Marvel at This Commander Deck Marvel Showcase

Magic has crossed over with Marvel Comics multiple times, with more to come in the future. You can play with both your favorite heroes, villains, and anti-heroes. There are a lot of different builds and playstyles available in Magic with Marvel cards. This Marvel Showcase will show off various Commander decks, with decklists and guides on how to play these commanders.

Marvel Showcase: Voltron

These two commanders are ones that fall under the Voltron umbrella. A Voltron deck is one that puts all the focus on your commander. Voltron decks rely on winning the game through commander damage (generally) by raising your commander’s stats to take your opponents out with one swing. The flavors of Voltron are different, using two distinct styles. Generally, they focus on Auras or Equipment, but only one here will showcase an Equipment-based Voltron commander. The other is much more unique and offers a different flavor of Voltron that doesn’t have to rely on other permanents.

Wolverine, Best There Is

Wolverine, Best There Is is a creature you want to constantly be dealing damage to creatures with. So, the deck plays a large suite of cards that either fight, such as Prizefight, or cards that make a creature deal damage equal to its power, like Rabid Gnaw. Wolverine, Best There Is triggers every end step, so cards that do this at instant speed are especially useful so you never miss a trigger.

Your commander progressively grows in stats with +1/+1 counters. You have various cards in the deck to help expedite this growth. With how much fighting your commander does, Rite of Passage will keep stacking up counters onto it. If you enchant Wolverine, Best There Is with Level Up, you can keep on doubling its +1/+1 counters. Well Rested gives you card draw and counters whenever the creature untaps, so in this case, giving your commander vigilance is a bad thing.

Your commander is going to wind up taking a lot of damage, although rarely enough to kill it. You can turn that into +1/+1 counters with Vigor on the battlefield. Its high mana value isn’t a problem when your mana curve is so low. All the damage that your commander takes can be converted into damage to all opponents with Pain for All. It can only target players or planeswalkers, but Fiendlash can do a ton of damage, especially since the creature is dealing damage, and Wolverine, Best There Is always deals double damage.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It has a low creature count and primarily consists of fight spells to make sure you always have interaction and a way to boost your commander’s stats.

Captain America, First Avenger

Ever want to throw Equipment around? Captain America, First Avenger is the commander for you. For just three mana, you can turn Equipment into burn damage. As such, high-mana value Equipment is quite strong, with Excalibur, Sword of Eden being the best Equipment for the job. Aettir and Priwen is great too, since you can deal damage with Captain America, First Avenger then use its ability to get the last bit of damage needed.

While your commander can cheat around equip costs, you want some extra help there to get as much Equipment on it as possible. Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist can put all your Equipment on the battlefield onto any creature, being one of the best ways to get Equipment equipped. Codsworth, Handy Helper is one of the best support cards in the deck. You can use it as a mana dork for Equipment, or a way to put an Equipment onto a creature, and it has the bonus ability to give protection to your commander. Puresteel Paladin makes all equip costs zero so long as you have three or more artifacts, something you’ll always have.

There is plenty of Equipment in the deck, with some being better than others. Kaldra Compleat provides a ton of keywords that discourage blocking since the creature blocking gets exiled. Genji Glove gives you an extra combat and double strike. You also have Argentum Armor for a big stat boost, removal, and a six-damage burn with Captain America, First Avenger‘s effect.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The creature suite is primarily support cards, with a large collection of Equipment to load up on.

Marvel Showcase: The Classic Archetypes

For this segment of the Marvel Showcase, it’ll look at two commanders of “classic” archetypes. These commanders are rather broad in what they do, allowing for these specific archetypes to be played with different payoffs compared to more “traditional” commanders for them. These two commanders are ones that are a part of archetypes with well over a dozen options for commanders. However, they each have their own perks not found on other cards (and in one case, offer a new commander in an archetype that usually doesn’t have that color identity). While these archetypes are tried and true, these commanders utilize their effects to make for a more varied option of these archetypes. Specifically, these two archetypes are Artifact and Storm.

Iron Man, Titan of Innovation

As what’s advertised on the tin, Iron Man, Titan of Innovation is an artifact deck. The deck is a bit of a toolbox deck, as you can easily tutor out for artifacts with your commander by sacrificing them. While you can’t sacrifice noncreature artifacts, you can get artifact creatures onto the battlefield. Being able to consistently get out Academy Manufactor or Karn, Legacy Reforged is quite powerful.

The more artifacts you have, the better. And there are ways to turn all your cards into artifacts. Encroaching Mycosynth turns all your nonland permanents into artifacts, while Mycosynth Lattice makes everyone’s permanents into artifacts on and off the battlefield. This helps your nonartifacts be tutored out, and can take better advantage of cards like Simulacrum Synthesizer.

The deck has a few different ways to win the game. Hellkite Tyrant only needs twenty artifacts on the battlefield to win the game with. You also have Mechanized Production, which is harder to win with since the enchanted artifact can be removed, but it makes your opponents prioritize removal on it, and if they can’t, that’s an easy win for you. It’s a much slower burn, but Weapons Manufacturing will create a ton of tokens that can easily convert into two burn damage.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Nearly every card in the deck is an artifact, and if not, is just a solid artifact support card.

Storm, Force of Nature

As one might expect from Storm, Force of Nature, it is a Storm deck. However, thanks to its unique ability to give any instant or sorcery storm, you can do a lot of silly things. Storming off, then playing an extra turn spell like Time Warp or Temporal Manipulation is usually game-ending since your opponents likely won’t get another turn after that.

To help you storm off, you have a few different kinds of cards. Archmage Emeritus and Ashling, Flame Dancer help to keep drawing cards so you never run out of action. You also have ways to create mana when you cast spells like Birgi, God of Storytelling and Electro, Assaulting Battery to turn your one mana spells into net zero mana loss.

You have a few different routes to victory. As mentioned before, chaining extra turn spells is one such way. Alternatively, if you were able to cast a ton of spells, you can mill everyone out of the game with Tasha's Hideous Laughter or Windfall. You have a traditional victory path with Grapeshot, as well as the ability to give Boltwave storm to deal three damage to all opponents multiple times easily.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. For the most part, it’s a traditional Storm deck build, but has some unique cards that can take advantage of Storm, Force of Nature‘s effect for some unique flair.

Marvel Showcase: Miscellaneous

These last two commanders in this Marvel Showcase don’t quite fit into any specific archetype. They are still quite strong; they just do their own thing instead of playing into traditional archetypes. They are the most unique commanders in this Marvel Showcase, and do things that no other deck is quite doing. This allows for brand new decks to be played that were otherwise impossible to play before. If you want to be doing something new not found on other cards, then these two commanders are good choices for your next commander deck.

Black Panther, Wakadan King

Black Panther, Wakandan King is a mixture of a Land-creature deck and a +1/+1 counter deck. It’s easy to load up a land with +1/+1 counters, and so long as you have mana, you can easily move those counters onto any creatures. Alternatively, you can animate the land into a creature instead since it keeps its +1/+1 counters. Some lands like Soulstone Sanctuary can animate themselves. Or, you can earthbend them with cards like Cracked Earth Technique.

When you move your counters from lands to creatures, you’re putting counters on a creature. So, if Terrasymbiosis or Branching Evolution is on the battlefield, you double up on your counters for free. With how many creatures enter, Cathars' Crusade puts even more counters onto all of your creatures.

The deck wants as many creatures entering as possible. This generally takes the form of token generators. Rabble Rousing gets progressively more tokens onto the battlefield every attack. You can turn all your lands entering into either tokens or counters with Felidar Retreat. The best card in the deck is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. This turns all your creatures into Forest lands, meaning they can tap for Green, but more importantly, have counters put on them from your commander.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It is rather creature-heavy, but all of them support tokens or +1/+1 counter strategies.

Deadpool, Trading Card

Perhaps one of the most unique Magic cards in recent years, Deadpool, Trading Card is a powerhouse of a commander. Its effect lets you exchange its text box with any other creature’s as it enters. This isn’t a triggered ability, so unless Deadpool, Trading Card is countered on the stack, your opponents can’t interact with its ability. So, you can use cards like Fake Your Own Death and Undying Evil to bring it back if it’s about to die, to force its text box onto more creatures.

Even if Deadpool, Trading Card is copied and dies to the legend rule, since its effect happens as it enters, it’ll still be able to exchange its text box with another creature before it dies. So, Spinter Twin is fantastic, as you can tap Deadpool to essentially get rid of a creature’s ability. Other useful token-creating cards include The Fire Crystal and Helm of the Host. You want to constantly be making tokens of your commander, stealing abilities from any powerful creatures your opponents play.

Sometimes, you want your tokens to stick around. After all, Deadpool, Trading Card can steal some very powerful effects from your opponents’ creatures. The Master, Multiplied takes away the legend rule from your creature tokens. You also have Mirror Box and Mirror Gallery as other ways to shut off the legend rule. This allows you to have multiple copies of your commander to act as a utility toolbox of stolen text boxes.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Deadpool, Trading Card can be a menace of a commander, and is considered especially strong in Duel Commander. It’s a repeatable creature cancellation, after all.

In Conclusion

This Marvel Showcase went over multiple Marvel commanders. This is but the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with these cards. There aren’t too many Marvel cards currently available, but this is going to change quickly. With multiple Marvel sets already confirmed, you’ll have no shortage of cards to play with.

Whether you like playing as heroes, villains, or somewhere in between, these Marvel sets will have something for you. So far, we’ve had Marvel’s Spider-Man and have Marvel Super Heroes releasing soon. There is still one more unknown full Marvel set yet to be revealed. In addition, more Secret Lairs featuring Marvel characters are quite likely, as we’ve seen previously (such as the commanders gone over here).