Last year, Final Fantasy became the highest-selling expansion in Magic: The Gathering history in a single day, smashing all expectations for the first Universes Beyond set to be eligible in all competitive formats. This year, Wizards of the Coast is turning to Marvel Comics to try to replicate that success, as Marvel Super Heroes will launch on June 26.

According to Wizards of the Coast, Marvel Super Heroes will feature over 600 mechanically unique cards across the main set, the Commander decks, and the Jumpstart offerings. Naturally, these cards will come a whole menu of new and returning mechanics. This will serve as your guide to those mechanics, including Teamwork, Power-Up, Connive, and more, along with example cards that show off these new abilities. 

Now that the WeeklyMTG livestream has concluded, we are officially in preview season. Keep an eye out for more new Marvel Super Heroes cards leading up to launch, including a special preview card here at GameSpot on June 4. 

Teamwork

The Teamwork mechanic falls into the category of things like Convoke or Improvise, in which you can tap permanents you control as an additional cost to casting the spell in order to enhance it. If you see Teamwork X, you'll have to tap any amount of creatures with combined power X or more to gain the extra effect. 

If you look at HULK SMASH! above, the Instant spell costs one generic and one red mana, and you can choose to either destroy a noncreature artifact or have one of your creatures deal damage equal to its power to a creature your opponent controls. However, if you tap creatures with power equal to 4 or more, you can do both. 

Power-Up

There's an old joke among Magic players that "everything is Kicker," or when you boil a mechanic down to its essence, it's just a variant of the Kicker mechanic from Magic's early years, in which you can pay an extra amount of mana to gain an extra effect. 

Power-Up is a, well, powered-up version of Kicker, where an incoming creature can gain powerful extra effects for an extra cost. However, here there's a twist: that cost can be discounted by the creature's casting cost if the Power-Up effect is activated on the same turn the creature is cast. 

Take Thanos, The Mad Titan above. He costs one red, one white, and one black mana to cast, while his Power-Up cost is one of every color of mana including colorless (six stones, six mana pips, very thematic). If you choose to power-up Thanos right after casting him, however, the Power-Up cost becomes one blue, one green, and one colorless, or half of what it would normally cost.

Heroes and Villains

Heroes and Villains are the main creature types in Marvel Super Heroes, as one might expect. The set is filled with a who's who of good and evil faces from across Marvel's comic history, and each one adapts their specific abilities and attributes into the MTG landscape. 

Thor, God of Thunder is one of the many Heroes revealed during today's livestream, and true to form, he can pull a spell or Equipment from your graveyard back into the game as soon as he hits the battlefield. He can also deal extra damage whenever you cast noncreature spells, and considering Thor is the God of Thunder, and lightning has been a part of MTG since the beginning, that power is very much on theme.

On the Villain side, we have Madame Hydra, who adds more Villains to the board every time you cast a Villain spell. One of the leaders of Hydra being able to fill the board with Villains at will makes a lot of sense, and she figures to be a sneakily powerful card if left unchecked.

Plan

Plans are new takes on Enchantments, permanents that create a persisting effect on the battlefield until they are removed. While you'll cast a Plan normally, performing certain actions will add plan counters to the card, and once a certain number of counters is reached, another effect will immediately trigger. 

For Doom Reigns Supreme, each Villain you cast after casting the Plan will make each opponent lose 1 life, while also gaining you 1 life and adding a counter to the card. When five plan counters are on the card, you can sacrifice it to exile the top five cards from one of your opponent's libraries, then cast two of those five cards without paying any costs. A devilish turn of events worthy of a major Marvel villain, no?

Worthy

Worthy refers to Mjolnir, Thor's legendary hammer, which can only be wielded by those the hammer itself deems "worthy." For Magic, this means that Mjolnir and any other Equipment with the "worthy" mechanic can only be equipped to a certain type of creature, and while you might assume that's a Hero, it's actually more specific than that. 

For a creature to be "worthy," it needs to follow these parameters:

  • It must be a legendary creature
  • It must not have the Villain subtype
  • It must have red or white in its color identity

The broader implications of this mechanic are pretty funny when you think about it. Cloud, Midgar Mercenary can now wield Mjolnir, but so can Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, who is a corgi. Kratos, God of War can now wield Mjolnir, but so can Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, who is a tiny monkey. We are looking forward to digging into who is now worthy in the broader magic universe.

Returning Mechanics

Along with the new mechanics described above, there are a number of mechanics from past Magic sets that will feature in Marvel Super Heroes. Examples of those returning mechanics are included below.

Connive

Connive returns from Streets of New Capenna, but more recently from the previous Marvel-themed set, Spider-Man. Connive is a Villain-themed mechanic that allows you to dig through your deck while discarding unneeded cards and powering up your Villains at the same time, which fits the Villain mindset wonderfully.

Improvise

Improvise, like Teamwork, allows you to tap other permanents to help bolster the spell you're trying to cast. In this case, however, Improvise can only tap artifacts, but each tapped artifact reduces the cost of the spell by one generic mana. Basically, if you tap five artifacts, you can cast Arc Reactor here for free. 

Modal Double-Faced Cards

Modal Double-Faced Cards, MDFC, are two cards in one, and you can choose which one to cast before laying it on the table. MDFCs have been in Magic for a while now, but Spider-Man introduces a new variant on the MDFC where one side of the card also allows you to transform to the other side, to signal the character's transformation into the hero or villain. Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man is a great example of this, as the Tony side lets you switch to Iron Man for the same cost.

Saga

Sagas are another Enchantment variant that offers multiple effects over the course of multiple turns. Chapter one of a Saga triggers immediately when the card enters the battlefield, while the remaining chapters trigger at the beginning of subsequent turns as a lore counter is added to the card. Once all chapters have been reached, the card is then sacrificed. 

World War Hulk is one of Marvel Super Heroes's Sagas, and it's a remarkably powerful one. When you cast it, you can also cast a creature with red or green in its identity for free, which can cheat in The Incredible Hulk or something similarly powerful. Chapter two lets you power up a single creature with three +1/+1 counters, while chapter three lets you grant that creature with double power, double toughness, and trample. If chapters two and three target the same creature as chapter one, you could just win the game on the spot. 

Sneak

The newest returning mechanic, Sneak debuted only two expansions ago, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set. Sneak allows you to replace an attacking creature who isn't blocked with the card that has the Sneak ability by paying the Sneak cost, removing the unblocked attacker from the battlefield and placing it into your hand, and then placing the Sneak card onto the battlefield. 

Elektra, Daughter of the Hand will have Sneak in Marvel Super Heroes, and when she enters, she can destroy any creature with power 3 or less. Casting her with Sneak allows you to cast her one turn early too, and that combo of reduced casting cost and creature removal will make her a powerful option for black decks.