10 best Marvel Super Heroes cards in Magic: The Gathering, ranked

From infinite combos to new build-around Commanders, here's what stands out

Later this month, Magic: The Gathering’s Marvel Super Heroes set will unleash 655 new cards into the game — that’s more than twice the number of cards from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and dangerously close to the total number of new cards released in all of 2011. That does mean finding the set’s biggest chase cards might be that much more challenging, but it also means Marvel Super Heroes is absolutely packed with potential.

This set has dozens and dozens of iconic heroes and evil villains, in addition to splashy sagas and powerful artifacts. Since spoilers for the entire set were finalized earlier this week, a handful of cards already look like they’re about to become format-defining staples. Marvel Super Heroes feels less like a typical Universes Beyond release and more like a full-fledged Magic block crammed into a single set. Some cards were clearly designed with Commander in mind. Others seem destined for competitive play. A few will probably end up being worth a small fortune.

Here's a look at 10 of the best cards from Marvel Super Heroes that you'll actually want to play, build around, or trade for — the kind of cards you’re hoping for every time you crack open a booster pack. This isn't a definitive ranking of the set's strongest cards (ask me again six months from now ), but these are ones generating the most excitement before release.

10 Namor the Sub-Mariner

Marvel Super Heroes may emphasize hero and villain typal strategies, yet here we have a major contender for a top-tier merfolk Commander in the form of Namor the Sub-Mariner. That’s a very narrow lane to be in, and his abilities lean so far into his merfolkness that he’s not all that useful elsewhere. His power is equal to the number of merfolk you control, and every blue noncreature spell you cast generates merfolk creature tokens. If I manage to pull one, I might actually make a merfolk deck.

9 The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Squirrels are so back. One of my earliest Magic decks had four copies of Chatter of the Squirrel. Between the initial cost and its flashback, that means I could make eight 1/1 squirrel creature tokens for 12 mana. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl makes my squirrel swarm dreams come true. A four-cost 4/4, she creates a squirrel token whenever she enters or attacks. But for another four mana (one colorless and three green), she can create X more of those tokens, where X is the number of squirrels you already have. This feels just like a rat Commander, designed to overwhelm the board with a ton of tiny critters, except it’s green! It’s squirrels! There are a lot more opportunities to combo this with token doublers like Doubling Season, which makes things far more interesting than your typical rat king strategy.

8 The Mind Stone

Given the fact that it’s an Infinity Stone and this set’s headliner, of course the Mind Stone is one of the most powerful cards you can pull. Like Spider-Man’s Soul Stone, it’s an indestructible mana rock that gets a hugely powerful effect. Once harnessed for a total of six mana, you get to blink one other nonland permanent you control and then return that card to the battlefield. That makes the Mind Stone incredibly useful for any decks that lean into Enter the Battlefield (ETB) triggers of any kind.

7 World War Hulk

Gruul (red-green) is known for “ramp and smash” strategies as you accelerate your mana base and then cast big creatures to do the smashing. World War Hulk captures that strategy in a five-cost green saga enchantment: you cast a red or green creature for free, slap three +1/+1 counters on a target creature, then double a target creature’s power and toughness (and give it trample) until the end of your turn. Since the card itself is mono-green, you could theoretically get a lot of use here in all sorts of green strategies.

6 The Serpent Society

The Serpent Society is one of the more interesting build-around legendaries in all of Marvel Super Heroes, thanks to its ward cost. Players cannot target The Serpent Society without gaining five poison counters. If any player gets up to 10 poison counters, they instantly lose the game. This card also forces each opponent to sacrifice a nontoken creature of their choice whenever one of your creatures with deathtouch dies. Build a deck full of creatures with poison and deathtouch. Not only will you have strong board control, but you’ll gradually be able to poison them all to death.

5 Ultron, Artificial Malevolence

Fittingly, Marvel’s big bad robot is an excellent artifact Commander — or even a great inclusion in the 99 of any artifact-focused Commander deck, regardless of color. The one caveat here is that he works best with nontoken artifacts. Whenever one of those is played, you can pay two mana to create a token copy. If the token is not a creature, then it becomes a 2/2 robot villain. With Ultron, Artificial Malevolence on the board, any artifact strategy quickly spirals out of control into a swarm of 2/2 mini Ultrons.

4 Thor, God of Thunder

What I like so much about Thor, God of Thunder is his versatility. He can fit into warrior typal strategies just as well as he does with hero decks. As a pure red 5/5 with flying at a cost of only five mana, he’s an immediate threat. But he also lets you exile an equipment, instant, or sorcery card from your graveyard and play it — and he deals direct damage to any target whenever you cast a noncreature spell. He’s going to work just as well in spellcasting storm decks as he does in equipment-heavy strategies.

Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk was one of the earliest reveals from the Marvel Super Heroes set and remains a card that everybody wants. Bruce Banner has a solid draw engine for the early-game, but is an absolute beast once transformed into The Incredible Hulk. Immediately after it was revealed, players realized a key interaction with the Caltrops artifact that allows Hulk to attack infinitely as he gradually grows stronger.

2 The Astonishing Ant-Man

What I really love about The Astonishing Ant-Man is how well it captures the essence of the character while also delivering something for players to build around that we haven’t really seen before. He’s got huge potential as a Simic (blue-green) Commander focused entirely on card draw and +1/+1 counters. That’s it. Every time you draw a card, he picks up a +1/+1 counter. For three mana, his tap ability lets you remove any number of those counters to create that many 1/1 green insect creature tokens. Never have I seen a Commander that needs Doubling Season more (it doubles all counters and tokens).

1 Hawkeye’s Bow

Once it was revealed, players quickly realized that with the right combination of cards, Hawkeye’s Bow can go infinite and continuously pepper each opponent for one damage. You equip it on a creature like Seeker of Skybreak that can untap itself, and suddenly the game is just over. And this is a common!