promised white prowess and I got too excited. And now the only cheap white prowess creature is this:



Strictly worse Seeker of the Way! Just give it any minor upside like etb scry 2 or something and I could've gotten over the art and flavor here.

But hey, they fulfilled a very specific desire for my CCC, a hybrid prowess guy:



Oh, wow, thanks, this SUCKS. Not only is it bad, it also signals equipment more than spellslinging and it is called PATRIOT. I'm not an us-american and far too left to be comfortable playing a card called Patriot that actually refers to a real world nation that is currently embracing FACISM. (Not all of you, I know.)

Fuck Marvel and of course
FUCK TRUMP
I'm out

 

[alvoi]

Fuck Marvel and of course
FUCK TRUMP
I'm out

My main feeling this spoiler season

 

[Mown]

this also draws cards off of asinine things like equipping creatures

He actually only draws off those asinine things, he doesn't trigger off spells.

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

This one gave me a sensible chuckle.

 

[The_Steve_Man]

Iron Man Armor is sweet alongside the many Karnstructs I run. Giving a creature +2/+1 and flying for 3 is not so far off from totally-reasonable-Cube-card Maul of the Skyclaves, but that's the worst case scenario here given you have any board, and I'm not devastated about getting in for a chunk of damage. The true floor here is that it does literally nothing because you have no board, but I don't imagine this card will be in that scenario all that often, and if it is, I imagine it's because you have a ton of dudes and are happy running a worse second copy of Nettlecyst to benefit from your trinkets. I like how many decks will be happy with this, I'm very in.

I wouldn't call Iron Man Armor a "worse second copy of Nettlecyst" considering it has / grants flying. Card is much better than Nettlecyst overall IMO since this is generally a better Maul of the Skyclaves that just so happens to have a flying Nettlecyst mode. IMO the best card in the main set by quite a bit. I think it's best equipment not named Skullclamp in a high powered vintage cube.

 

[MilesOfficial]

I'm calling it a "worse Nettlecyst" in the context where you don't have a board. I think it's much better in the average deck since it doesn't require you to have the artifact deck to be sweet, and it's about even-to-better in the artifact deck, which tends to not have too many creatures but also is less annoyed at having to pay 2 every time you want to attack or block with it.

But yeah, it's super sweet. It's one of the three cards I currently have as "High" confidence on my spoiler season swaps Google sheet:




So yeah, folks, here are my favorite cards of Marvel / Marvel Jumpstart / the first of four Commander decks (and with none of the scene cards, which I've been pretty hot on lately):

Super Super Heroes


"Worthy" Heroes and Villains


West Coast and Great Lakes Avengers Tier


My watchlist:


Too Good for my Cube

 

[Zoss]

Sweet shitting crap on a cracker there are 569 cards in this set & associated products that aren't reprints. That's so many cards.

Ultimate Alliance seems to be flying under the radar as a really okay W removal spell without precedent.


Speaking of fliers! There seem to be rather a lot of them. A wise(ass) person once said that

[Velomachus Lorehold; here, any sufficiently bulky flier] suffers from what I call Swole Lad Syndrome in that the 5/5 flying haste body is often far more relevant than anything else he brings to the table.

and I wonder if that problem is going to show up in spades in this format, where many games devolve to, well, super hero fights in the sky being the deciding factor. A quick scryfall search suggests that 1 in 6 cards in the format refer to flying in some capacity, which might mean that flying just isn't so super anymore??



Incidentally, Aerial Doombot is actually a really neat Flying Man.

 

[MilesOfficial]

Medusa, Inhuman Queen is a baby Managorger Hydra...for the same cost. Obviously, trample is the best ability to have on a stat monster, but vigilance is not half bad either.

Managorger Hydra is not that interesting to me, but it is run in over 10,000 Cubes. I think Cubes that like the Hydra will often also like Medusa, and I think the art is really cool even if the "inhuman" creature type seems dumb to me.




H.E.R.B.I.E., Lovable Robot is actually pretty lovable. Ornithopter of Paradise is pretty good and would still be in my Cube if I didn't want green to have a bigger monopoly on color fixing. HERBIE solves this problem for me by making filtering more expensive, while also providing incidental surveilling and keeping the flying, which was a surprisingly good element to the Ornithopter. Legendary-matters isn't too critical here since it's already historic, but it's still an upside in my Cube. I'll be considering this strongly.




Endlessly cast a dragon robot! I'm considering this one as well, but it's a shoo-in for my bar Cube at least. I think having a 3/5 (on average in my Cubes) that you can cast from your graveyard is a great way to encourage self-mill and non-creature permanents (mostly artifacts). It's also a discard outlet, and what you discard can be the the non-creature permanent you benefit from! Synergy!

Seriously, I like this design. I think a 4-mana flying beater that doesn't do anything else is going to be a little too fair for my main Cube, but it's a absolutely a payoff for a lot of what my Cube has been doing lately.



Double removal! You're generally going to want to play these effects sequentially. It's a lot of value, enough to make the sorcery speed a little less painful. I won't be playing it specifically due to the lack of reminder text on "Rebound", personally. Look, I know it's on a couple other cards in the set, but there was plenty of room on the text box for it!!



I don't think that many non-creature spells get played main phase 1 in my Cube, but this is a pretty good reward for it if that sounds like your Cube. This thing can grow real fast off of cantrips and burn spells, and by sharing its unblockability, its going to deal serious damage.

EDIT:

Also, prowess big bad:


and new Eldrazi titan. unironically love the creature type, but I'd rather just play Summon: Bahamut for neat enchantment recursion stuff:

 

[Velrun]

That’s some trinket text right there

 

[Dom Harvey]

The Commander decks are predictably full of bangers too; The Fantastic Four deck spreading Prowess-y stuff across four colours leads to some really nice stuff and I'm keen to see what the Villains deck offers Grixis (as long as isn't too parochial re. Villain tribal etc). Some more on top of what Miles posted (Card Image gallery here before Scryfall updates):



First Family has a floor of X=2 and getting to X=3 is trivial (and a good rate), you can really shoot for the moon if you're in a 3c/4c etc deck



Crystal's damage trigger rounds off to Prowess as a floor but you can do some really flashy stuff with this and I can imagine a weird Storm deck where turning every Manamorphose etc into a big burn spell is a win con in itself



Four mana is where the competition becomes impossibly steep even within this niche but Valeria gives you a lot



Fantastic Elasticity is quite generic aesthetically but lives up to the name if you have good cheap instants or care about casting spells a lot



Fantasticar is another great artifact/spells crossover - the stretch goal is too much for most Prowess-esque decks (though the Mizzium Tank mode isn't the worst there) but this is actually the Storm payoff of my dreams

I really like Dragon Man too - if you're just playing Magic normally the floor is high but it's fun to look for easy ways to make it massive (cycling Lorien Revealed! Impending an Overlord!), it's a good ~inevitable finisher for a slower or controlling deck with some GY stuff, and has the right types to get the juices flowing (usual artifact shenanigans but I'm already having visions of pairing this with Roiling Dragonstorm etc)

 

[Brad]

"Black" "Bolt"
Not black.
Not a bolt.

This game has become a joke smh